yet another graphics card help question..lol

Hi folks,
I am hoping some of you nice folks can give me some advice on this.

Okay here's my computer info:
Dell Dimension B110
Intel Celeron 2.53 Ghz cpu
512 Ram
Windows XP
Intel(R) 82865G Graphics Controller

With my current system, I am actually able to run SL pretty nicely, even though it always tells me that my video card is not compatible. I just ran the systest.php from the support portal, and my video card ranks less that minimum(everything else passed). Some of the settings in SL for the graphics are greyed out or not even shown because my card isn't up to par. Having said all that, I can still 'play' in SL and enjoy it.

Even with all that, I still am considering upgrading to a better video card. The thing is, there are so many threads that talk about cards that just don't work, or cards that are supposed to work but don't. It makes me leary of buying anything!

I found this in another thread:

"Second Life may not run on graphics cards other than the ones listed above. The following cards are NOT compatible with Second Life:

NVIDIA cards that report as a RIVA TNT or TNT2

ATI cards that report as RAGE, RAGE PRO, or RADEON 320M, 340M, 345M, or similar model numbers

Intel chipsets less than a 945 including Intel Extreme

Cards with the following branding: 3DFX, RIVA, TNT, SiS, S3, S3TC, Savage, Twister, Rage, Kyro, MILENNIA, MATROX


The following cards have not been tested with Second Life, and compatibility is not certain:
NVIDIA cards that report as Quadro
ATI cards that report as RADEON IGP or RADEON XPRESS
ATI cards that report as FireGL ATI cards that report as FireMV."

Well good lord, thats alot of the cards out there!!! And I just read another thread that said that ATI cards are crap.

I would need a regular PCI card (NOT express). I found a couple on tigerdirect.com that would work on my computer but how do I know if it will work on SL? I mean there are so many that DONT...and the one that I have now works but isnt supposed to! How in the world are we supposed to know what will work when considering buying one??

I have this page from tigerdirect that has some that should work on my pc:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?Recs=10&Nav=|c:696|&Sort=4

Does anyone know if one of these would work?(NOT the ones over $100, I'm on a budget..lol) I don't think any of them are listed as "recommended" ones by SL. But maybe they would still work? Help! lol

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Mackenzy

I'd try looking at these:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?Lprice=50&Hprice=99.99&Nav=|c:319|&Sort=0&Recs=10

That is the PCI cards priced from 50 to 100.

Well I wouldn't bother getting a new video card, especially if it isn't express. Believe me, I am in the exact same boat as you are. RAM, RAM, more RAM. I have 2.5, and an 'old' ATI 9550 card, non express. At 256 megs, which actually is the most speed you can get without an express port, therefore a new mobo, basically buying a new computer. However if you get above 1 GIG, maybe even 2 GIGs of RAM, it will help so much. You can also allocate more memory to your virtual memory as well. Bit with 512, that's not really an option that you have.

Okay... thank you for the advice.. I do appreciate it alot.


I think I'll concentrate on upgrading my RAM for now....see how that goes.

Thank you.

in my experience the SL formula for upgrading goes

RAM

cpu upgrade

RAM

RAM

RAM

video upgrade

new machine

so basicly get as much ram as you can

then ditch that celeron CPU, get a P4 or better with more speed, celerons are retarded p4's and run on the same board ...

then when that wears out, rebuild your pc

ie: when i started SL i had a 1.3ghz amd with a geforce 2 gts overclocked to the max

i doubled the ram and ran another full year +5fps
doubled it again and ran another full year + 5 fps
upgraded my cpu 500mhz, which in celeron terms is 2ghz +5 fps
doubled ram again and still running to today + 5 fps
upgraded my video from a gf2 gts 128mb to a 6600gts oc 128mb + 5 fps

on my old raggigy ass desktop im getting 10-35 fps depending on av load, little av's to no av's around i get 35+ fps, full av loaded sim 9-15 fps,

3/4 full detail options 1280x1024 on linux using the current public windlight client

Well I just order some RAM....so that will give me 1GB. Woohoo!!!!!!!

Then i'll concentrate on the video card..

