Desktop (not laptop) recommended specs, with focus on stability?

[Ricky Shaftoe]

I'm about ready to buy (or build?) a new desktop PC to replace my decade-old system, which I've upgraded twice with video cards but now crashes regularly in SL. I'm thinking GeForce RTX 3090 because I do 3D modeling and gaming, and it would be nice to have the 24G video RAM. Are there are other features I should opt for to maximize stability in SL? Any system builders I should avoid or seek out?

Many thanks in advance.

[Chic Aeon]

Just wanted to say that my now older desktop bought when the 3070 came out and during COVID when there were only three companies to choose from -- one I wouldn't do business with any longer LOL  has been great. 

The Lab HAS been making things work better so anything above this should be super fine.  I am currently seeing 214 fps with pretty much everything but DOF turned on and distance at 120 so I don't have to see my neighbors.   I have had no issues at all. This is an Alienware computer. Here are the specs.

 

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800 8-Core Processor               (3393.62 MHz)
Memory: 16310 MB
Concurrency: 16
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19044.2728)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 8192 MB

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 31.0.15.2698
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 526.98
 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Chic Aeon
spelling

[Ricky Shaftoe]

Thanks, @Chic Aeon. Your performance sounds great. No crashes? It's the crashes that I'd really like to address. Lately I'm crashing 2 or 3 times a night.

[Anna Nova]

3 hours ago, Ricky Shaftoe said:

Thanks, @Chic Aeon. Your performance sounds great. No crashes? It's the crashes that I'd really like to address. Lately I'm crashing 2 or 3 times a night.

What kind of crash?   I get a freeze of SL, and then after about 60 seconds, 'You have been logged out'.   I wish it would really crash, then I wouldn't waste 60 seconds thinking I was still on-line!  (Ryzen 7  2700X, 32G, GTX 1070ti, Archlinux)  I had put it down to the Linux, but it could be the GTX1070ti, I guess.

[Henri Beauchamp]

For SL, you do not need such a powerful video card, and 8GB of VRAM would be enough for modern SLing, even if more is always better (especially when visiting textures-heavy places with large draw distances). The choice of a NVIDIA card is however indeed the best (way faster drivers than the competition for OpenGL and even Vulkan). I am currently using a RTX 3070, and it is underused (with this card, I need a faster CPU than my 9700K @ 5.0GHz).

Do care about the CPU mono-core performances, since they currently are the bottleneck for viewer frame rates.

Also, I would recommend at least 32GB of RAM (when pushed to its limits, with 256 or 512m draw distances and in textures/meshes heavy places, the viewer alone can easily gobble up to 24GB or RAM), with 64GB as a very comfortable option (this is what I currently have).

[Chic Aeon]

9 hours ago, Ricky Shaftoe said:

Thanks, @Chic Aeon. Your performance sounds great. No crashes? It's the crashes that I'd really like to address. Lately I'm crashing 2 or 3 times a night.

No I hardly ever crash. Been years so before this current machine for sure hence can't say it was this machine that "fixed" anything .  To be fair I don't go to clubs and stuff often. I did attend a women's Day event with 80 folks in the sim with no issues.   

[Kathrine Jansma]

With Henri's Cool VL Viewer i tend to crash only for three reasons:

1. Network hiccups / disconnects. Nothing to fix there usually.
2. AMD GPU Driver issues. It just crashes deep inside the driver sometimes.
3. Bugs in new features that have not been found and killed yet.

Thats fairly good. If you crash a lot more often, try updating drivers and the viewer.

 

[JeromFranzic]

6 hours ago, Anna Nova said:

What kind of crash?   I get a freeze of SL, and then after about 60 seconds, 'You have been logged out'.   I wish it would really crash, then I wouldn't waste 60 seconds thinking I was still on-line!  (Ryzen 7  2700X, 32G, GTX 1070ti, Archlinux)  I had put it down to the Linux, but it could be the GTX1070ti, I guess.

That's more of a server side issue. This occasionally happens to me in Windows 11 and kubuntu, regardless of the viewer used. Intel 8th gen i7/gtx 1050.

Edited March 20, 2023 by JeromFranzic

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

I recommend a desk top supported by four sturdy legs of equal measured length for guaranteed stability.

Edited March 20, 2023 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

I recommended a desk top supported by four legs of equal measured length for guaranteed stability.

How many simultaneous cats should it accommodate, in addition to any equipment?

[Henri Beauchamp]

3 hours ago, Kathrine Jansma said:

Network hiccups / disconnects. Nothing to fix there usually

This is just a disconnection, and you simply have no other choice than quitting the viewer (the program itself should never ever crash in this case: if it does for you, please report it with crash dump and logs, since even such crashes are unacceptable for me).

