[Chimera-users] Chimera laptop features required

[Greg Couch]

What you want to get depends on how much data you want to visualize at 
one time.  If you are only looking at small molecules, almost any laptop 
will do.  If you are looking at bigger systems, then a laptop might not 
be good enough.

I don't think you can buy one anymore, but the best laptops were those 
with NVIDIA Quadro (not NVS) graphics and a 3D stereo display (120Mhz, 
3D glasses).  Chimera needs workstation graphics (NVIDIA Quadro or AMD 
FirePro/FireGL), to support 3D stereo viewing.

For most people, any decent gaming laptop will do.  My order of 
optimization would start the the graphics.  Stay away from Intel 
graphics, go for NVIDIA or AMD graphics -- the higher end, the better; 
and the more dedicated graphics memory, the better.  Next, pick a fast 
CPU -- some parts of Chimera are single-core CPU bound.  Next, more 
memory is better, 4GB for small data, 8/16/32 for larger data.  Screen 
resolution isn't that important -- higher screen resolutions need better 
graphics to keep the 3D interactive, and you can always use F11 to 
switch into and out of fullscreen graphics.  And a SSD is very, very 
nice, it will improve the overall responsiveness of the computer, but is 
not critical for Chimera.

But some people are happy with laptops that have Intel graphics. Again, 
it depends on how much data you want to visualize at one time.  Ideally, 
you would demo the laptop you want to buy with your data before buying 
it.  Next best thing would be to try out your friend's laptop.

You can see user-submitted Chimera benchmark results at 
http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/trac/chimera/wiki/benchmarks.  There aren't 
many results for recent graphics cards.  Please submit the results for 
the system you end up getting.

     Best of luck,

     Greg

On 2/18/19 7:43 AM, p.tapi at alice.it wrote:
> Sir,
> I'm going to use *USFC Chimera* program working for /*La Sapienza 
> University in Rome Italy*/ ...
> before to get the program, I would like to understand the best 
> recommended laptop features to easy run the program under *Microsoft 
> Windows WIN 10 platform *  ..
>
> May you answer me  regarding the *main laptop features* ( CPU type, 
> speed, RAM, SSD, screen resolution, etc ) *you recommended* ? What you 
> suggestions ?
>
> Thanks in advance
> Regards
>
> Silvia Taglieri
> Rome Italy
>
>
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