Civil 3D and Laptop

Posts: 1
Joined: 03/26/11

Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by aespls on Apr 2, 2011 10:03 am

Has anyone had luck with running Civil 3D 2011 on a laptop? I really need to explore this option to have the flexibility that I need going from the field to office and jobsites spread all over the place. Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Pin Cushion

Posts: 443
Joined: 06/07/10

Re: Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by Pin Cushion on Apr 2, 2011 12:11 pm

Dell precision laptops will perform, and you know where the money went

Richard Sincovec

Posts: 809
Joined: 07/02/10

Re: Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by Richard Sincovec on Apr 3, 2011 12:17 pm

I'd recommend looking at Xi Computers or Sager Notebooks.

Keep in mind that C3D is a single-threaded app, so your best bet is a very fast CPU. You don't need a lot of cores. Also make sure you get Win 7 x64 as the OS. I have an SSD in mine, and that provides a nice performance boost. But if you go the SSD route, keep in mind that it's very easy to eat up primary hard drive space on Win 7 x64, so I'd recommend 120GB minimum on the SSD.

It is also recommended that you get a display capable of 1920x1080 resolution, 17" minimum size. You don't necessarily need something like a Quadro or FireGL graphics card, but you don't want a bare-bones graphics card or one geared for business (such as Nvidia NVS series). Cards like the GeForce 400-series work well.

Richard Sincovec

Posts: 809
Joined: 07/02/10

Re: Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by Richard Sincovec on Apr 3, 2011 12:23 pm

I'd recommend Xi Computers or Sager Notebooks.

Keep in mind that C3D is a single-threaded app, so best bet is to get a very fast CPU. Many cores are not necessary. One of the new 2nd Gen i3/i5 chips is ideal. Get Win 7 x64 as the OS (this is very important). You may also want to go the SSD route - it can give a nice boost to performance. But if so, keep in mind that Win 7 x64 can really eat hard drive space, so I'd recommend 120GB minimum.

It is recommended that you get a display capable of 1920x1080 resolution, with 17" minimum size. You don't need a Quadro or FireGL, but you also don't want a bare-bones card or business-oriented card like the Nvidia NVS series. The GeForce 400-series works well.

Richard Sincovec

Posts: 809
Joined: 07/02/10

Re: Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by Richard Sincovec on Apr 3, 2011 12:23 pm

I'd recommend Xi Computers or Sager Notebooks.

Keep in mind that C3D is a single-threaded app, so best bet is to get a very fast CPU. Many cores are not necessary. One of the new 2nd Gen i3/i5 chips is ideal. Get Win 7 x64 as the OS (this is very important). You may also want to go the SSD route - it can give a nice boost to performance. But if so, keep in mind that Win 7 x64 can really eat hard drive space, so I'd recommend 120GB minimum.

It is recommended that you get a display capable of 1920x1080 resolution, with 17" minimum size. You don't need a Quadro or FireGL, but you also don't want a bare-bones card or business-oriented card like the Nvidia NVS series. The GeForce 400-series works well.

Richard Sincovec

Posts: 809
Joined: 07/02/10

Re: Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by Richard Sincovec on Apr 3, 2011 12:26 pm

I'd recommend Xi Computers or Sager Notebooks.

Keep in mind that C3D is a single-threaded app, so best bet is to get a very fast CPU. Many cores are not necessary. One of the new 2nd Gen i3/i5 chips is ideal. Get Win 7 x64 as the OS (this is very important). You may also want to go the SSD route - it can give a nice boost to performance. But if so, keep in mind that Win 7 x64 can really eat hard drive space, so I'd recommend 120GB minimum.

It is recommended that you get a display capable of 1920x1080 resolution, with 17" minimum size. You don't need a Quadro or FireGL, but you also don't want a bare-bones card or business-oriented card like the Nvidia NVS series. The GeForce 400-series works well.

tony45power

Posts: 10
Joined: 01/28/11

Re: Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by tony45power on Apr 3, 2011 5:37 pm

I run carlson survey and civil 3d on my laptop no problems at all. Its an older DELL.

