Second Life & Nvidia 9000-series graphics

Hi Guys,

Is anyone here running - by any chance - the new Nvidia 9800GTX or Nvidia 9800GX2 (Dual GPU) cards with SL?

Currently on 8800-series atm, but I'm thinking of some keeping equipment up-to-date.

Any thoughts or feedback will be greatly appreciated.

DMC

I'm running the 9800 GX2. It's great but the driver from Nvidia is giving me fits.

Hi Steve and thanks for the reply : )

On the 9800GX2, are you able to switch on full SL graphics detail and run full-scene AA?

Curiously,

DMC

I am able to run all settings at their highest settings (even 512 meters when appropriate or just for testing) when the Nvidia driver cooperates. BTW, the best current driver for this card is this one: http://downloads.guru3d.com/ForceWare-174.93-XP-(32-bit)-download-1901.html

So far so good.

Steve, just curious, XP or Vista?

I was curious about this because I jjust got something about this recently I have much, much older card but ran into some problems trying to figure out if my computer was able to handle it.
It told me to update my drivers to another driver I pick the one with geoforce fx series 6
but couldn't figure out if my computer could handle it.
I was pricing new video cards the 8800Gt series was 550 usd, so I assume the 9800 is cost
more and definitely way out of my budget if I knew how to install it.

I thought my video card would be something to be concerned about until my friend told
me she is using a Nvidea Geoforce 4000 series...so I guess I am okay right now with
6200 I can see WL clouds.

ive a GE Force 7950 GX2 on a X6800 2.93 GHZ dual core extreme CPU, using 2Gb ram.
ive never come close using any of its capability with SL, about the only thing i have become aware of, is the 7950 GX2 works harder with a lot of graphics, and i only know that from monitoring its temperature. Occasionally, i get into the high 80`s in deg C.

My own inspiration is 2 and 3D graphic animation, i dont play "games" but often have 8 or 9 art programs running at once.. i have never yet utilised the dual core cpu`s ability.. and if anything the limitation on what i can expect from SL is determined by the ability of SL and the web connection to make that information available to my PC fast enough, not the ability of my PC to be fast enough to deal with the available incoming information.

ive considered the latest card and CPU offerings.. im hanging back. i would spend money that i could make do more.. with some patience.. SL is not giving me more, or demanding that i supply more, to enjoy it more... if anything, i find that i am the odd one out, i can make and do stuff on SL and use it.. that a large number of folks cannot.. often no one can use or see what is possible with SL, because the ability of their PC or web connection isnt up to it.I get some grief from that occasionally.. its like SL has given me chocolate.. but told me i cant eat it...

From what ive read there isnt much difference between the 8800 and 9800 series cards, they even use the same GPU core dont they?

I think Nvidia is suppsed to come out with a whole new GPU in June or july this year though, so you may want to hold off till then.

I recently installed Vista ultimate on my pc, running a e6600 dual core and a nvidia en9800gtx from Asus. I use the latest forceware, and i can tell u this: IT SUCKS!!!!!!

I crashed about 20 times allready not doing anything special, both on the standard client and the release candidate.

Back to XP it is.

I made this shirt recently my friend I guess has better internet connect or video card
said he could see the fabric shine and shimmer...
On my computer even at the highest settings I can see some of shiny silver in design in the clothes but on lowest setting nothing.
If I sold similar shirt very few people could really see the details and may think I was
misleading them with detailed photo.
And I wouldn't be lying or selling misleading products, its all in the settings and what your video card can see.
It has taken me long time to personally figure that one out.
I kept wondering why textures I made lost details in world but they had it was my video card and settings that changed how things look here.
I am so curious what the world would look like with higher video card though.

You might want to recheck these prices, there have been some significant drops in video card prices lately. Right now on New Egg 320mb 8800GTS cards are selling starting at $129 and 512mb 8800GT cards seem to be around $179. I use an 8800GTS and it works great for me.

Yeah lot of sites I kept running into wanted over 500 usd.
That is good to know.

I'm actually running SL now on a 8800GTS 512M with the updated GPU 65nm core.

This little baby is a fantastic little piece of kit - full detail, fraps video capture capability and full scene anti-aliasing.

It's running on an AMD Phenom X4 9850, 790FX system - Big improvement over the old B2-stepping 9600 processor.

We have the same system actually running ATI as well (don't hear that to often round these parts) on the same system using a single 3870 ATI gpu, and up to 4x 3870 GPUs in CrossFireX with some mixed results.

ATi single/multi gpu is definitely getting better, but in either configuration on the system (single, or 2, 3, 4-multi-gpu) using ATI will result in the Avatar getting rendered semi-transparent when it has shoes on when AA is enabled in the ATI Catalyst Drivers.

I haven't had time lately to test SL under Linux with either NVIDIA or ATI, which I hope to get around to soon.

Yes, the 8800 and 9800 cores are similar, and from what it seems, the drivers aren't yielding the best results in SL yet in some cases.

Think I'll stick with the 8800 GTS 512 atm... relatively inexpensive single card and the drivers are solid. Until ATI drivers improve, my ATI cards remain back in storage.

That old adage I guess, "If it's not broke, don't fix it!"

DMC

XP SP3 is a bit faster than Vista SP1, of course. With all the driver related crashes, I'm back to XP for now.