3 hours ago, Kathrine Jansma said:

AMD GPU Driver issues. It just crashes deep inside the driver sometimes.

Another good reason for choosing NVIDIA: their drivers are rock-solid and never crash for me, even if some versions have had rendering bugs (but reporting them on their forum gets them promptly fixed).

3 hours ago, Kathrine Jansma said:

Bugs in new features that have not been found and killed yet.

But these are promptly fixed as soon as you report them to me.

In fact, with the exceptions of when I am developing and testing new code, I never crash with my viewer, or more exactly, the rare occurrences I crash unexpectedly, I fix the corresponding bug immediately so that it never crashes anymore there. 😛

 

This is in stark contrast to what happened with 32 bits viewers in the past, when you always ended up crashing at some point, provided you stayed connected long enough, due to the limited virtual address space and its fragmentation...

Edited March 20, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Ricky Shaftoe]

 

5 hours ago, Kathrine Jansma said:

With Henri's Cool VL Viewer i tend to crash only for three reasons ...

 

7 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

For SL, you do not need such a powerful video card, and 8GB of VRAM would be enough for modern SLing...

Also, I would recommend at least 32GB of RAM (when pushed to its limits, with 256 or 512m draw distances and in textures/meshes heavy places, the viewer alone can easily gobble up to 24GB or RAM), with 64GB as a very comfortable option (this is what I currently have).

Thanks for all the helpful replies! Henri, I tried your viewer and love it so far. Three questions: (1) I see I can show my own lookat data. But can I prevent transmission of my lookat data to others? I don't like people to know where I'm looking, lol. Not that I ever look anywhere inappropriate! (2) are "outfits" supported? I see italicized items in my inventory that look like outfit links, but I don't see a way just to pick one of my Firestorm outfits and wear it in one lazy click. I suppose I'd need to organize my outfits into a folder, then "wear" or "add" the folder? (3) is there a way to customize buttons I see on the screen?

I also note that your viewer organizes my inventory differently, but I could get used to that. In some ways, I like it; it's showing me how redundant some of my folders are.

And your viewer did not crash me. FWIW, my crashes in Firestorm seem to be video-card crashes. I'll get a gray screen that may turn black, and I may hear audio for a bit before I get dumped to the desktop. Occasionally the entire system freezes and I have to reboot. As I mentioned, my card is an aging nVidia GTX 980 with only 4GB VRAM. I have 12G system RAM, so that may be an issue too, but it "feels" like video-card troubles. I also hear fans spin up before crashes sometimes, but I'm not sure that's always the issue. I play in a finished attic, so it can be a bit warm up here. Maybe water-cooled GPU and CPU are in my future?

[Henri Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, Ricky Shaftoe said:

I see I can show my own lookat data. But can I prevent transmission of my lookat data to others?

Yes, you can, but reciprocity is enforced... I explained how it works in my viewer in this forum post.

1 hour ago, Ricky Shaftoe said:

are ”outfits” supported

It's a v1 viewer: it does not need the v2 ”Outfits” folder (but may still use it if present). Any folder can be an outfit (and you are free to place your outfits in any folder fancying you; e.g. I use an ”Avatars” folder at the root of the inventory, where I place all my avatar forms/outfits in sub-folders): either right click on the folder and use ”Replace outfit” in the context menu, or drag the folder onto your avatar.

Quote

I also note that your viewer organizes my inventory differently, but I could get used to that. In some ways, I like it; it's showing me how redundant some of my folders are.

Yep, it's the v1 inventory tree: nothing is hidden (well, you can hide the ”Marketplace Listings” if you want and, by default, the ”Current Outfit” folder, which is not user-serviceable, is also hidden: see the options in the ”Folder” menu of the inventory floater).

1 hour ago, Ricky Shaftoe said:

is there a way to customize buttons I see on the screen

Yes: in ”Preferences” floater -> ”Cool features” tab -> ”User interfaces” sub-tab (do read carefully the Preferences floater items tool tips: they are worth a full user manual).

Since my viewer implements client-side scripting, you may also use Lua to add any button/function fancying you on a side bar: See ”Help” -> ”Lua scripting help...”.

There are also goodies in the Advanced menu...

1 hour ago, Ricky Shaftoe said:

And your viewer did not crash me. FWIW, my crashes in Firestorm seem to be video-card crashes. I'll get a gray screen that may turn black, and I may hear audio for a bit before I get dumped to the desktop. Occasionally the entire system freezes and I have to reboot. As I mentioned, my card is an aging nVidia GTX 980 with only 4GB VRAM. I have 12G system RAM, so that may be an issue too, but it ”feels” like video-card troubles.

