Laptops and Wings

[Basilmiz]

Hello. I have WingsPlatinum Advanced version. I use a laptop and data projector for showing my Wings projects. I am struggling to find a laptop computer that allows Wings to work properly and flawlessly. It works OK but the sometimes some pictures do not show and I have to go in and out of full screen mode to get them to show. I think I have all the settings correct. Can anyone give me recommendations/specifications for a laptop that will work properly without spending crazy money ? Thanks, Basil Mizrahi, London

[Havander]

Hello Basil,

Read the chapter 'Computer optimisation' of your Wings Platinum Helpfile. At the end of the chapter there is a paragraph about laptop conditions.
Depending on the kind of content you put in your show you sometimes need a better computer, which often can not be fulfilled with standard laptops.
Good luck,

Henk

[ThomasLeong]

Additionally, if I'm not wrong, bear in mind applications like Wings pass all video and picture processing (except for de-coding) on to the GPU of the graphics card. And almost if not all laptops' graphics cards are a cut-down version of the desktop version so performance is not the same as a desktop version. This also goes to say that on-board graphics will also be very limited (I should know, I use one myself - for off-line work), not least of which is the fact that graphics RAM on these on-board units are shared with the motherboard.

That said, you don't need to blow the budget. Just shop for at least an i5 with a more than decent 3rd party graphics card from ATI or nVidia included, and preferably a 7200rpm hard-disk. Dell is probably the best bet as it allows selection of a 7200rpm hd option whereas most other manufacturers don't, except perhaps for the high-end gaming ones. With today's competition and pricing, about US$1,000 or less should get you a decent performer.

When you shop, how about negotiating with the sales guy to allow you to install Wings to try. Alternatively, install Wings into a USB thumb drive to testing on a machine. Should work fine, though haven't tried that myself...yet.

[Basilmiz]

Thanks for the advice. My lectures are actually more still photo and text based (i'm a dental lecturer). I do however like to incorporate vido clips (MPEG 2) into my lectures. I switched over to Wings from PPt about 2 yrs ago because I was told that PPT does not handle video clips that well. Since then seems PPT has improved for handling video so I think my life would be a lot less stressful if I go back to ppt and use Wings to create nice video clips. I find it much easier to create text and graphic based slides in PPT . I guess Wings is not designed for formal teaching presentations - its more for artistic presentations. Basil

[Thomas Henderson]

Hallo Basil,
Fuess Audio Vision have some Information about Laptops for Wings Platinum.
Go to http://www.fuess-av.at
Infocenter has a Drop Down Menu
Click on: PC und Technik für WP 4. At the top is: Tipps zum Laptopkauf, click on >> mehr Infos.
Right Click and Translate with Bing etc; to English.
Karl Füsselberger and his Team are very good, He Teaches Wings Platinum and knows what he
is talking about.
Tom Henderson.

[Basilmiz]

Hello Thomas
Thanks for the advice. It seems most high spec gaming laptops only have a 5400rpm hard drive even though the graphic capabilities are very high. Is this a big problem as opposed to a 7200 drive ?
Thanks
Basil

Additionally, if I'm not wrong, bear in mind applications like Wings pass all video and picture processing (except for de-coding) on to the GPU of the graphics card. And almost if not all laptops' graphics cards are a cut-down version of the desktop version so performance is not the same as a desktop version. This also goes to say that on-board graphics will also be very limited (I should know, I use one myself - for off-line work), not least of which is the fact that graphics RAM on these on-board units are shared with the motherboard.

That said, you don't need to blow the budget. Just shop for at least an i5 with a more than decent 3rd party graphics card from ATI or nVidia included, and preferably a 7200rpm hard-disk. Dell is probably the best bet as it allows selection of a 7200rpm hd option whereas most other manufacturers don't, except perhaps for the high-end gaming ones. With today's competition and pricing, about US$1,000 or less should get you a decent performer.

When you shop, how about negotiating with the sales guy to allow you to install Wings to try. Alternatively, install Wings into a USB thumb drive to testing on a machine. Should work fine, though haven't tried that myself...yet.

[Jan Roeleveld]

Dear Alle,

Why buying an old fashioned Hard Disk Drive with (slow) moving parts..? My laptop, which i bought two months ago has 3 Solid State Hard Disks on board with 240 GB each. They are reading 250-300 Mb per second.
Very important is the graphic card. In my laptop i have two NVidia Geforce 280 M cards (1,5 Gygabite memory each), in SLI mode also nearly 3 Gb.
The processor is a Hexacore with 6 cores. It is an amazing machine. There is only one problem... it costs a lot more than 1000 Euro's....

But you can solve your hard-disk problems with buiying SSD's.

Greetings,

Jan Roeleveld

[ThomasLeong]

Hello Basilmiz,

Thought you were going to stick with Powerpoint? :)

To answer your question, yes a 5400rpm will be slightly lacking versus 7200rpm hd, IF -
1. You play multiple videos simultaneously. Playing just one video at any one time should be ok with a 5400rpm hd.
2. Depending on the other specs of the laptop, you may have difficulty playing a 1920x1080 video smoothly, ie. without jerks. If you do not need HD video, then a lower resolution video should play fine with a 5400rpm hd.
3. Also, you may have to encode any such video at lower bitrates - say no higher than 8000kbps which will give reasonably good quality anyway.

Pictures and titles should not have a problem.

The 'packaged' laptops generally do not advertise a 7200rpm hd option. Try asking whether they have such an option. I googled for 'SATA hdd for laptop' and some sites do offer an upgrade on the hard-disk.

Thomas Leong

[Basilmiz]

Thanks for the input
I've seen 3 laptops which I'm now considering buying (all about about £1000) .
I lecture to small groups using vidoe and pictures. No Multidisplay needed.
Thanks
Basil

Dell XPS 17
2nd generation Intel® Core™ i5-2520M processor 2.50 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.20 GHz 487577 1 [210-35181] 1
LCD: 17.3" HD+ WLED True-Life (1600x900) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera 456592 1 [230-11719] 760
Video Card: 3GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M Graphics Card 487629 1 [490-12666] 6
Memory: 4096MB (2x2GB) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel 487592 1 [370-20114] 3
Hard Drive: 640GB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Dual HDD - (2x320GB) 456585 1 [400-21855] 8

Mesh Ultima i5 - B laptop
Intel® 32nm Arrandale Core™ Processor i5-460M @ 2.43Ghz-2.66Ghz Max Turbo
No OS Installed
15.6" HD LED (1920 x 1080) 16:9 Widescreen Super Glossy Display
1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon HD5870 - DX11
6GB DDR3 1066MHz Notebook Memory
1TB Serial ATA Fast 2.5" Notebook Hard Drive 5400rpm

MSI GX660
CPU Intel Core™ i5-460M 2.53GHz Processor
OS Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
Chipset Intel PM55
Memory 6GB DDR3 1066 MHz
LCD Size 15.6" FHD 1920*1080 TFT-LCD Display (LED Backlight)
Graphics ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5870M
Graphics VRAM GDDR5 1GB
HDD 2x500GB in RAID 0 SATA

Which one seems a better buy ?
Thanks
Basil

[ThomasLeong]

Googling for the i5 2520M and the GeForce® GT 555M indicates quite good performance for both items.
If the price difference is not much, and affordable, I would only up the i5 to the i7.

Thomas Leong