Which video card is best for SL, AMD Radeon or nVidia GeForce?

[Nathaniel Starsider]

Btw 590 is dual GPU, it's as fast as a 580 for running a single SL. It's like a 2x SLI 580.

[Ormand Lionheart]

And as we know SLI does is brutal Sl performance at least in my case. But some people are using 590's. I'm wondering if because it's one slot it scales the 2 gpus much better? When I try to run my 460's in SLI GPU-Z shows each card sharing the load however the fps crawl along at 20-30 fps in any configuartion in Nvidia Control Panel. Full Scren Windowed. Anyhting you can imagine.

[Nathaniel Starsider]

SLI is always better than dual-GPU. Like, SLI 2x580 is better than 590, and SLI 2x680 is better than 690, this is because the 590 and the 690 are downclocked some so they don't melt. More so in the case of 590. But the 600 series uses 28nm fab so the GPUs don't use as much power, thus the 690 is downclocked only a little bit. I am not sure why your SLI doesn't work, maybe SL can only use a single GPU and can't take advantage of SLI or dual GPU at all. I remember reading something about disabling VBO under graphics preferences but not sure if that would make any difference.

[Ormand Lionheart]

Well i didn't try disabling VBO. SLI did work as a utility program did show it sing both card equaly the problem was instead of 200+ fps with a single card i was getting 20-30 fps with SLI and/ or flickering. Maybe my Power Supply s not enough? Corsair 750W. Seems most people do not get a performance gain anymore in SLI. Maybe if you are running a 590 it works because it's on one slot? I've tried every config in Nvdia Control Panel know to man. Fullscreen and windowed etc. I don't have any other game so I couldn't test SLI but I assume it works. I guess I should have benchmrked SLI with Furmark etc. so will attempt again.

[Nathaniel Starsider]

A Corsair 750W is one of the best power supplies out there for gaming rigs and it has plenty enough to power 2xSLI. On GeForce website it lists Second Life as SLI enabled. Maybe Second life just doesn't work well with anything other than single GPU cards. The chances are if SLI doesn't work for it, then 590 won't either. In reality though what are you doing in SL that requires more than 200+ fps???

[Ormand Lionheart]

I produce machinima. So if i start off with 200 fps by the time I enable shadows, projected light or depth of field I am well below that. Also at Live events other avatars, special effects and particles etc can eat fps dramatically. I generally record at 25 fps so I want to stay above that while reducing graphic settings as little as possible. In shadow mode increasing the size of the window from 720P to 1080P affects fps DRAMATICALLY. On occasion I might want to record at 50 fps for some kind of  motion manipulation in Post Editing.

I used a utility program and it does indeed show SLI working as both cards have equal GPU usage however the fps drops dramatically and has other issues as well. Tried every configuration in Nvidia Control Panel in windowed and full screen mode. Same crappy results. I even emailed Nvidia re: their support of SLI for second and of course no reply.  A google search indicates it used to work a few years ago but not now due to "viewer" changes?

So as a single card solution for most people a GTX 9800 is probably a decent choice unless you want shadows and then you want a GTX 460 at minimum? I have evidence a GTX 580 (probably a 570 too) at least a 50% benefit and the prices on those cards is going down nicely now.

Would like to see what benefit a GTX 670 or 680 would be. Possibly the result being Higher graphic settings at higher maintained fps and faster resolution of particles? Less performance hit when increasing shadow quality and farhter draw distances?

[Nathaniel Starsider]

I am using a GTX 560 Ti, on 1280x1024 with max everything + shadows and 8xAA I get around maybe 40 fps on average. 680 is the fastest single GPU right now and probably the best card for SL out there.

