video card

What do YOU think the best video card is for SL running on XP?


fen-

without a doubt G-force 4 TI4600 128 meg if ya can afford it otherwise for a lil less cash the G-Force 4 TI4200 128 meg
look at my website ya can have one in 3 days for under $200 bucks

edit: just be sure if you go with NVidea card you have the very latest drivers , the old drivers had some Issues with SL, the new ones work great though

if you have the cash...and time.... GF FX!

Any hot tips for an ATI radeon 9700 pro? I would have thought it would be smooth as silk in SL but it's very choppy doing anything, and it doesn't feel like network latency.. I know what that feels like.

I have a Radeon 9700 as well.

I keep popping in and trying stuff, but I'm finding the game unplayable due to hesitation and lag. I think it's mainly the streaming thing.

The graphics don't look very complicated. All very basic textures. I wouldn't think they'd challenge a recent card, much less a powerhouse like the 9700.

It's probably a combination of things, not just your video card. System RAM, hard drive speed, connection speed, sim lagginess, and the list goes on. This isn't Quake or Unreal, it's all dynamic so you can't do the same tricks you can in other games where nothing changes once it's loaded. In SL, anything can change at any time, and in the more crowded sims, it shows.

you may want to run disc cleanup and defrag, make sure other programs are not running in the backgroud too (virus scan is a real killer) run msconfig and go to startup and have a look and make sure nothing that isnt a mandatory is running when you go to log on the game anything that steals system resorces will bog down your system with such an advances program as SL...

thos things will help some may not be all your particular issues , but its a free start to trying to solve the problems your having...

also run dxdiag and make sure you have no issues there as well , just a hunch that there may be some other issues...
that card should be ok with this but funny things happen when dealing with touchy extreme cutting edge programs...

Hope some of this helps

also look into some of the things datura mentioned they also have alot of bearing on how well your system will run under extreme circumstances....ram is a BIG thing

Maybe try cnet catchup at www.cnet.com to check for driver updates. In cnet when you run this it asks if you want to include beta drivers/software in the update list--i dont recommend this.

But this might help, anyone else got pointers on this or a better update all type site?

Also It wouldn't hurt to go to www.pcpitstop.com and test all your system settings and security.

Beyond this you want only your Firewall running when in SL.

Everything else by the clock should be disabled. Since you don't download anything in SL antivirus doesn't need to be running either.....Free up resources that are just sitting idle....

Also find pestpatrol and rid your system of those annoying spybots that get you tons of email spam, that alone will improve your net performance......www.pestpatrol.com (I think)

Also for older cards I would try running at the lowest color setting as possable. Like 16bit. If SL will run in that.

But I agree with the earlier replys anything beyond a g3 rocks. I haven't really seen a game that doesn't like these cards.

Karey are you moving away from the welcom area or just hangin there for a few then loggin out?

if your staying in the welcome area that may be your only real problem , that is probably the most lagged spot in the game for most people....

if its not just in that sim than perhaps some of the earlier suggestions from a few of us posters may help you...

also ATI makes some wonderful cards BUT at times they can be VERY unpredictable and very tempermental , hard to get setup to work properly , Normally once you get them working corectly they are good to go but I have had people complain that they get them working great for 1 game and then they log off and try another game and its total hell

That particular card is fairly new out and there may be some driver issues there involved as well , if I was you I would also talk to one of the Lindens (Andrew, Phillip,Peter ) perhaps some others that im not aware of that are particularly up on the SL and what it Runs well with ... there may be some sort of compatibility problems with it or its software, Im not real up on that end of it at all sorry to say... but its worth a look into at any rate...

Once you get it goin right you will in all likelyhood LOVE that card, most of the tests I have seen on it ROCK, but personaly im a NVidea man love the aspect of plug that sucker in update the drivers and forget about it..

Good luck!

you guys have any luck with the radion cards ? or still haveing problems ?

I have a Radeon 9000 pro (128 meg) I bought last Nov, and just installed the client on the 23rd, and I haven't had any problems with it...my drivers seem to be fine, etc.

