The perfect laptop features for running Gruss

[grimesy]

*** As per the BF General Betting Forum ***

Folks,

Long story short - my laptop is goosed & I will have to replace it with a new one.

No love lost, as the virtual memory was being dramatically drained when BA Gruss was in use; CPU usage was constantly near 100%.

[and no, am not knocking their wonderful product].

Here's the deal: still want to run BA Gruss & Excel, but it's over 6 years since I last purchased a laptop.

Tend to be better at the software rather than hardware side of the IT game...

Anyways, I do not know the "current" ideal RAM settings, etc for Gruss.

As such, I would like to kickstart a discussion on the "ideal" laptop hardware for running CPU-intensive commerical bots.

[MarkRussell]

Hi,

I don't have any specific suggestions regarding make and model.

In terms of specification, we recommend 2GB of RAM although you probably find most new laptops have more.
A 1 GHz Pentium processor or equivalent and again most new will be better.
A minimum screen resolution of 1024x768, but obviously the higher the resolution you will be able to see more of the grid and ladder interface.
Betting Assistant doesn't use much hard disk space so that will not be an issue.

If you are planning on using Excel you will need to ensure that you don't have the Click-to-Run or Excel Starter versions as these versions do not work with Betting Assistant.

Regards,
MArk

[Shaun]

The only thing i can suggest is find a laptop that will hold the most ram and make sure you have windows 7 64bit os.

For processors this could be a hard question as laptops have different processors to those of pc but make sure it is the latest processor as i have seen some laptops with good ram and windows 7 but have the old core 2 duo processor.

Get some specs of the laptops you are interested in and psot them here for us to look at.

[grimesy]

Here is what I'm thinking of buying:-

The Toshiba Satellite C660 is a great quality everyday laptop and features a 15.6 inch display and textured matte black finish. Added multimedia functionality includes a media card reader for quick and convenient transfers from your digital camera and more. This light weight laptop includes a built-in webcam and mic which is perfect for video calls all over the world.

CPU and Memory:

Intel Celeron dual core T3500 processor.
2.1GHz processor speed.
4GB DDR3 RAM memory.
500GB SATA hard drive.
Display features:

15.6 inch widescreen display.
High definition display.
Resolution 1366 x 768 pixels.
DVD optical drives:

DVD+RW/DVD-RW(read/write).
Dual layer.
Graphics:

Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M graphics card.
Interfaces and connectivity:

Secure Digital (SD), Multi-Media Card (MMC) compatible.
2 USB ports.
1 Ethernet port.
Multi-media features:

0.3MP built-in webcam.
Built-in mic.
Built-in sound system.
Operating system and software:

Microsoft Windows 7 Premium.
Software included:

Microsoft Home Office and Student (trial Version).
Anti-virus and security (trial version).
Windows media player.
General features:

Up to 4 hours battery life.
Size H3.56, W38, D25.4cm.
Weight 2.3kg.
EAN/MPN/UPC/ISBN: 4026203862920.

[MarkRussell]

Hi,

That spec is more than adequate to run Betting Assistant + Excel.

Regards,
Mark

[Shaun]

Processor was made about 12 months ago so not the latest technology, depends on what price they are asking.

[Shaun]

I had a bit more of a look and this laptop is an entry level laptop that has had an increase in memory and hard drive capacity.

The price for this should be around 500 so i guess it depends on how much you want to spend this will decide on the type of laptop you can buy.

[grimesy]

Thanks for the helpful advice on this thread.

I've also updated the thread on BF's general beeting forum, in the hope
of helping another user.

I went for the Toshiba C660 - 195 in the end; was retailing under the price above [by more than eur100!]; is in excess of the spec above; and had a free year's McAfee thrown in.

As trainer Gordon Elliot would say, "Happy days"

[Shaun]

Sounds good, hope you are happy with the laptop and i am sure Gruss will run fine.

Price often dictates what we can afford to buy and it is always best to at least get the best for your money, some retailers looked to exaggerate the products they see and it is always best to compare prices.

[dogform]

Just a comment re excel, would users know if there is any significant reduction in CPU usage if using excel 2003 rather than excel 2007/2010?

Out of choice I prefer the menu interface of Office 2003 to the menu interface of Office 2007/2010. I know that there are menu converters available but for simplicity I prefer excel 2003 and assumed it would be less CPU and RAM hungry?