Oolite Bulletins

At some time in the next few months (due to selling my flat) I shall be in the market for a new laptop.

As I've never had a decent PC that could run Oolite in even simple shaders mode, I probably will try to get one that can give the best Oolite performance for my bucks (well pounds anyway).

I was thinking that one with an NVIDIA card would be better than the ATI ones. I don't know anything about the various ones though. I've seen laptops with NVIDIA GT cards advertised, but I have no idea if they would be good enough.

Somewhere on the BB I read that AMD processors and NVIDIA gpu combinations are best.

Any advice?

It'll probably be a Windows 7 laptop btw. Would getting a 64-bit one be a good idea?

JazHaz wrote:

At some time in the next few months (due to selling my flat) I shall be in the market for a new laptop.
As I've never had a decent PC that could run Oolite in even simple shaders mode, I probably will try to get one that can give the best Oolite performance for my bucks (well pounds anyway).
I was thinking that one with an NVIDIA card would be better than the ATI ones. I don't know anything about the various ones though. I've seen laptops with NVIDIA GT cards advertised, but I have no idea if they would be good enough.
Somewhere on the BB I read that AMD processors and NVIDIA gpu combinations are best.
Any advice?
It'll probably be a Windows 7 laptop btw. Would getting a 64-bit one be a good idea?

I can't really give you any advice on all of this, but here is a little bit.

Last question first. YES, If you are going for Windows, 64bit is really your only option. If they won't sell you your chosen model with 64bit Windows, go elsewhere. All hardware should be supported. You may find some driver issues with older hardware, but if it was supported under Vista, you should be able to shoehorn Vista drivers into Win7.

As for Graphics card, my experience is that, as far as Open GL goes, Nvidia is far superior to AMD. (AMD seems to have the edge with DirectX)
I have one Intel Core2Duo laptop with an old Nvidia GO 7700 (5 years old), and I get full shader support and decent performance running Oolite with Griffs installed.
My newer work laptop also has a Core2Duo CPU but a Nvidia Quadro business graphics, and works very well with Oolite including lots of eye candy installed.
Both machines report 236 OpenGL extensions supported.

As for what Nvidia chip to get, I'm not really up to speed on that. Only thing I would strongly recommend is to ensure that, whatever Nvidia setup you end up with, make sure that it has dedicated graphics memory (GPU does not share computer RAM).

For CPU choice, I don't think it matters that much. I would avoid the AMD CPU's with integrated graphics on the same die though.

I’m pretty sure any GPU from the two big names being sold today will support OpenGL 2.0, which is sufficient for Oolite. (Selling a discrete graphics card without OpenGL 2.0/DirectX 9-level support today would be borderline fraudulent; such a device would be basically useless.) GPU speed is unlikely to be an issue unless you’re running at very high resolutions with heavy OXP loads. That said, it’s a universal truth that you can never have too much speed or memory.

From personal (work) Laptop experience don't buy Dell.

We've had lots of laptops at work: Dell, Mesh, Acer, Asus, HP.

From my experience: Acer or Asus or HP, Nvidia Dedicated GFX with dedicated video RAM, don't get fooled by tons of shared memory or "Turbo cache", Intel CPU (i5, Quad Core or i7 - don't get i3 we've been very disappointed by the i3s even compared to Core 2s), Win 7-64 bit (even if you're a Linux nut - which I am).

We've got one laptop with an SSD - really quick - really impressed by the speed at which stuff loads up (even if the stats say shouldn't be much faster than top-end SATA2).

Hope that helps?

OffTopic := True

About 26 years ago, the Senior Lecturer for Business Analysis told us the correct procurement method is:
- determine the software application that fulfils the need;
- buy the hardware that best supports the software.

At the time, people had been choosing their mainframe supplier, buying the mainframe they could afford, then getting whatever software came with it. Or choosing an operating system, then making do with whatever software would run on it.

Well done, JazHaz. In the quarter of a century since that lecture, during which time I have been working professionally in IT systems development, systems procurement and project management, you are the first person I have come across who did the software first, then the hardware.