Thanks again everyone.

after that think about a new cpu

they are easy to install, and you would be surprised at the speed difference

example

i biult a 3ghz dual core celeron thats just less than half the speed of my 5 year old 1.9 ghz athlon

in other words a 3ghz state of the art celeron performs about the same as a 1.2 ghz P4, if you get a 3 ghz p4 to work in your mainboard, expect just under 3x + the performance mathematically wise

which means expect dramatic improvements, since the cpu can pass the pre-calulated answers to your video card just under 3x as fast

ram and video are still the top priorities tho

cpu upgrade if your bios supports it, 2x+ the speed for 70$ bucks isnt bad

http://www.computergate.com/products/item.cfm?prodcd=IP5I830EE

ps: tiger direct has some top notch ddr 1 ram on sale for 35$ a 1gb stick each get 2 selll your others on ebay and get half back

also you can find it 5 bucks cheaper on tiger direct if you want to fool with a mail in rebate

10$ well 3 months later might help on your water bill or something (since mine is like 16 bucks and some change 10$ back would be cool for my water bill, long after i have forgotten about it lol)

Actually... the dual/quad core cpu's will always run slower that a single core, when running SL.

The SL client can only use One Core.
Your 3ghz Dual core, is 2 cores running at 1.5ghz each (roughly speaking). I found no real gain when using a true Quad core CPU from AMD (not the dual/dual core cpu from Intel), over either my Dual core or Single core systems.
A Celeron has reduced functions and has less L2/L3 caches. It also uses less power and was developed orginally for laptops, later seen as a cheaper solution for desktops.

I dont know about all that...kinda scares me ..haha

I feel comfortable upgrading RAM...havent done a video card yet but I think I can do it. But all the rest of what you were saying kinda went over my head. I'm afraid I would screw something up..lol

I appreciate all your information though. I will keep it in mind...never know I might get brave and do it some day..haha

Thanks,
Mackenzy

In a nutshell.. don't go chasing your tail for the latest and greatest multi cored CPU. Save you money for the day when SL can use more than one core.

Providing you have the capacity on your MotherBoard, top up ram to a max of 4GB, no point going over that as 32bit OS's cant handle it, and treat your self to a nice Graphics Card.

I would suggest you go the nVidia route as it has less issues with SL, not saying its a better card, just a better choice for SL. Stick with a 8 series, its the second and third numbers that matter and the suffix. A 8600LE isn't as good as a 8600GT. You can get a good 8500GT with 1gb DDR3 ram for small bucks, its a good workhorse. If you are going to make movies, go for a 8800GT with 512mb DDR3 ram minimum. Check what graphics card slot you have (AGP or PCI or PCI-E) before buying any graphics card.

As far as I can see...all the nVidia 8600 GT cards are express...and as I mentioed, I cant use express cards.

Thank you for the info though.

Mack

I'd be very surprised if a PCI card that meets the minimum SL specs doesn't give you a significant boost over your current graphics. Shared video memory is death warmed over.

The $50 or so for a video card that meets SL's minimum requirements is as much as I'd spend on that system now that you have 1GB of RAM. You're really pushing the limits of what that computer is capable of. The PCI interface is going to be the limiting factor. You're stuck with low end video cards, and it will hamstring a fast CPU. If that system doesn't hack it for you after a video upgrade, it's time to stop throwing money at it and replace it.

As far as replacing the video card goes, if you can install memory, you can install a video card. Have no fear there.

Don't worry too much about that long list of unsupported cards. They're either very old cards or workstation cards. Most of the PCI cards you can buy now are based on the Nvidia 5200, 6200 or ATI 9250 chips. They'll work with SL. Don't go fishing for cheap used cards and you'll be fine.

One thing to remember on pre-built computers like Dell, is to find out what video card is installed on your computer, then go to their website and download the official drivers, I purchased a new computer a year ago and it was telling me my video card was not recognized, when it was very much one listed, once I downloaded the official drivers (Dell was using generic drivers), sl had no problems.

