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

[Chris Mammoth]

sorry my bad there the reply was aimed at the guy above not you i hit the wrong button. My mistake and i apologose though i thought in reading it the error was clear.

*Edit to add*

I'll happily do your test tomorrow when i can on a system running 1605T @ 4GHZ 32GB DDR3 and a GTX 580

Then i will redo it on a system running FX Snoozedozer 4100 @ stock speed 16GB DDR3 and a 550TI (OC'd)

Though the test has little basis really as the number of factors that influence it are vast. I can tell you now the 580 can max out anything thrown at it at good FPS. The 550 can max out most things in SL though suffers a FPS drop when sims get uber busy.

[Chris Mammoth]

You complain about Nvidia fans though and let me say I'm not a blind fan. If you asked me best card to run BF3 on i would answer AMD. To me you appear one of these blind AMD fans that just wont listen to a hardware fact.

Comparing a old 8600M mobile chipset to a discrete desktop 5850 is not a comparison either. Thats like me saying the the atom bomb is better than the catapult.... they are different and different generations at that.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Thanks for the apology Chris and of course accepted. :smileyhappy:

No, you misunderstand me. I wasn't comparing the Nvidia 8600M GT to my ATI Radeon HD 5850 as that would be kind of silly, just mentioning that I own both Nvidia and AMD cards and my old computer had Nvidia and ATI cards at various times too. As I said in my last post, my next computer could have an AMD or Nvidia card as well or I may decide to update this one with a AMD 7950 or one of the new Nvidia cards. Have to wait and see the reviews.

I think the ATI 5850 performs very well in Second Life (kind of sorry I didn't pay a bit extra and get the 5870 at the time). It's just the way some people speak, one would think no AMD cards perform well in SL and that is just not true. I've helped a few people get the most out of their ATI/AMD cards. The OP in a recent post in Answers mentioned he was getting very poor FPS with his AMD HD 5770 (normally a very well performing card in SL) but in fact LL did something recently to the latest viewer affecting VBO causing a huge drop in FPS so disabling this raised his FPS by 30. Was the same for me. It's nothing to do with the card or drivers, just something LL did and I've no idea what as yet as it's not apparent in any other viewers where VBO can happily be left on.

Anyway, I'd be interested to see how you get on with the GTX 580. I have no idea what a FX Snoozedozer is :smileyvery-happy: but sure sounds cool! Anyway. your figures should be way ahead of mine. I get 76/77 FPS on Ultra without Shadows and 85/90 on High in that sim. Yes, a multitude of variables but that particular sim is a low lag and very stable Linden sim and the only avatars are those arriving and passing through the portals to Linden Realms which are on other islands. 

[Ormand Lionheart]

Have you run shadows or projected light on your AMD card? LL develops with Nvidia cards which in theory handle openGL much better. What we need is some benchmark tests with different cards.

[Ormand Lionheart]

I thought SL does not benefit (in fact is much slower) with SLI? I have tried multiple times for over a year to SLI with a benefit and as yet no success.

[Ormand Lionheart]

Is that chart correct? Seems to indicate a GTX 460 is superior to a GTX 580? And that the GTX 560 Ti is even more so?

[Ormand Lionheart]

You didnt mention what aspect ratio which makes a huge difference in fps in shadow mode. So i chose what i think you used which was 1280x 940 or there abouts.

[Ormand Lionheart]

With shadows disabled at that location I was getting 275 fps.

 

You are at 256139.1, 269951.0, 24.5 in LR Portal Park1 located at sim9940.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.46.82:13002)
Second Life Server 12.02.24.249991
Release Notes

CPU: Intel® Core i7 CPU         930  @ 2.80GHz (3381.05 MHz)
SSE Support: SSE2
Memory: 12280 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit  (Build 7601)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 460/PCI/SSE2
Windows Graphics Driver Version: 8.17.0012.7061
OpenGL Version: 4.1.0

[Ormand Lionheart]

Same test and same SIM but using LL Viewer at 1280x940

2x AA  = 75 fps

AA disabled = 78 fps

16x AA = 75 fps

 

So AA seems to be no issue re: performance with my system on this SIM in shadow mode. the other test with the Singularity viewer was done with AA disabled.

[Chris Mammoth]

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/hh504/wr6133/580test.png

Thats the 580 making just over 84FPS

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/hh504/wr6133/550ti_001.png

Thats the 550ti managing 43 for this test i reset it to stock clock speeds.

The 580 data has little relevence in my opinion as its a flagship card most wont buy and all said and done most peoples monitors can only display 60FPS ayway.

