Bobbsy
Boring Old Git
Knowing how to cut and paste random articles (and spout lots of random but meaningless facts such as your ever-so-stupid lecture on D-sub connectors) doesn't make you an expert. Stop trolling.
Steenamaroo
...
lol. The OP said
What else could this thread be?
Besides, I don't even really see the debate. It's been pretty balanced so far.
Re-read my post.
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J
johnnywayne
New member
This'll be my last post to you in this thread.
I don't know what you are referring to when you say 'knowing how to cut and past articles...doesn't make you an expert.' I agree it wouldn't. I disagree that I cut and pasted any article at all and I kind of resent it. I did cut and paste a quote from the seller or advertisement of the computer he is/was thinking about, to show the seller knew what they were selling.
I don't know what is wrong with spouting facts if that's indeed what I was doing, I'm not sure I was spouting. I was defending my argument (without ad hominem, internet discussion forum type attacks) that the OP should not look for anything with a VGA output. Yes, they make a D-Sub connector that runs whatever you have, I'm still not sure it's 1080HD, I'm going to have to look up to see if they do make one with resolutions that high, but like I said, I'm often wrong, I just don't remember one. My guess is that you didn't know the difference and looked up 'd-sub 15 pin connector' so as to not look ignorant in the face of my admonition to not look for a VGA output. I still recommend that no one look for any computer with a VGA output. In the studio, we use many D-sub connectors. ADATs , to preamps, to standard soundcard or ProTools AES plugs are all D-subs, usually DA or DB, but we have never called them VGA connectors and rarely D-subs (but that has happened). We usually call it what we want, an AES cable or whatnot. They, and connectors that carry different signals, are not VGA cables, nor are the plugs. It's confusing to me (obviously, though I would still warn against anything whose highest resolution is 10-whatever by 7-whatever); it's analogous to asking someone to hand you those VCR, you know, those camcorder wires, when you want are the RCA cables. Or, I'm in a wheelchair that charges by an XLR jack; if, instead of the charger cable I asked for the mic cable, my helper would have no idea what I was talking about. I understand this example of 'mic cable' is used in the way I'm suggesting most things aren't, there are exceptions. We might say we needed that mic cable by your hand instead of that 3 pronged balanced cabled, but that's because it's much more used for mics than as a balanced cable (or a wheelchair cable). VGA cables aren't, any computer box will say d-sub or the resolution or d-"whatever the number of actual pins are'.
I don't recall proclaiming to be an expert at anything. I did say I knew a lot about computers. I know a lot about sound. I also know a lot about design. That's about all I know a lot about. I know a good bit about audio. I know a little bit about whiskey. I know very little about the pre-cambrian period (including probably how to spell it) and I know nothing about the internals of electronics. Some of our interests in a forum are going to overlap of course with many of you also knowing a lot about sound, maybe a lot more about audio, maybe some more about everything than I. But I didn't claim to be an expert..
Steenamaroo
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Ok, seems we're losing it here over a technicality.
Not something you see often on a forum. <sigh>
From what I can see VGA, technically, refers to 640x480 at 16 or 256 colours.
In common usage, people generally say VGA and mean 15 pin analog video output.
Can we just accept the common usage here and move on?
Also, purely out of interest, is VGA (or 15 pin analog video output) still relevant?
I thought it had been largely replaced by DVI, HDMI and mini display port.
Not something you see often on a forum. <sigh>
From what I can see VGA, technically, refers to 640x480 at 16 or 256 colours.
In common usage, people generally say VGA and mean 15 pin analog video output.
Can we just accept the common usage here and move on?
Also, purely out of interest, is VGA (or 15 pin analog video output) still relevant?
I thought it had been largely replaced by DVI, HDMI and mini display port.
J
johnnywayne
New member
All of which were exactly my points. I suggested (rather, begged) OP to not look for VGA output as had been suggested, assuming they meant that or even if they had meant the very similar same color, same 'D' shaped video output capable of a bit higher resolution.
For the reasons you state.
It has been replaced by those and a few others. You'll still see it onboard some motherboards but it's VERY rarely on discrete graphics cards.
Displayport and HDMI being the most common (my near top tier new card containing 3 Displayport, 1 HDMI and 1 DVI).
Out of interest, I wonder if DVI will stick around as it doesn't carry sound and it's not good for multiple displays. Displayport can run multiple displays natively, as can Thunderbolt, i.e. daisy-chained. HDMI cannot.
All three of the latter carry audio. I don't have any idea how many people that's relevant to, but it's a nice feature to have when I take my laptop to a hotel or want to play a movie on a friend's tv, etc.
I don't know if gamers, who care more about many displays, use that audio or discrete cards. Some onboard audio is incredibly advanced with my last motherboard having the audio separated from the main pcb and left and right channels being separated from themselves as well. There were even changeable op-amps, though I think that was more of a gimmick, basically just different changeable, built-in eqs, sort of like the dsp that picks 'live' or 'living room' in your audio card set up. Gold plated RCA jacks now, 192khz 24 bit, pretty advanced stuff for built in consumer gamer material.
