I have been having extremely low FPS regardless of my settings. How can I fix this?

[Cronac]

My FPS has been under 10 regardless of zone or settings (tried low, ultra, and everything in between, as well as disabling the OpenGL VBO) and I still have low fps. My internet connection is fine, and I'm running out of things to try. My system information is as follows:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9400 @ 2.53GHz (2527 MHz)
Memory: 2520 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit Service Pack 2 (Build 6002)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Mobility FireGL V5700

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 8.563.2.1-090401a-079160C-Lenovo
OpenGL Version: 2.1.8306 FireGL Release

RestrainedLove API: (disabled)
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.21.1 OpenSSL/0.9.8q zlib/1.2.5 c-ares/1.7.1
J2C Decoder Version: KDU
Audio Driver Version: FMOD version 3.750000
Qt Webkit Version: 4.7.1 (version number hard-coded)
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Settings mode: Firestorm
Viewer Skin: firestorm (grey)
Font Used: Deja Vu (96)
Draw distance : 64
Bandwidth : 10000
LOD factor : 2
Built with MSVC version 1600
Packets Lost: 5/3,478 (0.1%)

 

I'm running on a Lenovo W500 laptop (I know its a laptop, but I run other programs just fine in regards to graphics).

 

Does anybody have any ideas?

[Nyll Bergbahn]

In System Requirements for Second Life, Linden Lab say:

The following cards have not been tested with Second Life, and compatibility is not certain:

• NVIDIA cards that report as Quadro
• ATI cards that report as RADEON IGP or RADEON XPRESS
• ATI cards that report as FireGL
• ATI cards that report as FireMV

FIreGL cards are professional workstation cards designed primarily for CAD, not general gaming. Some may work with Second Life but it's by no means certain as you've discovered.

What you may not have tried is disabling OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects in Preferences > Graphics > Hardware. If that doesn't help, you may have more luck with a third party viewer such as Phoenix or Singularity but with no guarantee that things will be any better.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory

[Theresa Tennyson]

Your OpenGL version is very old. Try to get the latest video drivers you can find for your video card. Also your bandwidth setting is very high - try dropping it down to 1000 for a while. SL won't really use bandwidth settings that high and it can cause communication problems sometimes.

[Faubio Alter]

Open "task manger" and see if you have programs running in the background. Something maybe trying to update and gobbling up your bandwidth as it does. Have you run windows connection troubleshooter, reset your modem or system clock lately? If you leave your PC on to long the address in your modem will not refresh properly; resetting the system clock will correct this problem. The system clock can create enumerable problems for a PC, including updates. See Windows "help and support" about these if you have questions on how they are done.

Good luck.

[Ferd Frederix]

Lowering  your bandwidth to near the bottom < 300K or lower) may help a bit with FPS.  It takes a minute or two to go into effect, so lower it way down and wait a bit, and see if FPS goes up.

The video card you are using forces Second Life to draw everything with the CPU.  The CPU  has to stop proccessing the graphics to deal with the flood of data from the server.  Lowering the bandwidth can help with frame rate. 

[Tim Flynn]

@Ferd Frederix: Thank you. I was looking for issues surrounding my low FPS too. I lowered my bandwidth below 300K only to have Firestorm viewer warn me that it would "certainly not improve FPS". I did anyways, and the FPS shot up well over twice what it was running.

 

I wonder why the folks at Firestorm thought otherwise.