Maya On Laptops
 

What's the best inexpensive laptop to run Maya on? I'm trying to find a way I can work on my personal projects at my regular Joe job and I need an idea of a decent laptop under $1000 (preferably between $500 and $900 if possible) I can employ to do my bidding. :) Thanks as always! :)

- Russell

BTW, can I hook a mouse up to a laptop to use instead of that clunky square mousepad?

um.. I can't tell you an "inexpensive" laptop for maya because Maya's standards are pretty high even for some desktop PC...

other than that, how would you work on maya at your reguar job?? :D

and BTW: yes, you can hook up a regular mouse to a laptop....

-Emo

Re: my Joe job, let's just say the only time I could think of working on my projects is on lunch. ;) Any amount of time I could have to work on my projects outside of my normal time is always a help. ;) Just call me the Jerk of All Trades! ;)

- Russell

I have a laptop, which was bought two and a half years ago.

And this my only computer, and Maya will work just fine!
Here is it's specs if this can help you out:

Dell Inspiron 5000 (!the first 5000 model, before the 5000e!)
Pentium III 600 Mhz
18 GB HDD
ATI Rage Mobile P, AGPx2, 8 MB VRAM (max)
1 (one) usb 1 port (I use a bub&pcmcia card = 4 usb1+2 usb2)
2 pcmcia slots
Battery-Bay = max 3 hours
15" TFT SXGA+ resolution (1400x1050)

Toutch pad, no stearing pin, noisy mouse-buttons for the toutch-pad (almost never use them).
Internal 3.5 FDD
One media bay = one extra battery/DVD/R-RW/ZIP-100

512 MB SDRAM is max (I have 384 MB)

heh it cost too much, a long time ago, but now a days you get supercomputers for the same price from dell... :)
---
Bought new keyboard after tilting a cup of sour milk over it. Machine short circuited (I recon) and had to dry for 14 days.
Sour milk was observed dripping out of the FDD... and the speakers... ...but now... it works fine :)

DVD drive changed (warranty refit (no cost))
Battery changes twice (battery recall+warranty refit (no cost))

Bought a usb2 "full-speed" scanner, which to my suprise isn't the same as usb2 high-speed......:(
Plan to buy an external HDD soon...:)

Nice specs! :) So what would you suggest? My wife has informed me that notebooks are quite a different animal than your garden variety of PCs. I'm very new to laptops and have little idea where to go in terms of what to buy. Whatever kind of laptop I can buy to run Maya on at a reasonable price is fine with me. :) I'm currently running 4.5 on a 533 MHz eMachines and it's a bit slow to render but otherwise runs okay.

I think you told me what you added to your Dell but would you please tell me precisesly what you added, if possible? :) Thanks, Undseth! :D

-Oh, there were several processors to choose from I choose the P III 600 Mhz. Could be some celeron processors out there!?!.

-The HDD is 18 GB but I could also get a smaller one, or a bigger one at 30 HDD (pretty expensive to buy new!!!, so I will soon go for an external 80GB USB2 HDD)

-I bought it with one 128MB SDRAM ecc mem card (initial offer started 2x64 mb sdram), which added to the total price. I later bought an additional 256 MB mem card, to a nice price almost two years later.

-I chose to buy the DVD mediabay which added to final cost, else one got a ordinary cd drive.

-ZIP 100 mediabay was added too.

-I went for thic computer due to its relativly high-res 15" screen. There may be some insp 5000 out there that has less resolution.

-I think there may be some insp 5000 out there that has only 4MB VRAM installed.

But in terms of price and all, you may want to buy a new one (and a better one) if the prices of used insp 5000 is too high.
:)

i suggest... dont do it unless you have to..

the main reasons for this is the colours look crap on a laptop, ask undseth.. he had trouble telling if the buttons on our web site where a different colour..

I have a lap top with maya on, it a top of the range lappy 512 ram 32 mg card bla bla, but it still looks crap and takes ages to render...laptops...as better as they are becomming "are still crap"

maybe i am just lucky to have a fast pc, but all i find a laptop handy for is notepad.

but you can attach a mouse, I have one on mine as I dont like mouse pads.

I think Kevin is a bit polemical here, when he says "crap" in regard to the laptps ability to show colors EVENLY on the whole TFT screen (colors/areas on top and bottom differ slightly as the view angle is a bit off and differ even more if you move your head up or down in regard to the screen, I have to say you should get a second oppinion on this if "color" is an issue.

No problem for modeling, although I'm not sure what its like to model with maya on a regular pc. But the price issue is perhaps the biggest concern I think.

a bit too expensive for your wishlist would be a mac. if you add $$ to your list and get a new 1 ghz g4 powerbook, you get all you need in a notebook. and the $ 2999 version even has a dvd-r. only thing you have to add is a graphics tablett in usb. see http://www.apple.com/powerbook/. wish i had such a thing, i would trade in my pc for it anytime ...

yeah sorry about that , I want very diplomatic :)

but for the money a lap top cost you can get a great pc... and yep the colours are pretty bad on a lap top, so when this pretty much defeats the object of using maya on it.

and when you are doing close cv work... will lets just say it tough,

Please replace all my "crap" word in my above post with "very poor"

Wow... the laptop/desktop debate rages on. It's like the Mac vs PC war. Okay, lemme break it down like this. I haven't been forthright with details on my plans for a notebook PC. I don't have the time I used to to work on my personal projects outside of my Joe job (details on that at a later time) and the only "free" time I have to myself is on break/lunch. I had intended to try to do stuff in Maya at work on my lunch break then bring it home and tweak whatever I've done then.

Well, today, after driving the wife to work, I drove to Best Buy (Yank electronics store) and drooled over the laptops there but not knowing how Maya would work on a laptop, I drooled for no reason at all. I do appreciate all of your ringing ins and for trying to set me in the right direction here. I'm in the process of trying to raise the money I need to fund my big dream and I guess now I may just tough it out and keep my mind set on a desktop (custom built, of course). Anyone interested in how I plan on raising the money can email me freely at moviewerx@hotmail.com Maybe we can brainstorm and you can give me a few ideas I haven't thought of yet. ;) Again, I thank you all for your time and help! :D

Sincerely,
- Russell

I'm looking into a cheap laptop too for maya, though I'll only be using it for rigging/char set up/ mel and animating (just joints etc) so i dont need anything super fast. Only worry is graphics card. The nvidia graphics chips only seem to be on the highend laptops :( never mind.... the hunt continuies

I couldn't run even Maya PLE on my laptop at work (ibm t22 or something like that). It crashed immediately when I tried to pan, zoom, tumble the viewports. I guess it doesn't have any kind of 3D acceleration and that's the reason for crashing.

Here a link to a really cool notebook.......

http://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...?threadid=2437