Grpahics Card Memory - Important?

I have a Geforce 8800GTS with something like 380K memory (I'm guessing, but it's 300 and something)

I see you can get new cards out there now with like up to 756 and 1GB of memory.

I know throwing computing power at Second Life does not always made any difference (I've proved this myself by overcloking my CPU and Graphics card for a test and getting ZERO speed up in FPS on the statistics window)

But........

As I say, what about changing graphics carsd for one with more memory.

Or, are there SO MANY textures that it's going to make zero difference as the HDD and SYSTEM RAM will get called upon for texures most of the time and a bit more Graphics Card memory is going to be unnoticable?

Thanks.

I believe LL is currently capping video memory use at 512, so folks with more video ram don't get to use it in SL.

Do you have any documentation on that, Suzanne? I thought the cap was 2GB, since the texture memory slider in hardware preferences goes all the way up to 2048. But it's not like LL hasn't done silly things with GUI before, so I guess we can't really consider that slider to be a reliable indicator. I'd be very interested in any facts one way or the other on this.


Piggie, just so you know, your 8800 GTS has 320MB of memory onboard. It comes in 320MB and 640MB versions. If it were 380KB, as you thought, you'd be in trouble. Video memory these days is measurable in the hundreds of megabytes, or in the gigabytes. It hasn't been small enough to be measured in kilobytes since the 80's.

In any case, while it's certainly true that scenes in SL can contain enough texture information to overwhelm even the most powerful video cards, that doesn't mean you won't see any benefit in going with more video memory. Every bit of information that can be stored in video memory is one less bit that has to be called from the rest of the system. A high amount of video memory is very important for good performance in SL.

The 512MB limit was introduced to reduce problems related to graphic driver issues in the moment and I fully agree with that. It may be be removed again in a later version, when issues are fixed.

The recommended graphics memory setting is 1/2 or the same as your graphics card memory. That should work fine with most recent cards.

From RC 1.22 releasenotes (http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-10463):
"The slider in Preferences > General > Hardware Options > Texture Memory (MB) can be now be set only for values within a range of memory that Second Life can properly support. At this time, the texture memory requirements of Second Life are almost always below 512 MB. (Technical Note: the viewer will actually allow itself to use 1.5 times the value set in this slider, in some cases.)

In performance tests of the viewer, it can be counterproductive to allow textures to occupy too much memory, even when the GPU might support more. Too much allocated texture memory can cause memory to become occupied by unused textures, while other necessary textures have no memory left to use; this will routinely slow down the performance, or even crash, especially when some other large applications are running. Many residents who experience crashes have this value set at 512 MB, but find they can eliminate crashing by lowering the Texture Memory to a smaller value such as 256 MB.

Likewise, be aware that setting the Texture Memory too small can cause very frequent texture swapping, making inworld texture loading very slow. To mitigate this problem on some systems, the slider can only be set as low as 128 MB. Thus the detected video memory in Second Life supports a range from 32-512 MB, or 128-512 MB, depending on your system."

Upgrading your video card to one that has more VRAM will, like Chosen said, help your video proformance in SL. It will, in fact, help every program you use where the video performance in paramont. But, will it be a noticable performance increase? That would depend on how well your video card is performing right now. Since FPS seems to be so important for most folks here I'll use a simple example. If your 8000GTS gives you 25 FPS (or higher) in a reasonably textured area/sim with a avatar population something near about what a sim can support, you probably won't notice if your new card gives you 50 plus FPS. Your eye just won't see the improved performance (I'm talking about and average person.......not the highly trained, video critical experts). Yes, the new card delivered an improved video picture for you.......but most people would not see that improvement. You'll, of course, have the bragging rights about your FPS but would it be worth the effort and expense you put into it to get that higher FPS is entirely up to you. For me, I wouldn't go that route on an existing machine.........if getting a new computer I would opt for the higher VRAM simply because I would consider that head room for future demands on the machine I'm purchasing. I just wouldn't do it in an older machine unless it was necessary (like maybe my card was dying or something).

Those are my thoughts anyway.

Boy Lane quoted that passage I based my statement on.

In the past there have been a number of versions that would allow me to slide the slider up to twice the amount of video memory that I actually have, so the statement that LL has done silly things with the GUI is certainly true in this matter.

Rereading the quoted release notes it looks like if the slider maxes out at 512 then you could change the value in the debug settings to 768, which would stick until you clicked on the slider.

My video card only has 256 megs so I can't test this stuff out.

Buying a new better video card might speed up SL even if all the video ram on it isn't being used.

To make a proper judgement of what the next thing to do to upgrade a system for speeding up SL performance, one really should have the complete system specs.

Thanks very much, Suzanne and Boy, for the information. I hadn't seen that before.

I'm a little confused, though, about a couple of things:

1 . The passage is quoted from the 1.22 release notes, but the main viewer at this time is still 1.21. Am I correct in assuming that the cap affects the 1.22 RC only, and not the current and past main viewers?

2. The wording suggests that possibly the 512MB cap is not actually a hard limit on the viewer, but merely a mention of the most common circumstances. All it says is "the texture memory requirements of Second Life are almost always below 512MB". It doesn't specifically say memory amounts above 512MB are not possible or not supported. One possible interpretation is that this is simply a reflection on the fact that the majority of video cards in use these days have 512MB or less onboard, not a statement that if yours has more you can't use it. Anyone have any further information?

I understand it was introduced in 1.22 RC to cope with a lot of current problems on the graphics side and to narrow down potential issues. It is now a hard limit, only a max of 512MB are selectable. It's a viewer in development and I think that is an acceptable way to do it, even though some may not like it. But hey, the official viewer is 1.21, better stick to it if one wants a supposed to be stable production viewer . I assume the limit will be lifted in the future when problems are fixed, perhaps not in 1.22 though.

It is not a hard limit. The GUI Slider in question only allows a max of 512, however you can set an arbitrary amount in the debug settings and it is honored by the client.

Thanks for the additional info, guys. If I'm reading you right, these are the facts:

1. The "current" limit is not just 512MB, if one is using the main viewer.

2. The limit only exists in the RC, which explains the difference in slider behavior between RC and the main viewer.

3. Even in the RC, the "limit" is not really a limit. It's more of a "strong suggestion" imposed by the GUI, which can be overridden via debug settings.

Correct?