Topic: Laptop Specs

[KV07SS]

I'm looking into buying a new mobile workstation and wanted some opinions about one.  It's a good bit of $$ so I just want to make sure that it will run Lumion without issue.

Here are the specs:

Display 17.3" Full HD LED-Backlit Display featuring 90% NTSC Color Gamut in Super Glossy Surface (1920 x 1080)

Video & Graphics Card Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M GPU with 3GB GDDR5 Video Memory

CPU Processor 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3930K Processor ( 12MB L3 Cache, 3.20GHz / 3.80GHz in Turbo Mode, 6 Cores )

Thermal Compound IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
 
Operating System Genuine MS Windows® 7 Professional 32/64-Bit Edition ( 64-Bit Preloaded )

Memory 24GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 3 X 8GB

Hard Disk Drive 1 750GB 7200rpm SATA3 Hybrid Hard Drive with 8GB SSD

Hard Disk Drive 2 120GB Intel 520 Series SATA3 Solid State Secondary Disk Drive
 
Optical Drive Bay — Optical Drive or Hard Disk Drive in Optical Drive Bay with Caddy case 8X DVD±R/RW/4X +DL Super-Multi Drive & Software

Wireless Network Card Killerâ„¢ Wireless-N 1202 802.11 A/B/G/N Wireless LAN + Bluetooth 4.0 Combo Module [$50.00]

Any suggestions are appreciated.  Thank you for your help.

[peterm]

Hi

Thanks for your interest in Lumion.

Please see:
1.  LUMION 3: Minimum hardware requirements:
LUMION 3: Minimum hardware requirements

2.  Lumion Web Site: Specifications:
Lumion Web Site: Specifications

3.  Passmark: Videocard Benchmarks
Passmark: Videocard Benchmarks

The key hardware item is the GPU.  Laptop/mobile GPUs have less power than desktop counterparts to meet mobile requirements, so the most powerful GPU you can afford, the better.

Note NVIDIA GTX based GPU's tend to work better for various reasons with Lumion.

The GPU compares in terms of specs (cores etc) to a desktop GTX 660 - so its middle of road (at most), even though it's the new 700 series.  You might want to check out any GTX 680M/680MX based laptops or 780M's.

If there's an option to consider of desktop then $ for performance, that's still preferred.

If you look at the Passmark, it has a score of 2780, and then compare that to our suggested guidelines of min specs.  The Passmark for a GTX 660 for comparison is 4116.

If the hardware and drivers are all good, then Lumion should run without issue.  What may limit/prevent a user from achieving results though, will be the size of the scene, content, effects that all make up the complexity of the scene and stress the PC's ability to cope.  We have users with Titans and are pushing the limits.  There are however guidelines to help manage scenes for things like render performance and time to render.

We also have plenty of users using laptops, and not all the newest and achieving great results.

If not done so, please also search the forum for other topics on laptops and hardware.

A good CPU will also help when it comes to rendering and some other aspects of operating Lumion, more so to do with not being a bottleneck for GPU operations.  The one mentioned is only a 2nd generation (Sandy Bridge) whereas  (at least for desktop) 3rd gen Ivy Bridge in preferred to get the best out of the new 700 series GPU's.  If you aim for a 3rd gen thats most likely going to escalate the cost as it involves the new series of CPU, motherboard and RAM config for such.


The above are comments/suggestions only, and in no way offer or provide any recommendations.

[chico_fortesmerighi]

Goof Morning.
I will buy a Laptop and I am in doubt about the Graphics Card.
I have this 2 options:
GTX 770M
and GeForce GT 750M

I really know that the GTX 770M is much better than the other.
But I`d like to know what king of scenes may I create with the GT750M...
I prefer the laptop with the GT750M, even it has the worst graphics card.

Help me decide... What can i do with the worst graphics card?
Thanks

[peterm]

Hi

I (personally) would not consider the 750M (and struggle with the 770M as well).

M series cards being mobile are drastically cut down versions of the desktop ones.

Please see the NVIDIA site for the specs.

Also, the Passmark site as mentioned above.

The 750M has a Passmark of 1526, so its just borderline to our recommendations for simple scenes, that means maybe a simple, low detail building and some entourage.

The thing is, if you get something like the 750M that might be fine, but it limits future scope to take on other projects that might be a bit more demanding.

Even the 780M is only 60% half the GPU performance of the 780. 

If laptop is the only option, and the 780M is definitely out, then the 770M.

Alternatively, what about a 760M, or find a older laptop that has the 680M (or 680MX).  Plenty of power in those (for laptops).

This is an investment in hardware for visualization projects.  Better off to reduce other things for the laptop so that money not spent there is invested in the GPU (as far as Lumion goes).


Caveat:  comments here are not to be taken in any form as recommendations or reliances to be placed on staff or Act-3D.

[andrewpage]

Lumion at this moment is the perfect solution for sole practitioners and small firms. It’s kind of weird thought and a bit discouraging if you need a monster computer to run Lumion.  Only the Dell precision mobile workstation, Lenovo and the zbooks provides a Quadro k4100m which will cost you at least 5K. The Quadro K4100m will meet the minimum requirements for small scenes. The K5100m  however, will cost you an extra 1k.

You can go for a desktop which isn't’t appealing in today’s business where mobility is mandatory. But even so you will have to spend at least 3,5k to get a decent card. I wonder how users deal with this issue.