RowPro: which hardware software platforms work best?

[slnm]

I love my new C2 and I love the feature set in RowPro but I'm disappointed that I've not found a hardware/software platform to get RowPro to work reliably. I've had problems with my "XP era" XP laptop, in particular, with online rowing. So, I tried a second machine, a more modern Windows 7 machine and I have different problems, online and offline. The problems have to do with RowPro not getting updates from the PM4, the PM4 complaining about a software fault with the PC and occasional crashes on the Win 7 machine.

Yes, I've had conversations with the RowPro folks (and with C2 just in case they could provide some insight.)

For my third attempt at this I'm thinking of buying Windows 7 and running it under boot camp on my Mac PowerBook pro, which is a very new and very powerful machine.

I'm interested to know what combinations of hardware and OS have worked for RowPro users? And, which ones have you had problems with?

Thanks.

Sol

[Bob S.]

I'm interested to know what combinations of hardware and OS have worked for RowPro users? And, which ones have you had problems with?

I use a simple MacBook with OS 10.6.8, Parallels 5, and Windows XP. I have had a number of issues and problems, but most of them were a result of my own lack of computer sophistication. I am satisfied with the current performance of this combination although there are still a number of anomalies with the graphics, but that is a minor problem that I can live with.

The anomalies are mainly occasional color changes - light blue wakes showing behind the boat images, boats and rowers showing up in yellow and black instead of the specified colors, and foreground reflections that do not match the background scenery. Pete has given me advice about trying to correct these problems and I tried to follow the procedure. However there are several different alternatives and, having tried out the first one, I realized that it would be a very time-consuming process, since the problems don't necessarily show up right away. For example the blue wakes often show up only after several minutes into a piece. For that reason, I decided that it was easier just to put up with it.

Bob S.

Note: I am not into the online competition stuff, so I don't know how well my system would work with that.

[tjf0]

I'm interested to know what combinations of hardware and OS have worked for RowPro users? And, which ones have you had problems with?

Thanks.

Sol

I have been using an old IBM/Lenovo T60 for about a year which I resurrected from the garbage since it was really messed up would not even boot. I reimagined the machine with XP and it has worked fine. I only tried this one and was glad that it worked.

[Carl Watts]

For the Current version of RowPro I would be using a PC.

I just use an old HP DC7100 SFF PC that is running a single core 2.8GHz Pentium 4 with HT from the 2005-2006 era and it is as solid as a rock on Windows XP Pro SP3 and it got me through the Xmas FM without a hitch so thats 3 hours online without a glitch. You do however need a resonable graphics card and I recently upgraded to a HD 6450 with 1Gb of DDR3 to get 60fps. I am on the lookout for a 3.4GHz CPU for it if I can pick one up for $20

This would really be a minimum spec set-up and obviously a dual core CPU would be a whole lot better and a graphics card with just a bit more zip to give 75fps in high quality mode.

Laptops are a problem as they trail a desktop specifications wise in the CPU and are even further behind in the graphics so you need to spend alot of money relative to a desktop which over here can be purchased for like $50 plus an $80 video card. Should think I would need to spend $2000+ in comparison for something with similar performance.

[djh]

A good laptop with a decent video card should be fine. I run on a laptop with an i5 processor at around 60 frames per second. I run Windows 7 and it dies far too often. Trouble seems to happen most often when there are a lot of rowers. I think the server gets bogged down, not my laptop.

[slnm]

Thanks, everyone, for the replies.

At this point I've got my XP laptop in 2D mode, which I actually prefer to the 3D mode, working well with RowPro as long as I don't go online. I had to do quite a bit of cleanup to make that work (e.g. disable most programs from running at startup) but given that I really like the product and that the online rowing feature is a nice-to-have but not essential for me I think I'll continue with this setup for now. I do notice, though, that even in 2D mode, I only get 30-40 fps which does point to an underpowered graphics card, I imagine.

If I get the urge to do online rowing I might plunk down $100 for an OEM (not moveable) version of Windows 7 and run RowPro on my MacBook Pro.

I do realize that desktops typically have better graphics at a much lower cost than laptops. Can anyone recommend where I might buy a used desktop for cheap with a good graphics card, or one that I can buy a card for as that's another option?

Thanks.

Sol

[Carl Watts]

I rebuild all my PC's every 3 or 4 years as they just fill up with junk regardless of the disk cleanup or defrag.

The PC I use for RowPro is dedicated to this function only so the drive was zeroed and formatted and Windows XP PRO SP3 OEM was installed on a 10Gb partition and thats it along with the required system drivers and Windows Explorer 8 and the updates are turned off.

The result is a fast boot and about 3Gb of hardrive space used. Sounds like you could make your older laptop do the job in 2D with a little work.

Had a look over here and a new i5 laptop with a dedicated graphics card is over NZ$1300.