the_almost

For those that are in college (engineeering majors), I was wondering:

how much emphasis is placed on running graphic intensive applications on your LAPTOP? such as solidworks, autoCAD, ect.

Are you required to run these on your laptop, or is it fine to the computer labs for this. I know my state college seems to suggest that we would only use matlab and maple software (not graphics intensive). everything else done mostly in the labs.

The reason I'm asking is because I bought a computer with an integrated graphics card, (up to 256 apparently), and wanted to know if I made a big mistake.

sky

You won't be using graphics intensive programs much. Perhaps a bit in your intro to CAD class, and perhaps again in a senior design type class. Both of these would be done in school computer labs.

Even if you had to do it on your laptop, you will never be working on anything that really requires a lot of graphics. Your solid modeling projects will be relatively simple with only a few parts. That laptop should have more than enough graphics capabilities to handle it.

Slorg

You're fine. Don't sweat it.

UriA702

As long as you have a gig of ram or equivalent you will be fine. Most of the newer pc's are more than capable of running CAD and other design software.
If you really wanna save system resources - Format the p.c. and get rid of Vista If you are worried about system resources install a fresh copy of Windows XP
Vista really blows.

the_almost

Thanks,

I guess I knew that, but just need to hear it, or well read it