Software requirements for Laptops running in the Simulation and Synthetic Environment Laboratory:

MUST be able to run Crewstation2000 (our bespoke tank simulator) with our largest terrain database loaded and 1000 DIS Entities across the LAN/WAN at a minimum of 30fps at a screen resolution no smaller than 1280x1024, SHOULD also able to run 2nd screen also at 1280x1024 at a minimum of 30fps for alternative (gunner's view) simultaneously.

MUST be able to run VBS2 with most complex 50km x 50km terrain currently available, with drawing distance set to 15km with 1000 entities (50 player VBS2 entities, 350 AI/NPC VBS2 entities and 600 external entities) - max reload/restart of VBS2 must be no more than 60 seconds

We then have a fight over IT and procurement people over the crappy business Dell laptops they say we have to buy - because they don't understand what "gaming" laptop is, or why we'd possibly want to buy them - because after all, we're just lecturers and it's just "teaching". Grrrr.....

CONST OffTopic = TRUE

DaddyHoggy wrote:

We then have a fight over IT and procurement people...

At my last client (a multinational) the industry standard software package we were putting in only ran on Windows Server 2003. Everything was signed off then the virtual servers were built with Windows Server 2008 because "That's the new IT Strategy". The fact that the "new IT Strategy" did not support 90% of the software already in use was irrelevant.

Why Windows Server 2008? "Because it is about time everyone upgraded; 2003 was a long time ago".

Why virtual servers for this CPU-intensive actvity? "The IT Strategy says they're better".

SandJ wrote:

CONST OffTopic = TRUE

DaddyHoggy wrote:

We then have a fight over IT and procurement people...

At my last client (a multinational) the industry standard software package we were putting in only ran on Windows Server 2003. Everything was signed off then the virtual servers were built with Windows Server 2008 because "That's the new IT Strategy". The fact that the "new IT Strategy" did not support 90% of the software already in use was irrelevant.

Why Windows Server 2008? "Because it is about time everyone upgraded; 2003 was a long time ago".

Why virtual servers for this CPU-intensive actvity? "The IT Strategy says they're better".

I feel your pain...

We've just rolled out CentOS 5.7 VMs across half our network in the lab because we're hosting a US led Training course - and if we didn't run CentOS then they weren't going to come and that would have been embarrassing...

(and why CentOS - because the US have written this particular piece of code to run on the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise - but most companies can't afford that - so it also just happens to run under the latest version of CentOS too - phew!)

Addendum: Our University Strategy plan includes the line that says there will be a rolling 5 year upgrade of Hardware - but there's no money to pay for it - so it's never been done - machines are replaced as and when they break down and only if cash can be locally sourced.

Once homogeneous classrooms and labs are now a ragtag bunch of seemingly random machines, specs and capabilities...

I'm running it on my 2 year old Dell studio xps 13.
Its got an Nvidia 9400m In it and works great for Oolite with griffs and lots of other oxps.
I run portal 2 on it, serious Sam and even mw2 or black ops with reduced detail.
It's even better now I upgraded to win 7 64bit and 8gb.

If you buy a dell, you will get a good laptop, you just have to accept that it will have one or two minor faults that you don't fix. Mine has problems with touch multimedia buttons.

My main recommendation is try before you buy if you can.
At this time of year places like comet and currys should have some nice deals.
I got my lappy reduced about £200 2 years ago.

Nothing to stop you putting oolite and some oxps on a USB key and trying it in a store.

!m!

When I bought my laptop, I specifically asked for one that wouldn't go obsolete right away gaming-wise; the salesman recommended an Asus with the i7 processor. I reckon that it is a bit of overkill, but I won't need to replace it within it lifespan.

BTW, sailors' laptops last from 2 to 5 years before corrosion starts to cause problems, but by then there's no point in repairing them as everything else is also nearing the end. Metallic loudspeaker covers' corrosion level are usually a good telltale for how long it should still last - by the time they fall off, the rest of the machine should also be about to follow...

maaarcooose wrote:

If you buy a dell, you will get a good laptop, you just have to accept that it will have one or two minor faults that you don't fix. Mine has problems with touch multimedia buttons.

!m!

