My graphics card

[Jon62158]

Hello. I just purchased a Dell Optiplex 390 and installed a Nvidia GeForce GT710 graphics card. It start SL using Firestorm but it is pretty choppy and slow to rez. Can you tell me, is this graphic card not strong enough to operate SL?

 

thank you,

Jon Lately (jon62158)

[Lindal Kidd]

Here are performance rankings for your card vs. some others.  The GeForce 1080, at the top of the list, is pretty much the number one in performance today, unless you want to spend insane amounts of money.

The GT 710 was designed to compete with integrated graphics that come built into a CPU, such as Intel HD Graphics 4000.  It will probably run SL, but it will be very marginal.  These days, I'd want to look at a GT 960 or better, if I wanted decent performance.

Unfortunately, this is a really terrible time to be shopping for a new graphics card.  The prices have been driven up by cryptocurrency miners.  A GT 1080 that normally retails for $750 is now going for almost twice that, $1,399.

Edited January 27, 2018 by Lindal Kidd

[LittleMe Jewell]

By the same token, the benchmark sight does still list it on the 'Mid-to-High Range' chart.  I have seen people run SL with worse.  Keep your draw distance low and you probably won't be able to use any of the Advanced Lighting features - or not many of them anyway.  You just have to adjust your expectations.

[Cindy Evanier]

My graphics card is a 710. on a 5/6 year old laptop. Sure these days its not amazing but the rl list is a toss up between a new boiler and a new laptop .... I guess the kids needs to be warm.

I get by just fine.  My draw distance is on 128 usually, I have ALM on unless I am at a busy spot, graphics are on high  and often with 2 accounts logged in at once.  

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

My graphics card is a 710. on a 5/6 year old laptop. Sure these days its not amazing but the rl list is a toss up between a new boiler and a new laptop .... I guess the kids needs to be warm.

I get by just fine.  My draw distance is on 128 usually, I have ALM on unless I am at a busy spot, graphics are on high  and often with 2 accounts logged in at once.  

Far better than expected then. Does the computer itself have a decent cpu and amount of memory?

[LittleMe Jewell]

OP - What are the specs for your computer?  Searching indicates it is likely an i3 at possibly 3.1/3.3 GHz and anywhere from 2-8 GB of memory. 

[Cindy Evanier]

10 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

OP - What are the specs for your computer?  Searching indicates it is likely an i3 at possibly 3.1/3.3 GHz and anywhere from 2-8 GB of memory. 

Damn you asking me technical things   Edited because it wasn't a question for me

Edited January 27, 2018 by Cindy Evanier
Edited kinda because the question wasnt for me. I get panicky when asked tech stuff

[LittleMe Jewell]

17 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

Damn you asking me technical things   Edited because it wasn't a question for me

You have an i7, which is the more current processor type - and will definitely perform better than an i3, which is what I think the OP's is.  Rezzing and overall performance in SL rely on the CPU, the memory, and the graphics card.

Edited January 27, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[Rolig Loon]

Note to the OP ---  I agree that this is far from a top of the line graphics card, but you should be able to get at least mediocre service from it.  Please do remember, though, that your computer may have other ideas.  Since you have an Intel graphics chip on  your motherboard, the computer may decide to use it instead of engaging the NVidia card.  If so, you'll get the truly lousy performance that the chip offers.  So, open your NVidia control panel and set it to use the GT710 when you are in SL instead of the Intel chip.

[cykarushb]

Quote

You have an i7, which is the more current processor type

thats not how that works (reeee), thats a 3rd gen mobile quadcore, its about on par with a dual core ivy bridge desktop i3 from the same era

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i3-3250-vs-Intel-Core-i7-3632QM/m4950vsm36

In fact, its completely destroyed by a modern i3 7100.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i3-7100-vs-Intel-Core-i7-3632QM/3891vsm36

Series name != performance metric, a modern Celeron outperforms a first gen i7 extreme edition.

Quote

an i3, which is what I think the OP's is

Articles you'd see online for those OEM machines are going to be whatever the reviewer was given. Its second gen i series stuff, it can be anything from the lowly i3 2120 to the i7 2600.  Very commonly you'd find those with middle of the road i5 2500's, which are still pretty great processors.

That being said, a GT 710 wasnt a good pick for it, even if it was just an i3 in there, the 710 is designed solely as a display adapter or super low end graphics solution with the goal of "it can run more than one monitor and it even plays 1440p video" in mind.

