Laptop to run Painter 12

**blr1221sw** · October 20th, 2011, 01:45 PM

Hi everyone! I need some advice! I am finally moving into the 21st century and getting myself a laptop.

I am looking at a HP-Pavilion that has an Intel Core i5-2410M 2.3 GHz processor with turbo boost up to 2.9 GHz, 8GB Ram DDR3, and a 750GB Serial ATA hard drive.

Do you think this is enough to run Painter 12 & maybe Photoshop CS5? I just want to make sure I get something that is not going to feeze up on me!

If this isnt what I should get, can someone recommend something to me, maybe some specs I should be looking for?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

**Arshes Nei** · October 20th, 2011, 04:03 PM

Painter was really never one to really need over powered PCs to run. Other than having video card that use accelerated graphics as well as a fair amount of RAM it's fine.

By fair amount. I like having 2gb at least (but I don't run other programs) and 4 and up if I multitask - I use a lot of tabs in Firefox.

But if you have the model # of the HP post it and I can give you a better answer.

**blr1221sw** · October 20th, 2011, 05:46 PM

Arshes Nei, Thanks for responding! It is an HP Pavilion dv7-6135dx . Thanks for the help! Its greatly appreciated!!!

**Arshes Nei** · October 20th, 2011, 09:38 PM

Originally Posted by blr1221sw

Arshes Nei, Thanks for responding! It is an HP Pavilion dv7-6135dx . Thanks for the help! Its greatly appreciated!!!

No prob. The graphics card for this model is an ATi. I admit I'm less familiar since I usually have either laptops or desktops with Intel (laptop) or Nvidia but looking at the specs.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Rad...M.43843.0.html

You'll do fine with it in Painter. Photoshop may also be ok. Provided there are no specific bugs with that graphics card I don't remember if there were. But as I said, Painter doesn't really need an overpowered graphics card to run. An icore5 is good. It appears the model of HP goes with 8gb of ram already so you're pretty much set. It's not like you need an extremely large hdd either, just a working one.

**blr1221sw** · October 21st, 2011, 06:59 AM

Thanks so much Arshes Nei! I really appreciate it! I have this nasty habit of always getting stuff that is sub-par! I really appreciate the help! Have a Great Day!

**jason_maranto** · October 21st, 2011, 09:58 AM

Due to bad experiences with drivers from AMD/ATI in conjunction with Painter 12 (among other programs) I would try for an NVidia based system instead.

Best,
Jason.

**Arshes Nei** · October 21st, 2011, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by jason_maranto

Due to bad experiences with drivers from AMD/ATI in conjunction with Painter 12 (among other programs) I would try for an NVidia based system instead.

Best,
Jason.

Hi Jason,

Now was it the combo of AMD+ATi or were they both problems individually?

The reason I ask is that you notice the person has an iCore5 which is Intel and may not have the problem.

I can understand if both of the above mentioned cause the problem, but I have a roommate with an AMD processor and an Nvidia system which has few problems with Photoshop... don't recall video issues on previous versions of Painter (I was gonna use his system for part of beta testing with Painter 12, but he had a lot of work to do without me interfering).

**jason_maranto** · October 21st, 2011, 12:54 PM

Yeah, I was just referring to the fact that AMD owns ATI and is gradually re-branding... I haven't used an AMD processor in years, so I can't speak to the suitability one way or the other.

When I switched from my ATI Firepro to an NVidia Quadro all of my issues (in all programs that had issues) went away... I was a really hard sell because I honestly believed NVidia over-priced their products, but I can't argue with the results.

Best,
Jason.

**Arshes Nei** · October 21st, 2011, 01:36 PM

Originally Posted by jason_maranto

Yeah, I was just referring to the fact that AMD owns ATI and is gradually re-branding... I haven't used an AMD processor in years, so I can't speak to the suitability one way or the other.

When I switched from my ATI Firepro to an NVidia Quadro all of my issues (in all programs that had issues) went away... I was a really hard sell because I honestly believed NVidia over-priced their products, but I can't argue with the results.

Best,
Jason.

I also own a Quadro, love that thing. I have stuck with them (Nvidia) due to reliability, but was less familiar with the ATi, given it's also a mobile version it's harder to say how drivers are. Often times they're stripped down. I do know my Intel graphics card were pretty limiting on the old Lenovo. I couldn't use graphics acceleration on programs like Sketchbook Pro 2010. Painter still seemed to work fine. It works fairly well on the Motion Computing LE1700

Thanks for the explanation

**vapsman88** · October 21st, 2011, 01:49 PM

I also had a Desktop with an AMD/ATI combination that crashed and died, so I switched to my Laptop which is an Intel Core2 Duo with Quadro FX 1600m. The performance difference improved on Painter 11 and immensely on Painter 12.

~John

**JohnMalcolm1970** · October 21st, 2011, 07:06 PM

Originally Posted by blr1221sw

Hi everyone! I need some advice! I am finally moving into the 21st century and getting myself a laptop.

I am looking at a HP-Pavilion that has an Intel Core i5-2410M 2.3 GHz processor with turbo boost up to 2.9 GHz, 8GB Ram DDR3, and a 750GB Serial ATA hard drive.

Do you think this is enough to run Painter 12 & maybe Photoshop CS5? I just want to make sure I get something that is not going to feeze up on me!

If this isnt what I should get, can someone recommend something to me, maybe some specs I should be looking for?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

I have a much older HP Pavilion laptop that I use from time to time. It's a DV8395ea one. It has an Nvidia card and a dual-core processor, and 2gb of RAM if I recall correctly (it's not at home at the moment). It's still running XP.