FlyandDrive

Posts: 1
Joined: 08/18/10

Re: Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by FlyandDrive on Apr 6, 2011 4:23 pm

I am running C3D on two different laptops both with good results. The first is a two year old Dell Covet (2.8Ghz dual core, 8GB ram, 1GB FX3500 graphics card, twin 7200 rpm sata drives in raid0) originally 64bit XP, now dual boot XP and 7. I'm also running C3D on a MacBook Pro with i7 processor (dual core, 2.8Ghz, 8GB ram, 512MB NVIDIA card, 7200 rpm sata, no raid) with Parallels 6.0, 64bit Windows 7 VM. As mentioned both computers do quite well. The Dell has an edge on graphics and speed, which would be expected (compared to a VM) I suspect the drive speed (absence of raid) is a bottleneck with the Mac. I do prefer to travel with the mac, mainly because the 200 watt power supply for the Dell weighs roughly the same as the combined weight of the mac and mac power supply. Some day when the Dell is no longer needed, I plan to use its power supply as an extra boat anchor. The previous recommendation for solid state drives is sage advice. I would have put one on the mac, (had the mac purchase not been an experiment). Now that it is proven, I will eventually install a SSD.
Both computers have high resolution screens, however I use large external monitors in the office for each machine. My recommendation on selecting screen size and resolution should be based on how mobile you are, and how available external monitors are at the office, field office, flat panel tv in the hotel room etc. If you are going to use the laptop regularly in single screen mode, the 17" with 1900x1200 (which was previously recommended) will be the best. Occationaly I travel with both the 17" Dell and 15.4" Mac. The bag that I need to use to lug them around requires that I leave my man-card at home ;).
One last thing to point out on the 17", the only way to comfortably get any work done on a flight, is from the first class cabin. Most of the business or economy class seat spacing make it futile to work with that big of a laptop.

Mr Burns

Posts: 2
Joined: 04/06/11

Re: Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by Mr Burns on Apr 6, 2011 9:23 pm

No need to tell you what we run so as to leave your options open. Such as SSDs. They are way too small and costly gb/$ for most people (the price goes up even further because youll probably want a traditional disk HD or external HD just to have some storage). They also aren't a must have for AutoCAD even.

The recommended computer for AutoCAD 2012 is below. This is for laptops as well, it is very easy to go to a site like dell.com or hp.com and setup a computer that will meet the following req in the link just for pricing:

http://usa.autodesk.com/civil-3d/system-requirements/

Another thing to note is that licencing with AutoCAD lets you legally install the program on your desktop and laptop for the same user.

Mr Burns

Posts: 2
Joined: 04/06/11

Re: Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by Mr Burns on Apr 6, 2011 9:27 pm

This isn't exactly what I'd go for but I did this in 10 minutes over at dell:

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/laptops#facets=80770~0~1874342,54733~0~5873164,51795~0~11401827,55474~0~866168,55846~0~5930678,55846~0~5930681&p=1

I didn't look closely at the processor or graphics card but at first glance they look good enough for Civil 3d.

Jered McGrath P...

Posts: 1710
Joined: 06/22/10

Re: Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by Jered McGrath PLS on Apr 6, 2011 9:33 pm

Richard Sincovec:

I'd recommend Xi Computers or Sager Notebooks.

Keep in mind that C3D is a single-threaded app, so best bet is to get a very fast CPU. Many cores are not necessary. One of the new 2nd Gen i3/i5 chips is ideal. Get Win 7 x64 as the OS (this is very important). You may also want to go the SSD route - it can give a nice boost to performance. But if so, keep in mind that Win 7 x64 can really eat hard drive space, so I'd recommend 120GB minimum.

It is recommended that you get a display capable of 1920x1080 resolution, with 17" minimum size. You don't need a Quadro or FireGL, but you also don't want a bare-bones card or business-oriented card like the Nvidia NVS series. The GeForce 400-series works well.

Richard has some great advise here.

Richard Sincovec

Posts: 809
Joined: 07/02/10

Re: Civil 3D and Laptop

Posted by Richard Sincovec on Apr 8, 2011 10:50 am

Didn't mean for it to post so many times, however...

This website is pretty funky. I made the first post, and it failed to appear in the forum, so I tried again. That one also disappeared, so I tried again via IE Tab. That disappeared, too. So then I thought maybe it was an issue with the new Firefox 4.0 I was using, and I tried IE 8. Then I gave up. At some later time, all four posts appeared in the forum...

I kind of like SSDs for laptops for a few reasons... The first is they're fast, and make for a much more responsive computer. Second is they produce less heat, helping prevent laptop overheating and subsequent CPU throttling. Third is they use less power, increasing your battery life for those times when no AC outlet is available.

The main drawback is SSDs are still a bit pricey. And Win 7 x64 seems to really eat hard drive space fast, so it's wise to get 120GB minimum size. And even with a 120GB drive, you might still find yourself limiting what you put on your computer, or needing to uninstall programs you don't use much, rather than just leave them there. An external data drive is always an option, but we typically keep all our data on the server. If I need to work offline on something, I'll copy it to my laptop, but for the most part, I leave the bulk of my data on network drives, so the single 120GB SSD has worked for me so far.

All in all, I like the trade-offs, and prefer an SSD in a laptop. The trade-offs aren't as clear for desktop systems, but I like SSDs in laptops.