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Title:	You and Your Laptop
Topics:	laptops, poll
Date:	2007-07-22 01:35
Security:	public
Mood:	curious

Just some random curiosity. ^_^ If you've got more than one laptop, answer for the most recent of them.

Poll #1025656 Your laptop

Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All. Participants: 52

Importance

View Answers

It's your primary computer

20(38.5%)

It's your sole computer

7(13.5%)

It's just one of your systems

22(42.3%)

Strictly for work purposes only

0(0.0%)

is a perfectly cromulent word

3(5.8%)

For most or all of the time, what OS does it run?

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OS X (Leopard, 10.5)

0(0.0%)

OS X (Tiger, 10.4)

17(33.3%)

OS X (Panther, 10.3)

2(3.9%)

Linux

6(11.8%)

*BSD

1(2.0%)

20(39.2%)

Vista

2(3.9%)

9.x

1(2.0%)

95/98/Me/2000

2(3.9%)

Something else

0(0.0%)

How many OSs do you use on it? (Different versions do count)

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Just the one

40(78.4%)

Two

9(17.6%)

Three or more

2(3.9%)

Do you use it for 3D gaming, eg Second Life?

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Yes

20(39.2%)

31(60.8%)

What processor clock speed does it have?

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400MHz or lower

4(7.8%)

Above 400MHz, up to 1GHz

5(9.8%)

Above 1GHz, up to 1.8GHz (single CPU)

20(39.2%)

Above 1GHz, up to 1.8GHz (dual CPU)

2(3.9%)

Above 1.8GHz (single GPU)

10(19.6%)

Above 1.8GHz (dual GPU)

9(17.6%)

Above 1.8GHz (quad CPU or better)

1(2.0%)

Graphics capability (yes, this is vague =:)

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Prehistoric (eg Rage 128 or earlier)

7(13.7%)

Integrated Intel graphics (eg GMA950 in a MacBook)

4(7.8%)

Somewhere in the middle (Radeon 9700 Mobility or earlier)

19(37.3%)

Recent

15(29.4%)

Best of breed (eg Nvidia 8600M-GT)

1(2.0%)

No idea

5(9.8%)

It comes with you

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to the office

3(6.5%)

to restaurants

0(0.0%)

in the bath

1(2.2%)

to parks/arboreta

1(2.2%)

by the bedside/on the bed

16(34.8%)

Longetivity - it's experienced

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a fall of more than two feet

1(2.4%)

being left somewhere unattended by accident

0(0.0%)

having a drink spilled on it

1(2.4%)

some other fluid accident

0(0.0%)

being stepped on or run over

1(2.4%)

horrors you can't even begin to imagine

3(7.3%)

love

12(29.3%)

:: :: 24 replies :: Reply

Title:	Untitled
Author:	discopanda
Date:	2007-07-22 02:17 (UTC)
Status:

...shouldn't 2000 be grouped with XP instead of 9x/Me, seeing as how 9x/ME are dos-based, while 2K/XP/2k3 are NT-5.x variants (2K=5.0, XP=5.1, 2k3=5.2)?

As for this laptop... Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600, PIII-900, Windows 2000 Pro, video calls itself "Trident Video Accelerator CyberBlade-XP" and SL flat-out refuses to run on it because of that...

As for condition... both hinges are broken, the wifi antenna wire run through one ofsaid hinges is broken, 13 of the keys are missing the part that goes over the rubber thingies underneath (the ] key is missing that too...) Oh, and sometimes the power cord (that it lives tethered to 24-7) sometimes needs wiggled in back a little to make it get external power.

:: Thread :: Reply

Title:	Untitled
Author:	porsupah
Date:	2007-07-22 02:38 (UTC)
Status:

I was thinking loosely more along the lines of popularity - XP and VIsta are the big ones as far as Windows goes, ne? (Compared to 2000 or Me)

Trident, ooh! Okay, that's well into the prehistoric. ^_^ (Things change - I once interviewed with S3, then a contender in the GPU stakes. Very nice office, but the interview went nowhere. Pity, but I'd've only been stuck in the South Bay; a lovely part of the world if you like concrete)

Ow! Look, I'm going to report you to the ASPCC if you don't do something about those hinges.

I may admit to Ocelot being in less than optimal condition, though.. it's just a hinge/cable problem, but looks very fairy (meant to be "hairy", but I like that typo). It's only a secondary system now anyway, so I've not felt any drive to go plunging into splaying PB parts everywhere.

Wiggling? Generally a very good thing, but not with power connectors. Not just a dry joint?

:: Thread :: Parent :: Reply

Title:	Untitled
Author:	discopanda
Date:	2007-07-23 00:54 (UTC)
Status:

Well, the hinges seized up first, so I suppose being broken /does/ give the advantage of being able to close the lid... :-P

And in case you wondered, yes, the majority of the missing keycaps are in the path of one of the broken hinges as the screen/lid swings on the video cable that runs through the other broken hinge.

BTW, know of any way to force SL to run on this thing even with the year-2000 hardware? I know I'd need to run it on lowest settings with everything disabled, and it'd probably run slow even then, but it'd still be good enough to go in and give people L$ or reply to a message from them or whatever... I'd even settle for a non-Linden client if I thought it'd do it...

:: Thread :: Parent :: Reply

Title:	Untitled
Author:	porsupah
Date:	2007-07-23 13:35 (UTC)
Status:

Oof.. it'd definitely be fairly painfully slow, but theoretically, it should work - the catch, as you've probably found, is the client insists on at least 16MB of VRAM. (Ocelot has 8MB, though in my case, that's usually split between the non-functional internal and the external monitor. Trying it on that gave a cool "mirroring into infinity" effect, with the window being flipped vertically each step)

I've not looked through the code much, but perhaps you could manually force a lower VRAM option. With any luck, that'd just mean not being able to cache much by way of textures, whilst still leaving it basically usable.

An alternative, though, might be the AJAX solution mentioned on Boing Boing a week or two back - text only, I think, but it'd be okay for being able to use SL as an IM network.

I wonder if anyone's working on bringing the client to older hardware? Might be worth poking around the developer wiki. Just a pity there are some closed libraries still - I'd love to hack around with a PSP version of the client. =:D

:: Thread :: Parent :: Reply

Title:	Untitled
Author:	porsupah
Date:	2007-07-24 00:26 (UTC)
Status:

Here's the outcome I mentioned, running SL on Ocelot, with too little VRAM:

:: Thread :: Parent :: Reply

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