Advice on Best Ndvia card, see inside for details

Hello!

I'm going to be buying a laptop and so far everything looks good, but if anyone could look at it and tell me if this would be a good system to run sl on I would be grateful!



I'm mainly concerned on if the NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS is good enough since I didn't see it on the system req page.

Please advise and thanks in advance!

I have the desktop version of that card in my computer - and it will be replaced very soon. It is the total bottleneck of my system, a very low end graphic card good for office work and browsing the web, but *not* for SL.

I do not have personal experience with that perticular card but i would say yes, you should be able to run SL just fine. Don't expect any stellar performance, but it should be OK.

Them "M" (8400M) denotes it as a mobile or laptop chip. Shared memory is a draw back, GS version is not as strong as the GX and 8400 is not a line I am familiar with; the 8600 are solid and 8800 a bit better so I will assume (dangerous thing to do) that it is atleast on par with the 7000 series. All in all, there are several little things that add up to slower than it could be, but for the price, I think it will be a solid platform.

As soon as you get it in, you will want to update the graphics drivers. But then that is true of any comuter you buy.

DOH!
Go with Daniel's post.
Personal experience >>> speculation.

If your budget is only 800 bucks, then you're probably not gonna do much better than the machine you're looking at. However, that doesn't mean it's actually good.

First, I would never suggest anyone buy a computer with shared video memory for any purpose ever. "Shared memory" is basically a gimmick to make cheap laptops sound better on paper than they really are. The phrase "upto 1023MB video memory" seems really great at first glance. But when you take into account what that actually means, it's anything but.

"Shared" means the video card can tap into system RAM either in addition to or instead of using its own dedicated onboard video memory. This is bad for two reasons. One, system RAM processes graphics information at only a tiny fraction of the speed of real video memory, so anything graphics intensive (including SL, obviously) will run very noticeably slower. Two, when you tie up a chunk of system RAM for video, you take it away from everything else, lowering the amount of memory available to applications, so everything else will run slower too. A machine with a video card that has real video memory on it will always run circles around one with shared memory.

That said, according to the nVidia website, the 8400 GS does have 256MB of dedicated video memory onboard, so you probably don't have to share anything at all. 256 is less than ideal, obviously, but it's not terrible. My Asus laptop, which I regrettably had to give back to the company I used to work for, had a 256MB GeForce 8600 in it, and it ran SL very, very well. However, the 8600 does have 50-100% better specs practically across the board than the 8400 does, so the megabytes of memory might not be the best determining factor to go by. It looks like there are other, more significant bottlenecks in it than the physical amount of memory it's got.

Really though, if it were me, I'd be more concerned about the tiny screen on that machine than anything else. At only 800 pixels tall, you can forget about it being of much use if you plan on doing any texturing work, or any other 2D art. You'll never be able to see a 1024 tall image at full size, and by the time you account for the height of the Windows start bar, and the GUI of your pant program, you've got only barely enough pixels available to view a 512. If you don't plan on ever doing any graphics work, then maybe that's not a concern for you, but if you think there's even a possibility that you might, be prepared for some frustrations with a screen that tiny. You also won't be able to watch HD movies on it.

Again though, for only $800 I can't quite call it a bad machine. It's just not something I myself would ever consider buying. If all you want to do is surf the web and run office applications, it's probably great. For SL purposes, artwork, gaming, or anything else that requires high performance, I'd imagine it will fall flat. My advice, if it's at all possible for you, save up a little more, and buy something with a bigger screen and a better video card.

With any nVidia card a *second digit* lower than 6 is a "budget" card, "6" is middling-to decent, and anything higher is excellent.

For example: An 8200 is actually a *serious* step down in performance from a 6600.

In my experience, the only Nvidia graphics cards that make SL a *pleasure* to play, rather than "suffering" it, are the 7900, 8600 and 8800 series.

A 7600 was adequate but it is worth noting there is a massive performance advantage between the 7600 and 7900.

I've played SL on both a 8300 and 8400 and, tbh, it was a pretty miserable experience. Both were replaced the same day I was given them.

Personally I would not want to play SL on a GS card, and would only consider getting a GT or better. It goes without saying that in all cases we are talking about PCI-E 16x, rather than AGP

I too have serious doubts that this laptop is one that you would want to purchase for SL, altho' it might be perfectly adequate for office-based activities.

