I need someone to do me a favour if possible. My laptop is getting old, so I'm looking at getting a new one. I've got a Core2duo P8600 (2.4Ghz) with an ATI HD 4330 256mb. I've made a selection of laptops. My old gfx has opengl 2 support and shader model 4. Poser previews are ok, but not really great. I need to render (a lot) to see what I'm really getting.

I'm now looking at getting a laptop with a Geforce 610M (or something similair) or a Radeon HD mobile 6xxx/7xxxx series with 1gb. These cards do have shader model 5 and Opengl 4.x support. I imagine that should look quite differently in a Poser preview.

OK, here's the question..... can anyone show me one or more screenshot of one or more scene in if possible Poser 8 or Pro 2010, with opengl preview and shader textured on? What's in the scene doesn't really matter, perhaps with an IBL light set in it? Of course with a gfx card similair to the ones mentioned above. This way I can compare it ith my current gfx card.

I'm also wondering if the intel I3 2350m is any good with Poser and DS. It seems to be one of the fastest i3's and according to benchmarks in is almost double as fast as what I have now. The alternative would be an AMD A6 34xx series, but according to tests, even though it has 4 cores, it's not as fast as the I3 2350m. Does anyone have the I3 2350m or one of the AMD A6 34xx and how well do they preform? The lowest I would go is the Intel B960 2.2ghz, still a lot faster then my current one. I don't want to spent lot's of money on the machine, just need a decent one, so I don't think I would go i5 or so.

Any help, advice and preview screenshots would be awesome!

I currently have an AMD quad core and while I don't really have any problems with it, I am a total Intel fan. For one, my quad doesn't have multithreading and I believe most Intels do. That will be a big help for Poser.

Laurie

But Intel I3's do not have quad core, they have 2 and some have multi-threading. Your true quad core is better than 2-core x 2 mt, all other things (cache, bus, clockspeed) being equal.

2350m is "optimized" for mobile. I use quotes here to denote sarcasm - mobile processors try to conserve power. Slower clock speed, slower bus = not so great rendering speed.

Rendering on these is possible, but if, for example, you're trying to do blurred reflections you'll be thinking I'm telling lies about render times. I'm on a desktop with no concern for power or heat.

True ;) But why upgrade from a dual core to a....dual core?? Go for a quad at least.

Laurie

If you are comparing benchmarks, a very wise person told me to look at the 3DS Max benchmarks when comparing processors for Poser.  However, these numbers are scarce for mobile processors. I think the reason for that is Heat...

Thanks everyone for the advice given, I will have to read through it again. The main reason for getting a new one is to be able to place more RAM and a newer GPU. I'm still quite content with the CPU I do have now, runs great, renders fast enough for me. But if I'm going to buy a new one anyway, I may as well get a faster one, but I'm not going to spent a lot of money just to get a quadcore. I've noticed that a lot of affordable laptops with great CPU's offer the Intel HD3000 as graphics card. I don't have any experience with that one, but I imagine it will not be as good as the nVidia or Ati's I'm looking at. It's a trade off, either a fast CPU and a mediocre GPU, or less fast CPU with a better GPU. If anyone is using a HD3000 with Poser, I'd love to get some details from you.

 In most tests my CPU gets a score around 1800, while the I3 2350m get's a score of 2900, that is a huge difference. While it may still be a duo core, it's definitely a step upwards for me. The AMD's get a much lesser score, around 2200 I think.

Quote - If you are comparing benchmarks, a very wise person told me to look at the 3DS Max benchmarks when comparing processors for Poser.  However, these numbers are scarce for mobile processors. I think the reason for that is Heat...

Thanks for the advice,  I will do so. I've been using my laptop for 3 years now, running DS, Poser (Pro), Hexagon, Video editing, photoshop and so on, even 3DMax without having any heat problems at all. I guess buying an expensive Dell may have helped. But lately it is producing a lot more heat and the fan is running often. My daughter has a laptop, cheap brand and it produces a lot of heat, did do that right from the start.

Well considered everything and an intel quad core is just way too much above my budget. I've ordered a HP Pavilion G6 i5-2450M 2.5 GHz / AMD HD 7450M 1Gb tonight at a webshop here in the Netherlands. I've got quite some vouchers at that store and they did have the Pavilion on sale. Seeing that i5 is much faster then the i3 and on top of that the sale price I didn't hesitate and ordered it. If all goes well it should arrive at Tuesday. Now the big switch from Window XP 32bit to Windows 7 64bit will come, I'm a bit nervous for that one.

I know I'm still staying at 2 cores, but the Cinebench marks show that this is at least double as fast in rendering the my current one. I couldn't find much 3DMax rendering test, but I figured that Cinebench will work just as well. Having the AMD HD 7450M in it, instead of a HD6xxxx as most within my budget have is a big plus for me as well.

Once it has arrived and I'm playing with it, I'll let you know my thoughts. Thansk everyone for your input, I do appreciate that!

Well it arrived, a couple of days to late, but it's here. I love it, works great and is fast, very fast. I just took some scenes and it renders them at least 3 times faster now, cool. The laptop itself is lighter then the old one, but has about the same dimensions. I like to video card, works great. Had some problems figuring out how to choose the Radon 7450 instead of the IntelHD, but got that working now.

The only thing I've got to get used to is Windows 7. I'm the admin, but it tells me on varoius occassions (like copying items to the root of a drive or uninstalling applications) that I cannot do this action, only an admin can..... got to figure that out. Als this whole warning system is annoying, got to get rid of that somehow.

You are far better leaving the UAC turned on.

Yes it can be annoying, but it is there for a reason.

Quote - You are far better leaving the UAC turned on.

Yes it can be annoying, but it is there for a reason.

This :)

Laurie

OK, I'll leave it on.