PC Laptop Recommendation for Arena?

[tvining]

I'm looking to buy a PC laptop to run Arena on, but I'm a Mac guy and don't really know much about the PC side. Anybody using a PC laptop with Arena and/or any recommendations for specs?

Thanks--Tim

[VincentG]

Usually something along these lines -

3.0 GHz Dual Processor

2 GB of RAM

4 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed ports

[tvining]

Thanks! Is there a recommended video/graphics card?

[markdc]

Can you use a mac laptop with bootcamp? Anyway I don't recommend HP. I have one and it works but, I can't start/restart the computer with the cameras attached. It's about 2 years old running XP so maybe this isn't an issue anymore, but that's my experience.

[VincentG]

We have run the software on a BootCamp install

[tvining]

I'm sorry, I should have been clearer: I've been running Arena on Bootcamp as well, and it works great--very stable, no problems. The reason I want a PC laptop, however, is that my mocap space is in a second walk-in basement that requires me to lug my iMac outside and across the yard and around the end of the house to set it up in there, so I wanted a more mobile solution, particularly where my iMac is my "main" rendering/office machine.

So, any ideas on the graphics card?

Thanks--Tim

[bsteagal]

Tim:

I'm running Arena on a dell latitude d630, 2.2 gh dual core, 2 gigs ram with a built in 256mb Intel video and it runs good. (i do only have a 8 camera setup though) If you could get a laptop with lets say a built in nvidia quadro or ATI video with at least that amount of memory you should be ok.

[VincentG]

Any built-in card with 256MB of video ram, should be great.

[Xenobite]

I tried running Arena (I think it was beta 1.4) on few years Toshiba Sattelite Pro with only 1 GB RAM

worked ok except sometimes I had to kill Arena in task manager or reboot - I guess it had some memory leaking issues or ot just needed more ram or was it beta? - mostly when I tried to do longer shots or trying to record few takes in one session

but since I saved calibration and Tposes etc it wasn't that bad

I have to try again with latest version of software

anyway I think pretty much any new laptop will do, just go for more RAM, some 1337 gfx card is realy not needed

[VincentG]

longer shots can have issues, as they are stored in system RAM, until you are finished, and the file is saved.