If your budget is only $800 and you want to use the computer for Second Life you should not even be considering a laptop. You would need to double your budget. Keep in mind also that as a practical matter you wont be able to upgrade what is already imo a low performance laptop which will rapidly become obsolete for computer games in general and even Second Life as it will move towards using Windlight viewer technology.

My advice is to go with a desktop unless you travel a lot and want to have access to Second Life on the road. You can get a better setup and can upgrade it over time. If you absolutely must have a laptop I would recommend either waiting until you could budget significantly more money to the purchase or look into financing plans that many of the larger manufacturers offer so you can afford to purchase a high end laptop with smaller monthly payments.

Thanks guys!

I plan to use the computer for school work and SL. I kinda like the idea that if I'm bored at school, that I can log in and play SL.

If you are saying that this laptop is not a good idea to run sl, what suggestions (model and such) would you give for a good computer.

I really don't make textures, I just want to be able to play on a computer that isn't 5-6 yrs old. I really don't go to clubs but I don't want to lag out if I go to a populated place.

That's hard to answer without knowing your budget, and without knowing whether you're really determined to get a laptop. If a desktop is acceptable, you have far more options.

Assuming a laptop is a must, decent ones start around $1700. The one I had until a few weeks ago, which I absolutely loved, was an Asus G2S-A1. 2.2 GHz Core2, 256MB GeForce 8600 GT, 2GB RAM, more connectivity than you could shake a stick at, and the nicest screen I've EVER seen on a laptop, all for $1699. It's a fantastic machine. It runs SL perfectly. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220185

And if you can scrape together an extra hundred, the next model up, the G2S-B1 has recently come down a lot in price. Now for $1799, you get a faster processor (2.4 GHz Core2 instead of 2.2), a bigger, faster hard drive (200GB 7500 RPM instead of 160GB 54000 RPM), and an extra gigabyte of RAM built into the motherboard (Turbo Memory). If I decide to buy a laptop in the near future, this will be the one. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220215

Of course for the same amount of money, you could put together a far more powerful desktop, but if laptops are your thing, the Asus G2S series is hands down the best bang for the buck in the sub $2000 range.


My only complaint about the G2S series is that they're Vista only. There are no XP drivers available for these machines. I really don't like Vista.

However, since there aren't really any good ways around Vista these days in laptops, it's probably not worth complaining about. For better or worse, Vista has arrived. So be prepared that the machine will run slowly for the first two weeks or so while Vista is still in learning mode. After it figures itself out, the computer gets MUCH faster.

I have tried SL on a Sony VAIO with an NVidia 8400, and it actually isn't bad. Not top of the line by any means, and not good enough if your goal is a system for serious content creation, but good enough if your goal is a system that will keep you in touch with Second Life while you are on the go.

The relatively small screen size of most systems equipped with the 8400 (usually 1280x800) helps. For a given amount of graphics horsepower, smaller screens (or windows) mean better frame rates; the 8400 is adequate for a small, light laptop with a small screen, but would be inadequate for a 17" behemoth with a 1920x1200 display. On the other hand, the big laptop would have a bigger power and heat budget, so it could include a faster video chip like an 8600 or 8800.

Ignore the shared memory capability; just use the dedicated video memory. 256MB is plenty.

For $850 (current price, it might have been $800 when you originally posted), not bad at all. A bit heavy for my taste (6 pounds is hefty for a 15" notebook), and a skimpy pixel count for a 15" panel, but less weight and more pixels would cost more money. If you're willing to go mail-order and forsake the comfort of a big US brand, you can get better graphics for only a LITTLE more money (around $900); for example, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115454 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220286

Thanks!

Unfortunatly my student budget doesn't allow for a $1700 laptop

I'm only bitting the bullet and buying the laptop for school purposes and SL (to keep what little sanity I have left).

I prefer actually getting it from a store because if something goes borky, I have a nearby location that I can take it to get it fixed. Luckly best buy has a 14 day return policy so I plan to run any laptop I get through the guantlet > (If I give it back I'll be sure to wipe the soot off first ).

Thanks alot for all the advice you guys have given so far... If you have anymore advice, keep it coming! I love good advice

Actually my 4 year old Compaq notebook with a Gefore 4 runs SL very well. Maybe I just got lucky or something.

I saw that EXACT laptop running SL at 20 fps.

The old Geforce 4 TI's rocked.

You can run SL perfectly well on a mid price laptop, avoid anything with Intel graphics and it should be capable of running SL reasonably well.