Well, I largely modified the way the viewer keeps everything in line about texture memory usage, so to avoid freezes and other such annoyances... This might explain that it works better on your aging system.

1 hour ago, Ricky Shaftoe said:

I also hear fans spin up before crashes sometimes, but I'm not sure that's always the issue. I play in a finished attic, so it can be a bit warm up here. Maybe water-cooled GPU and CPU are in my future?

The Cool VL Viewer being extremely fast (I reach 1400-1500 fps in my skybox with ALM off, 700+fps with it on), it can push your GPU to the max pretty easily. Use the frame limiting feature ”Preferences” floater -> ”Cool features” tab -> ”Misc.” sub-tab: ”Frame rate limit” spinner. The frame limiter will avoid ludicrous frame rates and the resulting excessive power consumption from the GPU, and thus cause much less heating and much less fan noise. Limit your frame rate to your monitor's vertical refresh rate (usually 60fps, but maybe 120 or 144 for a gaming monitor). It is also coded in such a way that it won't slow down anything (and even on the contrary, speed up textures rezzing, since it will dedicate the CPU-side ”free time” to more decoding per frame).

Edited March 20, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Jackson Redstar]

SL has been really stable the last number of years, at least on firestorm. The main issues always end up being windows or someother software or a hardware issue, An i7 or AMD equivelent, 3070 and 32 gig of ram. and don't forget the SSD drives, preferable on .m2. That, and LOTS and plenty of cooling, or air flow, Don't need water cooling, but a good tower, good fans and keep that sucker clean

[Ricky Shaftoe]

41 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

Yes, you can, but reciprocity is enforced... I explained how it works in my viewer in this forum post.

That post was helpful, thanks. Reciprocity makes sense to me. So if I don't want to see others' crosshairs, and I don't want them ever to see mine, is it enough just to disable both lookat checkboxes in the Advanced menu?  (I think by default they are disabled, yes?) I just don't ever want anyone to see where I'm looking, and I'm not interested in seeing where others are looking either -- I find it distracting.

45 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

It's a v1 viewer: it does not need the v2 ”Outfits” folder (but may still use it if present). Any folder can be an outfit (and you are free to place your outfits in any folder fancying you; e.g. I use an ”Avatars” folder at the root of the inventory, where I place all my avatar forms/outfits in sub-folders): either right click on the folder and use ”Replace outfit” in the context menu, or drag the folder onto your avatar.

So when I click "replace outfit," the viewer will add the items in the chosen folder -- and remove only clothing and attachments that I"m wearing? It won't change my mesh body or head or shape or skin? Also, if I move stuff into new "outfits" folders, will that mess up my "outfits" if I choose to return to Firestorm later? Finally, I noticed some of my clothes are in italics in the viewer. Does that mean they're part of a V2 outfit? 

Finally, thanks for the frame-limiting feature. I'll definitely try that. Your viewer is very sleek! Well done.

[Henri Beauchamp]

43 minutes ago, Ricky Shaftoe said:

Is it enough just to disable both lookat checkboxes in the Advanced menu

No, these are just the controls for viewing the crosshair. The settings for the broadcasting of your look at/point at info are in ”Preferences” floater -> ”Input & Camera” tab -> ”Input controls”.

Do explore fully the Preferences, and you will find most of what you need there. 😜

43 minutes ago, Ricky Shaftoe said:

So when I click ”replace outfit,” the viewer will add the items in the chosen folder -- and remove only clothing and attachments that I”m wearing?

No, it works the same as in other viewers inventory context menus: it replaces what your avatar is currently wearing with the contents of the folder; the contents of the folder itself is not modified in any way.

You may create new outfit folders out of what your avatar is currently wearing using the ”Create” -> ”Make new outfit” inventory menu entry, which opens the ”make new outfit” floater.

43 minutes ago, Ricky Shaftoe said:

Also, if I move stuff into new ”outfits” folders, will that mess up my ”outfits” if I choose to return to Firestorm later?

You should still be able to wear those moved folders from the inventory context menu (”Replace outfit” entry, usually) in Firestorm and other viewers.

43 minutes ago, Ricky Shaftoe said:

I noticed some of my clothes are in italics in the viewer.

Items in italics are actually inventory links: you may create such links with the context menu on an item and ”Copy” then ”Paste as link” in a folder, and find the item pointed to by a link with ”Find original”.

 

If you need more info, please ask on the Cool VL Viewer forum; you will also find many of your potential questions already answered there (using the ”Search” feature).

Edited March 20, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Ricky Shaftoe]

Many thanks, @Henri Beauchamp! I'll check out the documentation, the preferences menu, and the forums, as you suggest.