How can I make SL run faster? I have two laptops I can use, which should I use?

[LucieSkyy]

My main issue is the fact that my computer runs SL okay, but it's slow and jerky. How could I make it run faster or increase performance? I tried updating my drivers but the intel website said I had a chip set installed and it could not be updated...or something along those lines.

My comp specs

Windows 7 home premium

HP Pavilion dm4 Notebook PC

Processor: Intel Core i5 CPU  M430@2.27GHz 

RAM: 4.00 GB

System type: 64 bit 

 

Now, my husband has a new laptop and I installed SL on there and the graphics and everything looked great, but he's running windows 8 and the game completely crashes out after about 2-5 minutes. Every.Single.Time. What's up with that? I also tried to update his drivers, but intel gave me the same message about the chip set.

His computer specs

Windows 8

Samsung

Intel Core i7-3537U CPU @ 2.00GHz

8.00 GB RAM

64 bit operating system

 

I guess to boil my question down to where it makes some sense... How can I speed up my computer? AND/OR How can I keep SL from crashing on my husband's computer?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Rolig Loon]

A machine that's running on a chipset instead of using a dedicated graphics card is not likely to ever give you the best performance in SL, unfortunately.  Machines like that are designed for basic home/office use, for watching YouTube or DVD videos, and for playing basic online games.  Second Life is a fairly demanding graphics environment, so it can swamp the abilities of a chipset.  One of the very unfortunate side effects, if you're not careful, is that the heavy graphics load can overheat your chip and potentially damage it and other components.  Computers typically try to save themselves from that fate by crashing the offending program after a couple of minutes.  That may be what's happening to your husband's machine.  Be sure that you always have good air circulation under the laptop (not on your lap!) and that you work in an area free of dust bunnies and cat hair. A $20 investment in a support pad under the machine -- you can get one with a fan at Wal-Mart or Best Buy -- is a good idea.

You should be able to reduce the graphics load by adjusting some Preference settings.  You can do that before you log in by clicking on the Me button in the extreme upper left corner of the login screen and selecting Preferences.  Open the Graphics page and set your quality slider to Low for now (you can raise it later once you get things working) and your draw distance to 64m.  By doing those, you will greatly reduce the amount that you see in world and will drop the demands on your viewer.  That will also automatically turn off other features like Advanced Lighting that are graphics intensive.  With luck, that should be enough to get you in world, although not sailing along at a healthy cruising speed.  Then you can try gradually increasing settings until the machine starts behaving badly again.

That's triage, and I hope it's enough.  Beyond that, though, there are many steps you can take to optimize performance.  It's hard to say which ones will be most effective, because they all depend on what your computer and Internet connection (please, not wireless) are capable of. Start here >>> http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/How-to-improve-Viewer-performance/ta-p/1316923

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Lucie,

Listen carefully to both computers as you move about in-world, particularly in busy or complex scenes. If you hear the fans spooling up like vacuum cleaners, the issue is likely that the graphics system is being overworked. SL is a graphics bear. One reason for crashing after several minutes of log-in is that it takes that long for a cool computer to warm up to the point that the safety monitors start to throttle the graphics processor clock to reduce power consumption and maintain a safe operating temperature. If the graphics clock is slowed enough, SL crashes.

Since the new laptop has a clean cooling system, dust bunnies are not the issue (unless it's used laptop, new to your husband). So the only solution is to reduce the requested quality of your SL view. Here are some ways to do that...

 

• Select Low or Mid rather than High or Ultra
• Decrease your draw distance (try 64 rather than the default 128)
• Reduce you particle count
• Decrease the number of non-imposter avatars. Avatars with complex attachments (hair!) can really load down the viewer. Allowing the viewer to replace some avatars with posterboard cutouts (which are only updated every few seconds) can really help in crowded areas.

Good luck to both of you!

[Nalates Urriah]

To really know what you can do with the system, you need to include information about your computer and viewer. 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.

It also helps to know if you are using a wired or wireless connection between the computer and gateway and/or between the gateway and ISP. T-Mobile and other ISP’s use a wireless system to connect to you.

Without specific information all we can do is guess. That means you have to try all our bad guesses and eliminate them one by one. This is easier for all of us, if you give us good information to start with.

There are a number of tutorials on the Internet net about this subject. Google will find them.

Your WIndows should be upgraded to 8.1 for fewer crashes. The update is free. Some laptops must have a manufacturer's pre-install before attempting to upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1. Check with them.

You don't list a graphics card. Many laptops use the Intel HD graphics processor in the CPU and have real no graphics processor. HD is not designed for 3D game play. HD is for video streaming, movies. So, they should work very well for running SL with SL Go. The HD processors do 2D games pretty well.

You can try turning your graphics settings doen to LOW. That will likely improve performance but the image will suck. Turn various setting up one at a time to see how they affect image and performance.

http://blog.nalates.net/2010/12/17/graphics-tweaking-for-second-life/ 

[SaraCarena]

I`m seeing better perforance on the http pipeline viewer than I`ve seen on any other viewer, recomend you try that as well as all the other tips on lowering your graphics settings.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Alternate_Viewers