Oh God! I'm gonna be obsolete!

'sigh .. you missed my point entirely .... sometimes something that seems simple to you is just not simple to everyone ... and its a mistake to dismiss something as trivial based on your assessment of what is or is not simple.

Im going away now .. I should never have tried to participate in this discussion.

You know, all you have done is attack me no matter what the topic might be. And it is very true a lot of people would rather use that 30 bucks to buy gas to get to work, or feed their family.

And it is very true, many people cannot afford to shell out 30,40 or 50 bucks for a card just so that one game will work.

i will say there *ARE* specific performance problems with the 1.7.x clients that have *NOTHING* to do with the 'spec' of the computers running them.

At one point, there were three avatars, standing in roughly a triangle, up at 600m... if the camera pointed at *ANY* two of them, the fps was in the 40-50 range... the SECOND all three were in frame, it would drop to sub 4 fps... with *ALL* the extra time now spent in 'render geometry' which is odd cause there isn really that much geometry on any of the avatars...

myself and hydra, 50 fps, myself and beatfox, 50 fps, hydra and beatfox, 50 fps... myself, hydra *AND* beatfox, 3.8 fps..

it did it, continually, repetably, for about 30 minutes.. and then abruptly it stopped... with the three of us on frame it got 47 fps again and was fine the rest of the evening... *NOTHING* changed at all, anywhere in the entire sim, somehow tho there was some specific state, or set of circumstances where the client essentially 'fizzled out' and performed absolutely atrociously... which never, ever happened in 1.6.x or earlier

and i've seen it happen, on and off, for the last week... all of a sudden with absolutely no warning and no reason for it at all, the client will just run 10x slower than it normally does, for a good long while, and then, poof, it'll run fine again, even in very *VERY* empty areas, nothing else is running on the machines, nothing changed at all, except the clients...

(also if the machine itself was under-spec, multiple slices of the rendering process would all scale up, especially the 'updates' which was not what was happening here, this was all within the rendergeometry slice

Only Robin's reply has been quoted here - and it's a little out of context without details of the specific problem that it was referring to. ISTR it was somebody complaining that only the few textures directly in front of the camera would render sharply - that everything outside the centre of the view went out of focus as you turned around, and only came back into focus when faced directly. Sounds *very* much like an over-stressed/under-specced graphics card to me (maybe they're using more efficient rendering methods in 1.7 that older cards can't cope with?)

This response was nothing to do with frame rate spikes (which very much seems to be a server-side problem, if you've been watching sim stats over the last couple of days).

Then maybe SL isn't for you? A broadband connection typically runs 30/40 bucks a month. A computer capable of decently handling SL runs at least 500 total. Average tier fees are around $25 a month.

I'm assuming most people playing SL have jobs. If you cannot afford the extra 30 bucks to extend your hobby, one that you've sunk hundreds/thousands into, that's a problem bigger than SL or a video card.

Thanks for being pedantic, though.

A new video card is hardly a convenient option for anyone using a laptop.

Magnum,

Depending on the computer, many computers that have built in video cards also have an availble slot for putting in a video card. For example, a friend of mine who could not run SL because of the type of built in Intel chip he had was able to run SL after I sent him a PCI Geforce 5200. The computer might not have an available AGP slot, but you could still run a PCI card with it if it doesn't as long as you have a free PCI slot. Ultimately saving up and buying a new card may buy you more time with the computer that you do have if you can't afford to upgrade it completely.

What it sounds like to me is what I experienced in the preview with my 512meg 6800 Ultra. They have configured SL to work with 512 cards but when I tried out the new setting I got exactly what the original poster described. I sent in a bug report and a day or two later they emailed me saying they got it fixed. It sounds like there is a problem with the way SL is handeling textures and memory. Lots of people are having trouble with textures now but it may be that the more video memory you have the less it affects you.

It’s not horribly complicated, but it’s more a matter of ‘plug and pray’ rather than ‘plug and play’ for many people.

Laptop computer - might not be upgradeable at all.

PCI, AGP, SLI? Just so much alphabet soup for some people.

On-board video? Disable it? What do you mean BIOS?

Do you even have a video card slot? Uncommon, but I have run into motherboards that only had onboard video and nothing else.

