Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 7:24 pm
Joined: 27 Dec 2008
Posts: 2
Hi, I'm learning Blender but currently have a cranky old laptop which is excruciatingly slow.
Can anyone recommend the best laptop for running Blender and the specifications...i.e graphics card...etc.
Many thanks
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:22 pm
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 2218
Working on a laptop can be a pain.
The numpad speeds up modeling quite a lot.
Gfx cards I dont know. I never had any troubles with random machines, I guess I was lucky. Just visit a shop and plug in a usbstick with blender to see how it runs. Nvidia will work often. loads of gfx specs here:
http://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1419
Rendering on laptops will kill your fan. Seriously, if you want to kill the lifespan of your laptop then render much and often on your laptop. Its better to find some slow machines in your area, and wait a little longer than render large sequences on your local machine. If you render stills then set the multicore to 1 or half the processors you have to keep it cool.
Posted: Mon Oct 12, 2009 4:03 pm
Joined: 12 Oct 2009
Posts: 2
Ya i have a Toshiba Satellite L505D-S5965 Its great! Also Look at macs they are what the blender company uses
Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 10:56 am
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 2218
| Streetmagician wrote: |
| Ya i have a Toshiba Satellite L505D-S5965 Its great! Also Look at macs they are what the blender company uses |
I think the blender institute artists only work on linux.
Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:40 pm
Joined: 11 Sep 2008
Posts: 219
what ever you get make sure it has a good video card and pick up a usb keyboard with a num pad, it really helps and a three button mouse too
Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 11:03 pm
Joined: 18 Jan 2008
Posts: 8
| psullie wrote: |
| pick up a usb keyboard with a num pad |
or just an external numpad, such as this for an example:
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/keyboards/number_pads/devices/3075&cl=us,en
this way you have less to carry around. 
Posted: Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:36 am
Joined: 22 Oct 2009
Posts: 3
Hi Joeri.
I am new to the Blender and all its features and trying to solve my queries from the site but when it is not working fine on my current configuration. So, I am thinking to switch to new machine. Can you suggest me good one ?
_________________
where there is a will there is a way
Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2009 9:15 pm
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 2218
What is not working on your machine?
If its the keyboard shortcuts then get an external numpad, i got one for my mac for 10,= euro.
A 3 button mouse is nice, I now have one wireless with a mousewheel. I hate the mousewheel to click, but the scroll functions to zoom is nice.
I think the mouse was 19,= euro.
If you are thinking to buy a new laptop why not download blender to a usb stick and install it on a machine in the shop to see if it works?
Just rotate the view a bit, and have some menus to pop-up. If they draw okay ( with no black lines or triangles showing ) then the machine is fine.
( btw.
A mac is nice but not a 'step-in' model for blender I guess. Blender still has its errors printed to the console, and osx blender has a hidden console ...
On the other hand as a beginner the console messages might not do you good anyhow.
)
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:05 pm
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Posts: 12
HP HDX 18
Has numpad, and kick as gfx card
expensive though
Best Laptop for Blender