It runs Painter 11, Painter 12 and Photoshop CS5 with absolutely no issues.

**Portus** · October 22nd, 2011, 12:21 PM

AMD's Window's drivers are pretty much only tailored for gaming, I had a HD4850, while it was very fast, it didn't perform smoothly with Photoshop's graphics card acceleration. AMD's AM3/BD processors they're fine for PS because it's a multi-threaded program.

What Quadro card do you guys have? I may have to look for one.

**jason_maranto** · October 22nd, 2011, 01:22 PM

I have the Quadro 600 -- which was at a reasonable price/performance ratio... I also read reviews of some overheating issues of the new higher-end fermi-based Quadros and I wasn't keen to see if they had solved that problem, so I opted for the "safe" purchase.

So far it's been flawless for me in my Intel i7 rig.

Best,
Jason.

**Arshes Nei** · October 22nd, 2011, 09:40 PM

I bought mine before the 600 series came out. It's a Quadro 580 so the 600 is more bang for your buck it appears.

**Portus** · October 27th, 2011, 10:49 AM

Thanks, I'll keep an eye on that card, it costs around 175€ over here.

**Arshes Nei** · October 27th, 2011, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by Portus

Thanks, I'll keep an eye on that card, it costs around 175€ over here.

Yeah, keep in mind Quadros are not gaming cards, so don't get ticked off if you find that you're not going to have the same kind of gaming experience (Not a warning to you specifically, but to those buying these cards).

I've found that the card loads up layers in Photoshop fantastically. I got it so I can tinker with more 3d apps.

**Portus** · October 27th, 2011, 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by Arshes Nei

Yeah, keep in mind Quadros are not gaming cards, so don't get ticked off if you find that you're not going to have the same kind of gaming experience (Not a warning to you specifically, but to those buying these cards).

I've found that the card loads up layers in Photoshop fantastically. I got it so I can tinker with more 3d apps.

Yeah it's pretty much only for 3D renderings from my understanding. It's alright as I don't play video-games at all, I'm just interesting in Photoshop performance and maybe if it gets Painter more fluid even better.

**Doug B** · October 28th, 2011, 01:54 AM

Originally Posted by Arshes Nei

Yeah, keep in mind Quadros are not gaming cards, so don't get ticked off if you find that you're not going to have the same kind of gaming experience (Not a warning to you specifically, but to those buying these cards).

I've found that the card loads up layers in Photoshop fantastically. I got it so I can tinker with more 3d apps.

Thanks for all the info on NVDIA cards. I've always used ATI cards, but was thinking of trying an NVDIA card.

Cheers

**nikuniku** · October 28th, 2011, 10:17 PM

@op
just so you know, i'm running painter 12 on my new notebook which has core i3 2.2ghz, 2gb ram, and 512mb nvidia geforce410m.
under normal conditions painter uses 250mb of ram on my system.
also even if you run out of ram windows will automatically increase the page file size to compensate for ram. this will however produce lag while switching between layers and choosing brushes but pen movement and strokes will not lag.
painter 12 makes use of dual core cpu's so real time functions will not be affected at all.(strokes, cursor movement etc)

**Arshes Nei** · November 11th, 2011, 03:05 PM

Originally Posted by jason_maranto

I have the Quadro 600 -- which was at a reasonable price/performance ratio... I also read reviews of some overheating issues of the new higher-end fermi-based Quadros and I wasn't keen to see if they had solved that problem, so I opted for the "safe" purchase.

So far it's been flawless for me in my Intel i7 rig.

Best,
Jason.

Hey Jason, what's the WEI W7 index for that card?

**jason_maranto** · November 11th, 2011, 04:29 PM

6.6 for both Graphics and Gaming Graphics.

My current weak link is RAM speed and Hard Disk which results in a 5.9 overall grade for my entire system.

Best,
Jason.

**Arshes Nei** · November 11th, 2011, 05:05 PM

Originally Posted by jason_maranto

6.6 for both Graphics and Gaming Graphics.

My current weak link is RAM speed and Hard Disk which results in a 5.9 overall grade for my entire system.

Best,
Jason.

Yeah that's about a .1 better than the 580, I currently own. Last time I ran it, it was about a 6.5 but I was curious if there was a new performance boost with the newer one. I'll be getting it on (quadro 600) Sat if you want to know the results.

Hard disk is pretty much going to be 5.9 unless you get a good Solid State Drive. So unless you really need one, I usually ignore that score as long as the SATA performs well enough.

Ram anything about DDR3/DDR2 @ 8gb should result in 7something.

The highest on the W7 index is a 7.9 (it's not a 1-10 scale in case people didn't know)

**jason_maranto** · November 12th, 2011, 04:51 AM

I am definitely interested to know your results.

I will be getting more RAM soon hopefully, right now I only have 3gb (which was fine when I was only running 32-bits).

I doubt I'll be moving to a SSD anytime soon.

Best,
Jason.

**Arshes Nei** · November 12th, 2011, 02:24 PM

The card gives me the same WEI as yours 6.6. It's fine though WEI isn't THAT important of an measurement...it was more curiosity), the old card goes to a roommate that needs a video card till he gets another one.

When they were saying low profile, they weren't kidding! That thing is TINY especially compared to my 580. I like the redesigned package, smaller and more sensible than the 580 I had previously.

I wish it still had 3 slots like the 580 but I'm ok with what is on there. I was a little scared at first because the default bracket is for very small cpu cases, and I had to put in a regular bracket for my Antec. After installation of the Nvidia everything was back to normal.