Graohics Card

Well as usual my graphics card isnt good enough for SL. I have a RIVA TNT2 and it says its not supported so SL runs choppy does anyone have any tips on how i might be able to get SL not to run as choppy without spending $$? Like an aptimizer or something?

Dunno, sir. TNT 2 is a bit aging.

You can upgrade your card fairly cheap, have you checked http://www.pricewatch.com ? Even upgrading to a 64mb AGP card might make a significant difference.

Else, I would recommend going into preferences:
- Turning draw radius down
- Turning quality down (object detail, particle count, terrain detail, remove bump rendering from objects and avatars, etc)
- Try using software rendering if you have a decent machine
- Turn your hard drive cache down to 512mb if you have it at a gig

Bandwidth tends to be the bottleneck with SL... hope you can get this resolved.

-Hiro Pendragon

Rich, can you post your complete system specs? Make and model of CPU, motherboard, RAM, etc.? Depending on your existing hardware, I may be able to make some recommendations.

To be honest, I'm mildly surprised that a TNT2 can run SL at all. Doesn't SL use all the latest bells and whistles on new cards, not counting the millions of unoptomized polygons?

LF

You don't need a $500 video card to run SL. This isn't Doom 3. Even a $60 video card will do.

Heck I even use an unsupported Radeon 7200 video card, and while it complains this card isn't supported, it works just fine. Though I have to use older video drivers from ATI (like 48.x) newer drivers make it run EXTREMELY slow, so slow the GUI won't respond properly. So I used older video drivers so it it works, however textures get thrashed after a while, but it runs well.

But if you get ANY video card that supports T&L, you'll be fine. TNT2 card is just a hair two low. Try a GeForce 2 video card.. probably get that for like $50.

Ok well I have a HP pentium 4 processor, windows ME I have 127.445 MB ram if theres anything else just reply asking what else ok?

Weird number for RAM :-/ I assume you mean 128. Anyway, that might not be enough anyway... And I think ME has problems with SL. How many GhZ is the Pentium 4?

What model of HP computer do you have? This will be the name and number on the front of it.

That RAM is a bit on the low side for SL. I'd recommend 512MB minimum, 1024MB ideally.

I have a HP pavillion 9900 and i might upgrade to windows XP not sure tho. is there a way I can upgrade my ram like with an optimizer or do i have to but something???

Yes, you need actual RAM.

Unfortunately, from what I'm reading, it looks like your computer uses RDRAM, which is the crappy, expensive kind.

Are you absolutely sure you have a TNT2? It's absolutely astonishing that you can even run SL at all with that card.

Your best bet would probably be to get a new motherboard, new video card and new RAM.

If you're interested in doing that, I can make some recommendations.

I am interested in that could you please post recomendations and a rough price range?

Yes I would like some information also on upgrades and suggestiosn current system specs

PNY Geforce TI 4400 video card
768 mb of ddr ram running at 333 mhz
Athlon 2000 xp
Soyo KT 400 Dragon Ultra MOBO

The motherboard was my last upgrade it is capbable of overclocking and supports up to an Athlon 3000 and Raid.
My concern is in the cpu memory and video card..would upgrading to a 3 gig Athlon make a significant differnce ..I usually run SL at a low draw distance usually 96-128 m lower if there are alot of objects in the area almost all the extra prettiness details turned off except for shinyness...I would like to run it at maybe a longer view distance to cut the fog and maybe more features turned on like lighting
..also what are some suggestions you would recommend on cooling..my computer tends to run hot I keep the doors off and am using a personal fan to help ..even with this it still is average around 50 c..(60 C without)

A 2.6 ghz pentium 4 with a GeforceFX 5600 128 MB, with 512 MB DDR runs SL perfectly fine.

My draw distance is set to 192, and I have object bump, high object/tree/avatar detail, particles, etc. without any problems most days.

As an aside, I wouldn't recommend overclocking your processor if you're going to be playing SL a lot; the components get hot enough playing it (SL uses 100% of your video card and your processor at all times), so overclocking it will just make it worse.

LF

Rich:

I'm not sure if your computer case will fit, because there's not much information I could find about it at a glance.

I'm assuming you'll need a new case and power supply in addition to the motherboard, RAM and video card. Everything else should be reusable.

All prices are from NewEgg.com and are in USD.

Motherboard: ASUS P4P800S - $72

Video Card: GeForce FX 5200 - $61
The 5200 is definitely not the best card in the world, but it's miles beyond what you're using now. I'd recommend the 5600, 5700 or 5900 above it, but of course, you're spending more and more money each time. Do not get an "XT" card under any circumstances. They suck.

