Pango Quickshow and Amd E-450

[dash8brj]

Hi folks

I'm getting a pangolin QS soon and wondered would a HP DM1 lappy be powerful enough to run the software? Am looking for a cheap laptop that I can dedicate to laser shows, and dont want to spend a fortune on the dedicated machine, nor be taking my expensive lappy to parties and stuff (where theres the possibility it could get broken).

The machine has all the bits needed (usb ports, meets min res spec), but will the AMD E-450 1.65 Ghz dual core be sufficient for driving QS? The QS website specifies a intel dual core as minimum.

Cheers

[allthatwhichis]

I do QS testing on a 3GHz single core; just make sure you have a couple of gigs of RAM and that Laptop should be OK. I would also try to get XP installed on it instead of Vista or Windows 7 as both of those are memory hogs.

[dash8brj]

Glad to hear the cpu will have enough grunt. I was thinking of slapping 8 gigs of ram and a 128gig ssd into it. Should give it tonnes of memory for windows 7 and the quickshow software, and the SSD will make for nice and speedy load times

[allthatwhichis]

Just remember, QS is a 32 bit program and will not be able to see more than 2 or 3 gigs of RAM. That is why I suggest using Windows XP instead of Win 7 or Vista; I prefer my OS to be frugal when it comes to resources.

[dash8brj]

Fair enough, then you saved me a bit of money, and cost me a little time (which I have plenty of). XP lite here we come (and 4 gig ram :P)

[masterpj]

Just remember, QS is a 32 bit program and will not be able to see more than 2 or 3 gigs of RAM. That is why I suggest using Windows XP instead of Win 7 or Vista; I prefer my OS to be frugal when it comes to resources.

hehe most pc's nowadays are 64 bit or have the 64 bit capability
there are no backward compatibility problems with 32-bit or 64-bit like the very old days anymore.
Windows xp has a 64 bit version but it's discrecommended, vista and windows 7 also have 32bit versions.

I in fact highly disrecommend getting windows xp because all support has been dropped for the OS.
In fact getting it legal (as we are talking about legally obtaining stuff) is impossible when it comes to new computers.
Windows XP is not being sold anymore by microsoft because it's being ditched.
Don't stay behind, especially when you see it coming.
Get windows 7 home premium and ur fine, it's rather best to do it right in the first go then having to need to upgrade later.

QS or Beyond have no problems
At max LD2000 can have some issues's with Windows 7 (however this is often not the case) If you do have problems (when u have LD2000) just disable the aero theme and ur done.

[norty303]

I in fact highly disrecommend getting windows xp because all support has been dropped for the OS.
In fact getting it legal (as we are talking about legally obtaining stuff) is impossible when it comes to new computers.
Windows XP is not being sold anymore by microsoft because it's being ditched.
Don't stay behind, especially when you see it coming.
Get windows 7 home premium and ur fine, it's rather best to do it right in the first go then having to need to upgrade later.

I'm not sure i agree with this.

If you have a show computer, that very rarely gets updated, or used for anything other than laser control, then XP would be the obvious choice as it will allow you to do what you want to be able to do, for longer, before needing to upgrade hardware.

There are many, many old computer systems running 'de-supported' that are still the right tool for the job, and making best use of the hardware resources

With QS, I found the physical RAM was more important than CPU cycles when it came to a 'marginal' computer

[masterpj]

Sure but still buying a new (not used pc) with windows XP will be and will only be increasing to be a problem, it's becoming unavailable at a fast rate.
We are not talking about downloading OS's here.

[norty303]

XP is freely available and the legality of using a download is largely irrelevant at the point MS want nothing more to do with it anyway. Especially if you've paid for another one of their newer OS's when you bought the machine.

To the OP, before you spend out on a crap new lappy, take a look at 2nd user stuff.
I use (and swear by) T series Thinkpads as they are business class, super tough, and have useful things like hard disk shock protection, semi waterproof keyboard and keyboard light, all of which I'm sure you can imagine being useful ina gig/club situation.

I paid £225 for a T61 over a year ago, 3GB RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HDD, Intel Core2Duo 2Ghz CPU with 6 months onsite warranty still remaining (£1500+ new). XP installed with a Vista license

Check ebay, they come up all the time, and you'll get better specs these days too

[masterpj]

XP is freely available and the legality of using a download is largely irrelevant at the point MS want nothing more to do with it anyway. Especially if you've paid for another one of their newer OS's when you bought the machine.

