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Is Nvidia GT745M a good graphics card for SL?

SandraLee Aeon

By SandraLee Aeon,
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Theresa Tennyson

Theresa Tennyson

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SandraLee Aeon wrote:

HI there,

I am planning on getting a new laptop.  The one that I am looking at has a 4th Gen i7 processor, and a Nvidia GT 745M graphics card with 2GB of dedicated graphics, 8GB of RAM, and 1TB of hard drive.

Is that good?  In particular, is the graphics card going to be good for SL?

 

~Sandy

The graphics card should be pretty good; not as good as midrange desktop card but better than most laptops, and Nvidia cards traditionally work well for SL. The one problem you may have is the table (i.e. a sort of internal chart) the viewer uses to see what capabilities a video card has - some new cards like the Nvidia 7 series aren't on the table yet in some viewers yet so you may need to work around that until the table is updated which should happen fairly soon. Until then it's possible to download separate updated tables or edit the table yourself.

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Theresa Tennyson

Theresa Tennyson

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SandraLee Aeon wrote:

Hi Theresa,

Thank you for your response... I do not know what the table is... is that something that would be hard to edit?  If I just left it alone with this card, would it just take care of itself when the update happens?

If the card isn't listed in the table it will only run at very low settings. It's possible to download and install updated tables - I know Firestorm has been working hard at keeping their tables updated and Linden Lab should update the table for the main viewer soon too. This JIRA entry has more information on updating tables for newer video cards:

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/MATBUG-360

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SandraLee Aeon

SandraLee Aeon

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It says as a work around to use this GPU table... I downloaded the table, and opened it and it is just a text file with what looks like computer code... do I add that computer code to something?  If I just use Firestorm, would that work without having to know anything about computers?

Thank you again for your help!

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Orca Flotta

Orca Flotta

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Hi Sandra, forget the table. :smileyhappy:  LL are using it to determine the "perfect" graphics settings for you but, honestly now, who needs that? I always decide for myself and test out if the FPS goes way down when I enable a certain functionality. That's 10 minutes well spent to reach the best graphics for my taste and avialable from my particular gpu.

That being said, while Nvidia's 7xx series is very modern and great the GTx45 is a rather low-midrange card. GT is the mulltimedia range, GTX is for gamers. And the i7 cpu is total overkill for SL. Look for a laptop with an i5 cpu but a better gpu to get the best out of SL. The fun starts at GTX x60. MSI and Asus are the brands to look for, avoid Toshiba, Sony, Alienware, Acer and similar crappola.

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Kwakkelde Kwak

Kwakkelde Kwak

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Orca Flotta wrote:

Hi Sandra, forget the table. :smileyhappy:  LL are using it to determine the "perfect" graphics settings for you but, honestly now, who needs that?

If your graphics card isn't in the table, SL will gray out a lot of options.

Stroll the forums for everyone with a high end GTX780, not being able to turn on any of the fancy things. Right now the 700-series NVidia cards need a manual addition in the table file.

@OP

As far as I know you can copy the table from your Firestorm installation and put it in your SL installation folder. It's just a text file, nothing fancy.

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iceing Braveheart

iceing Braveheart

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Linden Labs Second Life are directly to blame for this

you will not encounter any issues similar to this with any other app or game in existence Linden Labs the creator of Second Life have set up there client so that if they do not explicitly give your video card permission to run there client then all graphics options will be disabled and you will not be allowed or abled to re enable any of the graphics setting options with out re writing some files your self with in the Second Life client previous comments about low settings is a gross vague under statement as its totally wiped out

I just checked the current Linden Labs beta Second Life Release/3.6.6.280979 and it does not support video cards either 

to answer your question I am not sure if any Second Life viewers will work with the 745 as I tried to search the file for the card in Firestorm's gpu_table I downloaded for my card 780 and I was not abled to find it unless they have a newer version out now you may need someone to create you a special made file or edit it for your self

the quickest way to search txt files is to use Ctrl+F and then type 745 ect in the search box and it will find it for you if it is there

I think this is the current bug report and I also see no mention of 745 ect

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-1950

here is a picture of what will happen when trying to run second life with the way Linden Labs currently has the Second Life Viewer set up

Basic shaders
Atmospheric shaders
Advanced Lighting Model
Ambient Occlusion
Depth of Field
Shadows
Water Reflections
Hardware Skinning
Avatar cloth
Sky
ect will all be disabled and cannot be re enabled as they are all grayed out completely

I already had to go through this too :matte-motes-zipped:

1146150_10153158431145461_626692021_o.jpg

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iceing Braveheart

iceing Braveheart

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Personally I wouldn't go lower then a 760 for a laptop or pc generally speaking for sl or gaming

this is just an example if the card cannot maintain higher then 30 frames per second it may start to produce undesirable performance "lag"

in the first graph here you can see the 660 pretty much lags out in nearly half the games it was tested with while the 760 holds its ground at above 30

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce-gtx-760m/performance

for the 755 and below nvidia did the comparison vs Intel HD 4000 Integrated

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce-gt-745m/description

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce-gt-745m/performance

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Orca Flotta

Orca Flotta

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Iceing, I wasn't talking about Asus crappy mobos (being a Gigabyte fangrrl myself for good reason) but about their ROG laptops. I mean any company having enough confidence in their product to give you a 3 year warrantee can't be too bad, no? After I fried the GPU in my old Asus lappy and took an oath to never buy another Asus product, my pc repair lady told me that Asus is indeed one of the least troublesome brands. At least in her shop. And a PC saleaman told me that Asus does the most reliable laptops, he gets almost no returns, quite contrary to all the other brand laptops who seem to die like flies.

And sorry for my bad advice about ignoring the GPU table. Never knew such a stupid thing existed in the first place.

Still my advice for GPU stands:

- Nvidia all the way

- GTX better than GT

- the higher the generation number the better

- the higher the middle number the bettter

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Theresa Tennyson

Theresa Tennyson

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Coby Foden wrote:

iceing Braveheart wrote:

 

...
Linden Labs
the creator of Second Life ...

I wonder where this misnomer
Linden Labs
comes from? The company is
Linden Lab
.

 

 

A couple of possibilities:

1) Many technical companies are formally named "[Name] Laboratories" - a couple of examples are Abbot Laboratories, who make pharmaceuticals, and Dolby Laboratories, who develop audio systems. Their names are frequently informally shortened to "[Name] Labs." It's much more common to hear "Labs" than "Lab" in situations like this.

2) Some English speaking regions tend to describe a business by adding a posessive " 's" to the owner's name even if this isn't the legal name of the firm. It's especially common in Canada, where auto workers often say they work at "Ford's" or "Chrysler's." It's so common in Canada that the American snacks known as "Reese's Peanut Butter Cups" in the US are labled "Reese Peanut Butter Cups" in Canada but are invariably pronounced the same way that the American name is.

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