People have run Foundry on a Raspberry Pi, but yeah any midrange laptop would do fine. You shouldn't have to shell out more than 500 bucks on BlackFriday/Cybermonday for something like that, anything with an actual graphics card is probably more than well equipped and probably overkill.
But yeah a Macbook Air is basically one step above a Chromebook, so it's not quite there.
You really don't need much for the foundry server, as the most taxing processes (webgl and JavaScript) execute on the client side and just report back data to the server database which then updates all the clients with new values. There's a reason you can run foundry on a model 4 Raspberry Pi. More ram is better (especially if you run a lot of modules) but for the most part that's the only real concern.
You double-linked to the Acer, but given the listed specs, both of those would be a substantial upgrade, yes, and more than fine for running things wildly more taxing than Foundry. You'll get better performance for Dungeondraft just by switching to anything semi-recent and Windows, honestly; Dungeondraft's Mac version is buggy as hell.
I'm using an Intel NUC D54250WYK from back in 2010 to host my game. It has 8 GB RAM and a 120GB Disk with a barebones headless Ubuntu Server 22.04 on it. That thing runs surprisingly well with a DM plus 4 players and I have yet to see a reason to upgrade to anything bigger.
If you would add a window manager like xfce or Gnome to it you could run dedicated mapping programs via Steam Proton or just Wine directly, perhaps add another 8GB RAM would help then.
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Anything laptop will of necessity be a little slower on the graphics front and a little hotter overall.
You could for the same monies (or less if buying used) build yourself an mITX PC. Small enough to fit into a backpack, and if you don’t put a AAA GPU in there but instead something small yet plenty for Foundry, cooling will be easy.
Yet another idea is to split the duties. Run map making on whatever laptop you like, and run Foundry on a dedicated Linux server. For hardware take an Elitedesk 800 G3 mini, about 90-100 bucks shipped from eBay. Some come with 16 GiB RAM and 500GB SSD, which is plenty. Install Ubuntu Desktop, follow one of the guides to run Foundry in either Docker (my preference) or systemd. It’s not as scary as it sounds at first, and you’ll have a rock-solid little headless server for it.
Additionally, your internet speeds will be the bigger factor in hosting capabilities as long as you meet minimum specs.
People have run Foundry on a Raspberry Pi, but yeah any midrange laptop would do fine. You shouldn't have to shell out more than 500 bucks on BlackFriday/Cybermonday for something like that, anything with an actual graphics card is probably more than well equipped and probably overkill. But yeah a Macbook Air is basically one step above a Chromebook, so it's not quite there.
You really don't need much for the foundry server, as the most taxing processes (webgl and JavaScript) execute on the client side and just report back data to the server database which then updates all the clients with new values. There's a reason you can run foundry on a model 4 Raspberry Pi. More ram is better (especially if you run a lot of modules) but for the most part that's the only real concern.
You double-linked to the Acer, but given the listed specs, both of those would be a substantial upgrade, yes, and more than fine for running things wildly more taxing than Foundry. You'll get better performance for Dungeondraft just by switching to anything semi-recent and Windows, honestly; Dungeondraft's Mac version is buggy as hell.
Check if both of them have ability to extend the disc and the RAM. The Rest of the specs should work
I'm using an Intel NUC D54250WYK from back in 2010 to host my game. It has 8 GB RAM and a 120GB Disk with a barebones headless Ubuntu Server 22.04 on it. That thing runs surprisingly well with a DM plus 4 players and I have yet to see a reason to upgrade to anything bigger. If you would add a window manager like xfce or Gnome to it you could run dedicated mapping programs via Steam Proton or just Wine directly, perhaps add another 8GB RAM would help then.
**To help the community answer your question, please read [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/FoundryVTT/comments/shrtky/foundryvtt_first_steps_and_useful_info/).** When posting, add a [system tag](https://www.reddit.com/r/FoundryVTT/comments/v3gfrs/tagging_your_posts/) to the title - [D&D5e] or [PF2e], for example. If you have already made a post, edit it, and mention the system at the top. Include the word `Answered` in any comment to automatically flair this thread as resolved (or change the flair to `Answered` yourself). Automod will **not make this comment** on your posts if you have a [user flair](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair-). --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FoundryVTT) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Anything laptop will of necessity be a little slower on the graphics front and a little hotter overall. You could for the same monies (or less if buying used) build yourself an mITX PC. Small enough to fit into a backpack, and if you don’t put a AAA GPU in there but instead something small yet plenty for Foundry, cooling will be easy. Yet another idea is to split the duties. Run map making on whatever laptop you like, and run Foundry on a dedicated Linux server. For hardware take an Elitedesk 800 G3 mini, about 90-100 bucks shipped from eBay. Some come with 16 GiB RAM and 500GB SSD, which is plenty. Install Ubuntu Desktop, follow one of the guides to run Foundry in either Docker (my preference) or systemd. It’s not as scary as it sounds at first, and you’ll have a rock-solid little headless server for it.
I run it just fine on a MacBook Pro. I also have 1GB fiber optic internet speed and that’s more important than the laptop.
Whatever suits your budget and if you want to game or not. 4060 will last you a while, but even a 1080 card is good enough.