 

As for OP, you're not gonna be doing too much on it. I believe you posted another thread on the 710 elsewhere, its not good for much over 720p medium/low for secondlife to get "acceptable" framerates in more basic spaces. I was looking at about 20fps in places like Social Island on medium/low in 720p. Highly populated places or complex player created places were not playable at all. And that was with a Core2Duo E6700. Running a 710 on anything newer than a mid range core2duo is creating a GPU bottleneck. Because even a Core2duo E8400 is fine with a GTX 750ti, in fact the 750ti is probably the best option for your system, since its low power and decently powerful and would pair well with a sandy bridge second gen i series processor.

For a comparison of performance, im currently running a Nvidia Quadro FX 4600, it is from 2007, it has a mere 768mb of video memory, and its netting me a solid 30-40fps on medium settings in 1080p with lots of people around on Social Island, and thats just a Core2Quad Q6600 paired with it as a processor. That 11 year old GPU outperforms the GT 710 by a fair bit and it cost me like 15 bucks.

Return the 710, buy a used 750ti or 750. Maybe a modern GTX 1050ti or 1050, even a 1030 if youre on a budget or if your system is low profile and the low profile 750/1050's are hard to find. Make sure to buy from name brands, as there are a lot of fake 750ti's and stuff on ebay. Look for Zotac, as the zotac 750ti's were super popular and everyone had one.

Edited January 28, 2018 by cykarushb

[Andree Andel]

Entschuldigung, ich habe mir auch eine Geforce-Grafikkarte 1060 für SL gekauft aber die Grafifblinken nicht wegbekommen 

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770K CPU @ 3.50GHz (3511.45 MHz)
Speicher: 8169 MB
Betriebssystemversion: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 16299)
Grafikkartenhersteller: NVIDIA Corporation
Grafikkarte: GeForce GTX 1060 6GB/PCIe/SSE2

Windows-Grafiktreiberversion: 23.21.13.8843
OpenGL-Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 388.43

Edited January 31, 2018 by Andree Andel

[deco19906]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lsunAXZRCcu_sdz2oXkeqqbo8_O9ln53/view?usp=sharing

my graphic card is Intel HD Graphics 4600 (Gigabyte)
2048MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 5450 (XFX Pine Group)

all i can see is this 

[Lindal Kidd]

can't see it, deco.  Can you post your image on Gyazo, or paste it into your post here?

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 hours ago, deco19906 said:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lsunAXZRCcu_sdz2oXkeqqbo8_O9ln53/view?usp=sharing

my graphic card is Intel HD Graphics 4600 (Gigabyte)
2048MB ATI AMD Radeon HD 5450 (XFX Pine Group)

all i can see is this 

Here is what we see when we go to that link:

[deco19906]

sorry about that here is my problem 

[MoiraKathleen]

The avatar that is just showing up solid green is what's called a "jelly doll".  At which point your viewer starts showing avatars as jelly dolls is a setting that you can control in your viewer preferences.  The idea behind this is to let people reduce or choose not to fully render avatars above a particular complexity rating (and also to prevent issues with griefers using graphic crashers).   To change the setting, bring up the Preferences window (either Me -> Preferences or ctrl-P) and then go to the "Graphics" tab.  In the LL SL viewer, the setting is in the middle of the Graphics preferences, and is called "Avatar Maximum Complexity".  The initial default setting for this varies based on overall graphic capabilities of your computer (and the "Quality and Speed" values.   You can play around with adjusting this to find a setting that works best for you (displays the most avatars in areas you typically go to, but doesn't have  negative affects on your performance).  It's also recommended to not have it unlimited - to keep it lower than the max of 350,000.  There are also settings for fully rendering a specific person in your view area, and for always fully rendering your friends - I can't remember just now how those settings are accessed. 

In regards to the two avatars in your picture that are only partially rendered - sometimes it takes a little bit of time for your viewer to show you all of the items in your view.  Also, sometimes people might have accidently removed a clothing item (but leaving the alpha on or the alpha cuts still on, on a mesh body).  Sometimes attachments get 'lost' in TP'ing and the missing piece might not show up on the individual's viewer, but does on other's.  

How long were you in that area without those two fully rendering?  Does this part of the issues happen often? or just at this location? or did they just start occurring?    If your viewer is experiencing "packet loss" that might also contribute to items that are not rendering.  Without knowing your settings, it's hard to know if there are suggestions that could be made that might help.  If you do the Help -> About Second Life and copy and paste that info here, we'll be able to see if there is a packet loss issue, if the ping time is long,  or if some of your other graphics settings should be adjusted a bit. 

