I don't have access to my computer, and am living in a place where space is a real problem. I was wondering if anyone out there uses Poser on a laptop, and if you're happy with the setup? I've seen some out there with larger hard drives and 512MB of RAM, that is more my style. I'm wondering about things like screen resolution and any other insights you might have to offer.

I use it on my laptop sometimes....I can't see any difference in the fact that it's a laptop....but using the LCD monitor I find less thrilling than a regular flat screen monitor....so sometimes I plug the laptop into my reg monitor and use it that way....

It's a bit harder to see the workspace due to the 800 limitation on ours, but it works just fine otherwise.

I've got a Toshiba 4030 with a 4 gig HD and a 330 Celeron. Poser 4 w/ Pro Pack works fine. A little slow (DUH!?) but with patience, and so long as your goal is not the recreation of the complete Battle of Waterloo, you should be fine.

I use my laptop as my main power machine. P4 mobile 2.2 ghz, 40 gb drive, 768 MB RAM. 1400x1050 resolution. No problems with Pro Pack, and I can render some relatively complicated scenes. I love it.

Poser 4 works fine on my 133Mhz with only 40MB of ram. Too slow to really work much with Mike or Vicky, but it seems to do ok with most other things. I only use it in a pinch though or if it's a long weekend at the folks'. One day I'll get a real laptop. Those DeskNotes look like a lot of machine for the price, about $800 for a 1 Ghz model.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm actually leaning toward either a Pentium 4 or AMD's equivalent, 512MB of RAM and at least a 40 GB hard drive. Here's a dumb question for you: Do most laptops come with a modem, networking cards and USB Ports? I was thinking it'd be nice to hook up an external USB or firewire drive to increase storage capacity. I'd surely want to have a CD/RW as well. Right now it's "research time" since I need to get a job, a place of my own, and a computer.

I use a laptop when im board at work with poser 5. I have 256 meg ram and 1.67 gig prossor I do fine.

I'm searching for a notebook as well. Did you know Sony Vaios have DVD-RW/CD-RW combos? It's higher than I want to pay but I'm seriously considering it.

Attached Link: http://www.apple.com/powerbook/superdrive.html

The first and last time was in Dallas... and the poser wasn't a lady...they have some really weird bars there.

You might consiter one of the external hard drives that plug into a USB port. Much more reliable than cd's in my opinion. I have seen 80 gigers for sale. You can use it on your lap top then move it to a PC or take it with you .

Generally, Peter, laptops are just smaller versions of desktops, ie, network capability, modems, etc. The number of USB ports depends on which one you choose. Mine has a DVD/CD-R combo drive. If you can get a mobile chip, they help cut down heat, always a good thing. Note: AMDs and ATI Radeon cards seem to be a pretty fast combination. Nother Note: If you get a machine with 512 RAM, make sure it's a single DIMM so upgrading is easier. I also run an external drive, a 60 gb, and the only problem is that I have but two USB ports, so I have to switch the drive out with my digital camera, but it's easy to do. VAIOs solve that, but only if you own a Sony camera as well. Most of the new VAIO models have a slot for your digital camera's memory stick.

Firewire drives are waay better for larger files, I keep my runtime files synced between my laptop and desktop that way. I couldn't imagine 9 gigs over usb.

well, I use Poser Pro Pack on my Macintosh PowerBook G4. It has a 800 mhz G4 Processor with 1 Gig ram. She screams to the point that I use it more than my Powermac at home. It's also nice for when I travel that I can take it with me and play with ideas that pop up.

I bought a chembook a little over a year ago. It was one of those "barebone notebook" deal. It came with everything, but the hard drive, the CPU, and the memory. I installed a P4 1.8a CPU (not the mobile Pentium, the real deal), a Toshiba 60GB 2.5" HD, 512 MB of memory and Windows 2000. Poser 4 Propack works fine with this setup @ 1024X768. Even with photoshop 7 open simultaneously, I have no problems. The only complain I have is the 2 hour battery time.

I've used Poser 4 and 5 on a Dell Inspiron 8100 - P3 mobile 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 15" UXGA monitor, and it was running Windows 2000. Poser 4/PPP ran much, much faster than P5 did, but otherwise it was quite useable. /P

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. One concern I had about a laptop was screen resolution. Poser 5 can be really cluttered until you can get the better screen resolutions. I was running somewhere around 1280x (something) on my desktop. Now I'm about ready to see about taking some classes or courses to get certified in either the "techie" side of PC's (such as Administering Windows XP and Windows 2000) or the more creative side, such as learning Dreamweaver MX, Java, PhotoShop, etc and doing web sites. A laptop (notebook, whatever) would be of a great help in the academic situation. I am sticking with the PC platform since all my software and hardware is PC stuff. Oh, and my copy of Poser 5 is for the PC too!!!

On resolution - I can run 1400x1024 or 1600x1200 reliably on the Inspiron.(you may want to consider the 1400x1024 resolution first, though... 1600x tends to slow down a touch.) /P

I have a Sony VAIO with a Mobile ATI Rage video chip, XP Home, 512M RAM, 1.3Ghz Athlon, 100M hard drive, 1024x768 display. Photoshop usually crashes after a few minutes of use. Lightwave Modeler crashes if I try to use an image as a backdrop. Poser 5... well, is Poser 5. Poser 4.03 has never crashed at all. I used it to make a number of images... a good 3-4 hours and numerous renders... not one crash. Just be sure you plug the latop into the wall... running any 3-d program off the batteries will drain them real quick!

I've been reading on the Sony Vaios and some reviews reported bugs and crashes. At least in some earlier versions. I was interested in it for the DVD burners and actually found some on Ebay. After what I've read though I'm about to buy a HP pavillion. I can do without the burner.

Thanks again for all the info. I may just have to move out on my own, so I have the room, and then have my computer shipped down here. I definitely want a CD burner because I want to make CD's of all my Poser stuff, and I want to make "demo cd's" showing off my talents to potential customers.

I have used Poser 4.0.3 and Bryce 5 on a laptop OK.