Recommended System Requirements 2019

[AdamZadig]

This is on the Second life website: 
 

Windows	Minimum Requirements	Recommended
Internet Connection*:	Cable or DSL	Cable or DSL
Operating System***:	Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10	Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 64 bit version
Computer Processor:	CPU with SSE2 support, including Intel Pentium 4, Pentium M, Core or Atom, AMD Athlon 64 or later.	2-GHz (Windows 7) 64-bit (x86) or better
Computer Memory:	1 GB or more	4 GB or more
Screen Resolution:	1024x768 pixels	1024x768 pixels or higher
Graphics Card for Windows 7 Windows 8, or Windows 10 (requires latest drivers)**:	NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better OR ATI Radeon 9500 or better OR Intel 945 chipset	NVIDIA Graphics cards 9000 Series: 9600, 9800 200 Series: 275 GTX, 295 GTX ATI Graphics Cards 4000 Series: 4850, 4870, 4890 5000 Series: 5850, 5870, 5970

 

Is the recommended here still good enough? As Im about to build a cheap PC to use instead of my laptop. 

Will use 8GB RAM

 

 

[Axel Naxos]

Definitely yes. However, I believe someone might come along suggesting that you order a NASA computer, even if you say you want a "cheap" computer. 🙂

[cykarushb]

I did a whole thing testing this.

The requirements page is really vague and out of date along with being host to a lot of misinformation.

You can run SL on an absolute toaster, but don't go buy a GTX 275 because that's what the requirements page lists.

Depending on your budget you can have a lot of options ranging from modern hardware to some older core2duo/core2quad kind of stuff and get playable results.

[radwind88]

It runs like unplayable garbage for me on my i5 2500k and gtx 1070. 

 

[Cindy Evanier]

32 minutes ago, radwind88 said:

It runs like unplayable garbage for me on my i5 2500k and gtx 1070. 

 

Open the viewer.  Do not log in.  Go to Help - About and paste the details here and you might get some proper advice

[radwind88]

On 4/24/2019 at 6:33 AM, Cindy Evanier said:

Open the viewer.  Do not log in.  Go to Help - About and paste the details here and you might get some proper advice

I actually fixed the problem by just not using windows. I get smooth, high fps running Macos sierra on the same hardware, don't know why the game is unplayable for me on windows 10.

[Alyona Su]

I get this also when running SL on my Mac at the office. Though on Windows (at home) I find that I get superior performance with Catznip viewer than I get with LL viewer, and better perfomance with LL viewer than with Firestorm (And I am meaning myself, I don;t speak for others and I beleieve all viewers are great viewers, you uuse what you like). My main point is that sometimes just trying a different viewer could be a major part of answer to performance questions.

[FionaDrescher]

Ok, first:Yes...   I have an organizer with an Atom processor, Win 8.1 and 4G memory. And, it runs.

2nd No, Not even close. Pent 4, Pent M and Atom with 4G barely run Win much less anything else on Win. Those combinations ran Win 95 & Win 98. There is just not enough power or memory there to run Win 8.1 + anything. You must have a multi core machine. (at least 4 cores, 2 physical and 2 virtual(minimum requirements)) You must have at least 8G memory. Graphics is huge in SL. If you cannot play BluRay quality then you cannot take advantage of mesh. Everything will look blotchy. That means you need Graphics Memory also. That extra memory will effect your experience. But, if you are rendering slowly, you are lagging other people. If you don't have the high end graphics, set your graphics low and live with the experience. Microsoft is no longer supporting Win 7 and Win 8 is about to go the way of the dinosaur. You might want to consider putting SL on your SSD not your SATA HD.

If you meet the minimum requirements and you put in a trouble ticket because "I just can't seem to..." then the Game Gods will tell you to upgrade your machine.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

No. 

If you’re going to use a ten year old CPU, get the fastest one you can afford. They aren’t much more expensive than the slow ones. Don’t look at anything less than 3GHz. Personally I’d put the cut-off point at the Core i7-950. Nothing older, or slower.

The entire GPU list should be ignored. The best of them can barely keep up with the better modern budget cards, and they’re obscenely power hungry. (If your need a computer that doubles as a space heater, go ahead and get a GTX2xx or 4xx). They’re all EOL, and haven’t gotten driver updates in years. An Nvidia GT 1030 or whatever AMD’s equivalent is will serve you better.

[Alyona Su]

14 hours ago, FionaDrescher said:

Ok, first:Yes...   I have an organizer with an Atom processor, Win 8.1 and 4G memory. And, it runs.