 

[deco19906]

it happens all the time flying clothes  nudes appear dark avatars  transparent bodies alot of things its a mess 

yea i know render to render just right click and choose always render but it didn't work every time 

what is ping i don't know it 

https://gyazo.com/c3a17ec311c316a9aefb9f013f4edeb5

Edited December 22, 2018 by deco19906

[deco19906]

Second Life Release 6.0.1.522263 (64bit)
Release Notes

You are at 18.2, 131.6, 68.7 in Social Island 7 located at sim10453.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.51.159:13010)
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Social Island 7/18/132/69
(global coordinates 261,906.0, 267,908.0, 68.7)
Second Life Server 18.12.05.522294
Release Notes

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4440 CPU @ 3.10GHz (3100.04 MHz)
Memory: 8047 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 64-bit (Build 7601)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 5450

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 12.104.0.0
OpenGL Version: 4.2.12217 Compatibility Profile Context 12.104.0.0

Window size: 1273x742
Font Size Adjustment: 96pt
UI Scaling: 1.25
Draw distance: 128m
Bandwidth: 3000kbit/s
LOD factor: 1.125
Render quality: 2
Advanced Lighting Model: Disabled
Texture memory: 512MB
VFS (cache) creation time: December 09 2018 21:19:27

J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.10.4
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Ex 4.44.64
Dullahan: 1.1.1080 / CEF: 3.3325.1750.gaabe4c4 / Chromium: 65.0.3325.146
LibVLC Version: 2.2.8
Voice Server Version: Vivox 4.9.0002.30313

Packets Lost: 19,652/48,776 (40.3%)
December 21 2018 22:55:07

[Cindy Evanier]

51 minutes ago, deco19906 said:

Bandwidth: 3000kbit/s
LOD factor: 1.125

these 2 things in your viewer preferences

knock your bandwidth down to 1000

you can up your LOD factor to  1.5 or even 2 and see if that makes a difference

Social Island is also likely to be a very laggy place 

[MoiraKathleen]

3 hours ago, deco19906 said:

it happens all the time flying clothes  nudes appear dark avatars  transparent bodies alot of things its a mess 

yea i know render to render just right click and choose always render but it didn't work every time 

what is ping i don't know it 

It is common when you first arrive in a region to see others with their clothes seen as flying around them, possibly the mesh from their avatar body being in pieces as well - depending on your connection and much stuff there is for your viewer to process and render, the amount of time for everything to "snap into place" will vary.  So this will vary depending on which region you are in, how much stuff there is to be rendered, the complexity of the items there, and how many other avatars are in viewing distance.

I noticed in your "about" info, that at the time you captured that info, you had a 40% packet loss, which is very high.  Even at only 1 or 2 percent you will notice that some things may not be displaying properly.  You might want to check that again, and see if that was an anomaly to be so high, or if you consistently have packet loss.  This is something that, optimally, you want to be at 0%.  Are you on a wireless connection? If so, and if possible, it would be beneficial to change that to a wired ethernet connection which is generally more consistently stable. 

Very generally, "ping" is the amount of time (in microseconds, I think) that it takes for your computer to communicate with the end servers (in this case with LL's servers which I believe are in Arizona, USA).  If you do ctrl + shift + 1 you should be able to display a Statistics window, which will shows your current ping time (as well as showing packet loss).  Ping time varies for people - factors can include how far away you are located from the servers (especially if you are in a different part of the world), the type and speed of internet connection that you have and the path that your connection takes (connections make multiple 'hops' from your ISP through various servers that direct traffic through the internet to the end destination).  

Edited December 22, 2018 by moirakathleen
fix spelling

[LittleMe Jewell]

Given that packet loss, I consider you to be very lucky if you can stay connected at all.  SL does not handle packet loss because of the required 2-way constant communication.

[Nalates Urriah]

LittleMe is right on point. That packet loss is ridiculously high. In general 1 or 2% is consider a problem but livable. That you remain connected must mean you a running an Elmer's Glue cooled cpu...

With that kind of packet loss there is all sorts of stuff that is not going to render. Your viewer and the servers will consistently be out of sync. Your viewer is not going to know what is missing so won;t ask for it and the server is going to think you have everything you need and not resend. 

Drop your Max Bandwidth setting and hope it helps with that problem. FS peeps recommend a max of 1500. Play with it to see what works best, 500 to 1500 is a reasonable range. The calc is 80% of download speed or 1500 whichever is smaller. 

Restart the computer and your modem/gateway. Fix the packet loss and your render problem will likely clear up.