the technology is old yes, but i am not looking for much

[WolfIceStorm]

Before i get started i want to say that yes i know the laptops are old, and yes i know you need a gaming system to see sl in it's "wow factor" state but after seeing it all done up i simply gave a "meh" and went back to my old machines and their lower settings as that is what works for me.....

Now then. There is two laptops and before into their specs, i want to say the only settings i am looking to use is the draw rate set to 288, have the particle settings at 512, and mesh objects set to high, {all others to medium} and MAYBE have the terrain set to high and still walk around with a 12 frame per second rate.....which i can get in the premium sandbox {due to not having that many items in there to make it video intensive}.

That being said, Laptop one has 4 gig ram, is a duo core with the video care being the Mobile Intel 4 Express Chipset Family and a intel P8600 @ 2.40Ghz. {side note: At first i was going to ask why this one seems to crash all the time, but in searching around and talking to someone....the intel i guess has a limitor, so when it gets to warm it auto shuts down to save itself?}. TO get the settings i was talking about above would i need to max out the laptop with 8 gig ram?

again i am not looking for the "wow" factor here, and just want to run the settings i listed above smoothly..but before i go dropping more money into this maching {both laptop and SL lol} i want to make sure i am thinking in the right direction

edit: in writing this out, and after recalling experimenting with the other laptop and putting in 4 gig of ram as it's max, it ran any viewer way to slow, so i am out of luck wanting to use it}

[Trinity Yazimoto]

well you have almost same laptop than mine... 

i can tell you that the 4gb Ram save you a lil but it wont be enough to compensated all the weakness of the graphic card.

i m really fine running with low graph and my LOD set to 4 and with draw distance set to 120. But thats all... 

i switch to ultra graph when i do photos.. it works pretty well but i cant keep wihth that since it lower my fps under 4 and then every click take long to react.

Also, i cant get shadows and advanced light enabled....

but well even without this i can say for sure i enjoy greatly my SL, and it doestn empeach me to make wonderful pics that i edit with pshop.

i see meshes perfectly too and can do pretty everything, even crossing sims while im sailing... 

So well... in the end, im really happy with what i have.

[WolfIceStorm]

that is awesome though in order for me to see mesh right now and not drag my frame rate down to one i have to turn it to the lowest setting which causes me to see a small brown triangle...which is not the greates when i want to role play with my girls on my gorean themed parcel.....not to mention i would love to start suiting up in my Spider Productions Dragon Lord {which i removed all the scripts from just to get a frame rate of about three no matter where i go}

I mean don't get me wrong, there has to be more at play here then just a video card and processor, and the only think i can think of that would help would be to boost myself up to eight gig....

Further more i am thinking of dropping out of windows seven and going to windows XP if that will help my video card not be so taxed and cause the heated the laptop goes through {even with a cooling pad under it}.

[Trinity Yazimoto]

well first if you drop to window XP you have to know it wont hold more than 2 g of RAM whatever you have 8 or not...

so if i was you, id rather keep with window 7

second, why do you see meshes as triangle while you are at low graph ? i dont at all... how much is your LOD ?

There are some debug settings to improve your mesh rendering, but i ll have to look for them, i dont rem them for now..

and what viewer are you using .?

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

WolfIceStorm wrote:

Now then. There is two laptops and before into their specs, i want to say the only settings i am looking to use is the draw rate set to 288, have the particle settings at 512, and mesh objects set to high, {all others to medium} and MAYBE have the terrain set to high and still walk around with a 12 frame per second rate.....which i can get in the premium sandbox {due to not having that many items in there to make it video intensive}.

 

---

By "draw rate" do you mean "draw DISTANCE"? If so, you just can't have it that high on your computer. You're asking your video system to do nine times the work it would at 96 meters. Nothing else you can do will come close to compensating for that.

[WolfIceStorm]

actually the about of Ram is tied into your cpu and motherload.....case in point, my dell though older can handle a max of eight gig. If i add Sixteen, it will register the eight and nothing higher no matter what OS i use {whatever version of windows or linux}.

As for the mesh being small triangles, when it is set to low like that, you have to have your camera littlery set right beside it, when you set object mesh viewing to high then it is like viewing full sculp and prim objects.....I have used default viewer where this was a issue until i installed slver light, .net three, and non IE Flash as well as IE flash with quick time {obviously some componant from those is what SL view needs}

I have tried firestorm, catznip, singularity, cool viewer, the soon to be renamed black dragon {only for quad cores}, pheonix, RLV stand alone and a few others.......

[Trinity Yazimoto]

well thats weird... i may assure, im at low graphic most of the time and i see really well meshes, whatever im far or close... 

 

[Jean Horten]

Is there a way to win a formula 1 race with a 1989 yugo 45?

Any advice is highly recommended.....

[WolfIceStorm]

You know Jean someone of your statue of being here for almost four years and a post count as high as yours i would have expected a much higher caliber of witty sarcasim......maybe you just woke up and the coffee as not hit home yet? I will endevour to truly keep my wishes up that should you wish to reply thaat you will be at full mental capacity for a much higher grade round of wit.

