Graphics Settings and Framerates

My specs:

3.4ghz Prescott, 800FSB
2gig RAM (dual channel, 667 ddr2)
Nvidia 7900GT 256MB (driver version - 84.21)

Draw Distance: 128

FPS with all graphics settings at max
7.733 avg

FPS with all graphics settings at lowest
8.667 avg

Edit: See more benchmarks below

--
Ran with FRAPS benchmark, floating in Miramare for 60 seconds. All textures had been loaded into the client and there was minimal network traffic.

So my questions are:

1. Can anyone explain why my framerates are so low? Granted I haven't had good framerates since, oh, 1.0, but still I'm not sure what else i can do. I can't throw that much more at it and certainly not without breaking the bank.

2. Shouldn't there be a greater disparity between Max settings and Minimal settings? Graphically I can see the changes, but they just don't seem to impact FPS at all. Even running the client at 800x600 resolution doesn't seem to do much besides get me a few more FPS.

Thanks,
Nicola

Only two suggestions I can make and no idea if either will be helpful or informative.

1. turn off hyperthreading (shouldn't need to but you never know).
2. turn on or make sure the debug menu is on, then ctrl+shift+2 which I believe will bring up a graph showing what is using up processing time for each frame.

Miramare is possibly the laggiest sim in SL has been since my first day in SL two years ago. I have pretty good system and i can get a good 20+ fps in most other sims with 30 avatars in it but Miramare gets about 7 -10 fps on a good daY.

thanks for the reply, Rickard -- yes I do have HT turned off so SL is getting 100% of the cpu.

Yes, you're right Kathmandu -- Miramare (and other city sims) is probably one of the worst places in SL. I just find it odd that I can't squeeze more FPS by going with minimum prefs.

I wonder what it would take to get 30fps in Mirarmare?

Don't know if this might help figure out why some have bad frame rates and others don't but here's all my specs

AMD Athlon 1.47 GHz (yes, I know. old)
512MB SyncDRAM
GeForce FX 5500oc 256MB DDR 8x/4x Driver Version 84.21
Cable interent

I'm running at anywhere from 15-22 fps. Was about this with 1.9. Did not do a min/max look at framerates so not sure of changes.

Draw distance is set to 64 (I never needed much over this)

I do see some packet losses I didn't before (up to @3% at times) and bandwidth usage jumps at times (up to 300-400kps). I'm hoping this is because of the grid stabilising, but may be related to the new culling options.

That's all I have to report *salutes smartly* ^.~

Hope it helps.

~Jessy

i was getting lag but since the update i dont know what lag is!

im running :

AMD 64 Dual Core 4200+
1GIG RAM
256MB 6800 Nvida

After the update I put everything on full and was in awe at the lighting the frame rate , TP'd to busy clubs and had no trouble!

at last SL makes use of my hardware!

Thanks for posting your benchmarks! Ok, to get a little bit of a better sample to show some differences in sims I ran some more benchmarks.

Graphics settings on maximum:

Mohrr - Relatively islolated water sim
Min, Max, Avg
40, 77, 58.717

Kojin - Average sim surrounded on all sides, good amount of geometry
Min, Max, Avg
10, 17, 13.667

Avalon - Isolated island sim
Min, Max, Avg
14, 27, 21.100

Looking better. Once again though the minimum settings don't help that much, and in fact for some reason Mohrr is worse and Kojin is almost exactly the same.

Graphics settings on minimum:

Mohrr
Min, Max, Avg
28, 64, 47.767

Kojin
Min, Max, Avg
9, 17, 13.483

Avalon
Min, Max, Avg
20, 33, 26.433

So what's the conclusion? My card is fast enough that lowering the graphics settings doesn't make much difference? This is a good thing, right?

looks like about what I get, maybe a tad faster. I'd consider it more evidence that SL is cpu limited since I'm running an athlonxp 3000+. I'd have thought your system memory would make more of a difference, but apprently not. I've only got 1.5gig and it's not ddr2. It is running in dual channel mode. (shrug) dunno.