[i2iSTUDIOS]

Help.

HP HDX18t $1,959.99

Components

* • Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
* • Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor Q9000 (2.00Ghz)
* • 4GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm) - For 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 130M
* • 500GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (250GB x 2) with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
* • 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 130M - For DDR3 Memory
* • 18.4" diagonal High Definition HP Ultra BrightView Infinity Display (1920x1080p)
* • Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer
* • Webcam + Fingerprint Reader with HP Imprint Finish (Fluid)
* • Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-card with Bluetooth
* • 50% OFF!! HP Integrated HDTV Hybrid Tuner
* • Full Size Backlit Keyboard
* • 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

[d_crome]

Oh god no.

Go check the "badass gamer thread" and it should suffice with a few minor tweaks - namely more RAM and DO NOT GET VISTA! Windows 7 is just arround the corner and you'll want it then - so why pay for it twice? Just use XP for now.

[Yablonski135]

Yeah, that computer is horrible for the price.

[Heinzftw]

This thread = epic fail. Please PLEASE read my post on the badass gaming desktop. Don't EVER buy premade shit

[jsdaniels]

the guy might have an issue "not" buying a premade computer fella's because if you read the specs its a laptop.

If you're looking for a laptop with very good specs you're going to be going for a high price. If you can wait till October, then waiting for Win7 is worth it. If you can't then get Vista, the reason is there are speculations being tossed around that if you're computer came with Vista on it then you will be able to upgrade to Win7 for free. Those of us who bought Vista our selves so far don't have that option ( makes sense right? =/

If you NEED a laptop then fine, fish around a little more. If you can do a desktop then the post the others are mentioning is a great place to start. There is some sound advice in there.

[DougLikesBMW]

Honestly man, I would make this exact post on this forum: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/index.php? - From what I've seen, these guys know their shit.

[Heinzftw]

I got my FULLY loaded XPS 1330 for $1500 out the door. Corporate discounts ftw

[ragingclue]

Originally Posted by DougLikesBMW

Honestly man, I would make this exact post on this forum: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/index.php? - From what I've seen, these guys know their shit.

XS is more geared towards the extreme guys, (LN cooling, extreme overclocks, shit like that...). Overclock.net is a much better site for people who aren't looking for that sort of experience, and has a lot more info that is easy for the layman to understand.

XS still has a lot of useful info, but is geared more towards those who already have a great deal of experience tweaking stuff. Great place for a stumped expert to go for guidance, not so much for your every day user.

[Neon01]

You're hearing the HP isn't the way to go because it's a laptop. If you're building a dedicated PS machine, you should really build a desktop with a very color accurate panel. This is not something you're going to find (generally) with laptops. With that said, if you've got to have a laptop, I do like those HP HDX units. I have the 16t myself and the panel is very very nice for a laptop. I had the Dell XPS 1530 before that and the 1920x1200 panel on that was TERRIBLE. WAY too cool (color) and grainy as hell. Dell laptops (except the LED backlit ones, which you can't get in ultra high res) are notorious for grain. My HDX 16t has a very nice display, but its nowhere near as good as a nice S-IPS panel or even M-PVA.

Short answer, go with a built desktop, quad core, lots of ram (8GB since its so cheap and you're going 64 bit) and a nice high-res mouse (I recommend the Logitech G9, its fantastic).

Despite what people say, I think Vista isn't junk, but it's definitely a step down from Win7. The RC is SWEET, and fixed a LOT of the bugs in the beta. Try it. Nvidia already has official Win7 drivers.

[DougLikesBMW]

Originally Posted by ragingclue

XS is more geared towards the extreme guys, (LN cooling, extreme overclocks, shit like that...). Overclock.net is a much better site for people who aren't looking for that sort of experience, and has a lot more info that is easy for the layman to understand.

XS still has a lot of useful info, but is geared more towards those who already have a great deal of experience tweaking stuff. Great place for a stumped expert to go for guidance, not so much for your every day user.

Ah okay, thanks alot, will add Overclock.net to my faves for future use.