2nd No, Not even close. Pent 4, Pent M and Atom with 4G barely run Win much less anything else on Win. Those combinations ran Win 95 & Win 98. There is just not enough power or memory there to run Win 8.1 + anything. You must have a multi core machine. (at least 4 cores, 2 physical and 2 virtual(minimum requirements)) You must have at least 8G memory. Graphics is huge in SL. If you cannot play BluRay quality then you cannot take advantage of mesh. Everything will look blotchy. That means you need Graphics Memory also. That extra memory will effect your experience. But, if you are rendering slowly, you are lagging other people. If you don't have the high end graphics, set your graphics low and live with the experience. Microsoft is no longer supporting Win 7 and Win 8 is about to go the way of the dinosaur. You might want to consider putting SL on your SSD not your SATA HD.

If you meet the minimum requirements and you put in a trouble ticket because "I just can't seem to..." then the Game Gods will tell you to upgrade your machine.

 

8 hours ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

No. 

If you’re going to use a ten year old CPU, get the fastest one you can afford. They aren’t much more expensive than the slow ones. Don’t look at anything less than 3GHz. Personally I’d put the cut-off point at the Core i7-950. Nothing older, or slower.

The entire GPU list should be ignored. The best of them can barely keep up with the better modern budget cards, and they’re obscenely power hungry. (If your need a computer that doubles as a space heater, go ahead and get a GTX2xx or 4xx). They’re all EOL, and haven’t gotten driver updates in years. An Nvidia GT 1030 or whatever AMD’s equivalent is will serve you better.

I'm not a techno-nerd, but I know enough to say both of these advisors are not giving very good advice. I'll stop now before I say something that gets me suspended.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

1 hour ago, Alyona Su said:

 

I'm not a techno-nerd, but I know enough to say both of these advisors are not giving very good advice. I'll stop now before I say something that gets me suspended.

I'd like to know what part of that advice is not good so I can correct it in the future.

[Alyona Su]

2 minutes ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

I'd like to know what part of that advice is not good so I can correct it in the future.

That the GPU bit should be ignored. Other than that, yours is far better than the first one I quoted (and that's the one that had me thinking censorable words).

[Jackson Redstar]

"cheap PC" has different meanings to different people but Id say at least a core i5 or AMD equivalent and use a good Nvidia card. Sl likes Nvidia

[Alyona Su]

30 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

"cheap PC" has different meanings to different people but Id say at least a core i5 or AMD equivalent and use a good Nvidia card. Sl likes Nvidia

"Cheap" is an antonym of "quality". If you mean "inexpensive" then i concur.

Though in general, any cheap PC trying to run Second Life will bring a horrifically terrible experience. I say to all: You really do get what you pay for. Depending on how you intend to use your system overall, you need to decide what portion of that use will be second Life, the greater the portion of use, the more you need to look at *quality* and matching price.

Everyone has different priorities, be sure to take whatever yours are into account when shopping for any discretionary product.

[Israel Schnute]

There must be more to it, although I can guess that a higher-end set-up makes the variables much easier to control.

I have been using Windows 10 on an A10 processor with an integrated Radeon R7 GPU that I don't believe they even bother to make or update anymore.   Ram 8gb.

Sometimes, I can run shadows.  When I screenshot, it looks better than these expensive systems screenshot and blogs I see.  I wonder what gives sometimes.  I get the feeling that sometimes what I'm seeing are people running this on low on a laptop. 

I don't think it really takes that much to do SL.  I would like to have a  super-high-end rig one day, but what does it do, let me see for miles instead of just the sim?

[Lyssa Greymoon]

2 hours ago, Israel Schnute said:

I don't think it really takes that much to do SL.  I would like to have a  super-high-end rig one day, but what does it do, let me see for miles instead of just the sim?

More speed with higher settings. Yes, practically any GPU made in the last decade can run SL, and let you turn on all the eye candy for snapshots. What they won't do is provide a very enjoyable experience if you want to do much more. Even framing the snapshot can be a hassle. Want to run shadows all the time? Attend events with a bunch of people and not watch a slide show? Film a video? You'll probably want something more powerful that can deliver faster frame rates consistently. For a whole lot of SL activities, a fairly modest system that can deliver ~15fps with some of the graphics settings dialed down will do just fine, though.

[cykarushb]

On 8/5/2019 at 7:29 PM, FionaDrescher said:

2nd No, Not even close. Pent 4, Pent M and Atom with 4G barely run Win much less anything else on Win. Those combinations ran Win 95 & Win 98. There is just not enough power or memory there to run Win 8.1 + anything. You must have a multi core machine. (at least 4 cores, 2 physical and 2 virtual(minimum requirements)) You must have at least 8G memory. 

Pentium 4's and Pentium M's were XP era hardware, not 95 or 98. Nobody is playing SecondLife on a 233mhz Cyrix M2 on widows 98 except for me using radegast.

SL will run on just about anything, it's getting playable results that requires better hardware.

It's a matter of knowing what performance you want and what hardware will get you that. The system requirements page is useless for this because the info it gives is basically irrelevant to any user these days. There really isn't a precise system to suggest to people without them explaining factors like their budget, location and ideal end result. If someone is OK running minimum most of the time and just wants smooth frame rates then that would result in a very different system than someone who wants to max the settings and doesn't care if everything is 10fps or lower.

