Graphics Card or CPU?

This thread is half question and half venting; I'm just a little bit frustrated right now. If it makes any difference, I'm on a desktop, and my client frame rate on low graphics settings averages around 10.0! Meanwhile, a friend of mine, who is on a laptop, on ultra graphics settings averages around 70.0 FPS.

Here's what I have:

CPU: Intel Pentium D 2.8GHz
Graphics: Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS 640 MB

Now, I'm sure both of those suck (be honest, you don't have to pretend they don't) but my question is, which of those two contributes the most to my overall horrible performance? And whichever one you choose, what would you recommend I replace it with so that I can get a double digit frame rate on decent settings?

I'd like to see the laptop that averages 70fps on ultra.

The 8800GTS does not suck by any standard. If your motherboard supports Core 2 Duo CPUs, I'd replace the CPU.

10fps on low graphics settings seems extremely abnormally slow for that combination. I think your computer has another problem causing the poor performance.

Ok, follow up question. This is something I've never been able to get a straight answer on: how can I determine if my motherboard supports the core 2 duo?

What is the brand and model number of your motherboard?

I have a comparable CPU and a much less good GPU and I get better results than that.

Have you actually seen the laptop in person while it's showing 70 FPS in the same place and at the same time as you are getting your 10 FPS?

What quality settings do you have your GPU set to outside of SL? You might have it set to the best possible quality when it needs to be set to allow SL to determine settings for itself.

Yeah, me and my friend were at the same place at the same time and we compared framerates. I lowered my settings to low and averaged 10 FPS. He lowered his settings to low and averaged 100.

From what I can piece together from stuff I read off my motherboard, it's an ECS RC410-M Rev:1.1

The graphics card is fine. The CPU is certainly dated, but should still be able to handle better framerates than that. While replacing the CPU is a viable option, I'd be more concerned with other potential bottlenecks in the system.

One thing that caught my eye is the amount of video memory you stated is available. I have never seen a video card with 640MB of memory. Usually, dedicated graphics memory steps like this: 32MB, 64MB, 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB. That you have an odd amount of video memory leads me to believe you're using a shared memory architecture - that is, your graphics card is depending on system memory. If this is the case, then that may well be the cause of your problem, and you should consider getting a card that has its own memory.

The next place I would look is at your graphics drivers. If your drivers are not up to date or not optimized for your card, then the drivers can create the bottleneck you are seeing.

Next, take a look at your system memory. Do you have enough? To run SL on Windows XP, you need at least 1GB to achieve a usable framerate (more is better). To run SL on Windows Vista, you will need at least 2MB (again, more is better). To run SL on Linux, 1GB of memory should get you a pretty reasonable framerate..

While looking at the memory, you need to find out if it is properly matched to your CPU's front-side bus speed. It is okay to use memory that is faster than your FSB (the memory will clock down to match); but using memory that is slower will introduce system-wide bottlenecks.

One often-overlooked area of concern is in the amount of system resources you have available. If you have a number of other programs running in the background, you won't have many resources available for SL, and performance will suffer. You need to make sure no unnecessary programs are running.

Edit to add: Your motherboard is no speed demon, but should be sufficient for your needs. Its biggest limiting factors are that it cannot handle more than 2GB of single-channel DDR2 memory, and cannot handle any of the later CPUs released in the last 3-4 years.

As it happens I did have several other programs running. So I closed them and then turned my settings down to low. The good news is that, while standing still, I got my frame rate as high as 25 FPS. But while moving around it dropped to between 10 and 13 (17 at the highest.) And again, this was on low.

This would almost certainly point the finger of blame to your CPU and/or motherboard. Your graphics card is simply not getting the data it needs fast enough to render it at a respectable framerate. This is especially true if your framerate "settles" back up after you stop moving around.

This might be a stupid question, but you do have your monitor plugged into the Nvidia card, not to the VGA on the motherboard, right?

How much memory does the computer have, and what version of Windows are you running?

It's an excellent question.

I noticed the computer I bought my kid, which has both onboard video and a card in it, came with a plastic cover plugged in to the onboard video socket, presumably to keep that sort of thing from happening by mistake.

However, here's an ad for a 8800 GTS with 640 M of video ram. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130071

I'm not seeing how much regular ram the OP has.

Another few questions.

Are there and ! or ? symbols in device manager?

When did you last update your display drivers?

When did you last check for Malware on your system?

How much RAM is in your PC?

How full is the Hard Disk?

Are you running Norton Internet Security?

Thanks for pointing that out. It is an odd amount of video memory (and one really wicked-looking card!).

Yeah, if you're averaging less than 25FPS on that thing, there's something seriously wrong!

Hmm, let's see.

There aren't any ! or ? symbols in my device manager as far as I can see. (I looked under display adapters.)

