Graphics cards, what do you think is best for SL, and what will it take to handle mesh?

[kattatonia Wickentower]

I've been very slowly trying to acclimate to the V2 platform, using firestorm.  I don't like it much, not because of the V2 interface, which used to be my big complaint.  I've gotten used to that.  But what I really don't like is how slow it is.  The V2 world is gray for me.  So I'm going to get a new graphics card for my 5 year old PC.  I'm looking for recommendations from the more savvy folks around here.  What do you think?

[Poenald Palen]

You know, I seem to see that this is sometimes not the GPU. It can be the client loading inventory. I seem to remember that turning off http downloading and/or textures was a good idea. But, now and then it seems to be just sluggish and this is not GPU related for me. I dont' have a good GPU really, for SL. But, it does work alright for 99% of games! Directx10 to boot, yeah...even bluemars on a old pentium 4 this thing was working (barely lol, but there was issues with software with bluemars and also slow network) and....well, it might not be only your GPU! It could be the ways viewer 2 handles downloads..or cache conflicts somehow. I remember people saying to manually delete the folders from viewer 1.2x based viewers! So, you might want to find those. I wish I could remember, but the inventory thing goes away a bit...It even cuased crashing for me! I try to uplaod on beta grid, it crashes! I have to click on the folders to open them and wait for stuff to download.

[Knowl Paine]

A good start is to isolated which cards will fit your machine type. Then look online for a card that fits your pc and all the ones that say out of stock or on back order are the best cards. lol :smileyvery-happy:

I purchased a card for a desk top pc that was rated just a little lower and was In Stock. I was using a factory card and the new card was a major improvement. Well worth every penny. $120

The debate about the "best card" begins when you already have a monster computer and you are looking to squeeze every ounce of performance from the machine. Once you get in the $350 and up Cards, you can expect 30-120 frames per sec.

A photo of a high end card $400-$500 and my current favorite.

 

 

[QatarBoy1488304621]

Now I advise you to use Phoenix  1.5.2.1185 Until the new version comes which is firestorm Viewer.

 

Thanks

[Parhelion Palou]

The answer depends on the specifications of your computer. Could you post any information you have? Make and model number would be a start.

I think most modern graphics cards can handle mesh. SL pushes the computer's processor and memory too. Upgrading the graphics card alone won't help if something else is the true bottleneck.

 

[Jennifer Boyle]

Here is a link to some info you may find useful:  http://www.kirstensviewer.com/Blog/177/__Kirstens_GPU_Awards_2011_!__.html

[Peggy Paperdoll]

The best graphics card for SL is one that works with your system and is, at least, a mid performing card.  The problem with anyone recommending a graphics card for someone elses computer is that the person making the recommendation has little or no information about the computer and it's current system.  A 5 year old computer is likely enough to upgrade to a pretty high end GPU....but it may not be economically feasible to do so.  We don't know what the CPU is or it's capablilities.  We don't know what the motherboard (mainboard) is or it's capabilities.  We don't know whether or not the proper expansion slot is available.  And, last but not least, we don't know if your power supply is capable of handling the graphics card we may recommend.  It's certainly possible to upgrade to a high end graphics card in most any modern computer.  The question is how much you are willing to spend to also upgrade things that need to be upgraded in order to make a card work in your system.

 

I could recommend the card I use in my computer.  The nVidia GTS 250 1 gig VRAM.  But that card may not work worth a flip in your computer.  The card is a PCI express X16 card.  It requires a 400 watt sustained rated power supply.  The card, physically, is double wide (meaning, though it's only connected to a single expansion slot, it takes up the space of two cards).  And I get very good performance with the card in my machine.  I also have an Intel i5 quad core CPU, 4 gigs DDR3 800 mhrtz RAM.  I'm connected to the Internet with a 30 mbps download cable connection.  I run Win 7 64 bit with almost all the bells and whistles disabled (I set my system up for performance, not the eye candy).  Second Life rans quite well on my computer using that GTS 250............but I won't tell you it will run even at all on your system.  Without some details on that 5 year old computer there's no way I would tell you what card to run in it.

[kattatonia Wickentower]

details, details...

this is what I have currently:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core processor 5600+ 2.80 GHz

NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nFirce 430

3072MB System Memory

3 gig ram

Win 7 home premium 32 bit

 

 

 

[Davina101]

That actually sounds like a pretty decent rig. The last desktop I built was a P4 3.2 and a great graphics card but the whole system ran at max temp playing SL. So I gave up on SL years ago. I'm basically starting over, wow, things are different. But I got a laptop with a core i7 & 4GBs and an Nvidia GT 230M video card. I honestly believe it takes a lot more than just the video card to get everything moving. Rendering 3D graphics is important, but if you consider loading time, you need everything working together. This laptop doesn't even hesitate with SL running behind half a dozen browser windows. Prices are falling and by this Xmas, I expect them to be nearly giving them away.