I wasnt sure on your test resolution so i used my native of 1920X1080(HD) I just saw the newer posts using a lower res and he is right that makes a very big difference. Would be good too know what your res was on the test Nyll.

But to show my point on Nvidia if you were on 1920X1080 like i was and only got 10FPS more than me when in this

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-review,review-32374-7.html widely used and referenced chart your card is 2 tiers above mine. If you werent using 1920X1080 resolution but something lower i suspect the 550ti will actually beat yours. All that said though only in SL if you put these cards head to head on multiplayer BF3 you would see yours draw a much wider lead on the 550ti than 10FPS.

(sidenote the FX Snoozedozer is a nickname for AMD's bulldozer CPU's....... its not an endearing name the newer FX is in my 2nd rig, my primary outperforms it with a Phenom IIX6)

*edit to add* the CPU's used can make a difference or should be known before advice is given to buyers. If they are running an old athlonX2 or c2d high end cards will bottleneck so would be a waste of money.

Also personally as a rule of thumb i use when making recommendations i take that Toms hardware chart and if the user only wants great SL performance i move the Nvidias up one tier as thats more like where they punch in SL performance. If we believe the leaks on kepler (600 series) though that entire chart will be blown away soon.

 

 

[Perrie Juran]

I hate to say this but in order to give us a more realistic comparison you are BOTH going to need to do this test using the test Avatar.

Especially you, Chris.  I could be wrong but it appears to me that you are wearing a hair that could be heavy in flexi prims with alphas. There are known issues with this that are murder on some of us.  On my computer, my one hair which is heavy on flexi's cost me 40 to 50 FPS when I wear it.

I am not saying that your hair IS doing this, but a good possibility of it exists.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Thanks for posting those photos Chris. Sort of figures I expected with the 580 doing very well. My monitor is kind of old so yes I hadn't though of resolution. Mine is at 1280 x 1024 so your figures are somewhat better than they appear compared to mine. Your 550 Ti would undoubtedly beat my figures at same resolution.

I have a quad core water cooled i5 750 overclocked from 2.76 GHz to 4.1 GHz and 4GB RAM.

Yes, I was aware of tomshardware site, I go there for most reviews. Seems to be good and popular. That's a good rule of thumb. I'm looking forward to the new Nvidia cards though I suppose they will release the top super card first and then slowly release the ones below it.

Thanks for taking part in my little test.  I think it would take a lot of thought to even things out for everyone, pretty much impossible really.

 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Yes, my ATI card runs shadows very well with no problems at all as you can see from the photo I posted. Resolution was 1280 x 1024.

I have read  posts that SLI and Crossfire don't work well with Second Life. Was going to get a second 5850 once but that put me off.

Must say I am so surprised by the results you posted with a GTX 460!

 

 

[Ormand Lionheart]

Using the LL viewer 84 fps is impressive and a great benchmark comparison using your resolution of 1920x1080 I got 47 fps with AA enabled. Disabing AA was 49. A superclocked 763 mhz GTX 460 768mb and i7 930 overclocked to 3381 MHz. Singularity is about 75 however not sure where to enable ambient occlusion. Definitely a fast viewer. So a 580 double the performance in shadow mode and I assume when there is a lot of avatars on a SIM?

That would be another good test. So you have an AMD chip so someone could have a saving there over an Intel chip and use the saving for a GTX 570 when the price reduces when the new vid cards arrive?

[Ormand Lionheart]

My results may not be common for my system specs. I use multiple partitioned hard drives and install the viewer and SL cache on a RAMdisk. So after tweaking the viewer from it's default settings I probably gain 50-100% more fps? I'm glad to see an upgrade to a 580 would be worth it. SLI works...your fps will go from 200 fps down to 32 fps but I assume that's not the result you are looking for :-). I tried for a year to get it to work better but no luck. And with a 580 Chris has shown you dont need SLI. That was a pretty good test I believe. I will try on a smaller monitor your size  and post

[Ormand Lionheart]

So I tested at 1280x1040 with 2x AA and shadows and got 70 fps. Enabled DOF and got 46-66. There is no way to move the viewer window anymore? I'm running two monitors in this test.

[Chris Mammoth]

Your 460 should do well its probably one of the best price to performance cards released lately it punched above its weight when it released and it still keeps easy pace with the 500's.

I'd struggle to recommend AMD CPU's right now. If you can grab an old phenom II before they run out then thats a good choice, they OC well and they can outperform the lower FX bulldozers (4 and 6 core). The 8 core FX is a waste because that takes you to Intel Sandybridge money and loses to them. All this said next few months Ivybridge is out which claims a 10-15% increase on Sandy, now that really will leave AMD in a pickle when it comes to the gaming market.

