CPU - Creating

[leGustav]

Would this http://cpuboss.com/cpu/Intel-Core-i3-4360 smoothly run content creation programs for second life, i am not sure what is the most used, but I have read about 3ds Max.

 

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

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leGustav wrote:

Would this 

http://cpuboss.com/cpu/Intel-Core-i3-4360

smoothly run content creation programs for second life, i am not sure what is the most used, but I have read about 3ds Max.

 

 

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The i3 is the budget processor in the Intel family. If you're looking to run 3D modeling software the CPU is no place to cut corners - it will use every bit of the processor it can. Have you taken a look at how much a legal copy of 3ds Max costs? It's not really intended for people who need to pinch pennies.

[KarenMichelle Lane]

I run SL wonderfully on i3's, i5's and i7's. These are all great processors for your SL experience. Any of these teamed with a high end Graphics Card will be more than adequate for your needs. Usually the clock speed speaks to the overall speed of the PC in the case of the SecondLife Viewer. If you are only planning on using a single SL session at a time on your PC the the highest clock speed i3 [2 cores, 4 CPU process threads] you can afford is fine. I recommend 3.50 Ghz or better processor clock speed. If you plan on a lot of multitasking [multiple SL sessions, reading the news and DJing as well] then an i5 or i7 may be a better choice for you. For the same clock speed, the SL viewer will not perform any faster on an i3 than an i5 or i7. What these higher end processors provide is more parallel processing thus more tasks that can be performed at the same time.

IMHO - So if you are going to start creating content for sale in SL then an i5 processor would be a good place to start with a minimum of 8Gb of memory, for faster rendering, a high end Graphics card that allows it's GPUs to be used for rendering tasks of your creation software will be the key purchase decision. That will cost you $200 USD or more..

Have fun building your PC.

[Qie Niangao]

Agreed to all that. An i5 is likely worth the modest extra investment, but an i7 is probably not; there's just not enough occasion to keep hyperthreads busy unless you have lots of background tasks running all the time (as would a viewer developer, for example, compiling constantly).

It's unfortunate but true: the graphics card is the biggest factor in SL performance, and in rendering for 3D creation programs (although they're not really that heavy-hitting, usually). What's unfortunate about that is that GPUs are still on a steep performance curve, so those cards are also the most rapidly obsolescing part of a machine.

Finally, this is not a recommendation but just something I stumbled upon (due to a flaky 4GB RAM stick that won't run Windows 8.1 but also stubbornly passes every memtest -- Grrr!) : Machines are still tolerable even if they have to page to disk occasionally when that disk is SSD. It's certainly not ideal, and nothing like the speed of dual-ported DRAM, but also nothing like the pain of paging to a regular HDD.

[Dillon Levenque]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

---

l

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The i3 is the budget processor in the Intel family. If you're looking to run 3D modeling software the CPU is no place to cut corners - it will use every bit of the processor it can.

Have you taken a look at how much a legal copy of 3ds Max

costs

?

It's not really intended for people who need to pinch pennies.

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 *cough*

[Parrish Ashbourne]

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leGustav wrote:

Would this 

http://cpuboss.com/cpu/Intel-Core-i3-4360

smoothly run content creation programs for second life, i am not sure what is the most used, but I have read about 3ds Max.

 

 

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For those of us who can't make a monthly car payment for software, blender is free.  There are some very useful tools developed for blender specifically for second life, which are huge time savers and can save several months learning.

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/