Nvidia 9xxx cards

I checked the system requirements, but they only list GeForce graphic cards up to the 8xxx series. Does SL run on 9xxx cards without problems, especially the better ones like 9800 GTX and GTX+?

Thanks
Danny

Yes, but you may need to downgrade your drivers to the nVidia 175.xx level. the 177.xx and 178.xx series drivers have some issues with SL.

I believe the 9800 cards can use the 175 level drivers.

Further expanding on this:

The 9800 series graphics cards use the same / modified chipset as 8800 cards, the 9800 is supposed to use less power. You should be able to use the 175 Level drivers. I cannot see using a 9800 card as a problem, sense the drivers should be "Fleshed Out" by now.

I run on a 9800 GT and I can not use the 175 drivers - hardware not supported. So beware.

Edit: SL runs smooth as a button with that card, though. Just to clarify.

Thanks for the clarification, Novis.

Just wanted to point out that, some people are having problems with the newer drivers as in this JIRA...

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-7957

Though I see there is a fix pending on this one so that is good news.

Actually not QUITE the same hardware -- the chipset on the 9800 has some enhancements for HDTV decoding. It's also made on a newer chip process so power consumption may be a bit lower and may be overclockable to higher speeds. (The stock speeds are the same as the 8800 series.) The other capabilities are identical, so SL performance should be identical so long as you are comparing like products (8800GT to 9800GT, 8800GTS 512MB to 9800GTX). The 9800GX2 has no direct 8800-series equivalent; it's effectively a slightly slowed-down pair of 9800GTX cards in SLI on one card.

The 9600GT is basically half a 9800GTX -- same hardware, but with only 64 pixel pipelines instead of 128. It's a better card for SL than the 8600GT was, though the 8600GT wasn't horrible. The mobile versions in the 9000 series all seem to have a nunber one notch below their desktop equivalents (9700 instead of 9800, 9500 instead of 9600, and there is also a 9300 although I've never seen a 9400 desktop card yet); I think that's an attempt to reflect that the laptop chips run at lower clock speeds (to keep down power consumption) and are therefore a bit slower.

It's all about to change anyway; NVidia has announced the GTX 100 series, which is just a rebranding of the 9000 series (unlike the GTX 200 series which is a new design).

As was noted by somebody else, the 177 series of drivers is problematic for SL. There is a new 178 series; I don't know if that has fixed the problems, as I have chosen to stick to 175 for now.

Apparently, the fix for the problem in the JIRA I posted above is as follows:



So, if you are using the 177 or higher drivers, turn off Palletized Textures.

My partner just ran into this problem this evening, using the 178 drivers, and this fix worked for her.

I just upgraded from a 8800 to a 9600 and seems to run fine. Except all my glow settings are now way too low.
Is it just 8800 cards that crank glow up too much?
I have sent pictures to a few people while using the 8800, telling them they are using too much glow, till I found out it was my GPU

I run 2 x 9800 cards with the latest drivers (on XP) with no probs.

If it's newer than the cards listed as the minimum requirements, odds are very good it will run. If you already have it, give it a shot. It might give you a warning about unknown video card, but it'll let you run it anyway. You will need to adjust graphics options more than normal to get things fine-tuned if this is the case.

If you're planning on buying a new video card, your best bet is to take a look at the framerate comparison chart posted a while back to the SL blog. It's at http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/11/15/typical-frame-rate-performance-by-graphics-cardgpu/

While I do not see that specific GPU listed in the comparison, if the 9xxx series outperforms the 8xxx series, then that GPU will freaking scream in SL.

Word of warning: Talking to other residents, it seems that having multiple video cards is an expensive way to go compared to having just one, for similar framerates. Don't bother with multiple video cards unless you have other games which you know do benefit from such hardware.

just for informational purposes, I'm running a gtx 2xx series... and while I do get the warning about 'unknown card' it runs with no probs that I've seen yet (maxxed settings too)

Speaking as someone who has the 9500... dont do it....if you have vista specificly dont do it.

even dropping down to "lowest" settings doesn't help.... and let me ask you do you really wanna see SL on low?

Recently upgraded to a 9800 GT, using the boxed drivers, and no problems at all. I haven't had a reason to bother downloading newer drivers

There are a few clothing glitches with the 9400GT. When I tried to put on a pair of pants, I was completely unable to adjust the size. The same thing happened when I tried to put on a particular shirt as well. The shirt went all the way up to my hands and I couldn't make the sleeves any shorter.

I hope LL gets right on this one.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, either
1) Disable palletized textures (Ctrl-Alt-D to get the advanced menu, then Ctrl-Alt-F7) and rebake (Ctrl-Alt-R)

or 2) Upgrade to the Release Candidate client (1.22.x)

I can see a 175 within my 8800GT driver version, 7.15.11.7516. Is this terribly old then?

That's 175.16. No problem there, it works great.

Old driver or new driver.......if it works for you, leave it alone.

Neophyte, I'm strongly considering getting a 9400 GT card. Could you please post if turning off palletized textures and/or upgrading to the RC 1.22, like Gellan suggested, fixed the issue you described?

Thank you
Tanith

The issue is completely resolved! Just not in the standard viewer you get from the download page.

You can either use the RC client. Or just wait until it becomes the standard download.

Don't let a fixed issue, that will have been forgotten in a few weeks influence what you buy for new hardware!

Tanith, I wouldn't recommend getting anything below a 9600. The x400 cards are low end cards, and the price difference isn't that big.

I have an 8800 GTX in my main machine, and run the standard viewer and the RC just fine under Win XP and (I think) the latest drivers. I also just bought a laptop with a 9800 M GS in it, and it seems to run fine under Vista Home Premium and the included drivers, whatever those might be.

The Resident Geek and I are both big NVIDIA fans, especially for SL.

I'm now using a 9800GT with the drivers out of the box, 177.79 as far as I can tell. I do have to disable palletised textures when I log in, but apart from that it works fine.

Any new developments with the new GTX 2xx series cards that I need to know about? I will be buying a new desktop very soon I'm considering the 9800 GT, 9800 GTX+, and either the 260 or 280, each card alone or as an SLI setup. Seems no one is completely free of video card related isues, just wanting to make doubly sure I'll be making the right choices on the big day.

me either as a matter of fact, I replaced the 9600 with an 8500GT also the drivers I have now are 7.15.11.6925 (please let me know if I should get other drivers)

Still have issues......but the black spots on the avatars seem to be less of an issue, however I still crash when my display driver fails to respond