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Photo Editing laptop?

post #1 of 3
5/1/05 at 6:36pm
Thread Starter 
I currently have a Dell D610 with the X300 GPU and 64 MB of dedicated memory. I do a bit of photo editing and I'm just wondering if there is anything that might be better suited for this take. I know the X300 is kind of weak for graphics and this was very evident when I tried to create a mosaic out of 2000 photos... it locked up. Not to complain, my T43 with the same GPU locked up also. A Thinkpad with an ATI 128 MB 9600 performed the task with aplomb.

I think something with an X700 would be a great choice.

I don't want to lug around anything over 6 lbs because I take my laptop everywhere. I prefer a laptop with a trackpoint and touchpad; I actually prefer the trackpoint like the D610 or Thinkpads offer. I also need something that has a dock or port replicator.
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post #2 of 3
5/1/05 at 6:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jjfcpa
I currently have a Dell D610 with the X300 GPU and 64 MB of dedicated memory. I do a bit of photo editing and I'm just wondering if there is anything that might be better suited for this take. I know the X300 is kind of weak for graphics and this was very evident when I tried to create a mosaic out of 2000 photos... it locked up. Not to complain, my T43 with the same GPU locked up also. A Thinkpad with an ATI 128 MB 9600 performed the task with aplomb.
Believe me, the lockup is not due to system memory, or the lack of it. It really has very little to do with the GPU or the VRAM. For the GPU, the better cards offer higher vertex, filtration and texel per second, which is virtually useless in photo-editing; it might be of some use in video editing, but mostly only affects gaming and rendering. The only data that really needs to be stored in dedicated VRAM for high performance is the frame buffer (AGP or PCIE have plenty of bandwidth for geometry calculation). And the the number of frames in photo editing is effectively < 1 in vast majority of the time. Even 64MB of frame buffer can handle games at highest resolution for 20 - 30 fps.

You simply need to get more memory to improve photo editing performance and avoid lockup, which is always by far the most important factor in this type of work.
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post #3 of 3
5/1/05 at 8:03pm
Thread Starter 
Hardball

Thanks for the information and advice. I'll check into getting more RAM.
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