hi all.I travel often.so I wonder any one of you have luck running zbrush 2 on your laptop.I wonder how is the performance of a fairly typical notebook.I am planning to get a Hp laptop with much more processing and memory power.Hope to hear from you guys.thank you.
ok…i use Sony Vaio P4 2.6 512MB ram…and it’s Awful,hehe…at least get 1 to 2 GBs of ram… if you dont have enough ram,you might not be able to Creat displacements and nearly heavy objects;) hope this helps
It works fine for me.
I have the HP type notebook with the AMD, bright LCD and the crappy ATI card.
I have 512 Mb of ram and that’s been ok as I’m not an intense user. I stick to around 100,000 polygons.
i have a Sony Vaio laptop…P4 2.6 and 512 MB ram…first of all, 512MB is really nothing…and if you wanna use Zbrush with 512 you may not be able to Create Displacement maps for other applications.
then,it’s the Graphic card, as billrobertson42 said, it’s Always Crappy,no matter what.
if you wanna buy a laptop go for a Boxx or a Dell then you can tell you are using a computer. the only problem might be the weight and the Dimensions
Anyway…good luck with your Choice
the only problem I have had with having z on my very old 200 dollar laptop was the fact I cant figure out how to get the display to show all the screen like on my home PC. It has to be something simple…I updated the ram so it runs smoother…but I can still have mobile fun, but nothing super heavy…I think it is a 700 megahertz…takign it on a trip this weekend so I can play card games and zbrush while in the hotel. My waacom runs fine with it as well…no dvd player though…grrrrr…so I have to load up a good handful of my old svcd’s 
to get around that little problem.
ps…crappy video card on it as well…grrrrrX10000
I have a Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop 3.06 GHZ , 512 mb RAM , 64 mb NVIDIA graphic card. I feel the inadequacy of more RAM while on Zbrush I do not have as much problem when using other 3D applications… Since I am still in the learning process the need to get additional RAM can wait. I am not a career artist and therefore do not have any project assignment to handle. I went in for laptop for the sake of mobility and when I purchased it ZBrush was not in the picture.
I have to be satisfied with preparing models not exceeding 200 to 350 hundred polys maximum at level 7. I cannot giveup ZBrush because of this.
KKV
Good to hear from you guys.Ok.So ram is the key right? Hp has preety good laptop that offer this capabilities.In terms of processor, Centrino Mobil or P4 is better? I wonder if PCI express might help? This laptop is gonna cost me a bomb.
check out intel’s website …i remember reading some white papers on processors sometime back and if I remember correctly you would be better off with a p4 if you are going to be using 3d apps but as I said it’s been quite awhile since I have read them.
im running a 900mhz thinkpad the only trouble is getting minute detail… other than that,zbrush works fine… once i start getting into subdiv layers 6 and 7 it starts crawling.
I’ll just add that I’m running ZB on an old Apple iBook (14", G3 600Mhz, 640 RAM), and a whopping 8mb of video memory, and yet it still runs great for all the tutorials and practice sessions.
A true testament to a well written piece of software.
Like everyone says, the more RAM the better.
The book I’m waiting for is the 17", G6 (Intel chip) Apple PowerBook, w/2Gig of Ram. Hopefully these will come out by mid-2006.
I went with my laptop because of the AMD processor. It drains battery fast, but it’s as fast as a desktop CPU.
I don’t think the “mobile” verions of the processors do quite as well, but that’s just an unfounded opinion. 
dell m60 over here: 1.7 pentium M / quadrofx go700 / 2gb ram / handles 2 million + polys fiine even while running CS2 for zapplink (sometimes I even have maya open too) - oh btw get a laptop cooler or a big @ss fan to blow on it cuz these suckers get hot!!! I love this thing more than my dual xeon system because of the portability.
I’m running on a Sony Vaio PCG-R505JEK. PIII 850 MHz, 386MB ram.
It runs great, but you need to build your models in parts.
Hey Ya’ll,
I am using a Inspiron 9300 with a 1.86 Centrino M Processor, 17 inch truelife monitor, 256 mb pci express 6800 go video card, 2 gigs of ram and ZBrush runs sweet. I did only have a gig of ram and when I got to subd 5 or more it started to chug. I would suggest going up to at least a gig or 2 gigs of ram if possible. Right now laptop ram is really cheap. I got 2 gigs of DDR2 ram for $260 at 4allmemory.com. They guarantee 100% compatibility and I have been using them for years. Anyway, hope that helps.
Thanks for all your help.Dell had a good offer but I remain skeptical as I had bad experiance using it before.Any one particularly using HP workstation laptop offer in their website? Once again thank you all.
I run a P centrino 1.7ghz, 1gig ram, 6600 go (cost me 1100$ WHAT A DEAL!) and it runs like a dream, almost as well as on my desktop (1.8 ghz AMD 64, 1 gig ram, 6800).
The ram is the most important part, keeps all the data. The more ram, the more polys.