[darkphantom]

Originally Posted by Heinzftw

I got my FULLY loaded XPS 1330 for $1500 out the door. Corporate discounts ftw

say what!? specs please, we'll justify the $1500

[Heinzftw]

Originally Posted by darkphantom

say what!? specs please, we'll justify the $1500

Dell XPS 1330
T9500 Dual Core 2.6ghz
Vista Ultimate
3 year warranty
4gb ram
500GB 7200RPM HD
DVD Burner
Intel 8400GS 256MB

[Yablonski135]

Originally Posted by Heinzftw

Dell XPS 1330
T9500 Dual Core 2.6ghz
Vista Ultimate
3 year warranty
4gb ram
500GB 7200RPM HD
DVD Burner
Intel 8400GS 256MB

I'd roll with that.

I picked up a Lenovo Thinkpad W500 for about the same price. It has a T9400 processor and a 1920x1200 LCD. ATI FireGL video card that I run a modded driver on so it thinks its a HD 3450 or something like that. It does Photoshop and Premiere great.

[DimSumBoy]

i also got a fully loaded 13 inch XPS with my moms discounts from her work.

mine got dropped on its corner =( broke, looks like the whole keyboard is arched. messed up the motherboard + geforce 8400M is it? <-- (known to be faulty) so i ended up having to put in the regular motherboard with the onboard shit graphics card in. or else pay 300 for the motherboard with the geforce on it..but the laptop is pretty beat up and still running pretty well actually. i can play diablo 2 and warcraft 3. even CS:S on low settings.

[gerardm]

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/...mco=NjcxMTU1Mg


end of story... im a lead developer and co founder of a media design studio so take it from me.

http://www.thinknerve.com/archive/


-pz

[darkphantom]

yeah, macs are good for user friendliness and multimedia in general, however, they seriously lack in the gaming department. They are starting to pick up...but still...not as easily upgradeable, afaik...

[gerardm]

Originally Posted by darkphantom

yeah, macs are good for user friendliness and multimedia in general, however, they seriously lack in the gaming department. They are starting to pick up...but still...not as easily upgradeable, afaik...

agreed... topic said photoshop pc

[BMW_TT]

http://www.frys.com/product/5875803?...H:MAIN_RSLT_PG

What about that one? That's what I have.

[ragingclue]

As much as I hate macs and degrade them as the alternative to a real computer, they do excel in photo and video editing. Some of their commercials are actually alright as well, but it's getting a bit annoying.

[radix]

Originally Posted by ragingclue

As much as I hate macs and degrade them as the alternative to a real computer, they do excel in photo and video editing. Some of their commercials are actually alright as well, but it's getting a bit annoying.

What is it that you take issue with as regards Macs? The hardware, the OS, or both? For my part, I find Windows to be too "dumbed down" for more advanced users as compared to OS X, so I'm having difficulty understanding what you take issue with. I will definitely make the concession that game development for Windows is light years ahead of OS X, but for most other uses I find OS X to be just as good if not better than Windows.

For one, Windows does not ship with a C compiler, a decent CLI, or a good set of troubleshooting tools (e.g. dtrace, tcpdump, dig, whois, etc). Most of these tools have to be bolted on after the fact via something such as cygwin.

For example, let's say you wanted to trace a process to see where something was hanging. The example below is of course overly simplistic, but it works:

$ uname -s
Darwin
$ sudo dtruss pwd
/
SYSCALL(args) 		 = return
getpid(0x0, 0x0, 0x0)		 = 3369 0
__sysctl(0xBFFFE678, 0x3, 0xBFFFFA98)		 = 0 0
issetugid(0xBFFFE678, 0x3, 0xBFFFFA98)		 = 0 0
__sysctl(0xBFFFE534, 0x2, 0xBFFFE4FC)		 = 0 0
__sysctl(0xBFFFE4FC, 0x2, 0xBFFFE57C)		 = 0 0
shared_region_check_np(0xBFFFFA78, 0x2, 0xBFFFE57C)		 = 0 0
stat("/usr/lib/dtrace/libdtrace_dyld.dylib\0", 0xBFFFD6E8, 0xBFFFE57C)		 = 0 0
open("/usr/lib/dtrace/libdtrace_dyld.dylib\0", 0x0, 0x0)		 = 3 0
pread(0x3, "\312\376\272\276\0", 0x1000, 0x0)		 = 4096 0
pread(0x3, "\316\372\355\376\a\0", 0x1000, 0x9000)		 = 4096 0
mmap(0x6000, 0x1000, 0x5, 0x12, 0x3, 0x100000000)		 = 0x6000 0
mmap(0x7000, 0x1000, 0x3, 0x12, 0x3, 0x100000000)		 = 0x7000 0
mmap(0x8000, 0x1000, 0x7, 0x12, 0x3, 0x100000000)		 = 0x8000 0
mmap(0x9000, 0x1900, 0x1, 0x12, 0x3, 0x100000000)		 = 0x9000 0
fcntl(0x3, 0x2C, 0xFFFFFFFFBFFFBD54)		 = 0 0
close(0x3)		 = 0 0
stat("/usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib\0", 0xBFFFD4E8, 0xFFFFFFFFBFFFBD54)		 = 0 0
stat("/usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib\0", 0xBFFFD4E8, 0xFFFFFFFFBFFFBD54)		 = 0 0
stat("/usr/lib/system/libmathCommon.A.dylib\0", 0xBFFFD328, 0xFFFFFFFFBFFFBD54)		 = 0 0
open("/dev/dtracehelper\0", 0x2, 0xBFFFE504)		 = 3 0
ioctl(0x3, 0x80086804, 0xBFFFE488)		 = 0 0
close(0x3)		 = 0 0
__sysctl(0xBFFFE35C, 0x2, 0xBFFFE364)		 = 0 0
bsdthread_register(0x944BCFF0, 0x944F52A4, 0x1000)		 = 0 0
open_nocancel("/dev/urandom\0", 0x0, 0x0)		 = 3 0
read_nocancel(0x3, "Fq\365c&\021\376\263\215\223\256\336\2716\340\267h\335\340\343ud$F>\353\325\025\325\376S\261\0", 0x20)		 = 32 0
close_nocancel(0x3)		 = 0 0
mmap(0x0, 0x3000, 0x3, 0x1002, 0x1000000, 0x100000000)		 = 0xB000 0
mmap(0x0, 0x200000, 0x3, 0x1002, 0x7000000, 0x100000000)		 = 0xE000 0
munmap(0xE000, 0xF2000)		 = 0 0
munmap(0x200000, 0xE000)		 = 0 0
mmap(0x0, 0x3000, 0x3, 0x1002, 0x1000000, 0x100000000)		 = 0xE000 0
getpid(0x0, 0x3000, 0x3)		 = 3369 0
stat("/\0", 0xBFFFFB10, 0x3)		 = 0 0
stat(".\0", 0xBFFFFAB0, 0x3)		 = 0 0
fstat64(0x1, 0xBFFFF914, 0x3)		 = 0 0
ioctl(0x1, 0x4004667A, 0xBFFFF97C)		 = 0 0
mmap(0x0, 0x1000000, 0x3, 0x1002, 0x2000000, 0x100000000)		 = 0x200000 0
munmap(0x200000, 0x600000)		 = 0 0
munmap(0x1000000, 0x200000)		 = 0 0
write_nocancel(0x1, "/\n\0", 0x2)		 = 2 0

or say I wanted to see memory usage broken down by segment inside a process (this is useful for detecting memory leaks):

$ vmmap $$
Virtual Memory Map of process 3259 (bash)
Output report format:  2.2  -- 32-bit process

==== Non-writable regions for process 3259
__PAGEZERO             00000000-00001000 [    4K] ---/--- SM=NUL  /bin/bash
__TEXT                 00001000-00083000 [  520K] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /bin/bash
__LINKEDIT             0008c000-00090000 [   16K] r--/rwx SM=COW  /bin/bash
STACK GUARD            00090000-00091000 [    4K] ---/rwx SM=NUL  
STACK GUARD            00092000-00093000 [    4K] ---/rwx SM=NUL  
__TEXT                 8fe00000-8fe2e000 [  184K] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/dyld
__LINKEDIT             8fe67000-8fe75000 [   56K] r--/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/dyld
__TEXT                 9448b000-945f3000 [ 1440K] r-x/r-x SM=COW  /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
__TEXT                 94d80000-94d88000 [   32K] r-x/r-x SM=COW  /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib
__TEXT                 951cb000-951d0000 [   20K] r-x/r-x SM=COW  /usr/lib/system/libmathCommon.A.dylib
__TEXT                 95ab5000-95ae5000 [  192K] r-x/r-x SM=COW  /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib
__TEXT                 9608a000-9617f000 [  980K] r-x/r-x SM=COW  /usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
__LINKEDIT             97689000-97a88000 [ 4092K] r--/r-- SM=COW  /usr/lib/system/libmathCommon.A.dylib
__IMPORT               a0a55000-a0a57000 [    8K] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
__IMPORT               a0a66000-a0a67000 [    4K] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib
__IMPORT               a0a7c000-a0a7d000 [    4K] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib
__IMPORT               a0a8f000-a0a90000 [    4K] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
STACK GUARD            bc000000-bf800000 [ 56.0M] ---/rwx SM=NUL  