I think most of my lag issues has to do with streaming, as opposed to rendering, as I have a sub-par dsl line (< 200 kbps). I've also discovered that disabling my antivirus helps, as well as the other taskbar programs...I'll be upgrading from 512 meg to 1 gig of ram soon, so we'll see how that helps as well.

But overall, I think my Radeon rocks...when I saw those trees swaying in the wind for the first time, it was breathtaking to say the least...

J

Having played more, I don't think it's the video card at all. It's just, well, that the streaming stuff isn't adequate. I'm now watching my network indicators, both the game and the cable modem, and that's clearly where the lag is.

Since I've never found streaming audio reliable for more than a few minutes at a time, count me as dubious on streaming videogames.

My system
P4 2.26 533
1GB DDR
1500 Ameritech DSL (1.5 Mbs)

I have a TI 4600 128 DDR & a Matrox Parahelia
- the Matrox Parahelia graphics capability is no where close to to the TI 4600, however I also use the system for editing video.

If I have either card in I'm usually around 12 Fps / 5 Welcome Area - even with draw distance at 512 and ( the other setting ) at 100.

I don't thing anything on my end is an issue.

Xavier

anything ATI.... eww...... *fart noise* stick with GF they will kill all with the FX. oh ya and for the record ATI RAIDs... only have problems all problems! can play this game, or that one... it was suppose to be a powerhouse, instead it tripped on the stairs to the top and broke before it hit the ground.

I have a older card GF2 GTS 64DDR (2 years), and I blow away 2 of my buds who have brand spanking new ATI RAIDs 9700.

seriously nexus?
I have read a ton on the Pro 9700 and looks like a great card by all the test results and articles ( but we know there paid for good reviews to a degree)

But I have used some other ATI cards in the past and ALWAYS had to make adjustments from game to game and almost everyone else i have talked to on it had to do the same ....works good on this one and for crap on that till ya retweak , then back and retweak again to play other game ect.....

kinda pain in the arse if ya ask me , thats why I use the G-force cards plug in update drivers and GOGOGO!!!

But thats my opinion on them, for what its worth

I have no trouble with far more sophisticated graphics in There or DAOC and my Radeon 9700. I generally prefer the Geforce, but I wasn't going to turn down the technically fastest card available free of charge

But as I said, I'm convinced that it's SL's technology, not ATIs that's the problem.

how did you manage to get the card for free Karey? thats interesting heheh )

Rivn... i'm damn sure about the 9700... there seem to be no support from ATI. Most games that I play, ATI has glitchs, so I kinda lost the little bit of faith that I had in ATI, all GF for me... until THEY screw up!

GeForce cards tend to work better with SL for a two reasons:

1. We've been developing on nVidia cards longer than ATI because the Radeon cards came out after the first GeForce's. An openGL call on one card/driver may be faster than on another card, and we've tended to optimize for nVidia GF's -- they were the fastest card avialable, and that's what we had.

2. nVidia's openGL drivers appear to be more stable and correct. This is partly because they use the same core code for all of the platforms they support (Windows, Linux, and BSD) and because they've been fixing that core for a while.

That said, several of our developers now have ATI cards on the machines that they use everyday, which will help us catch the problems with ATI cards. And we expect the ATI drivers to get cleaner and meaner.

Of course, we will work hard to support the fastest cards on the market. Right now nVidia and ATI currently make the fastest cards.

More specifically...

We currently work best on GeForce 3 and 4 cards (not the MX's). On the MX's, there aren't enough texture stages to do the detail texturing we do on the terrain. It runs fine, but doesn't look as good.

ATI Radeon 8500 based cards work OK, although they seem to have some stability issues that are highly hardware and AGP driver dependent.

ATI Radeon 9000's are based on a chip similar to the 8500, so works OK as well.

ATI Radeon 9500/9700 cards currently experience many rendering artifacts, but no real stability issues, at least in our office.

We're working with ATI on the 9500/9700 issues, so we hope to have all of those resolved eventually...

- Doug