At last count a well know website had available 99 PCI Express cards, 83 AGP cards, 20 PCI cards, and 46 SLI cards. For a novice that is a mind cramping array of choices.
Unless you already know something about the subject "eVGA GeForce 7800 GT CO PCIe 256MB with COD2" is just a bunch of gobbly gook.

Rarely do I run across an auto mechanic that is smug and scoffs at people because they can't fix their own cars, but I run into that constantly when it comes to computers. I have yet to figure out why that is.

I myself have the following issues with this hardware

I have an Athlon 64
Geforce 7800GT 256mb Ram
1 gig ram

and my textures will not load.
nor will my avatar render.
I spent 3 hours last night with every one looking like thier faces had melted off.
I did not have this issue pre-update only post

My girlfriend has a lesser machine then i
AMD 2600
1 gig ram
ati Radeon 9800Pro 128mb ram

and she dosen't have the problem...

Werid eh?

That may well be the case. But what have Linden Lab added to Second Life in the past year or so that actually requires more processing or rendering? Why is the pc I was playing SL on six months ago not sufficient now? I'm struggling to think of what they might have added that require the specs to be raised?

I agree with you 100% On that note, let me know if you ever have any tech questions regarding hardware purchasing/specing out, not with just SL alone as the hardware you use for SL may affect other applications (unless you have the disposable income to build a separate system devoted to SL). Often times people get trapped into the spec mind frame, all they care about are benchmarks/system performance tests in a closed/controlled environment using 100% known configs/software or the most popular software. These specs usually don't list how many times the test computer crashed or locked up or the testing was done for only 15 mins, not even giving the CPU/GPU time to warm up to toasty level. Keeping up with the Jonses or buying a computer purely on the specs thrown at you is a bad decision and can be costly to boot. Often times the specs cited are for new hardware that is in it's infancy like PCI-express, Hyperthreading/Dual Core. Anyone remember the crap that happened with USB? USB wasn't even fully supported properly till Windows ME and that was a crappy O/S all over and you were lucky to get a USB mouse to function in Windows 98 without first upgrading to Second Edition. Don't even get me started on how hyperthreading is touted as teh bomb but it is more of a cheap hack by intel/amd to get more of your cash and isn't fully supported properly yet as it is not true SMP processing and the O/S has to handle all thread distribution on it's own without hardware assistance like with a true multi-processor system (in a nutshell = more prone to crashing and the blue screen of death). I pour over the specs of newer hardware too, but I refuse to buy any new technology till it is at 3 to 6 months old which allows a broader testing ground and most of the issues get resolved by then (not to mention price drops).

I don't really know why a lot of computer people are that way, I have run into a lot of em too in my time and I am just as baffled by it.

So true.

"We're raising minimum speed limits."
"But my car's not fast enough!"
"Oh, just bolt on a super-charger. You can get them for $100."

I'm with Kris. I don't see any reason why the minimum spec should be increased - there's no feature that should demand a higher minimum spec.

Some people have purchased non-upgradeable laptops with minimum specs in mind.

Personally, I'd like to see minimum specs stay the same. Imagine that - being able to get 60fps in SL like in other games with above average hardware.

p4 3.4
1 gig ram
ati x850xt 256 MB ram

client side fps has dropped from 25-70 to around 5-15.

Everyone's getting shitty framerates because LLabs have (allegedly) no idea how to graft new features into an already unstable codebase.
To play devil's advocate, though, since launch, we've gotten:

A new rendering engine, shiny, more prims per server (and hence more rendered at once), new shapes (more polygon intensive), quicktime support hacked in, FMod mp3 streaming support hacked in, custom animations, revamped particle systems, and a slew of other, smaller things that are no doubt taxing the poor, mismanaged client to its limit.

LF

Being a "computer People" though I do not act that way 99% of the time.
But its prolly couse most peopple that have any inkling of PCs now dub themself "experts" in the field and to be honest people are always trying to make themself look better then other people and lord knows that if they can drop some lingo along the way, and people that have no clue adore and bloster these peoples egos.

How man of them do you think actually know what the difference between E-IDE/Sata is? or PCi-X or Agp or even Dual Core/HT-hyper transport?

The other problem is the people that DO know what the hell they are talking about also talk down to the people that don't know crap and in the end make themselfs look bad.


and all that being said, it still dont explain why a pc thats low end can play a wickedly grapghic intensove game like say Battlefield 2 with no issues, yet Second life will bring that same machine to its knees.