Of course I'd hate to disagree, but I'm going to: My team bought 4 Dell XPS M1730 gaming laptops.

My 1730 has had:

4 "new" gfx card (dual SLI 9800Ms) - 1 replacement was DOA...
2 new screens
1 new mobo
4 "new" PSUs - 1 replacement was DOA

The battery stopped working after 1yr and 2 months - "consumable" say Dell.
"But," say I, "even the laptop that stopped being used after 3 months because that member of staff left, it's battery has also stopped working".
"Tough," say Dell, "consumable," they re-iterate. "We will however, sell you for £100 a refurb battery with a 90 day warranty."
"That's effectively leasing a battery for a £1/day," say I. "Go forth and multiple," I tell them. "Also, the USB ports on the right hand side of the machine don't work properly. Devices plugged into them are dropped with even the slightest movement of the laptop."
"Wear and Tear," say Dell, "not covered by the warranty."
"But I've only changed changed the set-up of my desk and therefore have only just started using these ports, there can't be any 'wear'!" say I.
"Wear and Tear is not covered," repeat Dell unhelpfully.
"My Blu-Ray/DVD-Writer has stopped playing Blu-Rays."
"Not covered," reply Dell.
"It's stopped burning DVDs too..."
"Ah well, yes that is covered, but we don't stock that drive any more - we will instead give you a discount on an external Blu-Ray/DVD combo drive."
"The laptop already weighs 6.5Kg - I don't want to have to carry another device."
"That's only the only offer on the table..."
"You do know this was an £1800 laptop and we paid an extra £400 for the extended 3yr warranty?"
<Sound of snickering before the line goes dead>

Please JazHaz - don't buy Dell... (They should not be encouraged!)

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Please JazHaz - don't buy Dell... (They should not be encouraged!)

I'm disappointed to hear that Dell has dropped so much.

My first ever laptop was a Dell Inspiron 8100, bought end 2002 in Australia. It's still mostly working (the ethernet port can take up to 20 minutes to start up these days; I'm guessing a faulty capacitor somewhere).
The only issue I have had was a broken keyboard which was my own fault because I dribbled water on it. Dell replaced it, no questions asked, even sent out an on-site engineer - in the UK. 3 years international warranty used to be worth something back then, obviously.

I still use it occasionally as a remote terminal to access work or when I absolutely must use Windows for something.

So personal experience - it's been great. But I've heard a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting DaddyHoggy's experiences aren't isolated.



PS. Just fired up the beast and it can still play Oolite. With no OXPs, full-screen (1600x1200) is 30fps and windowed is 55fps. Not too shabby! P3/NVidia2Go/512MB.

Ditto Micha and DaddyHoggy.

I went over the top last year and used my contacts at work to get an Alienware M17X R3 (Alienware is now owned by Dell) at cost price. As far as Oolite is concerned, this is total overkill. Oolite starts up in seconds and runs beautifully. So far (fingers crossed) no serious issues, however, I have been seeing some disturbing behaviour regarding my battery and power supply (i.e. if I boot on battery power, then plug in the charger, my system won't recognise the charger is plugged in unless I shutdown, reconnect the charger, then start up. On some startups when I have the charger connected, I get a BIOS message telling me that the charger is not recognised.).

Some research online suggests my observations are not an isolated event. So, to suport DaddyHoggy, it appears that Dell consider both the battery and power supply as a consumable component.

Sort of related to this, my wife's laptop (which is also a Dell Inspiron 1720 from a few years back) started falling victim to Windows' Vista software update bloat. Things started slowing down and taking longer than I would have expected from a laptop that was specc'd to run AutoCAD (fyi, Oolite ran very nicely on that laptop with all the eye candy enabled at 1920 x 1600 resolution - note this is an older laptop and you're getting better screen resolution than the current crop of screens provided by HD video obsessed manufacturers). Replacing Windows with Linux gave the laptop a new lease of life.

So what I'm saying is you don't necessarily need to go over the top to get a really nicely performing rig for Oolite.

...oh and would I recommend Dell? The best I could say is you could do a lot worse, but you could probably do a lot better too...