To the OP, before you spend out on a crap new lappy, take a look at 2nd user stuff.
I use (and swear by) T series Thinkpads as they are business class, super tough, and have useful things like hard disk shock protection, semi waterproof keyboard and keyboard light, all of which I'm sure you can imagine being useful ina gig/club situation.

I paid £225 for a T61 over a year ago, 3GB RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HDD, Intel Core2Duo 2Ghz CPU with 6 months onsite warranty still remaining (£1500+ new). XP installed with a Vista license

Check ebay, they come up all the time, and you'll get better specs these days too

Microsoft XP never was made available for free, they only ditched support and updates.
Microsoft still maintains all rights to microsoft xp.

Just because a product isn't being offered anymore doesn't make it free.

Microsoft also does not give u XP for free when u buy windows 7 or vista even if you paid alot, it's a different product.
Can you prove microsoft ever made that promise?

With a certain version of windows vista you can indeed downgrade to Windows XP but thats it.

[norty303]

Please re-read my post again. I never claimed any of the things you appear to suggest I did.

I was merely asserting that:
'I have paid my money for a recent version of your software. If I choose to use a version you no longer make available to me, I shall do.'

I would not expect MS Black Ops on my doorstep any time soon.

[FutureWeapons]

I wouldn't suggest using Windows XP unless you like having zero product support and hate 7's user interface or something - you can spend a few hundred and get a new laptop easily capable of running Quickshow, along with a warranty. Although buying used might seem like a great idea to save some cash, you ultimately have no idea much misuse the laptop has seen. Most PC laptops aren't made to last forever, buying something as prone to abuse as a laptop closer to the end of it's lifespan isn't going to do much for long-term reliability. I would also suggest you get something with a bigger screen than the HP D1 you're looking at (unless you've tried Quickshow on a screen that small) - an 11" screen is going to feel pretty crowded. At least look through newegg for something with good reviews before settling on that.

As to 7 being a RAM hog, that's not really true. Windows 7 uses RAM for cache in order to preload data that you use more often. When you need the RAM windows 7 frees up memory by dumping the unneeded cache, there's no need to mess around with it at all, just have a few gigs and you'll be fine. RAM is dirt cheap these days anyway.

If you have the money to spend, check out the Acer Iconia 6120. It has two touchscreens (with a virtual keyboard). I put 8 gigs of RAM in it and it runs Quickshow flawlessly. You can stretch the program between the two windows and have touchscreen access to everything. http://www.amazon.com/Acer-ICONIA-61.../dp/B004P0WLEY

[norty303]

I wouldn't suggest using Windows XP unless you like having zero product support

What is this 'zero product support' you speak of?

Do all the various people who've worked with XP over the years instantly forget what they know? DO all the independant forums and tech sites instantly remove all their content? How many times have you actually gone direct to MS for a human response to a problem, and got a human answer in the domestic market?

[FutureWeapons]

Sure it's unofficially "supported" by end-users still, but so is Windows 7, which is also officially supported by the company that makes it. I use Windows XP in VirtualBox occasionally, but I wouldn't rely upon it as my primary operating system. As software developers drop support for it it's only going to become more dated. Why not use Windows 98 instead of XP, since that has another 3 years of user support, and also runs Quickshow?

Anyway, if you're looking for a throwaway laptop that you won't miss if it breaks, Quickshow on XP on a used laptop is a great idea - except if that laptop dies during a gig, or your main laptop dies and you need to use your backup for other purposes. There's pros and cons to either approach, I would think a new laptop with more versatility would be a better solution overall.

[norty303]

So to the OP - there's a few different points of view for you. I think each has their merits, and I don't think you'll ever get a definitive answer.

[LaNeK779]

if i had a choice i would be still using windows 2000 professional
even xp was a step to the wrong direction and since then, things have seriously been going downhill

now, that should ignite the conversation a fair bit

on a more serious note, i'm with norty on this one. don't throw away money on hardware, especially if this upgrade is dictated by a powerhungry piece of software.

windows xp is just fine for the job. A dedicated machine means no antivirus, no internet, no software suites, just laser progs and frames frames frames. so, if anything goes wrong, you just format it (just remember to keep regular backups of the frames - shows)

[masterpj]

it's not throwing away, if your upgrading your tools to say LC-max and if you want quality stuff that lasts longer, harddrives that will have a better durability and such then be willing to pay a bit more.
It's not that expensive, hell look at the amounts your giving away to projectors this is hardly a little fraction of all costs you make, it's just stupid to try and save a little at the cost of so much reliability.