I would think that most people here would use external whatever or even maybe some legacy internal add-on cards. Someone might remember the ones that you could add into your pc that had 8 XLRs hanging out the back or whatever with matching preamps built in on the internal board. The do still make them, though I don't see them much. Anyway, getting off topic.
I'd just be interested to know if anyone uses the audio from the graphics output for anything specifically sound related. Maybe summing to mono through an Avatone (especially a vintage one, when that only meant a piece of crap mono cube and not amped monitors, before they started becoming popular again) or something, like a car or earbud mix. I don't know.
Armistice
Son of Yoda
I'm using a Xeon processor and 16GB of RAM handling songs with up to 60 tracks including many VSTis and resource heavy VSTs, incidentally. Hardly breaks into a sweat.
J
johnnywayne
New member
To actually answer your question if you don't want to try my Mac:
If I were looking in the price range of the smallest Macbook Pro, I would also look at the vastly superior (in technology and specification, not talking about the operating system. That's still to each his own.) MSI here:
MSI GS Series GS60 Ghost Pro-002 Gaming Laptop 6th Generation Intel Core i7 6700HQ (2.60 GHz) 16 GB Memory 1 TB HDD 128 GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3 GB GDDR5 15.6" Windows 10 Home 64-Bit - Newegg.com
Though I do believe you'll have to wait about a week, I don't think the 'Skylake' i7 is released yet.
This is only because it's in the same price range as the smallest Macbook Pro, this is way more computer than you need with the current software.
You don't need the graphics card, but if you play games you'll be happy you have one of the best and it offers you both a mini-Displayport and a mini HDMI for multiple screens. With an external mouse and keyboard this could serve as a very powerful desktop too.
DDR4 ram is still very new and very fast and will handle plugins better, plus there is 16GB of it which is a lot right now, expandable to 64 if virtual reality ever comes out or the Oculus Rift makes it to a laptop. I can't think of any reason to use that much ram.
It has a small solid state hard drive for the operating system and quite a few main programs and then also a large regular hard drive for samples, music, movies, etc.
This is a beast. Even for a desktop. And with the ability to run at least two monitors with the HDMI and Displayport, probably 3, maybe 4 with the Displayport, with an external mouse and keyboard, just shut the top and put it off to the side and it'll be just like having a really powerful desktop.
There are steps down from this of course. I would tend to stay in the gaming area even though you don't necessarily need the card. Though it wouldn't hurt if you want to use more displays to run a web browser, your DAW, and your plugins at the same time.
But the gaming laptops (and computers, in general) tend to have everything else you'll want. (Or, a workstation would too, but there's no reason to pay for it if you watch the video I posted earlier, you won't need ECC ram or error correcting RAIDs.)
Like everyone has said, eight gigs of ram is where you want to start, more if you can afford it.
i7 or i5 doesn't matter unless the i5 doesn't have hyper threading, watch for that. It's basically double the number of processors. The amount of cores is essential to multi-tasking and I count plugins and addons as mini programs and so that counts as multi tasking.
The newest generation of Macbook Pros look really good too though. The price is around double for whatever you get.
If I were looking in the price range of the smallest Macbook Pro, I would also look at the vastly superior (in technology and specification, not talking about the operating system. That's still to each his own.) MSI here:
MSI GS Series GS60 Ghost Pro-002 Gaming Laptop 6th Generation Intel Core i7 6700HQ (2.60 GHz) 16 GB Memory 1 TB HDD 128 GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3 GB GDDR5 15.6" Windows 10 Home 64-Bit - Newegg.com
Though I do believe you'll have to wait about a week, I don't think the 'Skylake' i7 is released yet.
This is only because it's in the same price range as the smallest Macbook Pro, this is way more computer than you need with the current software.
You don't need the graphics card, but if you play games you'll be happy you have one of the best and it offers you both a mini-Displayport and a mini HDMI for multiple screens. With an external mouse and keyboard this could serve as a very powerful desktop too.
DDR4 ram is still very new and very fast and will handle plugins better, plus there is 16GB of it which is a lot right now, expandable to 64 if virtual reality ever comes out or the Oculus Rift makes it to a laptop. I can't think of any reason to use that much ram.
It has a small solid state hard drive for the operating system and quite a few main programs and then also a large regular hard drive for samples, music, movies, etc.
This is a beast. Even for a desktop. And with the ability to run at least two monitors with the HDMI and Displayport, probably 3, maybe 4 with the Displayport, with an external mouse and keyboard, just shut the top and put it off to the side and it'll be just like having a really powerful desktop.
There are steps down from this of course. I would tend to stay in the gaming area even though you don't necessarily need the card. Though it wouldn't hurt if you want to use more displays to run a web browser, your DAW, and your plugins at the same time.
But the gaming laptops (and computers, in general) tend to have everything else you'll want. (Or, a workstation would too, but there's no reason to pay for it if you watch the video I posted earlier, you won't need ECC ram or error correcting RAIDs.)
Like everyone has said, eight gigs of ram is where you want to start, more if you can afford it.
i7 or i5 doesn't matter unless the i5 doesn't have hyper threading, watch for that. It's basically double the number of processors. The amount of cores is essential to multi-tasking and I count plugins and addons as mini programs and so that counts as multi tasking.
The newest generation of Macbook Pros look really good too though. The price is around double for whatever you get.