Re: [PyMOL] low-end graphics cards/laptops
David, As long as you run Windows XP and not Vista, most modern shared-memory GPU systems should have sufficient performance for PyMOL. If you're thinking of new systems, it is no secret that I unabashedly favor and recommend the Windows--Linux-capable PC laptops made by that consumer-products company based out of Cupertino. The GMA950 is a fine mid-range solution -- but be sure to upgrade to 2 GB of RAM so that you can dedicate 1G to virtualized operating system instances. Cheers, Warren _ From: pymol-users-boun...@lists.sourceforge.net [mailto:pymol-users-boun...@lists.sourceforge.net] On Behalf Of David A. Horita Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 8:53 AM To: pymol-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [PyMOL] low-end graphics cards/laptops Hi, While I've seen a number of examples of good graphics cards to use with Pymol, I'd like some feedback on what an acceptable low-end is for a Windows laptop computer. Specifically, is the Intel GMA950 completely useless or just not very good. Likewise, does the X3100 help (this seems to be weak on driver support)? My current system uses an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200, which is a few years old and not a high-end gaming/workstation card, but lets me spin a molecular cartoon or surface of a ~300 residue protein without any problems (if the 950 or X3100 equal this level, I'll be satisfied). Many of the current crop of 5 lb notebooks use integrated graphics for price and battery life. If these units don't provide sufficient graphics power for Pymol/VMD/Deepview, the useful market shrinks substantially. Thanks, David - David A. Horita, Ph.D. Department of Biochemistry Wake Forest University School of Medicine Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1016 Tel: 336 713-4194 Fax: 336 716-7671 email: dhor...@wfubmc.edu web: http://www1.wfubmc.edu/biochem/faculty/Horita.htm http://www1.wfubmc.edu/biochem/faculty/Horita.htm/
[PyMOL] low-end graphics cards/laptops
Hi, While I've seen a number of examples of good graphics cards to use with Pymol, I'd like some feedback on what an acceptable low-end is for a Windows laptop computer. Specifically, is the Intel GMA950 completely useless or just not very good. Likewise, does the X3100 help (this seems to be weak on driver support)? My current system uses an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200, which is a few years old and not a high-end gaming/workstation card, but lets me spin a molecular cartoon or surface of a ~300 residue protein without any problems (if the 950 or X3100 equal this level, I'll be satisfied). Many of the current crop of 5 lb notebooks use integrated graphics for price and battery life. If these units don't provide sufficient graphics power for Pymol/VMD/Deepview, the useful market shrinks substantially. Thanks, David - David A. Horita, Ph.D. Department of Biochemistry Wake Forest University School of Medicine Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1016 Tel: 336 713-4194 Fax: 336 716-7671 email: dhor...@wfubmc.edu web: http://www1.wfubmc.edu/biochem/faculty/Horita.htm http://www1.wfubmc.edu/biochem/faculty/Horita.htm/
Re: [PyMOL] low-end graphics cards/laptops
Hi David, * David A. Horita dhor...@wfubmc.edu [2007-06-14 11:52] wrote: Hi, While I've seen a number of examples of good graphics cards to use with Pymol, I'd like some feedback on what an acceptable low-end is for a Windows laptop computer. Specifically, is the Intel GMA950 completely useless or just not very good. Likewise, does the X3100 help (this seems to be weak on driver support)? My current system uses an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200, which is a few years old and not a high-end gaming/workstation card, but lets me spin a molecular cartoon or surface of a ~300 residue protein without any problems (if the 950 or X3100 equal this level, I'll be satisfied). Many of the current crop of 5 lb notebooks use integrated graphics for price and battery life. If these units don't provide sufficient graphics power for Pymol/VMD/Deepview, the useful market shrinks substantially. I use a Lenovo (IBM) Thinkpad T43 with the ATI X300. I use Linux (Debian) only on this laptop and with the fglrx ATI driver it certainly gives acceptable performance. I can spin a 300-residue protein drawn in surface mode easily enough. It seems to be only a little slower than my desktop, which has a ATI 9500 Pro. I don't recall trying it on this laptop before I blew Windows off the disk, but I'd expect you'd get at least as good performance with Windows as Linux. The Thinkpads are nice small laptops. Cheers, Rob -- Robert L. Campbell, Ph.D. Senior Research Associate/Adjunct Assistant Professor Botterell Hall Rm 644 Department of Biochemistry, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6 Canada Tel: 613-533-6821Fax: 613-533-2497 robert.campb...@queensu.cahttp://pldserver1.biochem.queensu.ca/~rlc