Also to people that actually see you using a outdated old laptop, you dont give the idea of keeping up with the times and technology...
Futureweapons is completely right.
and no off course microsoft wont come down buldging ur door, but you are being illigal, if you earn money from the stuff you use: then also pay for it!
It's not that you cannot afford it or something, i mean sure people pirate.. sure i pirate no lying about that, but if I earn money with it and thus gain from it.. then I pay for it.
Are you seriously surprised why companies are getting pissed off lately? I know I do, sure I dont like copyright law and stuff, but give me a break.
There is a lot of morals included in that too.

Backups, sure but it's better to have more reliability, it also takes time to restore backups and if you get struck on an inconvenient time because you thought it was wise to save up for it.. then ur screwed.
and you wont restore a backup if your HDD fails or ur CPU overheats and so on that will take time.

Sure you can backup frames and stuff, but installations....... good luck this will take some time, once something is changed and you did not get an identical laptop or changed hardware to drastically you will have to reinstall windows xp and install it all over again. No support, nothing.

[dash8brj]

Considering I am going to spend around 2-3 grand finishing my projector with a different case (case H from winni at golendstar), and a 1/2 watt to watt of 640, some of that cash can go toward a decent thinkpad. Lenovo has great machines with specs that will run Quickshow. An i3 should be more than capable, as long as I put a boatload of ram in it. I wont touch a dell or a hp, unless I decrapify them first (pc decrapifier) as they are full of bloat. As the laser show lappy wont see the internet I can just turn off the virus scanner, only turning it on when it connects to e.g. pangolin forums to grab new shows / effects etc.

As for the windows 7 / xp debate - I'll just run whats current. With 8 gigs of ram in this desktop, and a 64 gig SSD for the OS, this machine flies (granted its an i5 2500K under water clocked to 4.5Ghz :P). It had no troubles running quickshow at all. Even at stock speed with the air cooler.

[FutureWeapons]

Sandy bridge? Nice! I went the i7 2600k route w/SSD and 8 gigs ram - hyper-threaded quad cores air-cooled to 4Ghz+ is pretty amazing (to play Skyrim with haha)

One thing I've been doing is using Dropbox to backup and synchronize show files between my desktop and laptops. Whenever I do work on one machine I simply copy/paste and instantly update all of my other devices. Pretty handy if you need to quickly swap computers for whatever reason. I also do traditional backups as well since you could basically delete your shared work on all machines if you're not careful. Starting over from scratch is way more expensive than investing in good quality backup IMHO.

[dash8brj]

Yes I have a couple of 1Tb backup drives and a 2Tb for all my flight sim stuff. Nothing is more boring than waiting for data to be slurped off a spinning platter to redraw the scenery as you move between regions, or graphics gets more detailed (and thus higher resolution like buildings) as your coming into land. So i set aside 20 gigs of the SSD to hold the sims graphics library. Scenes load a tonne quicker

A 128gig ssd should be plenty for a dedicated Quickshow / ham radio control computer. (I wont be using the quickshow and the radio at the same time :P). In fact a 64Gig SSD would do it, except my music library would take a good 20 gig of that :P. On a multi drive machine that doesnt really matter (in win 7 and linux I just alias to the folders that contain the music and photos/movies). On a single drive machine (lappy with a small SSD) it would be an inconvenience to have to connect a usb hard drive and thus have yet another "dongle" hanging out of a usb port to access my music. Since all my shows are private, we never know whats going to be played, stuff is usually chosen by myself or "hey do you have this? can you play it" type of scenario.

[norty303]

PJ, I'll not touch again on the XP/7 debate, suffice to say that I wasn't advocating 'stealing' a copy, but there is a difference between being within the spirit of the law and the letter of it.
Owning a Vista/7 license and then choosing to install XP is (imho) within the spirit of the law, but not the letter. MS have your money either way and probably couldn't give a stuff...

On the other bits...

Also to people that actually see you using a outdated old laptop, you dont give the idea of keeping up with the times and technology...
Futureweapons is completely right.

Look at a current T series Thinkpad and a 2 year old one, and you tell me which is which? Now gig them both for 6 months and tell me which is newer.
People won't see what's under the hood in either case, so the older one 'could' be a better spec anyway.
And how do they know you haven't had it from new anyway?
sorry but your argument is invalid, particularly when you add in limited budgets.
A 2 year old T series will ALWAYS be a better gig option than a brand new SL due to being made for the harsher environments. HDD are cheap, replace it if you feel it necessary.

