Windlight and Graphics Cards - What works and Does not?

I have to say that I am disappointed in my graphics card:

Radeon 9250 256 mb:

No reflections, fancy water, no glow and no fun!

I would like to see people post the model and specs of those
that do provide all the wonderment of Windlight.

Just a brief description to help the rest of us pick the best without
spending a ton of money.

Thanks,

2 x 7800GTX, 680iLTSLI (not using SLI config - have been running SL on one card), 4GB RAM, Core 2 Q6600, Vista.

I'm getting around 20-40 FPS with all the graphics settings maxed out. Most importantly for Vista users, it appears to be more stable on Vista than the regular viewer. Usually, I would have crashed several times when using the regular viewer after the period of time I have be in SL today - not one crash with windlight so far! Still, it's only a few hours, and so it may just be luck. I'll have a better idea if it really is more stable after longer period of use.

GeForce 7950 512mb, every setting maxed out, runs fine*.

*With draw distance cranked out to max, I occasionally get brief pauses if I'm changing my viewpoint too rapidly.

It runs well on my machine, FX-60, 2GB o' RAM, 7800GT.


/me blinks.

NVIDIA 7600 GT here, runs great, I did have a few rendering glitches that are either bugs or I need a driver update - I'll know better later.

LOL! oops. 4GB

GE Force 7950 1 G running fine; thinking of adding another in SLI mode...just because.

Love Windlight!

I have this card and WOW !!!

I also have a Rock Xtreem with a NVIDIA and the water is not working. And that is supposed to be a hight end machine.

Worked for my GO7600 on my laptopm.

How would I know if I am seeing all the featuers? Is there a Windlight test site or something?

Low end test: Win XP Pro system, 512 MB RAM, Intel Integrated graphics with a mere 64 MB VRAM. (No, I didn't expect Windlight to do well with this rig.)

May as well be using the normal client, because most of the new effects are non-existant. But at least it degrades gracefully now. Frame rate at the lowest settings was no worse than the normal client - still a pathetic 3 to 5 FPS. Lighting effects seemed a little more dynamic and vibrant. It was nice to be able to pick ANY time in the day cycle for the sun position, even if you weren't the sim owner.

But...

No clouds, other than the particle clouds. Thank God they allowed us to still have particle clouds!

Can't even access the advanced controls for Windlight

3/4 of the options in the Preferences > Graphics tab are inaccessible, even when 'Custom' is checked.

Oh well. I'm glad I am buying a new computer at the end of the month.

I have a NVidia GeForce GO 7900GS with latest drivers and can't see the water...this is with XP. It was a known issue that never got fixed. A lot of GO users on laptops with XP have the same issues. I reopened the JIRA for this so if you're having a similar issue, you can vote for it here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-925

So I'm guessing my Radeon X300 is out then.

Just as an FYI, this has always been possible. It's a setting in the debug menu, "mouselook moves sun" or something like that.

Lower end system here: Pentium 4 HT 3.0 GHz, 1GB RAM, BFG GeForce 6800GS-OC AGP 256MB

Everything maxed out except for draw distance which I keep set at 96 Meter and I'm pulling an average of 15 FPS. Turning off water reflections gets me about 5 more FPS in watery areas and everything still looks great.

I'm impressed so far.

runs fine with everything to max, only thing i like is the water and water reflection so not worth using but it runs stable with the same fps as i have with the normal client

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 (Unknown model) (3215 MHz)
Memory: 2560 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 8800 GTS/PCI/SSE2 (BFG 8800 GTS OC 320MB)
SL installed on a 10k/rpm SATAII seperated HDD

Yes, but for some time now that "Mouse moves sun" option has been very unreliable. The slider in Windlight is far easier to use. Very similar to the Estate level sun position control.

I use a pretty low end system, 768 mb ram, 256 mb graphics card and I have had pretty decient performance over the past year, even with all of the troubles the client has been having, even the memory leaks.

I have the exact same system a work with less graphic memory (128 meg), and I get around 5 FPS. (Nvida card) 2.08 mbps dsl.

At home with the Radeon 9250 256 meg graphics memory, I get 3 times the performance. 15 fps, 768 kbps dsl.

I comes down to, the connections speed, system memory, are the least of my bottlenecks. It all points to the graphic card capabilities and the graphic memory.

I am not considering adding system ram, I don't think it is necessary as long as the memory leaks are gone and am going to focus on graphics upgrade with more bells and whistles.

ASUS Extreme Striker
E6600 Dual Core OC
3Mb DDR2 OC
2x 8600GTS (SLi disabled at moment)
2x 22inch DVI widescreen monitors
Vista Ultimate

Seems stable.
On Ultra with draw distance at 192m and particles at 8192 getting 39 to 50fps
On High with same draw & particles getting 50 tp 60fps.

Sky, clouds etc look impressive. Very clear and sharp.

But thats where the good news ends...

Can not see *any* water around beaches or inland pools.My pet shark appears to be floating mid-air. This is not occuring with normal viewer. It reminds me of the bug that was around late-2006, early-2007 (exact dates escape me) where water would not render when tp'ing into a new sim unless you opened the 'World | Region/Estate' menu, in which case it would miraclously reappear. Sadly that is not the case here.

Anyone else experiencing this?

But this is just a First View, so hopefully this will be fixed by release

Nvidia 7900GTX in SLI mode (2 of them), Intel Q6700 chip, Asus Striker Extreme mobo, 4 gigs DDR2 RAM.... anyway, it looks awesome !

on edit: also Vista Home Premium fully patched, latest stable Nvidia drivers

I just updated drivers and the rendering issues are gone.

ATI X1600 Pro 512mb .......working nice.

http://img73888.pictiger.com/images/13082736/
http://img73888.pictiger.com/images/13082734/
http://img73888.pictiger.com/images/13082741/
http://img73888.pictiger.com/images/13082743/

NVidia 8600GT grafx card, Intel Q6600 - G0 Stepping (Quad core 2.4GHz processor, OC'd to 3.2-3.4), GIGAByte Mobo (Can't remember model right now), and a Western Digital Caviar 350Gig HD

Oh and Windows XP Home, not customized aside from appearance

20" monitor.. been able to run everything I've thrown at it, and windlight won't be an exception unless something crazy happens

I have the same card but am getting awful framerates - which I must say is out of the ordinary for this card. Which forceware drivers are you using? What kind of processor do you have in your system? How much memory? If you don't mind me asking.

I can't believe how many mixed reports I'm getting from NVidia users - relatively high-end cards too.

1G system memory or 1G graphics memory? I didn't think you could get a 7950 with 1G on board.

You people make me want to cry. I have this card with 512MB RAM, 2G system memory and it's like wading through treacle in diving flippers - even with a low graphics preset.

Hopefully a driver conflict is my problem so I guess I'll work on that before installing a set of forceware drivers FlipperPA put together. (I'm having no luck with the ones provided by Nvidia)

If anyone can figure out a driver that will work with:
GeForce GO 7900GS + XP (am currently running latest drivers 84.69), please post I've read in other forums of the same issue but as yet, no one has forced a driver that will work.