Do I need to upgrade?

[amywilders]

Hi!

Over the past year, SL have been running slower and slower, and the lagging can get horrible in places with more then maybe 10 avis. If I look at the activities in windows, there is not much running in the background, but still the GPU, CPU, disc and memory are often used up. 

I want to be able to go to a club, to dance and chat like anyone else without having to stand in a corner and cam zoomed in on the floor just to be able to type properly. And in a quieter environment, I also want to be able to run a second copy of SL ( I have two screens). 

Here is a copy of what Firestorm tell about my pc and my settings:

Firestorm 6.0.2 (56680) Feb  9 2019 18:55:39 (64bit) (Firestorm-Releasex64) with Havok support
Release Notes

CPU: AMD A10-7800 Radeon R7, 12 Compute Cores 4C+8G  (3491.25 MHz)

Memory: 8137 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 17134.706)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon R7 200 Series

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 24.20.13019.1008
OpenGL Version: 4.2.13541 Compatibility Profile Context 24.20.13019.1008

RestrainedLove API: RLV v3.2.1 / RLVa v2.2.0.56680
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2l zlib/1.2.8 nghttp2/1.25.0
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.10.6
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 1.10.10
Dullahan: 1.1.1080 / CEF: 3.3325.1750.gaabe4c4 / Chromium: 65.0.3325.146
LibVLC Version: 2.2.8
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Settings mode: Firestorm
Viewer Skin: Firestorm (Grey)
Window size: 1680x987 px
Font Used: Deja Vu (96 dpi)
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 128 m
Bandwidth: 1500 kbit/s
LOD factor: 2
Render quality: High (5/7)
Advanced Lighting Model: No
Texture memory: 1024 MB (1)
VFS (cache) creation time (UTC): unknown
Built with MSVC version 1800
Packets Lost: 0/11,159 (0.0%)
April 13 2019 21:53:24 SLT

Do I need to get some new hardware or are my settings just crappy?

 

[Fritigern Gothly]

Because I am not familiar with the Radeon R7 200 series, I went to https://www.videocardbenchmark.net and had a look at their rated performance. There were 4 cards from the 200 series listed, from worst to best these were the 250, 250X, 260 and 260X. I compared the worst and the best in that series with my own card and... well, my card can handle SL very well.
HOWEVER... based on the rating, the 250 performs about as "well" as my old card (Geforce GTS 450, 1,557 points), which would perform as bad as you describe in high graphics mode. I now have this second hand GTX 750 Ti and I can go to clubs with Ultra (no shadows) graphics enabled without getting frustrated about the slo-o-o-o-ow graphics.

So my advice is to upgrade your graphics card, that seems to be the weakest link in your setup. Get an affordable one, either Geforce (my fave) or stay with AMD, but best steer clear from anything else unless you want endless frustration. Oh, and check their performance rating on videocardbenchmark.net before buying the new card. I know people who didn't and actually bought a card that was worse than want they had first.
What they say is true: "caveat emptor", let the buyer beware!

EDIT:  I looked up some information on your processor and if I'm not mistaken, your graphics are integrated on your processor. If you can disable that part in favor of a new, separate graphics card, then that would be great.
 

Edited April 14, 2019 by Fritigern Gothly

[cykarushb]

I had a big thing to write out about this and settled it down to this:

1) Yes, that generation of AMD APUs is getting pretty old and the integrated graphics arent that impressive.

2) Ideally, just get a whole new PC on a current generation of hardware, because you cant upgrade that system too far before you run into the land of diminishing returns.

3) If youre on a tight budget as many are, get a GTX 750ti. Theyre under 60$ on ebay and dont require anything special.

[amywilders]

Thank you for the input cykarush.

I got down to the store and bought me a complete new PC. SL is running nice and smoothly now

/Amy