==== Writable regions for process 3259
__DATA                 00083000-00089000 [   24K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  /bin/bash
__DATA                 00089000-0008b000 [    8K] rw-/rwx SM=PRV  /bin/bash
__IMPORT               0008b000-0008c000 [    4K] rwx/rwx SM=COW  /bin/bash
MALLOC (freed?)        00091000-00092000 [    4K] rw-/rwx SM=PRV  
MALLOC_LARGE           00093000-000a7000 [   80K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  DefaultMallocZone_0x100000
MALLOC_TINY            00100000-00200000 [ 1024K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  DefaultMallocZone_0x100000
MALLOC_SMALL           00800000-01000000 [ 8192K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  DefaultMallocZone_0x100000
__DATA                 8fe2e000-8fe67000 [  228K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/dyld
shared pmap            a0400000-a0542000 [ 1288K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  
__DATA                 a0542000-a0581000 [  252K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
shared pmap            a0581000-a05d9000 [  352K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  
__DATA                 a05d9000-a05da000 [    4K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/libgcc_s.1.dylib
shared pmap            a05da000-a0660000 [  536K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  
__DATA                 a0660000-a0661000 [    4K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/system/libmathCommon.A.dylib
shared pmap            a0661000-a0708000 [  668K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  
__DATA                 a0708000-a0711000 [   36K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/libncurses.5.4.dylib
shared pmap            a0711000-a078c000 [  492K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  
__DATA                 a078c000-a078d000 [    4K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  /usr/lib/libiconv.2.dylib
shared pmap            a078d000-a0800000 [  460K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  
Stack                  bf800000-c0000000 [ 8192K] rw-/rwx SM=COW  thread 0

==== Legend
SM=sharing mode:  
	COW=copy_on_write PRV=private NUL=empty ALI=aliased 
	SHM=shared ZER=zero_filled S/A=shared_alias

==== Summary for process 3259
ReadOnly portion of Libraries: Total=7532K resident=6528K(87%) swapped_out_or_unallocated=1004K(13%)
Writable regions: Total=17.3M written=80K(0%) resident=264K(1%) swapped_out=0K(0%) unallocated=17.1M(99%)

REGION TYPE             [ VIRTUAL]
===========             [ =======]
MALLOC                  [   9300K]
STACK GUARD             [   56.0M]
Stack                   [   8192K]
__DATA                  [    560K]
__IMPORT                [     24K]
__LINKEDIT              [   4164K]
__PAGEZERO              [      4K]
__TEXT                  [   3368K]
shared pmap             [   3796K]

Is there a Windows equivalent to this? I'm not being sarcastic, I honestly don't know. I don't believe there is, but I could be wrong.

Is there a built-in mechanism for windows to do bare metal recovery, such as using disk images (dmg files) in OS X via either Disk Utility or the asr command?

Don't get me wrong, I think most versions of Windows are fine for most casual users and great for gamers, I just feel that Windows has dumbed down things too much for the average user, and doesn't provide the tools that power users/sysadmins really want without resorting to using myriad third party bolt-ons. As far as hardware goes, Macs usually are not bleeding edge (with some exceptions), but are still a good solid platform.

[radix]

^ s/average/advanced/;

BTW OP, you seem to be getting some good advice, and I agree with the general sentiment that you can do better. Among others, darkphantom should be able to help you get the most bang for your buck.

[c0nstant]

wat