Problems I have with Second Life.

Hi guys! I have a quick question. My computer is really fast. It runs great with PC games, on the internet, etc. It's fast. But when I play Second Life, it's SLOW. The only time I can walk around without waiting 5 minutes for my av to walk across the room is either in a lag-free sandbox, or somewhere very high in the air. Not a great place to hang out for the rest of your sl life if you ask me. I was talking to a few people, and they said that if you get a better video card, the game will run much faster. Do you think it would make a difference? And by the way, some one told me to get an Nvidia card, and they said you can get a cheap one for about 40-50 dollars. I don't want to go bankrupt over a little vid. card, so do you think buying a cheaper one would still help? Thanks guys!

It would be useful to know what equipment you have in order to answer your question better.

SL wants both a fast processor and a good video card.

The Help menu in SL, the About Second LIfe option, will show you the basic info, if you don't know know what your system has. On many windows systems, you can get more info with Start /Programs/ Accessories /System Tools/ System Information.

I was actually going to post that, I'm on a diff. computer though. I'll post it tomorrow. Any thoughts about the card?

a cheap video card is not going to help you, not really. and i stand by personal experience, it helps, very little. i even went from a integrated card to a daughter card with its own 256MB ram, and it did little and it cost $110 roughly. the biggest diffence i have seen is the type of hard drive and the actual processor, but honesly, i think its the hard drive that makes the difference. SATA drives will provide you with much better performance than really even doubling your ram will, or putting in a new video card. my poor ATA drive on my other machine has a hard time keeping up while my SATA drive goes pretty smooth.

So you're saying I should buy a new hard drive? How much would that range from?

well, i am assuming you have an ATA drive, and to convert to an SATA drive, uhmmm......will be a significant upgrade really, which means more money, which really means new computer. i bought my gateway about a year and a half ago for 1200 bucks, it had an SATA drive, 1 gig of ram and a Radeon X300. My new computer, ATA drive, 1 gig of ram and a Nvidia 5500, the gateway out performs it all the way around in SL, my new computer is constantly running the hard drive, while the Gateway is just crusing. personally uhmmm......unless you have the money, stick with the video card and increase the ram, it will help a little. if you have the money get a new computer with SATA drives already installed.

Thanks, I'll add the info for my computer tomorrow guys.

I'd post your system specs here and get some more advice before spending any money.

if you want to have an enjoyable experience in second life IMHO you really need to have at least the recommended system requirements

PC Minimum System Recommendations:

* Internet Connection*: Cable or DSL

* Computer Processor: 1.6GHz Pentium 4 or Athlon 2000+ or better

* Computer Memory: 512MB or better

* Video/Graphics Card**:
o nVidia GeForce FX 5600, GeForce 6600, or better
o OR ATI Radeon 9600, X600, or better

you can fin them here for your self

Howdy, Gisele! Regardin` yoah poll, I can`t "vote" `cause none of yoah answers fits: The client simply will not run period on my current systems.

Expecting new hardware in about 17 to 20 hours, though.

Toodle-oo!

I think this poll needed more options. The closest one for me was very fast but in certain places it can get slow.

Well interestingly enough I sometimes run Second Life on my mini-laptop which is a 1.7Ghz Centrino with 1Gb RAM and an Intel Graphics card (64MB not ATI or nVidia based), and it runs very well... on top of that I run it using a cell phone link (3G/UMTS), so I really can't see why you're having such problems.

I mean, it isn't exactly fast, but I get about 20-25FPS easy in most places. I can quite happily build things, move around and chat as normal.

My normal machine is on a decent link with a 256Mb graphics card and plenty of processing power, and that tends to be very fast indeed. I haven't yet tried it on my ATI based machine, but I'm sure that'll be fine too!

I wouldn't run off buying a sata harddisk, i wouldn't expect much improvement from it. Micheal's case looks unique, and most likely his old harddisk was just faulty.

My system info are these:
Internet Connection: Cable
Computer Processor: Athlon 2000+ or better
Computer Memory: 1,25GB
VideoCard: nVidia GeForce FX 5500

I can get around with this and do most things. But i allways alter my preferences in SL to match the area/enviroment where i am.
My draw is allways on 64m and only when i want to see a big build/landscape do i crank it up 128/196 m.
When i'm in a place with a lot of avies. i offcourse keep the drawdistance 64m, but change object detail, tree detail and avatar detal to their lowest setting.
So besides knowing what your system info, it would also help if you tells us what settings you have in preferences.

Alright guys, sorry it took so long. Here's my computer info copied and pasted right from Second Life:

CPU: 0.13 micron Intel Pentium 4 (2800 Mhz)
Memory: 503 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
OpenGL Vendor: Intel
OpenGL Renderer: Intel 845G
OpenGL Version: 1.3.0 - Build 4.14.10.4020
Packets Lost: 0/424 (0.0%)
Viewer Digest: 68920a26-9f41-b742-a5e6-db6a713dcd96

So.. Should I get a vid. card? I don't want anything too expensive (no fancy harddrives or new programs), but I'm willing to buy a vid. card if I need to.

I am afraid you still need to post more information.

What type of video card do you have now?
What type of internet connection do you have?
What type of hard drive do you have, and how much free space?
A/S/L ?

Interesting... I usually play SL on my lappytop and haven't had too many problems, unless I'm around lots of avatars and/or particle systems. Big get togethers bring my system to a grinding halt. I have all settings turned to minimum, and things like local lighting turned off.

1.3 GHz Intel Celery
512 MB RAM
Intel 915GM 8MB Display adapter
Wireless usually connected to DSL router

Now I'm not saying that SL runs super good, or super nice looking, but it's tolerable. I've noticed that if my internet connection is poor, that the game runs really bad.

Option unavailable: "I can't stand lag, but I somehow manage to get around. It affects my game play and I find it very hard to continue to pay for such a laggy service. This should be a priority at LL."

If I played SL offline, then you would be correct. But its based online god forbid we should expect to be around a lot of other ppl and not have our machines grind to a snails pace.

Huh? Did I miss something? I'm not saying what is wrong and what is right. I'm giving my personal experience. If I can play SL on a sub-par machine and enjoy it, not experience any lag, UNLESS im surrounded by 20 people, then someone with a machine much better than mine shouldn't have any problems.

I don't see what you are getting at. What I am saying, you cannot blame LL for laggy service. It's based on everyone's own hardware, connection, etc, etc. Lag happens, get over it. I'm not complaining at all, I'm trying to help the original poster figure out the reason for THEIR lag. They have a much better system than me, so it must be something else.