LightWave on the Mac iBook

[LightWaver3D]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I figures somebody will move my post if it is not. Anyway, this summer I'm going to get a job at the nearby public library in order to save enough money to buy a new computer. Since I'm not 16 yet, I have to go through this special program, so I won't get paid quite minimum wage. But by the end of the summer I should have amassed a good $2,500, which is a small fortune for me. Ok, now, I would like to buy a laptop so that I could also use it while I'm at school (for those that don't know I go to Cal State LA). Also, I recently decided that I would make the switch from Wintel to Mac. So I guess my question is basically, how does LightWave 5.6 perform on the iBook 600? I'm sure by the time I buy the laptop they'll have stuck the G4 on it, but I'm just asking a hypothetical question. Thanks in advance. Sorry if this is such a long post, but I thought I'd give you guys the overall background.

PS I've also posted this in the 3D Aps Q&A forum.

[Dark Raven]

If you're running LW, don't switch to a mac. It's just too frustrating. It's immesurably slower than a PC.
The Macs are excellent for anything else, just not LW. I don't know how the new G4 Dual 1GHz machines run, but those don't exactly fit into your requirements.

[LightWaver3D]

Thanks for the advice. The weird thing is, what you say agrees with what some people have been telling me, and disagrees with other people's comments. It may be slow, yes, but I've been using LightWave on this computer, which is a Cyrix MII with only 300 mhz and 64 mb's of RAM. Anyway, I'm pretty set on getting that iBook, so I've decided that if LightWave doesn't on the iBook, I'll just have to use it when I get home on my parents computer, which shouldn't be too bad. Besides, I can use the 7 demo on the laptop.

[Dark Raven]

Well, I've got a dual 500MHz G4 with 1280MB RAM and a 64MB video card. It chokes on any model over 12,000 polys.

[LightWaver3D]

Oh, that doesn't sound too good. What version of LightWave do you use, and what exactly do you mean by "chokes"?

[Dark Raven]

Lightwave 6.5b
Chokes as in, openGL really slows down, redraw times get untolerable, stuff like that.

[LightWaver3D]

I see. Well, I never use OpenGL, and by your description, my computer chokes on objects with more than 1,000 polys. Anyway, thanks for the advice. Maybe by the time I get the iBook they'll have squeezed a GeForce card on it and the G4. Also, I might be able to test out 5.6 on my friends iBook.

[Dark Raven]

Sounds good.
Also, it's pretty unstable. Frequent crashes, just FYI. :)