What Notebook-Hardware do I need?

niknaim

Hello Community,
since I have little performace problems on my windows desktop compute and I want to buy a new windows laptop I wanted to ask if somebody cound give me a hint of what is inportant to get the best performance.

My project relies basically in incoming sound that scratches my movies. This happens via soundlevel watcher and 3 different sound frequency watcher at the same time. I have some effect like alpha, resizing and colour effects on the movie on the top. And I change quite fast between many differnet clips.

From what I know is I will need a ssd drive and propably a i7 processor. Grafic-card seems not to be so inportant since I dont use the core-version.
I read about isadora version 2 and the graficcard migt get a topic if I understood mark right. Will this be more reasonble to wait?

Greetings,
Niklas

niknaim

sorry, I forgot to talk about my video resolution. At the moment I work in PAL,and thats ok. But in future I might want to get to HD.

Fred

Get a machine with a good graphics card (2 gig+) it will make a big difference for the new version and until then will make a difference for your overall computing experience. If you will need video capture take a look at this page

http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4277

The blackmagic capture stuff is great and cheap and HD.

SSD for sure and as much ram as you can afford.

Fred

cocoberdu

with the new spout for windows, i think its only for nvidia cards....to confirm with the master of thecommunity..

keftaparty

Hi,

Spout works only on nvidia cards. But it doesn't work with most of optimus cards ( so a lot of laptops ).

@niknaim : What is your budget ? What kind of laptop do you want ? Are you ok with a 17" heavy machine or do you want something that you can easily carry ?

Mehdi

DusX

One more note on Spout and optimus.
In some cases Optimus can be deactivated by the bios and Spout should work.
On my current laptop, I have a Optimus ready video card but the mother board doesn't support it so Spout works great.
I would call tech support for any computer you are interested in, and make sure that disabling Optimus is an option, or better yet that its unsupported.

PS: Spout also works on AMD cards that are newer and support the nvidia interop spec.

niknaim

Thanks for your answers!
I will not need a capture card because I have my footage done before by filming.
I think a 15" is enough for me. My budget goes up tp 800€. I know not so much, but for thats it... I could also think of buying one second hand.
Just found this, where could add a SSD and some RAM. What do you think?
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Lenovo-G510-59416356-i7-4700MQ-4GB-1TB-15-HD-n-BT-DOS-Vorfuhrartikel-/400742610484?pt=DE_Technik_Computer_Peripheriegeräte_Notebooks&hash=item5d4e1ef634

DusX

This will probably work well for your purpose, but I would suggest looking for a more powerful video card if you are planning to use it long term.
My previous machine ran very well and supported Spout fully.
Similar models are selling at a reasonable price now: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Asus-G53Sw-/301241524982?pt=US_Laptop_Screens_LCD_Panels&hash=item462364e2f6

niknaim

I tried to find that model, but coundnt in ebay germany. I will keep an eye on it.

niknaim

so. I think I found something nice. What do you think?
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Acer-V3-571G-15-6-GAMER-Core-i7-3630QM-1TB-8GB-Ram-NVidia-640M-Win8-/351120409794?pt=DE_Technik_Computer_Peripheriegeräte_Notebooks&hash=item51c06844c2

DusX

Seems like a good machine to me as first look.

A SSD instead of the harddrive would give it a nice boost.

I don't see any mention of nvidia optimus, which means that the new spout video sharing in version 2.0 should work (maybe search for more details on model number to make sure) For your budget, it looks like a good bet, although I can't read everything, even using translate sorry.

niknaim

o To change the drive to a SSD is my plan. The be honest I am into isadora and visuals just since a year and didnt really understand what "spout" really does. I will check it out.
But thanks for your advice already!!

niknaim

Since I dont pass video between applications I dnt need Sout, right? I prepare all my fotoge and dont use a live video signal.

DusX

Yes, if you will work only within Isadora for live playback you do not need spout.

primaldivine

@Fred and folks
I want to upgrade my MBP 17inch to SSD and possibly also adding a second SSD to replace the optical drive as well.
However, to save money all at once... I wondered if I only add an SSD into the optical drive to use for my media files, and leave my existing drive as it is, will I still benefit by much ? But I imagine that the real difference shows when your applications and OS are also running from an SSD?

So am thinking I just go the whole hog and put two SSD drives in at the same time?
So has anyone gone this route already and can recommend brands?

This is the product I am thinking of, but if folks know good product available in the the EU or UK, please let me know?
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/SSD/Mercury_Electra_3G_Solid_State
I have to go with the 3G SSD models since my laptop is not new enough for the 6G's

Thanks!
jamie

keftaparty

Hi Jamie, I would go for this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Series-256GB-Solid-State/dp/B009LI7CTY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411110378&sr=8-1&keywords=samsung+840pro+256

Price of it went really down, I have a couple of them, never had issues.

I think it makes sence to buy sata3 ( 6gbs ), so when you upgrade your computer you can put this one in a fast usb3.0 enclosure ( I did tis and I'm quite happy ).

For the optical drive, make a real brandwith test, I don't know how fast this bus is. Might be better to use a fw800 enclosure. Someone from the forum might be able to test...

Also expresscard>usb3.0 can be a solution.

Mehdi

Fred

Hey Jamie, I am using these at the moment.

http://www.alternate.nl/ADATA/Premier-SP610-ASP610SS3-512GM-C-512-GB-SSD/html/product/1142797?tk=7&lk=9502

As above, dont buy the slow drive as you may want to use it for something else, there is little price difference anyway.

Same performance as the samsung above and a little bit more expensive for double the capacity. In general your bus is slow, but I am pretty sure on the 17" it is the same bus for optical and hard drive. Once you put it in you can confirm with a speed test, but if you give us the model of the computer we can check it out.

Personally I would stay away from buying anything with firewire ever.

I know you do this as a job, by the time you get all the bits and pieces and possibly upgrade 2 hard drives, get the optical drive kit and rip your computer to shreds (and while you are there you should definitely change the thermal compound as it is pretty old now), it may be worth looking to sell and upgrade. I know it is an expensive undertaking but if you are ready to drop 500 on drives and replacement enclosures, you might not be that far off a new machine if you sold the one you have and kept the money in your pocket. The new processors flash memory and GFX cards will change your life, the SSD will make things better but the new machines are really something else.

niknaim

Just to let you know I bought taht one and I am happy with it.
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Acer-V3-571G-15-6-GAMER-Core-i7-3630QM-1TB-8GB-Ram-NVidia-640M-Win8-/351120409794?pt=DE_Technik_Computer_Peripheriegeräte_Notebooks&hash=item51c06844c2

Thanks for your help!

ioio

spout now works with optimus and the new n'vidia driver. (Windows 10)