TO KNOW LAPTOP CONFIGURATION..

[Anonymous]

CAN ANYONE PLEASE SUGGEST WHAT WILL BE BEST COFIGURATION FOR WORKING ARCHICAD IN ANY LATEST LAPTOP THAT SUITS....

[Anonymous]

It basically works like this.

Faster the computer, the better.

I would look for and i5 or i7 processor. Not just for speed but they have really advanced battery life technology and I've seen an i7 laptop run for almost six hours running AC.

8gigs of ram or more.

A dedicated video card such as Nvidia or AMD with a gig of ram. Archicad fortunately doesn't need a Quadro or FireGL card so the consumer version of those cards will work. Tho for best image quality and stability, I would choose a professional card.

The most important part...

The monitor. Don't get too small of a screen if you plan to use you laptop's monitor for full time use. I would get at least 1600x900 but personally I won't get a monitor with resolution less than 1920x1200 (which are actually becoming rare). You can get a smaller screen but I would recommend making sure there are two video outputs so you can run dual external monitors with a keyboard and mouse when you need to do work and if you need to be mobile it's still a laptop you can just unplug and go. (I have learned most laptops will need and external fan if you do this as usually laptop cooling systems are designed to handle the load of just one little monitor on the video card and expanding the desktop like that will make the card run substantially hotter.)

Lots of hard drive space. SSD's will also provide advantages over diskdrives.

I like the pro lines from Dell, Fujitisu, and HP. HP is out of the market now so that's not so much an option although you might find some great discontinued model deals. There is the Lenovo Thinkpads and there are some very interesting options. Personally, if the computer company wasn't Chinese I would highly suggest them but all I can say is caveat emptor, you may need it. Mac is another option but now that Steve Jobs has left Apple I have a feeling Apple is going to decline, mostly in quality, as the new guy seems to be a bit of a bean counter and quality is the first thing to go as it's hard to see the value in the bottom line. There is Sony but I wouldn't buy them because they abuse the customers and I wouldn't trust them at all for anything right now but they do make good equipment, can't argue that.

If you want minimum. I would get an i3 (battery life considerations), 4gigs of ram, and Intel 4500 videocard, with a 1366x768 monitor. That will work but you will feel confined and limited and big/complex projects will make the computer slow.

[Laszlo Nagy]

768 pixel vertical resolution will just not be enough. ArchiCAD will not fit there vertically.
Check the following video:

http://www.graphisoft.com/ftp/marketing/us/05-archicad_dream_machine/05-archicad_dream_machine.video...

Also, check my signature. I bought this laptop about 2 months ago and I am very satisfied with it. Very powerful with strong CPU, lots of RAM, SSD system drive, strong GPU, lots of hard driver space, full HD screen resolution.

I also recommend 64-bit operating system, otherwise sooner or later you will run into the 2 GB memory threshold of 32-bit programs.

[Anonymous]

I have been working with a 250Gb SSD on a Mac Book Pro for the last year, and my impression is that the (very high) price you pay for this drive is justified by the speed on booting and opening ArchiCAD (and other SW).

[Anonymous]

Hey laszlonagy, would you please elaborate on why AC won't fit vertically on a 768 pixel high monitor?

[Laszlo Nagy]

Hmmm, this is strange.
I swear I remember that at 768 vertical resolution ArchiCAD does not have enough room so for example the status bar will not be displayed or the Navigator and Status Bar slide into each other.
But now it is OK both on 14 and 15.
I am wondering what it could be. Maybe it was a graphics card problem on my previous notebook. This one I have for about 3 month now.

So, you are right, it seems to be fine even at 768 pixel, but still, there is very little room, I would say it reduces productivity to use it at such low resolution.

[Karl Ottenstein]

This old survey of people's screen resolutions, with comments on why things work well at certain resolutions, may be of interest:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?&t=16436

Personally, I cannot imagine trying to fit the palettes and dialogs on a 768 pixel vertical screen and deal with all of the scrolling and/or turning things on/off...

As in the GS specs:
http://www.graphisoft.com/support/archicad/system_requirements/archicad15.html

1024 x 768 is the least that you can run. Like Laszlo, I'm surprised that this even works!

There is a reason that GS recommends 1280 x 1024 or higher. 😉

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

I remember you mentioning it before and then again in this thread. My laptop happens to be 1366x768 and I've kept an eye out for what the issue is. It's good to know the issue has been fixed and considering everyone in my office is using 14 about to move to 15, that's good.

But I agree that's it's too small. Personally, I use dual 1920x1200 24" monitors and honestly, it's not enough. I could use a 3rd monitor easily.


Funny to note that in the resolution poll one person voted they use 800x600. Ouch. Better know a lot of keyboard shortcuts...