I was running SL on my older computer on a non PCI express card, it was AGP Nivida 256 MB video card and it worked.

upgrading your cpu is simple, flip a latch or 2, and install in a 1 way socket, apply some thermal compound and your good its actually simpler than figuring out what video card to use

i dont know where this dual core stuff came in, as i can tell your mb cant support one and i recommended upgrading from a celeron to a p4 in the same socket model, since your running the same thing in a celeron as that p4 it should slip right in without even an extra beep from the POST (power on self test) and atleast double your performance

my biggest speed boost of all time is when i doubled ram
then CPU
then video

but i had a super "bitchin" video card, infact it out performs my current one by nearly 3% but does not support all the features i need for other modern games/apps/demos

pci cards... for 80 bucks you can get a pretty darn nice ATI card on tiger direct, nearly as fast as my overcloced geforce 6600GT, but course ATI cards around here spawn horror stories

ive never in my life had a program that will not run on one (including SL with the current drivers on a 9600 in my freebee compaq) but thats a "risk" you have to think about

also does your DELL support pci-express 1x??

i know alot do, pci-e 1x is twice as fast as pci, and insead of 80$ your looking at 100$ for the same card, look at your mainboard, is there a funny looking slot just over an inch long near the cpu? thats pci-e 1x

look over my post's in this thread

/111/1b/271161/1.html

for more details

Well that is a bit misleading. Unless you mean swapping like for like. I don't believe a lot of end users would know how to find out what their MB can support, let alone the BIOS. A 'simple' task of apply the thermal compound, too little=fried cpu, to much=inability to seat the CPU cooler unit and possibly damaging the MB with too much force. BTW, I build my own systems, have done since the PC became on the market.

Most manufacturers create a system box for the end user based on Dollar values. Unless you know what you are buying, they don't always allow for great expansion with core system hardware. Yes, you may have the ability to put in a new CPU, but it won't have a huge effect as the MB would only support a few minor steps in CPU technology depending on the socket type/fsb/memory controllers.

In the past few years, we have seen socket types (CPU), fsb, memory controllers and even GC sockets change to quite a degree, out stripping yesterdays 'Future Proofed' systems. IDE, AGP, USB, have all reached their potentials, even PCI-e is being evolved beyond its first incarnation only a couple of years ago. Companies like DELL, sell systems at low market prices, many with lower spec PCI-e sockets (4x speeds as opposed to 16x). It is too easy to assume that all PCI-e sockets are equal.


I agree, this was the reason for my post, explaining why multi-cored CPU's would have no advantage to the OP, let alone running SL, which can't use them. When evaluating the actual performance of a system CPU in a single core platform enviroment, you must evaluate them on a single core basis. A single core 3ghz system has greater potential, than say a 9.6ghz quad core, for SL.

A wise way of assessing upgrading a system would be comparing the specs of the system you have, against the cost of full replacement, if you have too many low spec functions, upgrading one or two components, may not have the desired effect, if other components create bottlenecks, which have reached their full potential.

Any system over a couple of years old, would potentially run quicker if you formatted the HD and installed a fresh copy of the OS. Lost all the accumilations of dross we tend to keep, bloated fonts that are never used, those 'fun' programmes we thought we could not live without.

Thanks for all your info. And in response to what you said above, I have been told the same by others...and I believe you/they are right. I'll do the RAM upgrade and TRY to do a new video card..but not much else. I'll just save my money for a new computer..haha

Thanks again.

Mack

I did what you suggested. I went to Intel and did a search on Intel(R) 82865G Graphics Controller, and it led me to a page with the most current drivers for it. I downloaded the drivers but when I tried to install them, an error popped up saying those drivers werent for my computer...even though the page I got them from said they were. (I did this whole process 3 times just to make sure I was searching for and getting the right driver info.

So...guess I cant get the current ones. I even tried doing it thru the properties thing on my computer...where you can update or roll back your drivers.

Oh well...lol

I looked and didnt see anything that even comes close to looking like it might be that kind of slot. Thank you for letting me know about it though...love to learn new things.

Mack

A multi-core CPU would be a huge advantage to him!

First, he'd be getting a modern computer around it. With a halfway decent PCI-e video card, it would run rings around anything he could possibly get that socket 478 system he has to do, regardless of what processor he uses.

On a per-clock cycle basis, Intel's multi-core CPUs are more efficient than the old Netburst archetecture the single core P4s used. Even running only a single core, a new multi-core CPU is faster than an old single core CPU. Yes, you have to evaluate them on the basis of a single core, but the cores aren't the same.

SL Also has a nice little feature in the advanced menu (Run Multiple Threads). All this really does is delegate image decoding to another thread (ie. another of your cpu's cores) So this is a nice bonus for multicore cpus

I fully understand the concepts, but reading the various posts, I suggested that upgrading the CPU to a multi core cpu with his current MB, may not be possible.

There is a diference between multi threading and multi core architecture. SL ;allows' the use of multi-threading, but does not support multi-cores.