Quad Core. Radeon. Slowness

I have 3GB RAM. 2000 Mhz FSB. Radeon HD 2400 XT. AMD Phenom Quad-Core processor.

Sounds impressive, but SL still seems slow. Any suggestions on speeding things up?

It's incredibly fast on other games.

Slow in what way?

SL is going to be slow because it uses user created content that is streamed to the client, unlike normal video games.

what Suezanne says

I got a similar new setup Steely. I can run four clients now and when they're all up and loaded they handle great, but there's still that bottle neck with the web.

Well, I have had a lot of crashing. Managed to get some driver settings that seem to be working now. Sometimes I take a step forward and it's like I'm walking through oatmeal. Turning around is jerky.

I was mainly wondering if there is a problem with Vista or ATI video cards or AMD processors. If so, are there tweaks or optimizations that work best for this setup.

It could be last night was just a bad night for SL. I'll run some more tests and see how it goes.

Thanks for the help.

yep, Intel CPU , nVidia GPU

Nope, I just paid $800.00 for this. It has to work somehow.

My FPS in an empty sim right now running WindLight at Mid is 9.0 FPS.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! (>o<

Noes, seriously. Maybe it is Vista. I dunno how friendly SL is with Vista by now, but I've heard it has a bad reuptation. With that much processing power, you should be doing fine in Windlight Mid.

I have to agree with Gunter though. My own machine is a $2200 AMD/NVidia homebrew that lets me run around in Windlight Ultra 100% of the time. (^_^)y

Maybe you need to set affinity to one processor. This was an issue with the dual core processors, it must be worse with quad core.

Maybe just Intel though... I'm on dual-dual cores and I've turned on multiple threads in Advanced. It gave me something like a 5 FPS boost with no crashes or memory leaks. (^_^)

I have that on too, but that's not the issue. The issue is setting affinity in Windows so only one processor will handle SL. Running multiple threads is a modest boost, but benefits other applications more than it does SL.

Thanks, I will try that and see what happens.

I notice on some sims I get about 17fps.

That's true. I understand. But, if you have a multicore setup that's somehow friendly with SL you can turn multithread on without affinity set and spread the load around. Funny thing though, it does increase lag a little when running multiple clients. (^_^) - (^_^)

The 2400 is a very weak card. if you look at sites like Toms Hardware Gude it apears at the very bottem of his VGA charts, often only barely being able to run games at all....

More than likely if you bought a package computer you will find the 2400 is built into your motherboard, which is a good thing because there should be a slot available for a aftermarket card.

Also 3 Gig's of RAM is unusual. more then likely you actualy have 4 gigs as most motherboard use matched duel channel ram and you can only get ram in even amounts. no one makes 1.5 gig chips. Trouble is Vista 32 is incapable of reading more than 3 gigs... you need to get Vista 64 to be able to read more.

Many Games such as SL which were written before multi core processors also have trouble running on them, if you go to AMD's site they have a small optimizer program which helps older games run, try that too.

But your biggest restriction is the 2400. Take a look at some of the hardware review sites there are some much better options for you for under $100.

That's not "slow" - that's "stopped"!!

That sounds more like a sim issue than one on your end.

Open up the Statistics Bar (under the View menu) for FPS (at the top) to see how _you_ are doing and Sim FPS (under the Simulator section) for how the sim is doing. A happy sim will be at 45 Sim FPS.

edit: and don't go messing about with processor affinity unless you know you need to. A year ago, SL had big problems with multi-processor systems but that was a year ago. Very few people have problems with that now, at least on Windows.

Well, changing affinity made a huge difference. On the slow sim I got 12 fps instead of 9. On a deserted sim I got close to 20.

I will save up and get an Nvidia card one of these days.

I will try the AMD optimization software.

Thanks for all the help.

Which Phenom Quad-Core processor? 9500 9600 or 9600 Black Version.............?

I been wanting to upgrade to a 9600 black version. But wasnt sure. From what i heard the black version is geared for OC. and can run at over 3.3.......

Up to 12 from 9 isn't much, though I bet you're happy to see it.

I still don't think it's an affinity problem but if you only masked SL to use one core, you should at least change it to use two.

That card is really only barely capable of running SL. If you're gettiing 9fps, i'd say you were doing well with it. The video card is really the most important thing in a computer regarding whether it runs games slowly or quickly.

I'm on 3Gb RAM, Vista and quad core. I've not touched affinity. Worked swell straight out of the box .. but that is Intel CPU and nVidia graphics

oh and some of the problems you discribe have nothing to do with your computer. one step forward / two steps back, slow turning etc can just be internet lag as your client is trying to figure out where your avatar is in the world. I play on a E8400 3.0ghz with a 8800GT and 8 gigs of ram (using Vista64) and I get lagged out like that at times.

I just turned on multiple threads fromt he client menu and am now getting 18.9 fps!

I'm sure I'll get better when I get a new card.

Thanks, you guys are very helpful.

PS: I just hit 20! Woo Hoo!

Is that with the processor affinity still set??

Nope!

Now I'm all curious..

In the task manager Performance tab, with just SL running, can you see if all four cores are being used or is it sticking to mostly just two cores?

If it's using all four, and you're feeling adventerous, you might to try setting SL to just run on two of them.

Yep, it's on all four. Let me test. Brb.