As far as keeping up with the times goes, I'd love to hear from the 'old schoolers' (Jon, Steve, etc) just how many gigs they've lost because they use 'outdated equipment' (ion lasers, older analogue control systems, hell, even QM could be considered to be dated...)

and no off course microsoft wont come down buldging ur door, but you are being illigal, if you earn money from the stuff you use: then also pay for it!
It's not that you cannot afford it or something, i mean sure people pirate.. sure i pirate no lying about that, but if I earn money with it and thus gain from it.. then I pay for it.
Are you seriously surprised why companies are getting pissed off lately? I know I do, sure I dont like copyright law and stuff, but give me a break.
There is a lot of morals included in that too.

See opening statement. It's paid for, get off your high horse 'self confessed pirate'.

Backups, sure but it's better to have more reliability, it also takes time to restore backups and if you get struck on an inconvenient time because you thought it was wise to save up for it.. then ur screwed.
and you wont restore a backup if your HDD fails or ur CPU overheats and so on that will take time.

A new computer doesn't guarantee reliability. In fact, if you are mission critical, you should be taking 2 computers anyway. Personally, I'd take 2 2nd user T series any day of the week, run a reliable show, and have change spare...

Sure you can backup frames and stuff, but installations....... good luck this will take some time, once something is changed and you did not get an identical laptop or changed hardware to drastically you will have to reinstall windows xp and install it all over again. No support, nothing.

I have my LivePro install on a USB key.
I believe QS (and probably Beyond) can be handled the same way.

In the event of a failure, I can have any available laptop/PC on site up and running again identically within 10 mins, because its designed to be portable like that.

[gashead]

If anyone is after a *legal* copy of windows XP, I have about 500 OEM copies all in their original shrink wrap including the product key. (PM me, I might sell you one, I might not.)

As far as OS choice goes, it's horses for courses... I run QS under a Virtual machine on my Macbook Pro - so I like using XP since I know it's lightweight enough for what I want.

I don't care about Product support for the OS, nor do I care if it has Anti-virus installed (it's never bridged onto the Macbook's nic) so basically it fits the bill.

The OP has described that they want a laptop specifically for show use, they won't be doing anything else with it.. IMHO XP fits the bill well.

That said, I'm more of a Unix guy.. when are Pango going to Develop for X11/Xorg ?

Kind Regards,

Nigel.

[White-Light]

on a more serious note, i'm with norty on this one. don't throw away money on hardware, especially if this upgrade is dictated by a powerhungry piece of software.

windows xp is just fine for the job. A dedicated machine means no antivirus, no internet, no software suites, just laser progs and frames frames frames. so, if anything goes wrong, you just format it (just remember to keep regular backups of the frames - shows)

Just be aware that if you ever want to upgrade to Beyond, you may find you want more power.

Beyond is growing rapidly and I would expect it to have higher system requirements when finished.

I'm awaiting the moans on this one, but you have to remember there's 3D in there on some versions plus 2 of the things I just requested if the suggestions are accepted, will totally change the power of Beyond in 2 areas and yet inevitably are going to require more processing power.

I just bought a medium grade i5 laptop for my own use ie.

i5 2540 @ 2.6GHZ
6GB memory
7200 rpm HD
17" screen

[masterpj]

Just be aware that if you ever want to upgrade to Beyond, you may find you want more power.

Beyond is growing rapidly and I would expect it to have higher system requirements when finished.

I'm awaiting the moans on this one, but you have to remember there's 3D in there on some versions plus 2 of the things I just requested if the suggestions are accepted, will totally change the power of Beyond in 2 areas and yet inevitably are going to require more processing power.

I just bought a medium grade i5 laptop for my own use ie.

i5 2540 @ 2.6GHZ
6GB memory
7200 rpm HD
17" screen

you forgot to mention the video card.
3D programs always use the GPU for the viewports and CPU for the renders.
Though I think in the case of Beyond 3D you should be fine even with an intergrated card.

[dash8brj]

That brings me to my next question: Should I be looking at machines with grunty graphics or not worry about it and pick one up with onboard (intel etc). Couldn't find on the pango page wether a minimum specific existed for the GPU.

FutureWeapons, that acer looks swish, but um, I'd only have a laptop and no pango if I spent that much on the computer with current budget