Nvidia GFXon laptops

RuggieBear

Col Loki, on another thread, you cautioned against Nvidia laptop gfx cards....

General rule stay away from Nvidia GFX on laptops.

I have a Dell Lat D800 in college with one of them and it's working fine. I Do alot of GIS work and it seems to handle it with aplomb...I was just curious if there is something i should be looking out for...?

Thanks

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by pekelly
Col Loki, on another thread, you cautioned against Nvidia laptop gfx cards....

I have a Dell Lat D800 in college with one of them and it's working fine. I Do alot of GIS work and it seems to handle it with aplomb...I was just curious if there is something i should be looking out for...?

Thanks

Bizarely enough, I also use a D800 for work with GIS, and I've never had a problem. It has a GeForce 4 4200 Go and I find it's excellent for 3D work. Handles complex mapping at 1920x1200 with ease!

Pssst.. It also runs Unreal Tournament 2003 and WarCraft III pretty well too!

<edit>
This review from Nov 2002 on Anandtech might be of interest. Bit old perhaps... Might run some 3d benchmarks myself and compare it to my home rig for the hell of it!
</edit>

RuggieBear

Adeptus Titanicus,

Do you use Arc 8....how do you find ArcScene at that Res...I'm assuming you have the UXGA screen? Couldn't afford the extra 500euro on my expenses...What you using GIS for? (if you don't mind me asking)

I used to play alot of Quake 3 over my home wireless network....all these newer games require seperate cd keys for dif machines....But i find the key board is just way too squidgy for me to play comfortably (or accurately!!!)


p

Col_Loki

The Geforce 4 4200 is based on the Ti4200 and is a good choice...... the ones at the min are based on the very poor Mx440, Fx5200 and Fx5600. Its not an ohh god keep away from these things, but ATI's 9600 is a far better choice if you are thinkin of gaming (9700 even better).

The Ti4200 is an exception to the rule, great performer (only DX8 and not common anymore).

Adeptus Titanicus

Yep, Arc8. I thought ArcScene ran pretty well at that res. I've done some modelling of Dublin/Wicklow with the Discovery Series and 6" maps overlaid with points, and it was fine (as far as I recall). We've also tried the betas of Arc9 (due for release here soon) with ArcGlobe, and it performs quite well. Haven't tried ArcScene 9 on it yet, but that's a spectacular upgrade. 3D point symbols including some pre-made nuclear power stations, cars and all sorts. Really good fun!

I do all sorts of stuff really (GIS Consultant), but the vast majority would be Internet/Intranet GIS for some Govt. Depts, Local Authorities, OSI and the like. I don't do as much data or 3D work as I used to. :dunno:

RuggieBear

Yeah...i'd heard about those ones being piss poor alright, just wondering if you were including the 4200s tho.... Love my desktop and laptop 4200's

Originally posted by COL_LOKI
The Ti4200 is an exception to the rule, great performer (only DX8 and not common anymore).

I was actually thinking that. Can't think of any other laptop that came out with the mobile4200.

@Adeptus Titanicus,
Can't see my dept stretching to ARC9....they majority of the fuddyduddies have serious issues with GIS and always fighting for GIS to be taken seriously academically....but sounds like it will look prettier altho i'd be more interested in more advance analysis tools. That and to release a product with less bug....:)

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by pekelly
....but sounds like it will look prettier altho i'd be more interested in more advance analysis tools. That and to release a product with less bug....:)

I'm curious about what kind of issues they have. Can I ask what dept you are in?

Actually, it does have much better analytical tools. They've redefined the concept of GeoProcessing, so you can build analysis models with multiple tools and inputs that can be run as a single unit. You can even export the model and send tthem to other colleagues or store them in your GeoDatabase. 9 has some major changes in it. I'm guessing you are covered by the Chest agreement? Does that not include maintenence? You'd get an upgrade for a song if it's a Uni.

BTW, were you using 8.0 or 8.1? That was certainly buggy, but 8.3 is pretty good.

Now I've taken this thread way off topic! Oops! Feel free to PM me or start a GIS thread! (and we can bore everyone else)

RuggieBear

Adeptus Titanicus,


I'll pm you to spare the rest...

p

Adeptus Titanicus

Just to get on topic again, I ran some benchmarks on the D800. The results wren;t as impressive as I thought they'd be, but here they are anyway. It's an Intel Centrino 1.7GHz with 1024Mb RAM. Just noticed the FSB:RAM is running at 3:4, might have a poke in the BIOS, but I doubt I'll be able to do anything about it. Anway... Nurse! The Scores!
3DMark01: 9618
3DMark03: 1140

Running it on battery didn't drop scores as much as I thought it would. CPU drops to 600MHz idle showing the speedstep thingy in action.
3DMark01: 9597
3DMark03: 1138

I did a search on ORB, but couldn't find any other results, however the best mark for a Radeon 9600 Mobility on a P4 3.6GHz system was 9626, so they compare well enough.

RuggieBear

I've only got the 1.3 with 512Mb but it does ok for the most part:D But i can't tell you how much i dislike the keyboard....:mad:

p

rymus

I have (or rather had) an nvidia geforce 440 on my toshiba laptop. It went tits up about 6 months ago and now I have to run in VGA. Aww well, no more games for me. I was also quoted €550 to get it replaced, plus an extra few hundred €'s to replace the motherboard 'in case' that was faulty too. Hmm... Damn toshiba craptops.

RicardoSmith

What res are you running 2001 at. I have a Lappy with a 16" TFT with 1280x1024 on a Fx5600. I be interested to see how it compares.

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
What res are you running 2001 at. I have a Lappy with a 16" TFT with 1280x1024 on a Fx5600. I be interested to see how it compares.

If you mean me, I'm running 2001 at the default 1024X768. I have the display set to keep the correct aspect ratio, so nothing looks stretched. Not sure if I can set it to the default laptop resolution of 1920x1200... Would be interesting

RicardoSmith

Just ran it, mines a fx5600 on a P4/2.8m 512mb ram and I get 8976 so you might as well say 9k. Thats 1024x768 which this 1280x1024, 16" screen runs in some sort of hardware AA mode. I haven't had any frame rate problems with games like COD, Vietcong, Falcon4 etc. But IL2FB needs the detail dropped a bit but then its ok. LOMAC is too slow to play IMO. Must only get 15-20fps with it. I don't actually play games that much on it though. Mine used for work 80% of the time. I've had no problems with 2D or 3D work and applications. DVD's look great.