Roger

Wasn’t there an AM developed short or character called Macca Strewth?

AMD has released drop-in 12 and 16 core socket 470 parts: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-9-3950x-zen-2,39615.html Price I've heard on the 16 core part is $750. The 12 core AMD part for $499 beats anything 12 core and under in Intel's current lineup. They have also released their new Navi graphics: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-navi-radeon_rx_5700_xt-rx_5700-details,39608.html

Since there are some people on here that have a casual or not-so casual interest in the nuts and bolts of CG, I thought I would post this Computer Graphics bundle from Humble Bundle. There are several good books in the bundle, easily worth the $15 price to get all of them: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/computer-graphics-crc-press-books?hmb_source=navbar&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=tile_index_5

What sorcery is this? When was this implemented?

I found this amusing:

I ran across this, there is a dataset for Notre Dame: http://phototour.cs.washington.edu/

Neat, I never knew paint-by-numbers was the invention of one guy.

I'm completely not surprised by this. The whole thing is incredibly shady.

I've never touched Java but I have used Borland Turbo C++ ages ago in college.

I might be interested. It has been years since I've done any programming, but if it applies to computer graphics I'd be interested. I've actually been thinking about learning Python but C++ might be more relevant.

And one last word about the budget laptops using the low-end dual cores (generally at the sub $300 price point): they tend to be lower power than a dual core system from back in the day. An AMD E-120 was a popular chip to put in budget laptops, but it is a sub 2ghz dual core chip. Other things that they do with these lower end systems to save on costs is they use single channel instead of dual channel RAM, slower 5400rpm hard drives (unless they use flash, in which case they tend to use a lower emmc flash module) and other measures to keep the costs down. If budget is really tight you're better off getting a used higher end system with a discrete chip that won't cause problems with AM, or trying to get a more modern budget system that makes fewer compromises.

I have bad news: virtually every laptop, that isn't advertised as a gaming laptop or workstation/desktop replacement laptop, has Intel graphics. That is how they keep the prices so low. With that in mind, Mark might be best served getting a laptop with a Ryzen 2500u or Ryzen 2700u, those are mobile chips with Vega graphics. They should be quite suitable for mobile AM work, but unfortunately I have never tested these personally.

That was my main concern with the laptop Mark posted, that is a lower-end chip I'm pretty sure. If he doesn't mind going used, he can get an X220 with a 1 year warranty for right around $200, I think this one might even have a tablet mode. Throw in an AM license and he is still under $300. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thinkpad-X230-12-5-INTEL-CORE-I5-3230M-2-60GHZ-8GB-128Gb-WINDOWS-10-PRO/222499822453?hash=item33ce05db75:rk:24:pf:0

Yeah but Win 2k is much lighter on system resources than what Win 10 is. Win 2k I think will work with a minimum of 128 to 256mb RAM where Win 10 has a minimum requirement of 2GB. So Win 2k with 2GB is using much less of the total system RAM than a Win 10 system with 2 or 4GB. 2 cores is probably just fine for AM on the go but I'd try for sure to get a minimum of 4gb RAM and either an i3 or i5 dual core. Ideally you would want whatever cpu you get to have a fairly high base clock speed.

The Costco laptop would probably be adequate but just barely. You really wouldn't be able to put much of anything but AM on it, for sure. I would try to get at least 8gb RAM, a quad core Intel or AMD cpu, and a 1080p display panel. If you don't have a full keyboard with numpad, you will want a plug in USB numpad for AM use. I don't know that I would want to try and use a dual core with 4gb, you might be ok with it at first but I think you'd become frustrated over time.