Can anyone give me some specs for a laptop that Houdini will work with. I dont have alot of money to spend and my major concern is the video card, what works and what doesnt? thx for your advice ahead of time.

all I can say to you is NOT to take ati card. Nvidia=much better.
although there are workarounds to make ati work right.
And if you can take 2gb of memory in the beginning. Your life will be much more pleasant

Yeah, as long as you get an Nvidia card of some kind you'll be fine. If you can run Linux on it, even better, OpenGL on Linux is much more robust than on Windows, performance is better etc. However, Houdini will run OK on Nvidia on Windows, so you don't need to run Linux if you aren't so inclined.

Cheers,

Peter B

I'm running Houdini on my IBM Thinkpad T43p with ATI firegl V3200 and Linux fedora distro with totally happyness… no problems at all with it.

In fact.. i'm planning to buy the T60p (dual core and V5400) anytime soon.

cheers.

That's really good to hear! The ATI Linux drivers were always better, but at some point the Linux drivers really took a dip in quality. Glad to hear they're back up to a decent level.

Cheers,

Peter B

You can get dell precision or some other notebook with quadro. They are more expensive but you are very likely to have no problems at all.
Almost a year ago I asked the same question. After some inner struggle I decided for m70 (an oldie now) and It was the best computer investment I've ever did. Rock solid, sturdy and fast. I'd say go dell (no they don't pay me )

About 2 years ago I bought a Dell Precision M60 laptop, and I love it. It can double as a (large) laptop and also a workstation. The laptop is great under Windows and Linux (SuSE 9.3). I use it mostly under Linux and haven't had any problems. One word of caution though, the internal wireless card puts out a TON of heat when its on, so keeping it on your lap is out of the question. (Unless you have all the kids you want.)

One thing that I highly recommend is buying the laptop with as little memory as possible then purchasing the RAM from another vendor. Dell wanted $1700 for 1.5 extra gigs of memory in the M60. (512 was the default). So I asked for just 256, then bought 2 gigs from Mushkin for $700 which was supposedly higher quality than Dell's RAM.

Also, workstation-ish laptops are becoming more common. (Before it was just Dell). Boxx and alienware both make some high preformance laptops.

http://www.boxxtech.com/products/1400.asp [boxxtech.com]
http://www.boxxtech.com/products/2300.asp [boxxtech.com]

http://www.alienware.com/product_pages/workstation_all.aspx [alienware.com]

You also might want to do some research on Laptop CPUs. While AMD might make faster mobile CPUs, Intel's Centrino platform with Pentium M CPUs allow for better power management and overall performance. (But that was 2 years ago, and the hardware market changes fast.)

I like Dell specs… but hey .. Thinkpad arent *that* smaller in spec.. but they are in size… like my thinkpad is at least half height as the Precision .. and also.. i hate 16:9 screens which makes you to have stupid resolutions (my opinion) .. and heavier laptop to take with you .. the T60p is dual core.. and have a Firegl V5400 which is not really that far from a quadro imho.

I'll never change from thinkpad now .. but that's me.

cheers.

Just for the info:
I bought my basic my cheap, basic DELL laptop mainly for development. It is pretty useless when using M<beep> but with Houdini, it runs great:

-DELL Inspiron 5160
-CPU Intel P4 - 3.20 GHz -
-Windows/Linux
- 512 mb ( only I know ) on the way to upgrade it.
- NVidia GeForce 5200

these machines are sweeet. but expensive… a friend of mine has one… very good must say…
http://www.superwarehouse.com/HP_Compaq_Mobile_Workstation_nw8440/EY697AAABA/p/1483141 [superwarehouse.com]

A few more notes on dell:

-It has a really great display, ofcourse dimmer here and there but doesn't change colours with different viewing angle, it's super crisp and have a solid feel.

-My m70 gets really hot sometimes (hard to hold a hand on the bottom), but not in hand area so you work cool.

-It's quiet, I heard many many fujitsu, toshiba and other which got very loud after a few months.

-Quadro is a pro card, no driver fiddling, no artifacts, it just works and makes you forget you have a graphic card. Really sweet. I don't care how much there is to achieve with hacked drivers for geforce series, too much time lost on it already.

Agree with memory, I did exactly the same, shame on dell due to their ram prices.

Now you are in better situation because of centrino duo which seems so much faster with rendering.
Also note that merom is on the horizon along with price drops of older (now hot) systems, I'd wait a few months if I could.

Ok, I quit here, just couldn't resist since I love this machine and it never let me down, even being constantly full throttled for days.

Don't forget this [theinquirer.net]. Your can roast weenies on it.

Cheers,

J.C.

Another reason why technology should come with a license to operate it.

Now who puts a laptop on a desk that has a cloth on it?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I know EXACTLY what happened. The cloth got sucked up against the bottom of the laptop = No cooling DOH! Had Windows XP running in “Display” mode which runs the graphcis full on = tons and tons of heat generated.
KAAABOOOOOMMMMMMMM! Yes!

I have had to “correct” many a laptop users' behaviour after seeing this practice unfold many times and that includes putting your laptop on your lap or on your bed sheet as you work while napping. Yes your pants WILL cover the fan too. That's why the friggin' thing gets so hot. Another doh!

Got what he deserved IMHO.

Apparently some say getting cheapazoid batteries is another recipe for destruction.

Cheers,

J.C.