The currently "best" performing GC to use with SL ?

Hi;

I am seeking for a high level Graphic card, which is suitable for:

- as high as possible frame rates (well beyond 30 fps even in complex scenes)
- the best possible graphical rendering quality (ultra settings in the viewer, AA, etc...)
- very good on board performance regarding replay of mp4 encoded Quicktime movies
- performs well on Windows XP (sp2)

I am currently running an 8800 GTX, which is quite performant, except in complex environments and when many avatars show up on a SIM. Also .mp4 replaying is astonishingly poor.

I have been looking for several "state of the art" GC's from ATI and NVIDIA, and in short
i could not find any hardware, that works reliable with SL (at least that's what i learned from reading the several available threads in the Jira tracker)

So can anybody give me a good tip for some hardware, that clearly beats 8800 GTX and is ready to use in Today's SL Release candidate under W-XP(sp2)?

BTW: Earlier today i have opened a parallel thread in the machinima forum, but i learned later, that this forum here might be better suited for my question So apologize for this duplication. ( see /278/5c/287212/1.html )

thanks you for any hint

regards,
hussayn

doubt your going to find something a "lot faster" than the 8800gtx. a 280 with one gig of ram will be faster but not like double what your getting now.

You may want to try crossfire or SLI with multiple cards but im not sure if SL supports it and it may not make any difference at all.

No graphics card on this planet will very well handle any SL scene that has a lot of avatars in it. That's just a fact of life with SL. Crowded areas always yield low FPS. There are many reasons for this, most of which have nothing to do with your hardware itself.

As Kyllie said, you MIGHT see a bit better performance from a 280 than from an 8800, but I doubt the difference will be enough to justify the cost of the upgrade. The 8800 GTX runs SL very, very well. I've got two of them, myself, and I'm not planning on replacing them any time soon. They're rock solid, no complaints whatsoever.

Don't get me wrong, though. If I were putting a new machine together right now, I'd go with a pair of 280's no question. It's just that the 8800's work so well, I've got no reason to replace them. I suspect you probably don't either.

What FPS levels are you actually getting? So you know, I run SL with all settings maxed (well beyond Ultra), 512 draw, and with 16XQ anti-aliasing. In relatively quiet areas, I'll usually get mid double digits, depending on what's there, 30's to 60's or so. In very large crowds, it typically drops into the teens. (I used to get 130 or more on undeveloped islands, by the way, but that was pre-windlight. There's no way to get that now.)

If you're doing worse than that, I would guess the problem most likely lies elsewhere in your machine, not just in your graphics card. How much RAM do you have, and what's its speed? What CPU do you have? What motherboard? How fast are your hard drives, how are they configured, and how often do you perform regular maintenance on them? The answers to those questions can make all the difference in the world.

Also, what OS are you using? 32-bit Vista won't run SL as well as 64-bit will, and (assuming equivalent amounts of RAM) neither flavor of Vista will run any OpenGL app as well as XP will.

And of course, your driver version can make a huge difference as well. What drivers are you running?


That's pretty strange to hear. I haven't ever had any particular with MP4's, or really with any other video format, come to think of it.

What player software are you using?

And how are you defining "poor" in this context? What exactly are the symptoms?



Reported mileage tends to vary with SLI and SL. With two 8800 GTX's, I tend to get about a 30% boost to FPS in SL when I enable SLI (which I usually don't do since I run multiple monitors). Others report no noticeable difference. There's probably a big variance from machine to machine, depending on a wide range of factors.

Hi, Choosen. Thank you very much for your very valuable in depth explanations.

Sure. I won't replace my 8800-GTX. In fact i am setting up a new computer.

