ZBrushCentral

New laptop shopping and noob workflow

Community
#1

Hi, I’m shopping for my first laptop for zbrushing and maybe eventually other 3d apps. I am wondering what sort of system specs you professionals work with, and how much more I can expect from higher system specs than I have with my old desktop (3 gz intel processor, 250g hard drive, 4 gb RAM on windows xp). I would appreciate any opinions on the following:

  • macbook pro, 2.53 gz processor (or similar in other brands)
  • 256 graphics card (any appreciable difference with a 512 card?)
  • 250gb 5200rpm hd (what about solid state hard drive)
  • Are you using a laptop as your primary work station?
  • Vista 64 bit or 32 bit?
  • Hi Def screen resolution?

I think my current desktop is slow (5.1 mem test with and without hyperthreading), but I have never used zbrush on another system. Is it expecting too much to set several characters in a scene with background elements and subtools and still be able to rotate the entire set? or should I be dropping the figures to the canvass and assembling my scene piece by piece?

Any and all input would be greatly appreciated, Thanks! :slight_smile:

#2

Solid State Drives? Do you mean flash drives? There is a lot of promise in the technology, but it isn’t the best choice yet.

I think any decent computer you buy these days will run Zbrush well. They’re quite powerful and Zbrush is engineered nicely for performance.

#3

good choice. get 4 gig of ram.

#4

MacBookPro with 512Mb GPU card is the best choice for Open GL intensive apps like Photoshop CS4 or Vue Infinite. It’s also really nice with Cinema 4D, and, of course, video games. I use mine for my main workstation on an adjustable drafting table with a 22’’ HD flatscreen as the main monitor. The 512 card can drive higher resolutions with dual monitors and still has enough memory to spare for OGL acceleration.

Also keep in mind that laptops are not very upgradeable so whatever you buy you are stuck with. Buying the top of the line gives you a bit of ‘‘head room’’ down the road.

I love mine. And Zbrush 3.12 with 4 Gigs of RAM is wicked fast on it.

You might also want to consider the smaller but faster 7200 rpm hard drive option. A definite performance boost for apps that do a lot of paging out to disk. With built-in gigabit ethernet, and available 3G eSATA (with optional pc slot card), external hard drive access is very fast with virtually unlimited space. (I have two 1TB Segates attached via eSATA). :+1: