nvidia 9600 graphics card

[Karrie Sands]

ok i have a nvidi 9600 graphics card im thinking about installing because on the requirment page it says it will work..

my question is there are diffrent types of nivida 9600 like  9600 gs,9600 gso,9600 gtx....does it matter which i should have or will any or all work?

[Innula Zenovka]

You might find the Wikipedia article on Nvidia GeForce cards useful -- there's a handy table explaining what all the letters and numbers mean.

Basically, the suffix -- GS, GSO, and so on -- indicates the performance range, the first digit of the following number indicates the series (they started with 4 digit numbers and then started over with 3 digits, so the 9xxx range was released before the 1xx range (both in 2009), and the second and third digits represent the performance relative to others in the same family.

I'm by no means an expert, but ideally you certainly want to use the GTX range for SL.   The GTX cards are the high performance ones, and SL is very graphics intensive.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Addition to Innulas advice: The 9600 will give you access to SL, but you'll run into fairly significant lag at busy venues, even on low settings. Performance also depends on your operating system and CPU btw.

[septimusminimus]

Both prior posters are so very right as well as so very, very wrong. The 9600GT is an old card, and was only a mid-range one at the time. It's going to slow down quite the bit with lighting + shadows enabled in crowded sims, especially if coupled with an expansive draw distance. However, it's still at least as fast as many/most of today's entry-level discrete cards, and is much, much more powerful than the basic integrated graphics in machines not made within the last year or so. In fact, it's still probably going to be faster than even teh latest Sandy Bridge and Bulldozer graphical outings.

I'd suggest you'll be unable to move effectively in populated sims with lighting and shadows, but be able to go to clubs and such with most other sliders fairly high up. It'll give you a better experience than most your grid peers. 

Considering these cards can now be bought for maybe thirty bucks and a bag of chips, I think they're a great bet for casual players.