Re: Windows laptop recommendation needed

[Robert Craig Thomas <robert@robertcthomas.com>]

I've been using a Lenovo T500 15" screen w 1680 resolution with 4gb at 25.3ghz on Windows 7 - 64bit all with good success, running Mobius inside of Ableton Live (Ableton 32-bit because of Mobius) and within Ableton running Kontakt with 4-6 instruments loaded (I use an EWI) plus various 3rd party plugins... and it's been running with even the tiniest burp.  The T500 can apparently take 8gb of memory, but 4gb memory Simms are expensive (and I'm cheap) and it runs fine as is.  

I've also used a Lenovo T61 15" 1680 resolution w4gb mem, Win7 64bit with good success, but I like the T500 better.  I use a firewire interface (Saffire) but always with a PCMCIA TI Firewire card, disabling the built-in firewire interface.

Got the T500 on ebay (with 2gb mem) for €160 and the T61 (w 2gb mem) also on Ebay for €115.

Windows 8 is on one of my older T60machines, but I don't really like it much and I've found no clear advantages over Win7 while using it so far.

Just my two cents... for free ;-)

On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 12:32 PM, Michael Peters <mp@mpeters.de> wrote:

I've been using Bidule on a Sony Vaio with 32bit Windows Vista for some years and I'm thinking of getting a new laptop, Windows 7 or 8. I would use it primarily for music, mostly for Bidule, sometimes also for Ableton Live.

The old Vista laptop works fine in principle, with two related problems: 

1. I use many 3rd party VST plugins. They all run ok but something about them (their memory management I guess) is often not stable and especially in large setups, this leads to Bidule crashing or hanging when I close Bidule. Sometimes Bidule hangs so bad I have to unplug USB devices to make the process go away. After this, it often takes several attempts to make all the USB devices work correctly again. Of course, this is not something you want to happen in a live situation. Actually it would be nice if I could make several smaller specialized setups and switch between them for different pieces, but that is not reliable enough, so I ended up basically using one HUGE setup that contains everything I might ever need, so I don't have to switch.

2. Of course the big downside of this approach is that many plugins eat up processor power even when I don't need them. Going close to or beyond 100% processor usage happens often. Of course this is also something you don't need in a live situation.

So, a new machine with more power. I don't want Apple machines for several reasons that don't need to be discussed here, so:

- Windows 7 or 8 ?

- 32bit or 64bit?  I think most of the plugins I use are 32bit. Is there a downside to using a 64bit Windows and 64bit Bidule anyway?

- What are the technical parameters that would make Bidule most happy?

- My old laptop was heavy. Are there ultrabooks that are fast enough?

- Any recommendations?

1000 thanks

-Michael

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Robert C Thomas, Gütersloh, Germany
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