[mygoditsfullofstars]

I have to laugh at the memory requirements here: https://secondlife.com/support/system-requirements/

Note, LL are talking about overall system memory here. For windows, minimum 1 GB or more, recommended 4GB or more.

Now lets think about this... Seriously, with any recent and supported version of windows (aka BloatOS), how much memory do you think will be free for userland programs to use on a 1GB system once the OS loads? Can you even run windows 7,8 or 10 on 1GB of system memory and it be usable?? LOL Maybe you can just run the viewer from  memory swap and enjoy craptastic performance. Even with 4GB, once the OS loads, your anti-virus and other memory resident programs start, it doesnt leave a lot of memory free for the viewer.

Its not unusual for the viewer to be heavy handed on memory usage, especially in busy regions or if there is a lot to render and lets face it, the bulk of people don't come on SL to stand on an empty platform in the sky or an empty region so the performance can be nice and fast.

Really the minimum should be an 8GB system across all platforms with at least 3-4GB free for the viewer to use. These suggested memory amounts by LL don't take into consideration how bloated operating systems and other common programs (browsers, AV etc) have become over time.

The rest of the suggested memory specs for the other platforms are just as hilarious. Were these last reviewed in 2001?

The ones for Linux made me laugh even more because even for a common distribution like Ubuntu, the minimum system requirements are 4GB - lol. Yet this page mentions 512MB.. I'd like to see someone try and start the viewer on a system with 512MB of memory after the OS loads.

I think the system requirements page needs a bit of updating for recommended system memory.

Edited December 6, 2019 by mygoditsfullofstars

[Lyssa Greymoon]

14 hours ago, mygoditsfullofstars said:

I think the system requirements page needs a bit of updating for recommended system memory.

If it worked 15 years ago in Windows XP, it's probably still okay. That's how computers work, right?

[BerenKon]

I run a Win 10 machine with 8G RAM, 8 Gen Intel i7 and GeForce 940 MX graphics card and it's total garbage for several minutes. Connection speed by Ookla averages about 190 Mbps. I'm planning on upgrading soon to a gaming computer so I don't continue with the level of frustration. LL SL requirements seem to be the absolute bare-bones minimum to function at all, I don't see how running the minimum requirements set by LL could allow someone to even remotely enjoy their experience on SL. 

I'm not terribly tech savvy, and I'm very new to SL, so maybe it's my ignorance here, but again, how could anyone function with the minimum suggested by LL? I upgraded to 2nd gen LL home from 1st gen, and it takes an ungodly amount of time to see anything with any detail. 

Anyway, just my personal take on this subject. 

Best,

Beren

 

[Lyssa Greymoon]

2 hours ago, BerenKon said:

I don't see how running the minimum requirements set by LL could allow someone to even remotely enjoy their experience on SL.

They won't because it isn't going to run.

[OrlaKeely]

Dear All

 

Is there any chance anyone can list a set of system requirements that I can follow to purchase a new PC? I have a small PC at the moment and whilst I don't want to spend an absolute fortune I do want a machine that will run events and clubs without too much trouble...

 

Many thanks

Orla

[Lillith Hapmouche]

A well-rounded gaming rig these days should have this :

• CPU:
  • AMD Ryzen 5 1600 [12mm], 2020 version
    or
  • Ryzen 5 3600
     
• Mainboard:
  • MSI B450M-A Pro Max
    or

  • MSI B450 Gaming Plus Max
    or

  • MSI B450 Tomahawk Max

• RAM:
  16 or 32 GB RAM, preferably DDR4-3000 or DDR4-3200, e. g. Crucial Ballistix
   
• Drive:
  500 GB / 1 TB SSD or M.2, e. g. Crucial MX500
   
• Graphics from entry gaming level to high-end:
  • RX 570 8 GB
  • RX 590 8 GB / GTX1650 Super
  • GTX 1660 Super 6 GB
  • RX 5700 XT
  • RTX 2070 Super
     
• Power supply:
  quality brand 500W to 650W, e. g. Seasonic Focus GX, Corsair RMx 2018 series, Fractal Design Ion+, EVGA SuperNova
   
• Other:
  • a case with at least 1x intake fan and 1x output fan
  • FullHD monitor or higher
  • extra CPU cooler

Edited April 17, 2020 by Lillith Hapmouche

[Mylor Shelman]

For years I have been in SL with: 

Intel i7 3770 + Mother Gigabyte H67 + 16 Gb RAM 1333 mhz + GTX 650

I recently bought a new pc:

Ryzen 2700x + B450 Tomahawk + 32 GB RAM 3200 mhz + RTX 2060 S ROG Strix

Honestly, if you're not going to use graphics in Ultra, the difference won't be much.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Why did you recently buy a 2700x? Used? Super cheap?