RAM: 512MB DDR-333 - $77
This stuff seems pretty decent, but I haven't run into them before. Infineon, Samsung and Micron make the best RAM chips, but the fact that this RAM advertises as being potentially one or the other is not totally a good sign. DDR-400 (PC3200) is better, but it's more expensive.

Case:
Antec SLK1650B with 350W PSU - $77
Now this I can get behind 100%. It's a great case and a rock-solid PSU. 16A output on the 12V rail, so it should be able to drive any video card you throw at it. It looks decent and runs cool.

Now, all these parts will work together, and they all SHOULD work with your existing drives and so forth. If you've never upgraded a computer before, I recommend you print out a list of what you want, go to a smaller computer store and ask them how much those parts would cost, then, if it's an acceptable price, take your computer there for them to do it. Otherwise, ship the motherboard, RAM and video card anywhere you want, but buy the case locally, if you can. Any good smaller store will be able to order it for you.

Your CPU is definitely the slowest part of the SL equation.

Now, you also have to remember that AMD's numbering scheme doesn't go by Mhz. Your Athlon XP 2000+ runs at 1.667 Ghz. My Athlon XP 3200+ runs at 2.2Ghz. Performance-wise, it's a huge jump, but the actual clockspeeds are pretty small, compared to what the numbers indicate.

Yes, upgrading to a better CPU would give you better performance, but I'm not convinced that AMD's 32-bit offerings are really what you want. Either P4 or Athlon 64 would give the best improvement in my opinion.

If you switched to a P4 motherboard and faster CPU, you'd be assured that your performance would be much better, but P4s are very expensive.

You can get a P4 3.0Ghz/800Mhz bus/1MB L2 cache for $180 USD and a decent P4 motherboard for $70.

Alternatively, you might consider keeping your existing motherboard and just getting a new CPU. That's probably what I would recommend.

See these benchmarks for an idea of what the different CPUs do.

Thanks Catherine I hope I get can enough extra $$ to get all this but ill try.

That may not necessarily be the exact motherboard you want to get, but you should be fine as long as you remember to get an Asus motherboard with an Intel chipset that supports DDR RAM.

You may wish to double-check that your CPU is the right socket as well. There are a couple different interfaces and you want to be sure you're getting the right one. Your computer's manual should say.

Catherine,

What helpful and comprehensive posts!

(I know where to come when my computer next breaks down)

Very Very helpful Catherine..thank you I think im going to go with the cpu for my existing board atm..I plan to build a c4 bit board in the future as prices come down..One other question I have is on cooling any suggestions on better cpu fans and cooling alternatives ?

As long as you have sufficient airflow between the front and back of your case, your stock fans and heatsinks should be sufficient.

To see what your temperatures are at, check out Speedfan to see all your temperatures and fan speeds at a glance. It'll detect everything in your system every time, even video cards and hard drives, if they have temperature sensors. 40-50C is not a bad temperature range for your CPU.

If you want to try some really fancy cooling, there's stuff like water cooling or even freon. Air cooling works, though. If you're not REALLY into it, you probably don't want to spend the time and money putting together something like that. I wouldn't recommend liquid cooling for anyone other than the most obsessive overclockers at this point. It's just not reliable enough if you don't know what you're doing.

If you're REALLY set on water cooling, I might be able to make some recommendations based on what I've read so far. I don't have much experience myself, but I've certainly done a lot of reading on the subject.

Thanks again Cat for the very detailed and informative post..I think my fan is either inefficent or dying..I have temp sensor software that came with this bard and the readings i get show temps in excess of 50 somtimes in excess of 60 I have a cpu fan and one case fan in the front ..the only way i keep the heat low is by taking the sides off and running a small personal fan next to it ..(very slopppy i know lol)..I tried installing a small fan to the side of the case but it would still run in the high 50 to 60 range ..so I was wondering if installing a fan for a higer rated cpu such as for a 3k or higher Athlon would help..thanks again

Yes, that's a bit hotter than would be ideal, Darzus. What kind of cooler are you running now? A stock one, I assume? Did you do anything special with thermal paste? What are the ambient temperatures like in your computer room? What type of case do you have? It's possible that you might get better results by adding a couple internal fans and keeping the side panels on to help duct the air in the front and out the back.

Nope, nothing of that - what is used is mainly DX7 with the addition of Particles (IMO DX. So, while a TNT2 user won't see particles, he shouldn't have lots of problems to see everything else, it only will be very slow since a) some of the features that newer cards calculate in their hardware have to be calculated software-side and b) the speed of graphic rendering and transmission and amount of stored graphics will be far inferior.

In fact, SL does not even recognize all "new" mainstream cards and shows eg. less memory than the card had available.

Actually, SL doesn't use Direct3D. It uses OpenGL, which is how it's able to run on MacOSX.