Does anyone animate on a MSI laptop?
MegaP
Posts: 178
Hi,I was wondering if I could animate on a MSI computer without fans and general wear and tear shortening its lifespan?
For some reason I have my heart set on a lap top but I'm guessing I may have to get get a fancy pants Workstation and send the render over to that? Still having to also buy an expensive computer...
I'd like to make scenes with a person or two in them and intensive backgrounds.
Ideal situation would be a lap top with an external monitor attached....
I'm a bit clueless and after a day with a rotten computer sales person I'm torn.
I've attached the specs on the computer and would LOVE a fellow Daz persons advice.
And oh yes,we sadly get ripped off on computer prices:-(
Your help is much appreciated
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Comments
Yes,$5200 Australian dollars and not even 64g in sight,that would bump it up way more????
Maybe a trip to Hong Kong would be nice after eating 2 minute noodles all year to save up?
Thanks for leaving a comment Ebergerly????
Sorry my emojis have turned into a thousand question marks
That’s not a bad laptop, but I think you can do better on the price for the same technology with a little more effort.
The one thing I'd say about laptops is that generally they're pretty limited on how much upgrading you can do in the future. For example, I have a piece of junk laptop with only 2 GB of RAM (which is useless) but it can't be upgraded. So I'm stuck. With a desktop, if you want to add more peripherals (PCI cards, memory, SSD/hard drives, etc.), you can do it, and also upgrade your power supply to accomodate the new stuff. With a laptop, not so much.
Also, if you're going to do a lot of rendering and decide in the future you want to upgrade your graphics card you might be limited. Though I think I've recently seen external GPU's in boxes. Not sure what bus they use to connect....
And I'm not sure whether a laptop GPU performs as well as a comparable desktop GPU. I recall early on there was a huge difference, but I'm not sure the state of the technology now.
I'm curious why the super high prices in Australia? Can't you just go online and order from Newegg or something?
If you're going to animate, you'll want to render the work and that means lots of heat. The typical DAZ user not into animation can get away with using a laptop. Laptops don't last long with all the heat, and I read about heatwaves in Australia every year, so another thing to consider. You can build a PC with water cooling, etc. to reduce the heat.
I have the little brother of the one you're looking at (MSI Apache Pro with the GTX 1060 6GB) and, while I'm not yet using it for animation in DAZ Studio, I'm convinced that if done right, it will work.
I have a less endowed and slightly older version of that laptop, and while I don't do animation, it renders fine. I would definitely get a cooling pad to go with the laptop if you have your heart set on it.
Laurie
You're so right,I'm going to hold off for a moment and see what's out there.Good thing is Australian is following Americas sales and it may be a little cheaper in the next few days.
Thanks for your input
Luckily with this one I can install more Ram etc at a later date.
Ive also being working with a piece of junk,an Apple surprisingly but after scrolling,loading and crashing it's time to hand over the money.
I was looking at Newegg and Amazon and praying some one would "send to Australia" but then I had to take into account huge freight cost $250-$350 US dollars and of course the adapter change over..then worldwide warranty being ok.
Hey Kevin,that's my exact thoughts..the heat.
Hoping the specs are fast enough it's not cooking for ages
Thanks Daywalker,at least I'm on the right track.
They seem to be good computers apart from a few minor issues,but I guess that's all computers today.
Yours is the nicer looking one of the two that's for sure.
Laurie,yes,yes,yes..a cooling pad.I totally forgot about those.
Good to know it's still keeping you rendering without issues,I've had a break for a year and missing it.
Great advice,thanks for your input.
I know there's a lot of hype about overheating computer hardware due to lots of use, but I think manufacturers design their hardware for continuous use. They have continuous temperature ratings, and their cooling systems are designed to ensure the hardware can operate within that range continuously. The problem comes when their cooling systems don't work because stuff like dust in the radiators and damaged fans and blocked vents. So it becomes important, especially with laptops, that people maintain their cooling systems and keep them clean and not blocked.
Yeah, it can't hurt to have a cooling pad with a fan to help the flow, but if your vents are blocked with dust that might not do much. So it's probably more important to buy a can of compressed air and regularly blow out the vents and cooling fins. And if you do buy a cooling pad with a fan, make sure that the fan is configured to draw heat from the vents. Which means the fans have to line up with your laptop's vents, etc.
I had a big ol' HP laptop years ago that started to run really hot, and it turns out the culprit was the cooling paste on the CPU was getting old, so I had to dismantle the laptop and change it out.
By the way, here's a nice HP support explanation of causes for laptop overheating and how to detect and repair. I suspect many of us have laptop internals that look pretty bad, kinda like the images they show. And especially with laptops where cooling doesn't have much leeway, it's that much more important we keep things working right
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01657439
Unfortunately, getting inside laptops and exposing the cooling stuff to clean is often a big pain, so it might take some work.
Looking at the cooling setup on this laptop, I highly doubt that a cooling pad would be needed.
On a sde note, this computer looks to be an easy one for the end user to clean dust out of the heatsinks.
Here is Notebookcheck's review of this laptop.
Adding an extra 32GB of RAM later on this system will be easy also. The two populated slots are under the keyboard, leaving the two empty ones under the main bottom cover easilty accessable for the end user.
The colors on the screen are pretty close to acurate out of the box, and reproduces 100% sRGB and 77% of the Adobe RGB spectrum
Things to keep in mind.
One more thing to consider:
If the computer is going to be a "desk jockey" that never moves, Your money would be better spent on a monster of a desktop computer.
Wow, that's some nice cooling
But as far as ease of getting inside a laptop, in my experience it takes a ton of work to get to the point shown in the photo. Keep in mind you have to remove the keyboard which is on top of all that, and more importantly remove the flip up screen/monitor and its hinge and stuff.