Nyll I think the "problem" people have with Sli/crossfire is they expect to double their performance where as in reality the 2nd card adds a 30% boost at most and that can be at the expence of suffering things like microstutter. I think multi cards really are most suited to the hardcore enthusiasts who have to have the top card X4 because they can! or to people who's card is aging but see a significant saving in pairing it rather than replacing it.

I think from the leaks the 680 will be the initial release and the top card but this will effect prices right down the chain. I can already see on UK sites that my 580 in the past week has dropped anywhere between 10-15% on price, 570's are the same. Some sites now there is scarcely a difference between a 570 and a 560ti 448 edition. This is before release of the 600's or to be accurate before we even have a solid official release date even. I think in the week or so following release there may be some immense bargains for people not minding a 500 series.

*edit to add* Ebay will be an awesome place for 580's at bargain price when 680 comes out. Watch it flood up with them on the release week.

[Ormand Lionheart]

I tried SLI for a year with GTX 460's. I NEVER saw any fps benefit and in fact it gears down to about 32 fps from 100-200 fps. I tried every manner of settings including the recommended fullscreen mode etc. Apparently SLI used to benefit but not now. Nvidia claims Secnd Life supports SLI which I guess it does since when I monitor the gpu performance each card oes indeed share the load however the fps plummet. Some still claim it is a benefit however those people are few and far between. Someone said you have to max everything out in the control panel however that is slower also so not sure if it works as a benefit for anyone these days since driver changes. I've had driver issues for th epast year so can't even install the newer Nvidia drivers since there seems to be a well documented issue for some cards. I get a update failed error so the 270 drivers are as high as I can go right now. Seems hardware is ahead of software. I'm assuming you can turn up the shadwo quality and still maintain decent fps. If I do so I go down to about 13 fps. 600 series should be interesting.

[Ormand Lionheart]

Looking at that chart my GTX 460 768 mb card is 2fps better than a GTX 580 in OpenGL however Chris' GTX 580 is about double the fps as my card when using shadows in ultra mode. So I have to assume running SL fast is a lot more than just about OpenGL performance. So a 580 is still better than a 460 in shadow mode, DOF and draw distance I assume and probably with large crowds of avatars. that being said a 460 runs SL VERY WELL.

[Ormand Lionheart]

GTX 680 are on sale $500cdn plus taxes. http://ncix.com/search/?categoryid=0&q=gtx+680

Benchmarks look to be about 50% faster than the GTX 580

In my case an upgrade from a GTX 460 would be triple the fps I get now in Shadow Mode?

 

 

[Chibbchichi]

Well i can't  support the 7950 / 7970 idea for second life.

I recently bought one 7970 and now Firestorm is a white window on startup.

Maybe a driver issue. Maybe a SL issue. I don't know. 

It doesn't seem that alot of 7970 owners are playing SL so guess i'll just have to wait untill it works again.

And my suggestion for bessi222: go for the 560 D:

[Ormand Lionheart]

Did you try other viewers? Did you disble VBO in the viewer hardware settings? Even a GTX 690 may have issues too?

[Chibbchichi]

Same for other viewers.

Please tell me how to turn down graphics with a blank white screen because that is all i got. 

Blank white screen. Killable via TaskManager.

I don't know for the 680, but both 680 and 7970 are new architectures so i guess the problem is SL not supporting them.

Searching for similar issues it always was an unsupported GPU

[Ormand Lionheart]

i saw a thread where someone was using a 7950 http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=4286648#post4286648

Do you get the login screen with no problem? If so you can go into edit preferences and try to log in with Low Settings. maybe turn off VBO etc.

 

Or I believe you can make a game profile witht he software that came with your video card and maybe adjust settings there so it works?  It's similar to Nvidia Control Panel and managing 3D programs settings individually. Let us know if anything works and if it's better.

[Ann Otoole]

Could buy a 560ti for 300. Or buy a 580 for 500. or buy a 680 for 530. The prices on 580 and below were supposed to drop but nobody is lowering any prices. Newegg is out of stock on all 680s. tigerdirect has 1 for 530. doesn't say out of stock.

I was gonna get a 560ti but with the 680 at the 500 range may as well do that. When my check arrives anyway. Glad I already installed an antec 650w power supply.

The only real way to benchmark SL is to turn everything on full and make a video in a complex region and post it on youtube. gpu benchmarks are notoriously rigged depending on the manufacturer and what is going on competition-wise.