About to order T60P - Advise required for heavy apps.

[gettingDeep]

Hello All,
I'm just about to order a T60p.
And need some guidance on the following points -

1.) ATI Mobility FireGL V5250 [Nothing comprehensive about it on it. Googled a lot !]

2.) For S-Video & Firewire - Is there a USB connector/converter for the same available ? ":?"

3.) Has anyone upgraded the thinkpad to include a better graphics card ? I'm going to play games once is a while, nothing fancy, just "Command & Conquer", it runs fine on my T41, which has ATI Radeon 7500. I just hope that the FireGL is way powerful than that, I've heard rumors that V5250 is based on X1700 but nothing confirmed.

4.) I'm going to load the system with VMWare, and run 3 O.S's and an Application Server, i.e. Windows Xp pro. And linux & solaris 10 on VmWare, alternatively an App. Server [JBoss or similar] will run on one of them. Hence I'm planning for 2 GB mem., would it be enough ? Only one VMWare Os will be active at one time though.

5.) The DVD writer upgrade [baout $60] - will it write to +/-R, RW and stuff too ?

Here are the specs I'm planning for -
T7200 [2.0 Ghz]
2 GB RAM, 677 Mhz
100GB HDD 7200 RPM
ATI Mobility Fire GL V5250
SATA slim bay for another HD.

I'm going for this config, since I need a system to really perform under the load, and also be good for 3-4 years.

I'm addicted to Thinkpad, and have high hopes from the T60p.
My currently T41 has 2 GB too, and has served excellently for the last 2 years.


Any suggestions/comments from you all would be great.
++Thanks

[CarrerCrytharis]

Well, I've burned DVD-R's and DVD-RW's (I think, not sure whether they were + or -) with the DVD burner on mine. Also, the device name that shows up in Windows has 'DVD-RAM' in it, so it might be able to burn those too.

[brentpresley]

1) top of the line video in thinkpad, there is nothing better available

2) no converter. you MIGHT be able to get a pcmcia card

3) video is NOT upgradeable on T60 (soldered to motherboard, like almost ALL laptops)

4) 2GB should be plenty

5) yes

[jdhurst]

VMware 5.x runs fine on a T23, T30 and T41, so it sure should run fine on a T60. I run as many as three machines at once, the limitation being RAM as I only have 768Mb. But even with that, host plus two guests works fine. ... JD Hurst

[gettingDeep]

CarrerCrytharis -
Thanks ! I see that you own a D610 too. Dell D820 was another laptop I was looking at apart from T60p.
It has Firewire & S-Video too, but seems I'm too afraid to trust any other machine.
What would your opinion be ?
I found the following about the card recently -

FireGL V5250
- 12 pixel shader processors
- 5 vertex shader processors
- 256-bit 4-channel DDR1/DDR2/GDDR3 memory interface

while the old cards have these specs -
Radeon X1300/X1400:
- 4 pixel shader processors
- 2 vertex shader processors
- 128-bit 4-channel DDR1/DDR2/GDDR3 memory interface
It sounds better, however X1300/X1400 aren't much to compare.
Any Graphics card Guru who can comment on this ?

brentpresley -
Thanks. I understand that V5250 is the best card available in Thinkpad, however
does anyone know how it fares with other comparable laptops. I understand that thinkpad isn't
a gaming machine, but all work and no play makes..

jdhurst -
Good to know that someone does exactly what I'll be doing !!! This is great !
May I know which OS's and whether you run anything heavy in them ?

[jdhurst]

<snip>
jdhurst -
Good to know that someone does exactly what I'll be doing !!! This is great !
May I know which OS's and whether you run anything heavy in them ?

On the T41, I have Windows 98 with Office 97 for testing apps in a sandbox; Windows NT4 with Office 97 that I use very little; Windows 2000 with Office 2000 for testing apps of all kinds; Ubuntu Linux 5.05 with Open Office 2 and Firefox that I use for testing Linux apps (Ethereal, Nessus, GCC and so on). I have a DOS 6.3 machine but it does not see much use now. I don't see any particular limitation in any machine except that the machine hardware is VMware's virtual hardware. That can limit video and gaming, but that doesn't bother me.

I have Ubuntu 6.06 on my NetVista desktop, SuSE 9 and a bunch of RedHat machines. I also have a Windows XP Pro sandbox on the desktop.

... JD Hurst

[CarrerCrytharis]

CarrerCrytharis -
Thanks ! I see that you own a D610 too. Dell D820 was another laptop I was looking at apart from T60p.
It has Firewire & S-Video too, but seems I'm too afraid to trust any other machine.
What would your opinion be ?

Glad I could help. I wouldn't recommend a Dell machine, since my D610 is, quite honestly, rather horrible. I have had to have the DVD drive, the motherboard, the keyboard, the touchpad, and the AC adapter all replaced at some point or other because they wore out or just stopped working properly.

Also, the sound quality is hideous through the onboard sound chip, and the headphone jack doesn't work properly anymore (even though I haven't used it more than once).

The Dx20 generation might be more robust, but I wouldn't risk getting a crappy machine if I were you.

[gettingDeep]

<snip>
jdhurst -
Good to know that someone does exactly what I'll be doing !!! This is great !
May I know which OS's and whether you run anything heavy in them ?

On the T41, I have Windows 98 with Office 97 for testing apps in a sandbox; Windows NT4 with Office 97 that I use very little; Windows 2000 with Office 2000 for testing apps of all kinds; Ubuntu Linux 5.05 with Open Office 2 and Firefox that I use for testing Linux apps (Ethereal, Nessus, GCC and so on). I have a DOS 6.3 machine but it does not see much use now. I don't see any particular limitation in any machine except that the machine hardware is VMware's virtual hardware. That can limit video and gaming, but that doesn't bother me.

I have Ubuntu 6.06 on my NetVista desktop, SuSE 9 and a bunch of RedHat machines. I also have a Windows XP Pro sandbox on the desktop.

... JD Hurst

Cool ! Thats a lot of stuff on one machine.
Thanks again. My questions are answered about the load.

[gettingDeep]

CarrerCrytharis -
Thanks ! I see that you own a D610 too. Dell D820 was another laptop I was looking at apart from T60p.
It has Firewire & S-Video too, but seems I'm too afraid to trust any other machine.
What would your opinion be ?

Glad I could help. I wouldn't recommend a Dell machine, since my D610 is, quite honestly, rather horrible. I have had to have the DVD drive, the motherboard, the keyboard, the touchpad, and the AC adapter all replaced at some point or other because they wore out or just stopped working properly.

Also, the sound quality is hideous through the onboard sound chip, and the headphone jack doesn't work properly anymore (even though I haven't used it more than once).

The Dx20 generation might be more robust, but I wouldn't risk getting a crappy machine if I were you.

Thanks CarrerCrytharis !
Well, that closes the Dell chapter for me. [again].