[Alazarin Mondrian]

Does your computer have an AGP or PCI-Express graphics card slot? This will determine your choices.

AGP graphics card slot:

Nvidia 5900, 6800GT 8800, 9600GT (avoid 'LE' or budget versions)

ATI: Radeon HD 3650, 3850, 4850

 

PCI-Express graphics card slot:

Nvidia: 9600GT, 9800GT, GT440, GTS450, GTX460, GT550, GT560 or higher.

ATI: Radeon HD  4890, 5670, 5750, 5770, 5830, 5870, 6870, 6870 or higher.

 

Do not buy a 'silent' fanless graphics card or one with less than 256 mB RAM. It will only end in tears. The lower-end graphics chipsets that I listed above will struggle to render shadows at a useable framerate but are plenty good to get by on if you're on a budget. Speaking of which avoid 'budget' graphics cards like the plague.

[devinelust]

I have a 5 yr old Dell dimension and ive been looking at new computers. Right now ive picked out the Dell XPS 8300 which comes with

2nd gen intel Core i7 2600 Processor

Windows 7

8GB DDR3 Memory. 1 TB hard drive

1GB ATI Radeon HD 6450 DDR3

 

Is this a good machine to run sl?, i also do digital art so a good graphics card is a must. thank you

[Venus Petrov]

Personally, I hope that LL updates their system requirements page so that all can see what they recommend.  Not everyone reads forum threads (I know, hard to believe) and it would be great to have that information a bit more public.

[Parhelion Palou]

---

devinelust wrote:

I have a 5 yr old Dell dimension and ive been looking at new computers. Right now ive picked out the Dell XPS 8300 which comes with

2nd gen intel Core i7 2600 Processor

Windows 7

8GB DDR3 Memory. 1 TB hard drive

1GB ATI Radeon HD 6450 DDR3

 

Is this a good machine to run sl?, i also do digital art so a good graphics card is a must. thank you

---

That's a sweet machine except for the graphics card. The 6450 is a low-end card (about $50 - $60 online). If you can afford another $100 - $150, consider either the Radeon HD 6790 or HD 6850 (for ATI) or GTX 550/ GTX 560 (for NVidia).

The best performance at a reasonable price in video cards tends to be in the $200 - $250 range, but you'll do well in the $150 - $200 range if you're not a gamer.

Prices are based on U.S. purchases, btw.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nFirce 430

 

That graphics adapter is an onboard video chipset (IGP) and is a little better than an Intel IGP.  Neither chipset are designed for 3D graphics.  Consequently they both struggle with programs like SL.  Almost any descrete (dedicated) graphics card will improve your performance in SL.  As a rule of thumb you can tell the performance level of cards by the model number the manufacturers give them.  I know nVidia's model number/performance better than AMD/ATI but they are similar.  The first number is the series number (the higher the number, the newer the series).  The second and third number(s) tell you the performance within the series (the higher, the better).  The letters preceeding the model number also will tell you some about the performance for that particular model........for nVidia, a GT is lower than a GTS, GTS is lower than GTX, etc (I'm not very familar with AMD/ATI but they, too have letters that go with the models).  The series is really not all the critical except to tell you how new the card series is which will give you somewhat of an idea about how long you can expect the card to be fully supported with drivers and updates..........series generally have a life expectancy (before obsolesance) of about 4 to 5 years.  A series 2 or 3 series back from the most recent are usually good buys since you can expect 3 or more years before they get to the point of having difficulty finding current drivers.  The newest series cards are the most expensive but they are not necessarily more powerful than a card 2 (or even 4) series "old".  For instance, my GTS 250 is more powerful than a GTS 520 and it's 2 years old..........plus it can be purchased for less than half the price of the 520.

 

One caveat with a higher performance card that I mentioned in my first post.  The cards have a minimum power supply requirement.  Computer manufacturers are notorious for skimping on power supplies for the computers they build.  Especially for computers that have IGP's instead of descrete cards...........the put the bare minimum PS (just enough to get by) in the machines.  I can almost bet a month's premium stipend that your computer has a power supply that is not higher rated than 300 watts.  That is not going to be enough for the GTS 250.  The good part is that power supplies are not expensive and very easy to upgrade yourself.  You should be able to get a 500 watt (or higher) PS for under a $100 (probably under $75, actually).

[Vladi Hazelnut]

I would say at this point your bottle neck is your GPU, depending on how good of internet service you have, that will effect it as well. Your CPU is adequate as is your ram. SL should run pretty well on a dual core 2.8 with 3 gigs of ram, its the onboard graphics that is probably killing you.