[Ormand Lionheart]

Yes in shadow mode at 1280x1024 is a large increase in fps compared to if you were in 1920x1080. I just installed a GTX 670 and what I noticed is their does not appear to be a fps increase when usin with no shadows, No AA and AF. However handles avatars better with Avaar Imposter disabled and enabling AA and AF seems to not reduce performance. In shadow mode I am getting double the fps comapred to my GTX 460. My advice would be unless you need amazing performance then a GTX 460 is all anyone would ever need. Now if you are doing Machinima then if you need an upgrade it can be a big positive however I have done well with a 460 but of course I have to adjust seetings and derender a lot of avatars in a busy SIM for great results. I can't think of anything else in SL that would require a 600 series card. Possibly in the Fashion field during events etc but most people with those issues have laptops with far inferior vid cards. maybe the 600's seies for the laptop people could be a MAJOR advance though. And of course if you pay other games then a 600 would be of benefit. I have had an driver error occasionaly but I also had that with the 460 with a driver change so that may disappear eventually. Only used it for a day so far.

[Nathaniel Starsider]

It depends on where I am too. There is this house which looks pretty regular but for some reason whenever I have it in my view my fps drops to like 2-3 fps. If I turn shadow, AF, and AA off, I get like close to 10 fps. Higher fps when I turn graphics down from ultra to high. Anyway 560 Ti is already pretty powerful, a 680 is the best out there right now and it's like 35% faster but not really all that significant. A GTX 670 is very close to a 680, a lot of overclocked versions are faster than a standard version 680.

[Ormand Lionheart]

Re: slowing down to 2-3 fps I have experienced that as well. No idea what is doing it and sometimes it's an avatar with some kind of attachment. If you have the derender tool in your viewer you could remove things till it improves and see what the issue is. It is a mystery.

I purchased the Asus Direct CU II GTX 670. In High with no AA or AF it's basically the same fps as a GTX 460. However if you disable Avatar Imposters it does not slow the card down with about 20 avatars around which is really only important if you produce Machinima. Also the draw distance or Depth of field is not as dramatic an impact. Application of AA and AF is virtually no slow down at all. In shadow mode is where I see a doubling of fps (140 fps at Linden Realms with Singularity). You definitely have to use the Nvidia Control Panel and create a viewer profile as otherwise the video card will downclock (need to enable "prefere maximum performance for the power profile). I expect that is the case with your card too.

Only issue so far has been that "driver stopped and is not responding" in shadow mode when it's working real hard. So I installed the software  that came with the card and re-installed the driver. No issue in one small test yet. I had the same problem with my GTX 460 SC after a Nvidia Driver update so had to roll back and it wasnot fixed for about 4 more versions. SL may have patched something too but there were other programs having that issue in forums such as Photoshop etc. So not SL specific problem. I think I read it was the slight overclocking of the card that was the problem with Windows timing out in 2 seconds when the card is working hard.

So for the typical user a GTX or similar card would be the max you would need. Now will that change in SL with MESH who knows?

[Ormand Lionheart]

Firestorm viewer (using a game profile in NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL with no AA or FF so in theory using FXAA only) installed on a RAMdisk and SL cache folder moved to RAMdisk. Note in shadow mode overclocking the RAM and CPU was of no benefit. GPU usage was 98% in OC and stock settings suggesting an even faster card would benefit for more fps? However in HIGH settings there was a benefit of 25%. Disabling DoF only showed a 5 fps increase. Interestingly the Singularity Viewer is slower in HIGH but faster in ULTRA with everything enabled than the Firestorm Viewer. 200fps vs 275fps and 110fps vs 90fps. Surprisingly the LL Viewer is faster in Shadow and DoF mode at 125 fps compared to Firestorms 90 fps but slower in HIGH (240 fps). Ultra differences could be due to different default shadow and DoF tweaks. Comparing this to my GTX 460 no a huge benefit until you are at a venue with a lot of avatars and or particles then the 670 in my opinion has an advantage. Will have to install my older card to check.

Using 1280x1024 resolution I got 115 fps in shadow mode. 1280x720 which is a good video recording resolution shadow mode is 138 fps.