In general i am satisfied with the fps. I once had severe problems when i was taking a machinima footage on a crowded sim (60++ avatars) I had to turn every advanced features off before i got back to acceptable fps (using fraps). But that seems normal according to what you say. I don't think, i have a hardware problem, the card runs just fine under normal circumstances (Windows-XP sp2, nvidia driver version 175.19) and i would decide to just buy another one, if there weren't the new GC's around (GTX-280 and HD4870)


I refer to Quicktime. I saw stuttering when running a high definition movie (width ~ 1900 pix) from a local SATA-disk. And i was just testing with "Big Buck bunny". In the original resolution it runs smooth. But when i use full screen mode (2500*1600), stuttering comes back. I could not see this effect with my old ATI-firegl-5200 (which astonishes me, since the overall performance of firegl-5200 compared to 8800 gtx is extremaly low) Interestingly i have no problems with .wmv files of that size (using winamp).


So after all i still have to decide between:

8800 GTX ( i know, that it works )
GTX 280 ( i heard of driver problems and crashes with SL )
HD 4870 ( i heard of poor framerates and the need to disable VBO )

So from technology considerations i have the feeling, that GTX 280 is the best option.
From overall performance it looks like HD4870 is the best option
From stability it looks like 8800 GTX is the best option.
From performance, it looks like the new cards can be about 20-40 % faster compared to 8800 GTX.

So, if anybody would state, that his/her GTX-280 or HD4870 runs just fine in SL without any drawbacks, i would give it a try. Otherwise i would decide for another 8800 GTX...

Just curious: Is it true, that the rendering of ATI-Cards is so different compared to the results from nvidia cards ? Or is this just a rumor born out of the general fight between nvidia- vs. ati- fans ?

Anyways thanks again for your input
regards, Hussayn

The difference isnt as huge as its made out to be, but there is no doubt that any nvidia card of equal capability will perform better than the ati equivalent. ATI's OpenGL implementation just isnt up to the same standards unfortunately.

When you run multiple monitors, non-SLI, what performance do you get? Does one graphics card drive each monitor? And do you stretch the SL interface across both of them?

bit in the same issue as you

using a BFG 8800GTS OC2 wich runs pretty damn nice in general, just with the latest games it`s getting abit choppy

allready upgraded my pc with:
1x P7N2 Diamond (NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI)
2x 1 GB DDR3-2000 Kit (2048 MB)
1x Core™ 2 Quad Q9550 (4x 2833 MHz)

with my trusty 620W corsair power supply and general SL fps has increased by 22 fps
normal scripting place/cam position it runs at 115~125fps

ati and nvidia debate...
both have advantages and disadvantages so i`ll just give you a rundown from personal expirience

never had a problem with an ati card, but as said, they`re running abit slower
nvidia haven`t had a problem with either, love my 8800GTS BUT, the SL and latest nvidia drivers can get you on the wall

new cards with more stuff need the latest drivers to really perform well (saw it with the 8800GTS with several games) while SL only runs with the 175.* range, it`s a give or take (or reinstall for different games)

was planning to use SLI with older cards but as i had to wait for next pay check, i`ve set my eyes on this:
MSI NGTX280-T2D1G Super OC (nvidia)

if your in the US, this card should be relativly "cheap" and has SLI support
if after abit of time video requirements increase then you could allways slap another card on for SLI while the price will drop and drop (what i`m planning as fail safe of instead buying a new expensive card, just slap a 2nd one in)

also another thing, cooling!
using a normal atx (i think) case and everything is packed on eachother
my 8800 is almost touching the hdd on the other side and with a massive cpu cooler, the case is almost full allready
also these cards use 2 slots and with the pci slots so close to eachother, having 2 cards will cripple cooling in general as half the case is blocked off

looking to replace my case with something bigger just to be able to throw in another fan at the bottom for circulation, or have room to expand to water cooling if heat hits the fan (word twist )

Second life must be the worst GPU friendly application ever to have reached the market.
The engine it flawed.

I run an Athlon X2 5200+ with 2 GB of RAM, and XP sp2 and a redhat install.
I also use a Geforce 8800 GTS 640 MB.

In simple sims, I get about 25 FPS, which is low, while games such as Crysis run on 1680 x 1050 at every graphic detail selected on 50 Fps easy.

