Laptop requirements for MaxSea Timezero

[FollowingCs]

The MaxSea timeZero Professional laptop requirements seem pretty bare bones, as all 'requirements' do. Anybody have practical experience? I know that a middle-of-the-road laptop that was 6 years old struggled with it, and the storage required for charts.

Any suggestions appreciated.

From MaxSea:
Microsoft® Windows® 7 SP1, Windows® 8.1 or Windows® 10
CPU 2 GHz
4GB of RAM
Video Board:
Minimum - Integrated Intel Graphic Chipset (i5 4th generation with HD4400 or above)
Recommended - (for PBG and Multi monitor)— Dedicated Video Board with 1GB VRAM
Screen Resolution: 1024 X 600 or higher
Hard Disk: 20 GB of free memory
USB or Serial Port for connecting instruments or 100 Base-T Network Adapter for Furuno Ethernet Sensors

Thanks,
FollowingCs

[ranger58sb]

I run MaxSea TimeZero on two different Windows platforms.

One is a 64-bit Win7 "Professional" laptop with 4 GB RAM, the other is a newer 64-bit Win7 "Ultimate" tower with 8GB RAM.

Don't remember clock speed for the laptop; this one is 3.40 GHz. Ditto don't remember video details on the laptop; I think nothing special. This one is an AMD HD 7570.

The laptop probably has a 500-Gb drive, IIRC. This one has two 1-Tb drives.

The laptop is about 7 years old. Seems to run MXTZ at about the same speed as the newer tower. If you need more info about the laptop, I can look that up next time I'm near it...

One of the members on trawlerforum complained MX TZ was too slow. I dunno what kind of system he may have been running. Ours works instantaneously (TZ) on both machines.

-Chris

[Kenomac]

Nobeltec which is the US version of Maxsea, requires a very specific graphics card to fun without freezing up. You'll want to check with Maxsea service before purchasing either the software or a new computer.

[W32PAMELA]

I've been building computers for Rob Cote of Ocean Currents Marine for several years. All his machines are running Nobeltec TZ in various configurations including 2 and 3 monitor installations without problem. His standard specs include:

core i5-4590S CPU using Intel HD4600 graphics
8Gb memory
500 Gb Hard drive
Windows 7 64 bit professional
4 com ports
12-24 volt PSU

In a laptop any of the latest Core i7 or Core i5 low power cpu's should do a good job. You could also put together a good low power machine based on a core i5 or core i7 NUC.

[barnakiel]

I have used it on two older machines, one a Lenovo Thinkpad and another a Medion gaming laptop. Both worked very well and without any hiccups.

They were strong machines but nothing fancy. Just what you get off the shelf, perhaps at USD500 mark or thereabout.

Cheers,
b.

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Nobeltec which is the US version of Maxsea....

The MaxSea version I have (TimeZero Navigator, v2.0.2) maybe predates anything to do with Nobeltec.

Been running it on the laptop for maybe 7 years now... and started on the predecessor to my current home machine at about the same time, eventually transferred from that to this current tower 3-4 years ago or so...

-Chris

[Crew of Turning]

We "had" been" using TZ version 1.7 on a Gateway net book LH2802 with windows 7. I will say that paying attention is important when Microsoft messes with your gear. Silly person here allowed WIN10 to install. We timed out on being able to reverse the process. We were stuck with W10 and discovered the hard way that W10 does not support the SQL server required tor TZ. Then W10 went into the endless loop screen of death. I have a new hdd coming my way to start over with my Win7 ISO. Should be fixed before spring thaw.

[ranger58sb]

Curiosity made me do it...

First, I just checked the laptop I mentioned earlier: Dell Latitude E6500, from 2/2010.
- Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 CPU at 2.80 GHz.
- 8 Gb RAM
- NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M graphic card, 4 Gb graphic memory (but only 256 Mb dedicated video memory)

Windows 7 Professional, Service Pack 1, with all updates. (No clue what makes it "Professional."

Installed MX TZ v1.9 in early 2011. Had problems with SQL, MaxSea (France) instructed easy fix.

Updated to v1.9.6 in early 2012. Ditto SQL problem, ditto easy fix from MaxSea.

Updated to v2.0.2 in 2013. Ditto SQL problem, ditto easy fix from MaxSea.

-Chris

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Crew of Turning

We "had" been" using TZ version 1.7 on a Gateway net book LH2802 with windows 7. I will say that paying attention is important when Microsoft messes with your gear. Silly person here allowed WIN10 to install. We timed out on being able to reverse the process. We were stuck with W10 and discovered the hard way that W10 does not support the SQL server required tor TZ. Then W10 went into the endless loop screen of death. I have a new hdd coming my way to start over with my Win7 ISO. Should be fixed before spring thaw.

Try disabling any hardrive disk compression.

[Olddave]

Originally Posted by FollowingCs

The MaxSea timeZero Professional laptop requirements seem pretty bare bones, as all 'requirements' do. Anybody have practical experience? I know that a middle-of-the-road laptop that was 6 years old struggled with it, and the storage required for charts.

Any suggestions appreciated.

From MaxSea:
Microsoft® Windows® 7 SP1, Windows® 8.1 or Windows® 10
CPU 2 GHz
4GB of RAM
Video Board:
Minimum - Integrated Intel Graphic Chipset (i5 4th generation with HD4400 or above)
Recommended - (for PBG and Multi monitor)— Dedicated Video Board with 1GB VRAM
Screen Resolution: 1024 X 600 or higher
Hard Disk: 20 GB of free memory
USB or Serial Port for connecting instruments or 100 Base-T Network Adapter for Furuno Ethernet Sensors

Thanks,
FollowingCs

I have always used the commercial fishing version, now called Time Zero Plot. Last year I updated to version 2.1.2
Plot needs a decent computer to cope with the memory required by generating your own 2D & 3D bathymetry via the echo sounder. I am no expert so I take the advice of a good tech & Maxsea if required.
The tech suggested the Acer Aspire E17 which works well.
Maxsea is great software, very intuitive, and so far Maxsea have not made dumb and needless changes to justify their existence.
Dave

[Lepke]

I run TZ Navigator v3 on a 2005 Dell desktop running Windows 7 without speed problems. This is my backup. It normally runs OpenCPN. TZ Navigator is normally run on a 2011 Mac PowerBook Pro also running windows 7. Mac is out being repaired. No problem with speed there either.
I tried windows 10 for a month. I will run 7 for as long as possible and hope Microsoft comes to their senses.

[reed1v]

Nowadays for about $250 you can get a dell laptop with plenty of ram(8-16) and memory(500-4t) to handle about anything you want. Our dell is not only quiet and cold, but you can slather it with all sorts of waterproofing that make it at least water resistant if not water proof.
You can also partition the hard drive and have one dedicated to the navigation without any other apps running.
Be sure if you are running windows to look at your task manager to see what is hogging resources. A lot of stuff can be shut down, put on manual, or even deleted with great increases in speed.
We like Windows10 but have a win7 laptop just in case win10 upgrades screw up.

[FollowingCs]

Thanks everyone for the replies. Sounds like my work requirements may be in line with the MaxSea software real-world requirements, so I should be able to get away with a fairly powerful $1k laptop and not have any issues at all. Sounds like MaxSea would probably run okay on less.

~ FollowingCs ~