Stats using Firestorm

i7 930@2.8mhz
RAM@1066mhz
resolution@1920x977
HIGH Settings=240fps
Ultra settings Shadows and DoF=90 fps

Overclocked i7 930@3.5mhz
RAM@1614mhz
resolution@1920x977
HIGH Settings=300fps
Ultra settings Shadows and DoF+90 fps

 

 

 

 

 

[Ormand Lionheart]

  Yes I notice your glitches. Is that after rendering out of premiere? I assume there is NO lag in SL for you. I'm not familiar with how well Premiere renders but Vegas doesn't have that problem to that extreme. I also notice ghosting which in SONY Vegas is preventable by disabling resampling. I generally record at 25fps. I might try 50 fps if I know I'm going to be doing some slow motion. As you know those live events really eat away your fps. I've definitely found some venues a lot slower than others. I would say the difference I found between my GTX 460 and 670 is how many avatars and or draw distance, scripts and object will give me lag issues. FPS seems to be similar. I will say ambient occlusion and DoF does not drastically reduce my fps anymore however. I was surprised that Linden Realms uses my GPU at 98%. There's not much there is there? Do you use the Nvidia game profile? That's a big help to me especially since Win7 was downclocking my video card otherwise and also my cpu was parking 2 cores while using SL? Apparently not recognized as a game so Win7 was conserving power.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Ormand Lionheart wrote:

I was surprised that Linden Realms uses my GPU at 98%. There's not much there is there

---

 

That's exactly why your GPU can run so high. It's what I see everywhere. Lots of things to render and lots of lag and my GTX670 doesn't do a whole lot, then go to a near empty place where fps go skyhigh and the card will be working much much harder.

[Ormand Lionheart]

How is your 7950 performance on SL now? Is it fixed?

[Chibbchichi]

By the time i first answered in this thread i had a 7970, which was causing white login screen.

This is fixable with deactivating Aero for the application (rightclick your viewer exe -> compatibility -> deactivate desktop stuff).

After the compatibilty issues of the 7970 i bought a GTX 680 which runs SL just fine. However it has some other disadvantages for me (multiscreen stuff and not working vsync)

Now i'm back at a new 7970, the white login screen is still not fixed (newest 12.11 BETA 7 drivers) and if you turn on Atmospheric Shadows in SL you get some white spots while rendering (see http://i.imgur.com/EuukT.jpg)

So nothing is fixed and i would suggest an NVIDIA card for SL, it performs slightly better ... or lets say different than AMD cards.

[Edward Vellhi]

nVidia is the only brand I would buy to work with SL. ATI has crappy drivers and they frequently don't work correctly with SL -- see "white screen" mentions in other replies. Also LL devs use nVidia so bugs that effect those cards get fixed much faster than ATI. I made the mistake of buying an ATI laptop for use with SL. Buy ATI at your own risk. I wouldn't.

[Chibbchichi]

Slight update: With 12.11 BETA 11 the white login screen is fixed (atleast for me)

Another update: With 13.2 BETA 5 it seems that my white spot thingy with Atmo Shadows are now fixed aswell

[Tenao Infinity]

ok so i has a new custom pc made on apr.5th 2014 i need a to know which veiwer is the best for this specs

Operating System
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
AMD A10-7850K 53 °C
Kaveri 28nm Technology
RAM
3.00GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 798MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASRock FM2A88X+ Killer (CPUSocket) 29 °C
Graphics
X193W (1440x900@75Hz)
512MB ATI AMD Radeon R7 Graphics (ASRock) 5 °C
Storage
698GB Seagate ST3750528AS ATA Device (SATA) 32 °C
465GB Seagate ST500DM0 02-1BD142 SATA Disk Device (SATA) 32 °C
465GB Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex USB Device (USB (SATA)) 29 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH24NSB0 SATA CdRom Device
Audio
AMD High Definition Audio Device

[Chibbchichi]

There is no BEST viewer. You use what you like and basically Firestorm should cover everyones needs.

[Ormand Lionheart]

I agree with Chibbchichi. It depends on what you do in SL and which features you use the most in my case anything to do with Machinima but if you're a builder you may wish a different viewer than me or others. May also depend on your hardware. Your choice of an AMD video card might be an issue as well as only 3 gb of RAM which might determine which viewer performs best for you. It's probably best to do some tests with a few of them especially Firestorm, Singularity or Exodus. From what I have heard you may need to tweak viewers for the AMD. LL uses Nvidia cards to develop the game.

[Ormand Lionheart]

Nvidia multiscreen could be better secifically annoyingly minimizing the viewer when you focus on the other monitor when it's on Fullscreen Mode which it has to be to get a full 1080P rather than 1065P.