I updated my drivers a couple weeks ago to 181.20

I don't remember the last time I checked for Malware...it always takes so long. Maybe I'll do that tonight while I'm asleep.

I have 4GB of system RAM, which from what I understand isn't doing me what much good since I have Windows XP.

I'm using 121GB of 224GB of my hard drive, but I also have two other hard drives.

Yes, I do have Norton Internet Security running.

Turn that thing off and try again. Norton is well known for sucking resources like a dry sponge!

I just Dumped Norton 360 from 2 PCs and a lap top because sometime in the last 3-4 months it became Unbearable !!! start up times of over 10 minutes.. and slow everything on those top 3 in my sig. the two XPS are both now running like banshees and 20-40 FPS in Ultra both the 7900GS PC and the 8600m lap top. Norton was my bottle neck, thing is it doesn't show it using a bit but its got some issue.. may even be a conflict with mozila/Fire Fox.. (that was worse firefox took ages to open)

Ditch it go with AVG or (I went to Mac Fee until it goes to hell to!)

I can get over 10 on the FX5200 AMD POS listed on my sig at low and custom adding some higher. (mainland >5-6 avatars)

I am not dising Norton for over 2 years until just this past never had any slow downs or memory use nor it hogging resources. just know something changed or something conflicts with it bad now. and Norton was no help had me turn off a lot of start up (including live update and a few other of their services ) that fixed it until Norton repaired all that i shut off LOL

Ok, I got rid of the Norton stuff, and now my FPS is getting as high as 30. (On low, while standing still.) If I move around it drops to between 15 and 20. Again, this is with my settings on low. So does it still sound like I could stand to upgrade my processor?

What are you getting when you change the settings? Like high with a draw distance of 128 Meters.

On high I get 22-25 standing still and 10-12 moving around.

One way to find out whether your bottleneck is CPU or GPU is to experiment with your graphics settings. For this it's best to use Custom rather than the pre-defined ones, because the pre-defined settings change a bunch of stuff at once.

For example, start with your system in Low and then check the Custom box. Observe the frame rate. Now turn on Bump-map and Shiny -- on a modern GPU, probably no change. Then turn on Basic Shaders -- if you see little or no change your frame rate bottleneck is the CPU, if it slows noticeably it's the GPU. Turn on Local Lights and observe. Then try Atmospheric Shaders. On an 8800 I would expect very little change in frame rate through any of this; the GPU can handle all this stuff without breaking a sweat.

Next you can move on to some of the other settings that WILL have some frame rate effect even on an 8800. Increase the various detail level sliders. Turn on reflections, and try the different reflection settings -- in particular, Everything is very bad, especially if you play media. Finally, increase your draw distance -- that will cause a frame rate drop on just about every system, whether it's the CPU or GPU that's the bottleneck. (But you get to see more of the world, so find the balance between speed and beauty that works for you.)

Finally you can try the Hardware Settings (there is a button that pops up another dialog window). Anisotropic Flitering will probably slow you a little. Turning on anti-aliasing will have more effect, with the larger numbers (you get choices of 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x if memory serves) causing a bigger performance hit.

Ok...So I turned everything to low and checked "custom."

FPS was about 33 with everything on low. (Again, standing still.)
Turned on Bump mapping and shiny, still 33 FPS.
Then I turned on Basic Shaders and it hovered around 28 FPS.
Then came nearby local lights, still around 28 FPS.
Finally I turned on Atmospheric Shaders and still got around 28 FPS.

(Again this is all while standing still.)

Make sure you don't have antialaising turned on either on the game preferences (Hardware options) or on the card's control panel. AA filtering can suck framerates hard. Also, make sure you are in an empty sim or at least one with few avatars. Objects and especially avatars can hammer your framerates too.

Someone told me that with Nvidia cards, not using AA actually makes things slower. Can that possibly be true?

That's probably NOT true. I have an nVidia 8600GT with the card settings at 8x AA and SL settings at 4x. My frame rates average about 25 to 35 depending on how active the area I'm in is.

I might turn AA off to see if what you said is true.........but I doubt it will slow stuff down.

On the newer, high end cards that might be true in certain games because the card is already set up at 2X AA by default and is tweaked for it. I don't think the difference would be enough to matter in most cases anyway. SL is very sensitive to AA above 2X with my set up. No AA and I am hitting over 100 FPS, 2X is 90 or so but 4X drops it to 45 and 8X drops it to 25 -30 FPS

So I guess what I'm asking is, what do I have to do to get 100 frames per second? Well really, I don't need 100. I don't even need 70, I just want to be able to stand in a place with more than a few avatars and not be watching a slide show. So, does everyone pretty much agree that the CPU is mote likely the (biggest) problem?