Keep in mind the better the video card you get the better the power supply you will need. I could tell you to run out and get the best video card you can afford, but you would first have to make sure it would fit in your computer and you have the power to run it. And I don't just mean having the right slot, but it physically fitting in your machine. Some of these cards are BIG.

This is an article with the best cards for the money currently on the market.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-performance-radeon-geforce,2997.html

And the end is list of all the current cards available and how they rank with each other. Before spending a bunch of money on a card I would look over this list to make sure the one you are buying is really worth the money. In some cases you can get a card for a bit less money that will perform just as well.

And pay closer attention to the GPU than the ram. Don't just assume a card with 1 gig of ram is better than one with 512 megs of ram. It is possible to get a card with 1 gig of ram and a not so great GPU and vice versa. SL is only going to see 512 megs of video ram anyway. I made that mistake before and was lucky they let me exchange it.

My opinion though would be just about any current stand alone card would offer you better performance than the built in graphics you currently have. But with computers things go out of date pretty fast, so getting the best you can afford at the time isn't always a bad idea. But like I said you have to know if it will work with your particular system. And for SL don't worry about dual SLI cards and the likes, it simply isn't needed for normal sl usage.

And if your current system still uses AGP I am not sure I would spend a lot of money trying to get a decent agp card being its an out of date technology. You would be better off saving up for a newer computer. If you have a pci e slot then you can always pull the card and put in a new comptuer when you upgrade. Providing they don't come out with something better by then lol.

Personally I run a GTS250 by PNY with 1 gig of ram. The rest of my system is an AMD 9454 quad core at 3,0 with 4 gigs of ram on windows 7 64 bit. I have no trouble running in ultra with the SL viewer, phoenix and firestorm. It does slow down a bit with Kirstens if you turn everything on. But Kirstens is a pretty demanding viewer.

My girlfriend runs a similar system to yours. AMD dual core at 2.8 gigs with 3 gigs of ram on windows 7 32 bit. But she has a PNY 9800 GTX+ which is basically the same card as my 250 but it has 512 megs of ram. And hers runs quite well too. Keep in mind for either of those cards you will need a 450 watt or larger power supply, PCIe slot and the room to install it. The card takes up to slots width wise and is fairly long.

On another note, at least you are using windows 7. I just did some testing this week with operating systems and windows 7 blows them all out of the water. I tested with linux, XP, Vista and windows 7. With the standard current SL V2 viewer set to ultra and up on my platform linux, xp and vista all averaged around 80 to 90 fps. With the same setting on a stock install of windows 7 I get closer to 200 fps! Double the frame rate just by switching operating systems, go figure.

[Davina101]

Miss Peggy, I read your post and it made me wonder if I am overworking my computer needlessly.  This is a one year old laptop, HP Pavilion dv6 with a core i7 and 4GBs of RAM @ 800MHz BS.  But I'm running with full areo on.  I figured it could handle al the so called "eye candy".  But it gets so damn hot when I'm running the viewer.  I can barely touch the bottom near the fan.

 

The graphics in it uses an Nvidea GeForce GT 230M, and I guess that's not really upgradable in a laptop.  So I was wondering if I should turn off the areo and run strickly performance to get this thing to run a little cooler.  Might not make a difference because even though I might open a few browser windows at the same time I'm using the viewer, it doesn't slow down or lag at all, just gets real hot and fan runs at max speed.  And I try not to do anything else while the viewer is open.

 

I'm still pretty new at this and just experimenting to see what works best.  I appreciate any tips and tricks.  This forum is a great place to learn.

[Vladi Hazelnut]

Laptops run hot, that is just how they are. Especially if you tax them hard. Best advice would be to get a laptop cooler to help out. Consider they are running what would normally be in a full sized desktop crammed into that tiny case. My desktop has 5 fans in it not inlcuding the fan built into the video card. And it still runs hot. I mean this thing works like a portable heater lol. The important thing would be to monitor what the actual temps are for you internals, like the cpu and GPU to see if they are running hotter than they should be. There are several monitoring programs you can get for free if you google it.

Turning aero and other features off might, but I wouldn't count on it. It might help your performance a bit though.

Here is a link for tweaking windows 7 to help you speed it up a bit if you want. There also others if you google it.

http://www.askvg.com/master-tutorial-to-make-your-windows-7-super-fast/

And you are correct, upgrading your video card on a laptop is mostly not possible. That is the downside to laptops. Upgrading normally means getting a new laptop. Most of them you can add ram and stuff but the gpu is normally built in, not a seperate card. Check with manufacturer to make sure. Some do offer upgrade programs though.

[Davina101]

Thanks Vladi, I wouldn't even attempt it with a "typical" or inexpensive laptop.  But this is supposed to be a fairly high end job and I figured it should be capable.  Adding the temp monitors is a good thought.  I'll look into that but for the time being, I pretty much try to limit my time as to not over-stress it too much.  It gets pretty warm but I don't think it's reaching anything brutal.  I try to pay attention to the fan speed and when I hear it drop down a notch once in a while, I know it's not running at it's max ability.

