help needed

[Amargein]

NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 705 is this OK for SL?

[Daniel Regenbogen]

No. Not at all. Nvidia's for SL should have at least a 5, better a 6 as 2nd digit in the model number. The 705 is for office work and nothing else.

[Phil Deakins]

I beg to differ. My card is a GeForce GT 520/PCIe/SSE2 - the 2nd digit is a 2 - and I can run 2 viewers with it very smoothly as long as neither of them have their graphics set too high. I have them set midway between Mid and High.

 

[Daniel Regenbogen]

Phil, you will discover a whole new world if you got a real gaming card instead of an office card. Seriously, if you want to enjoy all the nice&shiny that came to SL over the last few years, anything below a x5x nvidia will not be enough. And the 705 mentioned in the OP's question is even lower than yours...

[Coby Foden]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

I beg to differ. My card is a GeForce GT 520/PCIe/SSE2 - the 2nd digit is a 2 - and I can run 2 viewers with it very smoothly as long as neither of them have their graphics set too high. I have them set midway between Mid and High.

 

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Naturally what graphics card is ok for a user depends a lot how one uses SL, where one goes, and what settings the user sees as satisfactory.

My card is GeForce GTX 560 Ti/PCIe/SSE2. Running Windows 7 (64bit version) and 64bit version of Firestorm viewer (occasionally using Linden Lab viewer and some other ones too).

 

My graphics settings are:

 

With the above settings I can run three viewers without any difficulty (maybe even more, I have not tired more than three) IF the scene is not very complex. However, when running only one viewer, when I go for example to some live concert where there are lots of avatars, then the single running viewer will have a serious drop in framerate. The scene starts to resemble a slideshow. Similar thing happens in any very complex scene even if there are not lots of avatars present.

I love shadows, they add a lot towards making the environment more realistic. Like walking in a SL forest. It's totally different experience with shadows on than without shadows.

The geral rule of thumb is: to display everything what SL is capable to display one does need a fast graphics card, the faster the better the experience will be.

 

(By the way, telling that the graphics setting performance slider is somewhere does not tell much, because one can still tick various options without the performance slider moving anywhere.)

[Phil Deakins]

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Daniel Regenbogen wrote:

Phil, you will discover a whole new world if you got a real gaming card instead of an office card. Seriously, if you want to enjoy all the nice&shiny that came to SL over the last few years, anything below a x5x nvidia will not be enough. And the 705 mentioned in the OP's question is even lower than yours...

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Maybe so, but my SL isn't too dusty at all, and the OP did ask whether a certain card would run SL, and not would it run SL at SL's very best. However, I wasn't suggesting that the OP's card would be suitable. I only said that lower cards can run SL perfectly well - lower than what you stated are needed.

[Phil Deakins]

Thank you Coby. I don't doubt that SL looks better for it, but I've no burning desite for SL to look any better for me than it already does - and definitely no desire at all to spend significant money to do it

I've looked at shadows and, yes, things do look better for them, but they are not worth my money

[Bobbie Faulds]

Actually, the NVidia GeForce 700 series is the newest. I'm running a GTX 760. The newest is 790 I think...something like that...Just saying

[Syo Emerald]

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Bobbie Faulds wrote:

Actually, the NVidia GeForce 700 series is the newest. I'm running a GTX 760. The newest is 790 I think...something like that...Just saying

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GTX is something different than GT. The card the OP has is one of NVidias low end graphic cards, which I would not recommend buying for SL, if you plan on ever having really nice graphics...for some years (because lets not forget, computer technology ages fast).

My graphic card is an NVidia GTX 770 and like yours not the newest, but good. According to NVidias website the most powerfull graphic card they offer is the GeForce GTX Titan Z....but that baby would cost more than twice of what my entire PC had cost me :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2:

 

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Amargein,

I don't think there is a GT 705. There is a GT 750m, so I'll guess a typo?

Here's a searchable table of benchmark results that allow you to compare performance of different graphics processors...

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

The GT 750m scores 1525.

The GTX 750 scores 3250.

If you're looking at the GTX 750, that's a capable card and should run ultra settings. The GT 750m should give you good mid level performance.

I've a two year old Mac with a GTX 680mx (score 4341) that does ultra at about 20fps. I think a Windows PC with the same card would do appreciably better.

Happy hunting!

[Daniel Regenbogen]

There actually *is* a GT705, it is the lowest of the lowest in the 7xx series:

 

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2578/geforce-gt-705.html