A good friend of mine is of the low cash type. this is his specs
athlon 1400
gig of ram
Nvidia 5700Le
he can play the aforementioned game with no issues and can also play Halflife2 no problems. (wich is the same game engine that second life uses)

yet Sl makes his pc drown.

my 2 cents again

I agree. I used the term computer people because there are a ton of names that we are called most of them ok, a few are just strange (techies) and a few are just bad, especially when you have to quote over $200 to fix a computer problem...

If I came off as talking down, I apologise or am I misreading your reply and you were just adding to the mix? I am all about sharing the info and helping people understand the technology, since it is a highly distributed product it is better in the long run if the information was more broadly shared as far as the technology goes. Windows breaks itself enough times to keep me employed so I don't fear that.

One of the other things I have noticed, a lot of computer techs have a hard time explaining things to non-technical customers. It is this way with all industries though. Heck, the maintenance guys at work talk about HVAC systems and I am just looking at them like a deer in headlights going "huh?"

Yes I know all of that. And yes I was referring to the asset server and other busy internal servers. Sounds more like someone wants to bandaid poorly written software with beefier hardware. But from the reponses here the beefy hardware wont fix jack. (or jill)

No problem man I was just addding into the mix. I myself work as a pC-tech and have done this for like 15 years.

When I try to tech-down as I like to call it, I first go into Car terms. if that dont work.
I try to dumb it down even further LOL.

but anyways

heh, gotta love the car terms, works most of the time as well. The only part I disagree with is it being called dumbing down. The biggest reason for this is that most people don't have the time to learn another skill like computer technology as they have already invested time to learn their prominent one such as carpentry/sales/auto mechanics etc. A lot of the customers I have encountered blow me away when it comes to what they do for a living ( try talking to a radome engineer or a CNC programmer/operator, kinda makes you feel like you don't really know anything) even though the computer technology eludes them. Anyone with the time to sit down and study the material can learn the ins and outs of computer technology, but it takes time, a lot of time. I have been in the business for over 10 years and I am still learning about it.

Yup LOL, Wich brings us full circle to the thread. Why I don't understand why with the pc I have does only this game chug like some one poured molasses into the oil....

I can afford the cost no problem I am thinking of other people with families. We should not limit SL to those who can afford it. We should make it as affordable as possiable.

Thats very true but its a bear to dis-able the built in card.

Ah, yes, this goes back to your RL proposal of making everything free, created by robots that can repair themselves. I think that's excellent!

I know, it is aggrivating to me as well. Not just oil but 80W gear oil with molasses in the middle of february. I do know they are working on it though which leaves me with the warm and fuzzies. I have been looking into this issue like mad, hoping that perhaps there was some sort of issue with updates to the SL client and local machine configs. I almost had a connection as to it being related to Intel, WIN XP and nVidia vid setups but alas, it is not the case from the more recent evidence. All I know is that the SL client throttles my poor CPU to 100% resource useage and I have never had any application do that to my machine for the entire time the application was foreground task, spurts yes, 5 min time yes but not the entire 14 hours of using it, not even autocad or other havok based games do that. I have been monitoring memory, page file, network utilization and packet send/receive/loss and have not dicovered any anomalies that would cause the CPU to throttle out max like that. I was almost hoping it was a local problem so I could fix it and be happy and lag free, without shelling out a ton of cash of course.

As far as the origional post is concerened, unfortunatly the software industry drives the hardware industry. As the software developers think of new and cool things to do, hardware needs to keep up with those wish lists. Software will often times include features that get adapted to in hardware later to make the features faster which in turn causes the old hardware to become obsolete. I have an example on the tip of my mind but the basic premise that I remember is an older game that had some snazzy graphics but it was all software rendered until I think 3DFX added a feature to their Voodoo line of video cards in which other hardware manufactureres adopted to allow the games to play better using that feature. Intel is guilty of it as well with their MMX additions to their processors, offloading software resources to hardware ususally starts with the software first when it is a cutting edge technology mainly because to stay ahead of the market, you gotta keep making things better and snazzier. If you wait till the hardware supports it, you will most likely suffer low sales since someone out there will do it in their software first and get a jump on the market/sales. Another thing that happens is that the big software dev companies get ahold of engineering sample procs and hardware to toy around with new features, way before the hardware actually goes on sale so their software may support the function months ahead of the hardware release which makes end users wanting the new future hardware so they can experience the full power of the application they purchased.