Will GMA950 run 3D vista?

Hi.

I'm looking at the e1405 and e1505, leaning toward the e1405 because of the battery life.
Anyway, I'm planing to use this laptop for at least three years and I really want to be able to run VISTA in it's full power, meaning full support of the new AERO system.
Will the GMA950 run vista with all of the features that a X1300 would run it with?
I gotta mention that i'm not a gamer, not planing to connect external monitors and such, so I don't give a **** about the graphics card except for the VISTA thing.

 

this article might answer your question...

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060518-6863.html

 

OK so i guess it'll run it.
I also found some video on google with some guy running aero on a GMA950.

Man, I see you have the E1505, can you shed some light about battery life?

 

3 hours with the 6 cell

 

i havent had the laptop running on battery too often, but when it does i can get about 3.5-4hrs on a 9-cell. thats just normal everyday stuff, like browsing, etc.

 

Is this with WIFI? also what usage?
Will the battery hold about 2 hours of surfing with WIFI and about an hour of video on medium brightness?

also, i can get this machine of outlet:

Operating System
Genuine Windows XP Media Center 2005Memory
1 GB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz (2 DIMMs)Hard Disk Drive
80 GB EIDE Hard Drive (5400 RPM)Certified Refurbished
Certified RefurbishedBase
Inspiron 6400/E1505 Notebook: Intel Core Duo processor T2300 (2MB Cache/1.66GHz/667MHz FSB)Media Bay
8x DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capabilityNetwork Interface Card
1390 Wireless CardNoteBook Screen
15.4 in WXGA Notebook Screen
6 cell battery
600$
This will be less than 700$ with shipping to my house in europe.
Is it worth it?

edit:
toshio, i saw your commet just now and you really disappointed me.
Only 3.5h on 9 cell??? this means just over 2 for 6 cell.
I guess I have to pick up a 9 cell battery now.

 

its 3-4 hours with both bluetooth and wifi on.

and thats not a bad price.

 

Going with the GMA950 on the plan of running Vista is a bad plan.

The OS hasn't even been relesed yet and this is the absolute minimum claimed need to get by with in the hardware specs that have to date been released. Don't expect it to get better once the release hits the streets.

Not sure how long you've been using any Windows based OS, but if your at least a single version hardened you should know by now running anything at the absolute minimum requirements microsoft claims needed to run one of their OS's is just about enough for you to run the OS without completely and regularly locking up or at least being able to just install it and thats not taking into consideration anything else you may be running at the same time.

Take a look into what they claim the requirements are to run Windows XP, then buy a system under those specs and actualy try to run Windows XP on it some time.

If your looking to buy a system today capable of running the OS of tomorrow then you'll just have to suffer through spending the extra cash and buying a little bit better than the minimum technology available out there today. The minimal technology available today is not going to last you 3 usefull years like your wanting.

 

These are all good points. A good rule to go by is to double whatever the "minimum" specs are. Vista requires a minimum of 128MB of dedicated memory for video in order to run Aero. I'd suggest a card that has at least 256MB dedicated memory if you want to see Aero run smoothly. I'd also suggest 2GB of system memory as well, especially if you are planning on keep the laptop for 3 years.

 

Good Article thanks

 

Do you really think aero is so graphics consuming so that the GMA950 would deal with it?
I can deal with it if it's a little slow.
Isn't there someone who used the beta version of vista with the GMA950?
About the memory, I totaly agree 2GB would be a must have in a year or 2, but for now I can deal with 512 of 1GB(My desktop has 512 and I have no need for more, especially on the laptop which will run only office programmes).
Upgrading memory is easy thouge, 80$ and a new 1GB dimm is at your front door, so I can buy one when i'll fell i need it.

ohh, just a thought, is it possible to buy a graphics card for the E1505 in say a year and put it in there?

 

I have the GMA950 on my E1505. I tried two of the Betas..5308 being the last one, for whatever reason Aero was not enabled. I tried to enable it using the hotkey combo but to no avail. Now, the issue could be that I didn't have a valid activation key, hence some features may have been disabled.

I've signed up for the next beta release legitimately this time...so once it's out I'll probably give it another try. I think it's due out within a few weeks.

 

If you order the E1505 with the GMA950, you cannot upgrade it later. The GMA 950 is built into the system board, and there is no slot available for an upgraded card.

 

According to the MS upgrade advisor my E1405 will run vista aero. Don't know how trustworthy it is though.

 

damn

Well, I guess i'll just have to wait a little, since my budget is 800$ at best and I can deal with my desktop until I stary the university in september.
Those intel merom 64bit dual core chips should be out by then, right?
Do you think i'll be able to get a system with over 1GB, some graphic card that'll run aero, a merom chip and about 3.5hr battey for less than 700 before tax and everything by then(and it has to be either dell or lenovo)?

 

will running aero eat battery life? If it takes this much graphical power, its going to be like playing a video game on your laptop. And if your using a g950 graphics card, then your probably going to be utilizing your graphical capabilities to their fullest extent. I bet a lot of people will be turning aero off just to get bettery battery life.

 

I doubt it but you never know

If the visat aero GUI is forcing the GPU to run at full tilt(and consequently the fan to deal with the heat) then yse you could notice a slight decrease in battery life but probably nothing significant.

 

Actually i never thought about it eating up my battery, which it'll probably will.
Can anyone tell me what aero will bring except the new cool alt-tab screen and some fancy visual effects?

 

what do you mean nothing significant???! If it is consuming as much power as it would be if you were gaming, then your battery life should be shortened significantly.

 

Noxxle, sounds like your still running windows 3.11, it'll consume next to no battery life at all. You could probably make a 4 cell battery run a full week on Windows 3.11.

If battery life is your goal and someone out there actually wants a copy of Windows 3.11 I have a copy of it still and will give it to you, just PM me and I'll send you a download link for the complete OS on an ISo file from the original floppy disk installation.

It's a massive 174 Mb for the entire OS installation and I have to seriously doubt Microsoft is going to care about me sharing it. You could drop the entire OS in a download over even a dial up connection in less than 10 minutes, oh the good old days, no installation keys or registration required.

I seriously do still have it though and it would make a good collectors item to any ones collection if they want it.

Actually if someone wants a copy I'll just make it an even smaller to download .zip file. It doesn't get more old school than that though.

 

Im in Microsoft's Vista tester group, but I haven't tried installing any of the builds on my E1405 yet. Its still to new for me to screw up. And I'd hate to lose my MediaDirect Ability just yet.