The way that one is laid out makes me wonder if you even need to get inside. Seems like a mostly closed system, so if you can clean the filter over the fan and vent externally you may be okay. I'm sure the instruction manual can give a good procedure for cleaning the dust and stuff.
I have seen desktop PC graphics cards get superhot doing animations in Iray, because the graphics card fan profiles are setup for gaming. Consequently, Laptops are not designed as 3D workstations. I know people are very moble and they want laptops so they can take their work with them but 3D animation is not something you can do realistically on a portable computer! You need a desktop pc with good airflow and plenty of fans moving air thru your case. If you need reasons for why laptops for 3D animation is a bad idea > The first reason is HEAT laptops are not designed to handle extreme heat and animation will heat up your components. The next reason is power animation is both processor hungry and memory hungry. The last is price for the price of a special tricked out laptop you can get a good workstation and a lowerend laptop to do surfing and some 3D work done. But in the end of the day people will still get what they want regardless of what good scense tells you so spend your money as you see fit.
Some questions:
Consequently, Laptops are not designed as 3D workstations.
To the OP, do not underestimate the seriousness of this warning. 3D workstations are engineered to take the load that animation rendering and other heavy simulations put on the processors and memory chips. There are some laptops that are designed to be 3D workstations. Perhaps you can look into those. I agree with the suggestion that if you don't absolutely have to be mobile, to buy a desktop if you are doing animations.
@abergerly - gaming doesn't stress a processor in the same way 3d rendering (especially animation) does. In a game, it's stop and go and it is never continually using the gpu or cpu 100%. A 3D render will use 100% of the hardware until the job is finished. That is an enormous stress on a laptop with limited room for ventilation. If it isn't labeled a workstation, I doubt it is designed for that type of load.
Hardware like this is designed to protect itself from damage. It has internal protection to shut down if temperatures get beyond continuous rating. My desktop's CPU and GPU reach rated continuous temperature during continuous rendering. They don't get even close to damaging temperatures. The fan(s) crank up if necessary, but the system is designed to maintain rated temperatures.
I'm not sure why people think that for some reason laptops aren't designed to stay within the continuous temperature rating when operated continuously at rated speed, etc.
Does anyone have any real data to support this? I'd be real interested to see if I'm operating under a misconception.
You are comparing your desktop temps to a laptop? So there should be no difference in ventilation and cooling between a normal PC and a 3D workstation, right?, since they both have the same hardware inside they are both equally able to take the punishment? And noone said (at least I didn't) that his/her laptop would explode if she tries to render animations. But I don't think he/she wants her processor to constantly shut down because of thermal overload. I'm sure she wants to do some actual work. If she buys the proper laptop for the job, she can get some work done without having problems with heat.
Again, if someone has some real data that shows that a laptop used for rendering keeps shutting down on thermal protection, while gaming on the same laptop doesn't shut it down, then that is clear indication that laptops are somehow inferior. Otherwise, I don't think we can say that a laptop will be inferior for rendering.
The real data is right in front of you. A laptop has a limited amount of space for ventilation, therefore more care needs to be taken in design so that it will withstand constant rendering. Every laptop isn't designed for this purpose. Common sense tells me that the heat (the enemy of the cpu) has to go somewhere and if the opening is too small..... I don't need someone to give me some data, I have a brain. The OP should take care as to what she chooses if her animation work is important.
drzap, I think what you may be confusing is this:
I think that, based on the factors you mentioned (space, etc.), a laptop cannot support the faster CPU's and GPU's, using higher frequencies and more threads, and therefore requiring more power and generating more heat. So what the designers do is place less powerful devices in laptops so they can balance perfomance with those space limitations. Of course they have to also improve cooling techniques (as shown in JamesJAB's foto) as devices get more and more powerful. But that is so that the devices can run continuously and maintain safe temperatures. And that is probably what people notice about laptop performance not matching desktops in some cases. Although I think GPU performance in laptops has improved drastically in recent years, compared to desktops.
So yes, the performance of a laptop might not compare with a desktop, but when operated continuously at rated speed/threads, the laptop shouldn't have any problem with continuous use, such as rendering.
It is your fallacious thinking that all laptops are created equal. 3D rendering is a very small niche of working. There isn't anything that taxes a computer like it, but very few people do it. So not every manufacturer is including 3d animation rendering in their "continuous use" definition. I am sure of that. Not every manufacturer is going to spend the extra money needed to ventilate properly for 3d rendering purposes. Hence, that is why they have a thing called "mobile workstation". I know you think it's marketing hype, but they are actually designed for 3d work. In every way, a laptop is inferior to a desktop for 3d work (unless it's a mobile workstation) . Every way, that is, except mobility. If she really needs to be mobile and if she buys a laptop designed for a heavily specialized work such as computer animation, she can rest assured that her work will be protected.
I still don't understand your thinking here. The laptop the OP is referrring to uses a GTX 1080, and has 32 GB of RAM. There are now laptops that are using a Ryzen 7 1700 CPU, with 8 cores/16 threads. AMD has made huge advances in power usage and performance of its mobile devices so that they can be used in laptops. So designers have been able to design cooling systems for those tight laptop spaces that allow these more powerful devices.
Of course Dreamworks isn't going to render their next feature using a bunch of laptops, but I assume for most of us here those are pretty powerful specs for a rendering machine. Do you have any data to show that rendering is far more stressful than gaming, and that rendering on these machines might cause problems?
YOu seem to request data an awful lot. If you need to know these things so much, why not gather your own data You don't play games, thats why you don't have data. Play some games and you will see what everyone is talking about. You are not an animator, so you don't understand what the fuss about keeping the computer cool. Listen to the advice of an animator and you will have your data. Common sense, dude.