 

But, aside from an even newer computer, this will have to do.  And hey, it's just a computer, could be worse.

[Vladi Hazelnut]

I would highly suggest a good laptop cooler though. One that sits under it with built in fans to help pull away the heat. But unless you are sitting on something soft like a bed or a pillow or something I doubt its over heating. Laptops just run hot and you have to careful not to block the air flow. No different than sticking your desktop in a cabnet with no air flow.

[Davina101]

Well, I just learned some more about video cards and laptops, and it turned out to be a not so happy day.

My laptop is a year old but it's a decent rig.  My wife saw how much fun I was having so she finally decided to try it again.  We both played around with SL years ago but we gave it up when SL outgrew our computers.  She just bought a nice Toshiba laptop a month ago but I just discovered that it uses a basic Intel graphics adapter.  Every time we tried to install SL, it fails for detecting video hardware.  She is bumming out big time.

I told her she could use my old desktop but she wants to sit next to me so I guess that means another new computer. I started lookig at SL minimum specs and the problem I'm having is that all the info I see refers to a "PC" or a MAC and fails to address laptops.  So it is tough to know ahead of time what laptop may be capable of running SL. The graphics adapter on mine is an Nvidia GeForce GT 230M and I assume the "M" stands for "mobile" and all the specs I have found so far look like specs for a desktop PC.  So the real question is, what is the minimum "Mobile" specification to be able to run SL?

[161488303349]

I have a HP lappy with a NVidia 230M, 4G RAM, Windows 7 Home. On Viewer 3.0 is ok upto Atmospheric Shader. Can get over 60fps in quiet places. With only Basic Shader can get  17-24fps in really busy places like Ahern where can be over 100 avatars sometimes. On my home sim where is lots of sculpties then is 24-30fps when all is downloaded. Can also do mesh but is about 3-4fps slower altogether.

Is not good with Shadows as fps is low, like 0 and crash in really busy places and only 6-12 in quiet places. Also has probs with alpha textures with Shadows on anywhere and underwater with Atmospheric Shader on. Looks like a really really bad hair day then (: Also have to turn off Anistropic and Anti-aliasing in Hardware settings to make it go faster.

If I was buying a new puter then I prob get a NVidia 560 or equal.  

[Davina101]

EDIT:  I still think we are running the same rig but since I did a complete recovery, I'm running the original Nvidia graphics driver, (10/16/2010 v8.17.12.6099), and I'm running withOUT the Nvidia Control panel loaded because I figured that was just another load on the system.  So, I don't see where I can change those settings you mentioned unless, maybe, if I load up that control panel.

Total Graphics Mem=2811 and Dedicated Mem=1024 so I'm experiencing no lags at all so far but I'm not doing anything too intense yet either.  Not sure how to figure out where I might run into problems or where I might over-stress this lappy but I did figure out that the fan only runs on medium speed the majority of the time with an occasional jump to high speed if I visit someplace really busy.

Tried to get wife's new lappy, (Toshiba w/onboard video) up on Pheonix but lag is just too much.  Looks like we might be buying another one soon.  So I need to figure out what video adapter is best suited for a lappy and the future of SL.

[161488303349]

 I don't use the NVidia Control Panel for SL. Just the SL viewer settings.The Hardware settings in Preferences | Graphics | Hardware. Anistropic and Anti-aliasing off. Vertex Buffers on

The 3.03 Beta runs a little bit faster than 3.0.0, Shadows like 12-17 in quiet places and like 4-5 in the mud .

Am using NVidia driver set  280.26. SL report it as 8.17.0012.8026.

My lappy only a i3 cpu. I not recommend anyone buy one like mine as can get better spec ones for same/less money now.

Is hard to recommend a lappy or desktop even for anyone bc I think SL is more about the network connection, modem, ISP yada yada, when is problems than any other reason.

But if I was buying a new one for me then I prob get another HP, at least a i5 and whatever best NVidia I could afford. Some people like ATI cards but I not have any experience with them. I would get 32bit Windows as well, as SL (like lots other programs) not really better on 64bit, maybe next year when they had more experience with this,   

[Vladi Hazelnut]

If you look at the link posted earlier for toms hardware the list at the end of the article also lists mobile graphics, so that should give you an idea of where they fall in regards to others. Intel graphics I would I stay far away from for sl or gaming.

Me personally, not a big fan of laptops for all the reasons you are mentioning. I mean they are great if you NEED one. But other wise a desktop will always run better, cost less and be easier to upgrade.

And as far as the heat issues, what really messes them up is heating up, cooling down and then heating up again. The amount of times a device cycles on and off actually has an impact on its overal life.