It's tricky, because laptops may have features that interrupt low-latency 
audio and cause dropouts -- thermal recalibration of the disk drive, 
interrupt processing in the video driver, etc.

You should hang around on mailing lists where these issues are discussed, or 
see if you can suss out what models are used by music laptop vendors (they 
do exist). Alienware has a multimedia production laptop you can check out.

Also, when you are settling on a few models, carefully review their specs 
and their online support forums and mailing lists for relevant messages.

That said, look for:

1. Fast disk
2. Fast front side bus
3. Fast video processor (so it isn't messing with your audio processing)
4. Lots of RAM. 1 gig at least.
5. High CPU speed. I don't whether AMD or Intel chips are better for audio. 
Anything reasonably current (in stores now) and not low-end should be 
sufficient.

Regards,
Mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Art Hunkins" 
To: 
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 10:30 PM
Subject: [Csnd] Windows Laptop for Real-Time Csound?


> I'm looking for recommended specs for a Windows laptop dedicated to
> real-time Csound performance. What are the 3-4 most important items to
> consider?
>
> The on-board sound is a non-issue; but how important is processor type and
> speed, as well as amount of memory? (I assume the faster speed and more
> memory the better.)
>
> Art Hunkins
>
> -- 
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@lists.bath.ac.uk
> 

You have to consider your audio interface. Normally, the quality of 
onboard audio devices is very bad in Windows-based laptop (instead it is 
quite good in Mac ibooks and powerbooks).  So it is recommended an 
external audio device. In this case you must consider that in Windows 
laptops the USB (eventually the USB2) support is normally better than 
firewire support for realtime-critical tasks. I have some problems with 
my MOTU 828 firewire, because it sometimes (very seldom I admit) ceases 
to play at unpredictable moment. I think that this is a problem of the 
internal firewire chipest of the laptop (probably an IRQ problem, that I 
don't know how to solve). This issue should be investigated more in 
depth, has anyone any experience about it?

Regarding the processors, if battery charge duration is not an issue for 
you, dont' choose the Intel Centrino processors, but the Pentium4 or 
Athlon64 at the highest clock freqs. I say this because normally the 
high-end Centrino processors have a clock quite lower than the high-end 
P4 and Athlon CPUs. Regarding the intel vs amd struggle, I find that for 
brute number-crunching Athlon is better than Pentium4, but for 
memory-transfer bandwith the latter is faster. So, if you are working 
with a lot of samples stored in memory, maybe Pentium4 are better, 
instead, if you are generating pure synthesized sounds, Athlon is better.

Gab


Michael Gogins wrote:

> It's tricky, because laptops may have features that interrupt 
> low-latency audio and cause dropouts -- thermal recalibration of the 
> disk drive, interrupt processing in the video driver, etc.
>
> You should hang around on mailing lists where these issues are 
> discussed, or see if you can suss out what models are used by music 
> laptop vendors (they do exist). Alienware has a multimedia production 
> laptop you can check out.
>
> Also, when you are settling on a few models, carefully review their 
> specs and their online support forums and mailing lists for relevant 
> messages.
>
> That said, look for:
>
> 1. Fast disk
> 2. Fast front side bus
> 3. Fast video processor (so it isn't messing with your audio processing)
> 4. Lots of RAM. 1 gig at least.
> 5. High CPU speed. I don't whether AMD or Intel chips are better for 
> audio. Anything reasonably current (in stores now) and not low-end 
> should be sufficient.
>
> Regards,
> Mike
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Art Hunkins" 
> To: 
> Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 10:30 PM
> Subject: [Csnd] Windows Laptop for Real-Time Csound?
>
>
>> I'm looking for recommended specs for a Windows laptop dedicated to
>> real-time Csound performance. What are the 3-4 most important items to
>> consider?
>>
>> The on-board sound is a non-issue; but how important is processor 
>> type and
>> speed, as well as amount of memory? (I assume the faster speed and more
>> memory the better.)
>>
>> Art Hunkins
>>
>> -- 
>> Send bugs reports to this list.
>> To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@lists.bath.ac.uk
>>
>
>

-- 
Gabriel Maldonado
http://csounds.com/maldonado
--

Speaking to my support people here at the Uni, they said that it is not 
possible to
compare Centrino and P4s in terms of clock speed. They say these are completely
different processors and Centrinos can be as fast as P4s with higher clock 
speeds.
I don't really know it myself, but that's what I heard.