The amount of polygons is the problem. Every avatar has a rather high amount of particles. some use particle shooters, and there might be 20+ avatars in screen.
The high amount of particles is a real problem. There is no videocard yet that can fully handle SL in a Max enviroment.

Perhaps a DUAL Geforce 9800 GX2 or Quad might help. 280 GTX in dual SLI should also work.

The only reason to swap a Geforce 8800 GTX now, is because of SL. Any other game known runs fine on a 8800GTX 768 Mb...

Ah. That makes more sense now.


Sounds like everything's working as it should. With 60 avatars, FPS is going to be low, no matter what (unfortunately).

Machinamists I've worked with in the past have worked around the problem by speeding up the footage in post. It's a pain to set up and execute, but if you use slow animations, and you're very careful with your camera movements, you can make it work.



That is interesting. I've never tried to play an MP4 that big before, so I have no basis for comparison. I'll give it a try when I get a chance, and let you know what happens.



Yes, the engine does need improvements, and LL would be the first to admit that. But that's not why SL doesn't perform the same way games do. Comparing frame rates with the likes of Crysis is simply not fair. It's not apples to apples. SL, by its very nature, operates on some different principles than games.

First, no game in the world has to stream geometry and textures in real time the way SL does. In something like Crysis, every single aspect of the world is stored on your local hard drive. So you've got instant access to the whole thing. But in SL, the world exists on remote servers, and since it's all user-created, it's always changing. Everything has to be dynamically streamed all the time. There's no instant access at all.

Second, the biggest reason for low frame rates in SL is lack of optimization. In games, all the geometry, textures, and visual effects are created by professionals who go to great pains to make every asset as CPU/GPU-friendly as possible. Textures are kept to minimum sizes, geometry is as low-poly as possible, particles and other visual effects are used relatively sparingly, etc. But since all content in SL is user-created, and since most users are pretty clueless about how this stuff works under the hood, at least 99% of what gets made for SL is not optimized at all. People do ridiculously abusive things like slap a hundred 1024x1024 textures on a wall full of little 2-foot signs, or build a million-polygon tree out of 500 sculpties, and then they blame the system when their frame rate drops.

If you're gonna blame SL's engine for stuff like that, you might as well blame your car when you drive it down a residential street at 200 miles per hour and then you crash. Just because you CAN do a thing doesn't ever mean you SHOULD. The fact that your car might be ABLE to hit 200 MPH doesn't mean you should EVER drive it that fast, and just because SL allows for large textures, excessive poly counts, particle abuse, etc., doesn't mean you should use them. Users must take responsibility for their own actions, regardless of what any system does or doesn't allow.

Trust me, if content for Crysis were built with the same lack of optimization as most people apply to their SL content, the Cry Engine would choke too. In fact, it would probably perform considerably worse than SL does.



Check my earlier post. I stated the numbers.


Yes. But it works well with one card driving both, as well. Really, the only reason I do one card per monitor is because I've got the two cards, and I don't want to feel like either one isn't being put to use.

It had always been my intention to use at least three monitors on this machine, in which case obviously one card would drive two, and the other would drive one. I just never got around to getting the third screen.


Sometimes. My monitors are wide enough that I don't often need to do that, though. Back before I had wide-screens, I used to do it all the time. FPS does drop when the viewer spans more than one screen, by the way (whether its one card driving both screens or not), in case you were wondering. The amount tends to vary from viewer version to viewer version.

Typically, I'll have SL on one monitor, and Maya and/or Photoshop on the other. The reason I want three monitors is so I can see all three programs at once. As it is now, I have to swap back and forth with Maya and PS if I've got all three programs running.

Hi;

From all entries to this thread i slowly get the impression that GTX-280 sounds like a convenient option at the moment ... I will wait another day, then order this GC and report back here in more detail, how it performs compared to 8800 GTX.

Maybe the other thread i found about the 9000 Series is also of interest in this context:

/327/95/286499/1.html

Thank you all for your input so far!

regards,
Hussayn

So many people who assume that sli/xfire work in sl..odd...im ammused since the fact is sl doesnt support sli nore xfire as of yet...