Sorry to all if I am posting this in the wrong place, but trying to learn my way around.
I want to load the Blender software but have a basic laptop with tiny sound and graphics cards. Can someone tell me what I should buy for a new laptop that gives me overkill to run this software. I was going to buy one anyway so i want to get something good. Oh, and do I download the 64 bit or the 32? I have windows and planned to use windows with the new PC too. Thanks so much to anyone that can help.
joe
depends if your version of windows is it 32bit or 64 bit.
For a laptop i would say go for an i5. You probably won’t get many options with graphic cards till you start looking at the i7 range. Also at least 4GB of ram (you’ll need 64bit windows to run this just incase you didn’t know)
Man I am lost, I dont even know what a thread is?
Chuck can I pick your brain a little here? If you are busy no problem, I know its a little frustrating to explain basics like this. Thanks
I don’t know about all the differences between 32bit and 64bit but what i do know is that with 32 bit windows you can have a maximum of 3GB of ram while with 64bit windows you can have a lot more ram(not sure if there is a limit to how much ram you can have). 32bit windows can only run 32bit programs while 64bit windows can run either but when you have the choice it’s best to get the 64bit version.
An intel Core i5 is a mid ranged CPU while an intel core i7 is the top of the range CPU. i5 latops are about £500 while i7 are upwards of £700. With laptops you usually have to be looking at the top of the range stuff before you start to get dedicated graphics cards.
Ram helps when switching between programs and during renders as it a very fast form of memory and the reason you want more RAM is because when it starts to reach it’s limit it begins to disk swap which is where it saves things on the HDD which is very slow.
Hope that helps, someone may need to explain the reason we need more RAM a bit better though.
how much ram depends on how much the mother board suports. in theory a 64 bit system can ise pver a terabyte but the most i’ve seen a motherboard suport is 32, and that motherboard costs more than a cheap laptop. you can run 4 gigs in windows 32 systems, but the operating system used 1 gig so that leaves you with 3 max.
have you tried installing blender on the lap top you already have? if you are just starting to learn your current laptop is probably strong enough to do what you need. on your laptop hit start >control pannel> then double click system. the windows version will be on top of the screen that pops up, under that is system where it tells you the brand model etc of your computer. at the bottom of the system section it says system type, that tells you if you have a 32 bit or 64 bit operating sustem. thats the version of blender you will need.
by the way if you are just starting out a great site for learning blender is http://gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html it look very plain and unimpressive until you start clicking on the bars. the bottom bar is john blains link, go to his website as well and download his book.