Also with Windows laptops, make sure you disable all power-saving features 
relating to
the processor, otherwise, when running on batteries, the processor will 
really slow down!

Victor

At 09:34 18/11/2005, you wrote:
>Regarding the processors, if battery charge duration is not an issue for 
>you, dont' choose the Intel Centrino processors, but the Pentium4 or 
>Athlon64 at the highest clock freqs. I say this because normally the 
>high-end Centrino processors have a clock quite lower than the high-end P4 
>and Athlon CPUs. Regarding the intel vs amd struggle, I find that for 
>brute number-crunching Athlon is better than Pentium4, but for 
>memory-transfer bandwith the latter is faster. So, if you are working with 
>a lot of samples stored in memory, maybe Pentium4 are better, instead, if 
>you are generating pure synthesized sounds, Athlon is better.

Victor Lazzarini
Music Technology Laboratory
Music Department
National University of Ireland, Maynooth 

There's a shareware app called Speedswitch which is useful for setting 
powersaving options:

http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/

Cheers,

Chris

Victor Lazzarini wrote:
> Speaking to my support people here at the Uni, they said that it is not 
> possible to
> compare Centrino and P4s in terms of clock speed. They say these are 
> completely
> different processors and Centrinos can be as fast as P4s with higher 
> clock speeds.
> I don't really know it myself, but that's what I heard.
> 
> Also with Windows laptops, make sure you disable all power-saving 
> features relating to
> the processor, otherwise, when running on batteries, the processor will 
> really slow down!
> 
> Victor
> 
> At 09:34 18/11/2005, you wrote:
> 
>> Regarding the processors, if battery charge duration is not an issue 
>> for you, dont' choose the Intel Centrino processors, but the Pentium4 
>> or Athlon64 at the highest clock freqs. I say this because normally 
>> the high-end Centrino processors have a clock quite lower than the 
>> high-end P4 and Athlon CPUs. Regarding the intel vs amd struggle, I 
>> find that for brute number-crunching Athlon is better than Pentium4, 
>> but for memory-transfer bandwith the latter is faster. So, if you are 
>> working with a lot of samples stored in memory, maybe Pentium4 are 
>> better, instead, if you are generating pure synthesized sounds, Athlon 
>> is better.
> 
> 
> Victor Lazzarini
> Music Technology Laboratory
> Music Department
> National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Centrino is a mobile processor designed to consume less power as a 
primary goal, and to vary power consumption at different usage 
situations. I agree that, at the same clock speed, a Centrino is faster 
than a Pentium4, mainly because the cache-memory size is 4 times bigger 
than that of the Pentium4 (2MB vs 512KB).  But the clock of the top 
Centrinos is 2.26 GHz whereas that of the top laptop Pentium4 is 
3.46GHz. Also, most desktop-replacement workstation laptop mount 
Pentium4, whereas business-oriented laptop mount Centrinos. I believe 
that for realtime audio applications Pentium4 is better than Centrino, 
even if I'm not certain of it.

Gabriel

Victor Lazzarini wrote:

> Speaking to my support people here at the Uni, they said that it is 
> not possible to
> compare Centrino and P4s in terms of clock speed. They say these are 
> completely
> different processors and Centrinos can be as fast as P4s with higher 
> clock speeds.
> I don't really know it myself, but that's what I heard.
>
> Also with Windows laptops, make sure you disable all power-saving 
> features relating to
> the processor, otherwise, when running on batteries, the processor 
> will really slow down!
>
> Victor
>
> At 09:34 18/11/2005, you wrote:
>
>> Regarding the processors, if battery charge duration is not an issue 
>> for you, dont' choose the Intel Centrino processors, but the Pentium4 
>> or Athlon64 at the highest clock freqs. I say this because normally 
>> the high-end Centrino processors have a clock quite lower than the 
>> high-end P4 and Athlon CPUs. Regarding the intel vs amd struggle, I 
>> find that for brute number-crunching Athlon is better than Pentium4, 
>> but for memory-transfer bandwith the latter is faster. So, if you are 
>> working with a lot of samples stored in memory, maybe Pentium4 are 
>> better, instead, if you are generating pure synthesized sounds, 
>> Athlon is better.
>
>
> Victor Lazzarini
> Music Technology Laboratory
> Music Department
> National University of Ireland, Maynooth


-- 
Gabriel Maldonado
http://csounds.com/maldonado
--