In the mean time i wish to state that i am not looking nor wanting to have the version of graphics one would get from a higher end gaming system {and lets face it ----- second life is a game.....you want a true virtual reality enviroment, then the very parameters of the coding would need to change, not to mention the manner at how you view said 'world'}, i am looking to achieve a slighter higher {aka medium} setting for distance draw, mesh object viewing and terrain viewing while remaining at a minimum of fifteen frames a second

both my mate and myself have identical systems, from the very make and model of laptop down to the processor speed {and number of proccessors}, everything is the same and yet she can have her distance draw rate at two twenty eight, her particles at five twelve, mesh viewing at medium to high, and view high details in the terrain and still maintain a twenty frame per second rate......for whatever the rhym or reason, there is obviously something that is working for her that it is not for me

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

WolfIceStorm wrote:

both my mate and myself have identical systems, from the very make and model of laptop down to the processor speed {and number of proccessors}, everything is the same and yet she can have her distance draw rate at two twenty eight, her particles at five twelve, mesh viewing at medium to high, and view high details in the terrain and still maintain a twenty frame per second rate......for whatever the rhym or reason, there is obviously something that is working for her that it is not for me

---

Then the logical thing to do is to compare her setup with yours and determine where it differs. Do you use the same viewer? Have either of you tweaked debug settings? What other applications are you running at the same time? Also, you previously said your goal for draw distance was first "288" then "228." Neither of these are standard draw distance steps. Are you sure she isn't actually set at 128, which IS a typical draw distance step and would improve performance quite a bit?

[Jean Horten]

Maybe your low perf office on board shared memory graphics chip is burnt out already, or you have faulty memory banks so the chip cannot access  sufficient of your system ram . Sometimes  using  ancient hardware on up to date software is  a bad  idea.

J.

[Nalates Urriah]

When you ask a tech question include information about your computer and viewer. If the viewer will at least show the login screen, get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. Help->About... provides all the version numbers we need.  To add your info to an existing question use OPTIONS->EDIT. It’s in the upper right of your post.

Otherwise, everyone is guessing... and you get to try guess who guessed right.

If you want to know why one laptop preforms differently, post both laptop's info.

[WolfIceStorm]

   I believe this thread is now solved....{or rather i am praying it is}...

So I went to look for a read out of both our systems and i think i mayhave found the problem, and if this is the key difference then i will be rolling my eyes and saying "who knew?" Say what you will but i am not a COmputer Hardware kind of person......

Anyway i went and physically pulled my hard drive out of my laptop as i wanted to give all the correct information and it turns out though it lools like a sata drive, it is clearly marked on it that it is SSD {solid state drive for those that did not know}. Could this be the one thing i have looked over? That when you want to run second life you need a actually hard drisk drive not a solid state?

before someone asks why i haven't tried it and am asking about it.....the only hard drive i have is being used by my second life djing laptop which has countless photo's, music, and not to mention the streaming software which is a pain the ...... when it comes to setting up and getting the play list's done

PS: We both have Dell Inspiron 1545's. In looking closer i must appologise for this question....but when it says it is maxed out at 4 GB that is per bay/slot correct? Also for the ram i cannot tell you what speed it is running at. All i know is i am looking at it right now and it is telling me i have 3.46 GB that is usable {have to love resident memory hogging programs}

General

• Packaged Quantity 1.0
• System Type Notebook
• Screen type Widescreen
• Wireless capabilities IEEE 802.11g,

  IEEE 802.11b

Processor / Chipset

• CPU Intel Pentium P8600 / 2.4 GHz
• Number of Cores Dual-Core
• Cache L2 cache - 1.0 MB
• 64-bit Computing Yes
• Front Side Bus 800.0 MHz

Chipset Mobile Intel GM45 ExpressMemory

• RAM 4.0 GB

• Max RAM Supported 4.0 GB
• Technology DDR2 SDRAM
• Speed 800.0 MHz
• Slots Qty 2

Display

• Type 15.6 in
• Max Resolution 1366 x 768 ( HD )
• Widescreen Yes
• Features Glossy

Audio & Video

• Graphics Processor Intel GMA 4500MHD
• Memory Allocation Technology Dynamic Video Memory Technology 5.0
• Max Allocated RAM Size 256.0 MB
• Camera Yes
• Resolution 1.3 Megapixel
• Sound Microphone
• Compliant Standards High Definition Audio

 

 

 

 

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

The solid state drive shouldn't hurt performance and may even help it - besides SL uses your hard drive very little anyway.

4 GB of memory sure looks like the overall limit for the entire machine.

One thing I've noticed in looking up details of your laptop is it was unusual among laptops in offering an upgraded video card option - an ATI mobile card for an extra $100. Are you sure your mate didn't go this route? I really doubt that laptop specs you listed will give you the frame rates and draw distance you're asking for.

[WolfIceStorm]

Hmmm, then back to the drawing board i go. Honestly i did not know that they offered said upgrade at time of purchase......we both have the same processor and video card {i was able to sneak hers away and look >}.

It is interesting you said something about the ATI though as i have a second laptop which has a ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 video card and Mobile AMD Sempron 3600+ processor..whcih after reading the help files is semi better....however with a single core and upper limit of two gig {per bay}. On this laptop i get about 3.2 fps with one gig insalled and running windows xp....however going to vista or windows seven and installing it's limit on ram it is a virtual nightmare....so not much love for viewers and single core's and myself lol..

where there is a will there is a way...though that way looks like i need to sell off one of my toys to upgrade systems ha ha ha