VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 28 2010 - 10:45:08 CDT

Hi,
  Based on what I've read and heard from others, I would expect the
NVIDIA ion chipsets to do better than the integrated Intel graphics
that are often found on low-cost laptops these days. If you're running
Windows, the performance difference may only be a factor of 2x or so.
Under Linux, there are frequently serious problems with the drivers for
the Intel chipsets, so the performance difference approaches infinity. :)
The low-power AMD laptop chips are likely similar in performance to the
NVIDIA ion, but again, their Linux drivers aren't quite as smooth
the NVIDIA drivers, though far better than Intel's last I've heard.

I've been tempted to get one of the ion based netbooks as well, as I'd
heard good things from a graphics developer that uses one of the
HP mini 311 netbooks. I've been trying to eek along a bit longer with
my archaic IBM thinkpad before spending any money however. I've also
been hearing that there are various 3-D capable laptops coming out soon
(larger form factor, and 2x the price) so I may wait and see what happens
there.

Cheers,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 12:01:40PM -0700, Gianluca Interlandi wrote:
> Hi!
>
> It might be a bit off topic. I wanted to ask whether anybody has had any
> experience with the Asus EEE netbook:
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220805&cm_re=asus_eee-_-34-220-805-_-Product
>
> ASUS Eee PC 1215N-PU17-BK Black Intel Atom D525(1.80GHz) Dual Core 12.1"
> WXGA 2GB Memory 250GB HDD NetBook
>
> In particular concerning the graphics card: Next-generation NVIDIA ION
> graphics
>
> Has anybody tested it with glxgear, how many frames per second? Is it
> enough to run VMD on it and display and smoothly rotate a molecule (a few
> 100 AA) with SURF or VDW on? I plan to use it mainly for conference
> presentations. Does it have openGL 3D acceleration?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Gianluca
>
> -----------------------------------------------------
> Gianluca Interlandi, PhD gianluca_at_u.washington.edu
> +1 (206) 685 4435
> http://artemide.bioeng.washington.edu/
>
> Postdoc at the Department of Bioengineering
> at the University of Washington, Seattle WA U.S.A.
> ----------------------------------------------------- 

-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
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Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349
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