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Surface Book

joseftjoseft Posts: 310
edited December 2015 in The Commons

Hi All,

I have bought a microsoft surface book for when im travelling. I went with this due to it also doubling as a powerful tablet, that i intend to use for modelling in zbrush as an alternative to my desktop when im not at home.

Its probably a long shot, but has anyone else tried to use one of these for daz studio? Id like to know what its like. The version of the surface book that i have is the top of the range one, with the i7 chip and dedicated nvidia video card in the base. Nvidia and microsoft havent given much detail on the exact specs of this video card, other than it has 1gb gddr5 vram. Most agree that it is roughly equivalent to a 940M.

I figure using it as a tablet using daz studio would be impossible, but when its docked to the base it is like any other laptop, so its just going to be a matter of if it can handle navigating anything more than a very basic scene. I do not intent to try to render anything using it, only to setup scenes, create characters etc and then save them, and transfer to my desktop for rendering at other times.

Thoughts?

Post edited by joseft on

Comments

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,597

    How much memory does the tablet have?, and I mean internal running memory, not the SD memory used for download apps, movies, music etc. If the surface tablet is running normal windows I do not see why DS would not work, but you will need plenty of storage space on it for your runtime, unless there is a way of connecting it to an external drive. Is there a way to connect a mouse or a stylus pen? Without this it will be tricky to navigate DS's interface using just your fingers (unless you have super thin fingers)

  • StratDragonStratDragon Posts: 3,275
    joseft said:

    Hi All,

    I have bought a microsoft surface book for when im travelling. I went with this due to it also doubling as a powerful tablet, that i intend to use for modelling in zbrush as an alternative to my desktop when im not at home.

    Its probably a long shot, but has anyone else tried to use one of these for daz studio? Id like to know what its like. The version of the surface book that i have is the top of the range one, with the i7 chip and dedicated nvidia video card in the base. Nvidia and microsoft havent given much detail on the exact specs of this video card, other than it has 1gb gddr5 vram. Most agree that it is roughly equivalent to a 940M.

    I figure using it as a tablet using daz studio would be impossible, but when its docked to the base it is like any other laptop, so its just going to be a matter of if it can handle navigating anything more than a very basic scene. I do not intent to try to render anything using it, only to setup scenes, create characters etc and then save them, and transfer to my desktop for rendering at other times.

    Thoughts?

    from what I'm finding 1GB DDR on your GPU is going to seriously limit your abiility to do much with Iray but the i7 with enough RAM should be fine.

  • EtriganEtrigan Posts: 603
    edited December 2015

    I have the older Surface RT. My use is exactly the opposite of what you intend. I use my Surface WHILE I render cool.  I chose the Surface because it functioned as a Windows PC. No apps, gadgets, widgets or odd OS's to deal with. If you stick to prepping images, you should be fine. But, keep your charger handy. That much heavy use will not keep you in the "8-hour" use as advertised. Also, the RT doesn't support the pen as the Pro's do. Also, as it uses an SSD you may find constant write/rewrite hard on it. I find on mine that the drive fills rather quickly, but I bought the basic RT. I might suggest a large external USB drive to save Z-Brush and its products to. 

    Just my 2 pennies worth.

    Post edited by Etrigan on
  • joseftjoseft Posts: 310
    Havos said:

    How much memory does the tablet have?, and I mean internal running memory, not the SD memory used for download apps, movies, music etc. If the surface tablet is running normal windows I do not see why DS would not work, but you will need plenty of storage space on it for your runtime, unless there is a way of connecting it to an external drive. Is there a way to connect a mouse or a stylus pen? Without this it will be tricky to navigate DS's interface using just your fingers (unless you have super thin fingers)

    This particular model has 16gig ram. Storage space is 500gig, but it has multiple USB ports so i can extend that with an external hard drive to keep my runtime on.

    It has both a stylus pen and as said above, usb ports to connect a mouse, but i intend to get a bluetooth mouse for this and do it that way to save a usb port.

    I have just tried it for the first time, and it seems to run fine. I have loaded a a character and scene and seems to navigate ok. There is however, one problem. The resolution of the screen is 3000x2000, so the interface is quite small and does not scale up. So you have to strain to see what you are clicking on.

    Does anyone know if there are settings to help this? surely there are some people using 4k monitors that have run in to this same issue

     

     

  • HavosHavos Posts: 5,597
    joseft said:
    Havos said:

    How much memory does the tablet have?, and I mean internal running memory, not the SD memory used for download apps, movies, music etc. If the surface tablet is running normal windows I do not see why DS would not work, but you will need plenty of storage space on it for your runtime, unless there is a way of connecting it to an external drive. Is there a way to connect a mouse or a stylus pen? Without this it will be tricky to navigate DS's interface using just your fingers (unless you have super thin fingers)

    This particular model has 16gig ram. Storage space is 500gig, but it has multiple USB ports so i can extend that with an external hard drive to keep my runtime on.

    It has both a stylus pen and as said above, usb ports to connect a mouse, but i intend to get a bluetooth mouse for this and do it that way to save a usb port.

    I have just tried it for the first time, and it seems to run fine. I have loaded a a character and scene and seems to navigate ok. There is however, one problem. The resolution of the screen is 3000x2000, so the interface is quite small and does not scale up. So you have to strain to see what you are clicking on.

    Does anyone know if there are settings to help this? surely there are some people using 4k monitors that have run in to this same issue

     

     

    With Windows there are various options for increasing the size of on-screen assets, look under Control Panel "Appearence and Personalisation" and "Adjust Screen Resolution". However ideally you just want to increase the font size on DS, and I am fairly sure DS does not have the options to do this.

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