Date: 4/30/2008 6:01 pm
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Hello all;
I'm new to Sketchup and I have the opportunity to purchase an early 2007(late 2006?) Macbook from a friend with:
2GHz processor
2GB memory
80 GB Hard drive with 80 GB external HD
and around a 64? MB video card (the late 2007 seem to have a 144MB video card)
I'm not terribly computer literate and Sketchup is really the first application that has got me excited about what you can do with a computer.
Can anyone tell me if this Macbook will do the job for me?
I'm a bit concerned about the video card.
Cheers Greg
Date: 5/1/2008 10:42 am
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yeah, it will probably work fine, but only having 64Mb on that video card is probably gonna suck a little bit. you'll notice that more complicated models will go to wireframe mode when you try to orbit. also, shadows and styles will not perform terribly well. meaning, that if you try changing the shadows from 1pm to 4pm by moving the shadow slider, the movement of the shadows will be a bit jerky. things like that. the other thing you'll want to check when you get the laptop, is to make sure you've installed the latest Open GL drivers for whichever graphics card you have. You can find the specs for your card by clicking on the little apple icon in the top left of your screen then choose > about this mac > more info > hardware > graphics/displays.
once you've figured out what kind of card you've got, you can usually look that specific card up on the graphics card manufacturer website and download the latest drivers from there.
the rest of the specs sound alright.
hope that helps.
-mike
Date: 5/20/2008 5:40 am
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mike,
sorry, but there seems to be no updating for graphics cards on macs. if you go to the nvidia site, for instance, you will see that they only provide driver updates for windows, linux and solaris.
unless there is another path to them, of course, but i would not bet on it.