video card for new PC laptop and Phocus 2.0

[Wim van Velzen]

dear all,

I have been unable to use Phocus 1.2 on my desktop and laptop computers, because the video cards are insufficient.
As I 'll have to buy a new laptop these months, I wonder what are the minimum requirements? I am not really a hardware geek, so I find it quite difficult to understand all the tech info I find on the web.

I'll have windows 7 as my OS; my back is a 528C, but most of the time used in single shot.

thanks in advance!

[Phil G]

Dear Wim

I am a Apple user and have found that 512MB is the optimum I do not know if Phocus 2 has gone the way of other such programmes insomuch as it uses the graphics card rather than internal ram for the bulk of its work

I can use P1.2 on an old G4 laptop with 128MB  albeit slowly but my Mac Book Pro has 512MB Nvidia card similar to my Mac Pro desktop and they fly so I would say 512MB with DDR3 video ram

[Jacephoto]

yeah, i ran into the same depressing experience before. I din realise that i have to buy a laptop to go along with it.

Refusing to buy a Mac Book Pro, i got my IT friend to provide me a second hand IBM business notebook with a dedicated graphics card for USD 400.00.

Now i am shooting with it, and i am happy with my Hasselblad (thanks to the rest of the people on this forum who has helped!)

Hope you get better soon.

[Alex Maxim]

It works with GeForce Go 7300 256Mb but a little slow.

[Wim van Velzen]

Thank you all for your input! I'll talk to my computer supplier to work this out.

I tried to find more info at the Hasselblad site, but I couldn't find the specifics. My bad or is it a bit hidden?

[Wim van Velzen]

ha Derek, thanks! I found this, which helps a lot:

Graphics card
At least 256MB of video RAM is required. Unlike older graphics applications such as Photoshop and FlexColor, Phocus utilizes the processing power available in the graphics card to provide precise real time feedback for adjustment changes. Therefore, just as with Aperture, the viewer performance is very much dependent on the quality of the graphics adapter. In general, more video RAM is better, especially if you plan to work with 30" displays or dual monitor setups. Not all graphic adapters are supported! As a minimum Direct X 9.0c compatible graphic adapters are required, yet not all are guaranteed to work.

The following is a list of graphic adapters that meets the requirements:

NVIDIA:         ATI:               Intel:
Quadro series      Radeon HD 4800 Series         GMA 3500 (limitations apply)
GeForce 9 series      Radeon HD 3000 Series         GMA 3100 (limitations apply)
GeForce 8 series      Radeon HD 2000 Series
GeForce 7 series      Radeon X 1000 Series
GeForce 6 series


CPU
While viewer performance is very dependent on GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) power, the CPU (Central Processing Unit) will have the most influence on functions such as export where speed benefits from higher CPU clock rate (GHz) and maximum core utilization. It should also be mentioned that performance of the viewer at 100% and above is also CPU core and clock rate dependent. The above performance examples are not specific in regards to CPU speed (GHz). In general,- the higher the speed of the CPU and the higher amount of cores you have, the higher performance you will achieve.


Memory (RAM)
2GB is acceptable but 4GB (or more) is a better choice especially if you are running Photoshop at the same time. Phocus for Windows will when running on a 64-bit operating system, take full advantage of more than 2GB - which may improve performance when browsing folders with a large number of images.

[Wim van Velzen]

I got this quoted from my supplier:

Fujitsu AMILO  - Core 2 Duo T6600 / 2.2 GHz -
RAM 4 GB -
harddisk 500 GB -
DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM -
GF GT 240M - DDR3 VRAM - 1024 MB
Gigabit Ethernet -
WLAN : 802.11b/g/n (draft),
Bluetooth 2.1 EDR -
15.6"  TFT 1366 x 768 ( WXGA ) BrilliantView

Any ideas if this would be sufficient? It is not meant for the main workflow (I have a desktop for that), but it should of course be able to work without problems and reasonable fast.

[Mats E]

Wim,

I have a two year old Dell XPS 1210 with more or less the same specs and that is doing fine although not with flying grades. If today, I should look for a laptop with quad processor and Win7 64 bit that can appreciate more than 3-4 GB CPU. Memory is fairly cheap today so why not boost it to 8 GB?

Mats

[Wim van Velzen]

It would be windows 7 64 bit.
I'll ask what 4 GB RAM extra would could.

thanks! Wim