Surface Laptop OK 15" OK for Cubase Pro 11?

Cubase
1

Hello.
I plan to buy a Surface Laptop 3 :
8 Gb Ram, 256 Gb SSD, AMD Ryzen 3550U
15" screen, 2496 x 1664 => 200 DPI (vs 92 for a 24" full HD)
I’m wondering if Cubase Pro 11 will run fine on it ?

  1. Is 8 Gb Ram enough ?
  2. Is AMD Ryzen 3550U fast enough ?
  3. And main question :
    How is handled High DPI in Cubase 11 ?
    Is the scaling only 100 or 200% (as in C10) or is there now intermediate scalings available ?
    And how do VST instruments like Halion and so one handle that point ?

Thanks for advance.
Fred.

2

You may want to check Robin Vincent’s videos on using the Surface for music production (molten music)

3

Thanks, but my question is rather about Surface Laptop (15 inches). And these videos are sooooo long …

4

I’ll try to answer myself.

  1. RAM : See 2

  2. CPU : I have read the requirements, but I wonder if it’ll be enough with complex configurations : many tracks and/or VST instruments.

  3. Screen Resolution :
    Surface Laptop is set at 150% Scaling.
    Cubase Pro 11 should conform to this.
    VST instruments seems to be on a 100% or 200% basis, so, 150% should give a 200% scaling.
    But given the size of their windows, it should fit in the screen (which resolution is 2496 x 1664).
    Here’s the sizes and what I found in the manuals :

  • Grove Agent SE 5 : 1028 x 693 : 100% or 200% scaling
  • Halion Sonic SE 3 : 900 x 765 : 100% or 200% scaling
  • Loop Mash 2 : 990 x 723 : unknown
  • Mystic : 863 x 689 : unknow
  • PadShop 2 : 920 x 706 : 100% or 200% scaling
  • Prologue : 863 x 689 : unknnow
  • Retrologue 2 : 918 x 702 : unknown
  • Spector : 863 x 689 : unknown

Thanks … to me :slight_smile:
Still waiting for advices on questions 1 and 2 … and even 3.
Thanks … for advance :slight_smile:

5

I still answer my self.
For now, I’d rather go with somthing with a larger screen.
I thing a 17 inch screen in QHD+ (2560 x 1600) is a better choice.

6

Screen on a laptop is half-ignorable since you can easily hook it up to an external monitor in places where you are fairly stationary.

That being said, this is a bad spec package for music production:

  1. 8GB RAM is not enough. Windows 10 (and macOS, for that matter) uses like 3GB of RAM out of the gate. There simply isn’t enough breathing room, IMO. 16GB is pretty much industry-standard minimum requirements for any creative work.

  2. Ryzen 3550U is not worth it in a machine that costs over $1,000, when you can get Ryzen 9 4900HS Laptops (or the Ryzen 7s) for like not much more (or cheaper).

  3. Screen doesn’t matter [as much as many will say, in most cases]. Doing music production on a lone laptop screen is extremely claustrophobic, unless you’re using a 17.3" UHD laptop, and those aren’t very portable. You can always hook up to an external monitor, so whatever you buy… make sure it supports DP over USB-C or has an HDMI port. Generally, for anything 13.3-15.6", going above FHD is kind of a waste as you’re going to have to scale it up anyways, and the size of the screen and distance that you sit away from it make this kind of a non-factor.

I prefer to invest in a QHD/UHD Desktop Monitor, which isn’t baked into the laptop hardware.

On a 15" Laptop I’ll take a FHD 120-144 Hz display (yes, even for productivity) over a 60 Hz Retina Display. I notice the higher framerate (in anything that moves, scrolls, pans, etc. on the display) more than the pixels, unless running at unusable 100% scale.

Also make sure you buy a laptop that doesn’t flicker to manage screen brightness (called PWM). That can trigger migraines and tension headaches for a lot of people.

Don’t recommend this, though, unfortunately.

1 Like
7

Thank you for taking time to write down this detailed answer. Fred.