Nvidia graphic card settings

Hello,
I wondered as Nvidia comes with predefined settings for several different games (quite much actually).
As i have only little ideas what to do best for performance or quality settings there for SL i thought that there have to be some guys you figured out what is best.
My PC:
Pentium D 2.8ghz (duo core)
2gb RAM (DDR2 533Mhz)
Nvidia 7600 GT (256mb ram pci-express (should be 16x but somehow my motherboard (gigabyte 945GZM-S2 (rev. 3.0) does only 4x? strange but seems they fooled me there))
1 80gb HD SATA2 for system and applications(office photoshop etc...).
1 250gb HD SATA2 for pagefile, barely used data and SL cache
1 250gb HD SATA1 where i installed SL on
I run regulary a defrag with Diskeeper Professional on all drives.
I think my system is quite ok for sl?

Bad thing is my bandwidth which is simply lowest possible level for sl (my ping time is NEVER below 500ms) but once all loaded i thought my FPS should be ok around 20 ... which sadly isnt the case it is more around 15 and it drops often down even below 10 and that in a class 5 sim with maybe 10 +- 5 avis. I have graphic details at middle or lower, just bumpmapping and shininess and local lights on, the rest is already turned off.
oh, i forget to mention this is at a draw distance of 64m !!

So my question is:
Can i tweak something on the Nvidia graphic settings?

Hello,

You misread the specs.. copied from the website

'The Intel 945G Express Chipset with Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 graphic core delivers outstanding system performance through high-bandwidth interfaces such as dual-channel DDR2 memory, 1066/800 MHz system bus, PCI Express* x16 graphics port and PCI Express x1 I/O ports, Serial ATA 3.0 Gb/s and Hi-Speed USB 2.0 connectivity. The Intel 945G Express Chipset also includes support for Intel® Active Management Technology, the next generation of remote client network management.'

Fortunately you added a good GC instead of the dead head Intel mobile onboard Graphics Chip. Anyway you are using the x16 port.

The 7600 GT isn't as bad a GC as many would think... it has a virtually silent fan and a fast memory and core speeds, which with the right software, you can overclock.

Your issue is the connection speed/pings you are getting. The GC cannot render what your connection cannot deliver.

Well, that is what the specs say... until you read the small printed parts:
http://www.gigabyte.co.id/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?ClassValue=Motherboard&ProductID=2467&ProductName=GA-945GZM-S2

Expansion Slots

1. 1 PCI Express x 16 slot (@x4)

I know that my connection IS a big issue but when the draw distance is 64m and everything around me has loaded, 500mb or 1gb (where my hd says always only ca. 350mb is in the cache folder) are cached... and still the client goes below 10fps?

Thanks for the reply, i am afraid of over clocking due to high temperature and how i understand it wont help anyway? If any hint to the right software would be great.

I think he is right, what kind of connection are you running on?

I have a ADSL connection with "upto" 384kps down and 64 kbps upload and i am in south east asia so maybe as far away as i can be from sl servers.
The connection varies depending on times here, at good times i am fine with 0-1% package losses at bad times it is around 10% but my ping is simply best at 500ms varies around 600ms most of the time (so the new lag meter has my network always red or yellow it is a bit like a blinking traffic light)... i tested with connection speed websites and it simply is the ping from my pc to servers in Dallas or SF, i fear nothing i can do about that.

But I dont understand why the client frame rate gets effected by that if graphic has loaded and is cached locally.

I got a 7600 gt PCI-E card as well and at worst i get around 16 fps at very populated areas with a resolution of 1400x1040 at 4x AA and 4xAF.
I still think its your high ping that makes things slow. Even tho all data around you is cached, you'd still get positional data on moving residents and where you are on the grid and scripted objects. In short, everything that's "alive". If this data doesn't arrive in time, things get slow. Can you somehow lower your ping? Here where i live you can "order" fastpath. That' just a trick though, removing the error checking your ISP does, so dataflow reacts faster.
I got almost the same PC you have, just without SATA2 harddisks, so i think your SL experience should be better with a lower ping (mine is usually below 200, which isnt great, but ok).

-Asriazh

A Ping of 200ms is perfectly acceptable, especially for non critical mission VR environments like SL... you wont die because you dropped a few packets. In fact SL will run generally quite well at 300ms.... when you get into the realms of 500ms, that equivilant to a wireless router connection and using wireless mouse and keyboard, everything will get treacley....

The part about caching locally is correct, but only if the cache knows what to load, if it doesn't know which direction you are going in or turning, then it cannot preload anything. Or if it does and you changed direction other than what it predicted, you have to load another complete set of textures.

Until designers in SL learn that you can make perfectly useable textures at small sizes, and stop using 1024x1024 alpha textures on door knobs, SL will run a bit faster for us all.

BTW, I read the manual.. seems like a ploy by manufacturers to supply a MB with PCI Express and throttle it down... having said that, any GC you add to that slot, will always be much faster and robust than a MB chip sharing your system ram.

Of course it is better than an onboard ram sharing GC...
i just bought this board mainly cause of the pci-e slot and feel so cheated by them stating pci-e x16 on the cover and somewhere in the manual is then (@x4)

Old-ish thread, but same GC, so seems the place to ask...

I got the nVidia GeForce 7600 series GC for Christmas - the best graphics card upgrade possible for my cronky old motherboard. For the most part it is great - better graphics, faster, less crashing when taking high res snapshots to disk, faster fps, able to run Windlight now, yadda yadda yadda.

However, when I zoom in close on textures I get an artifact - I will get an image shortly to show exactly what happens, but basically numerous pixelated areas appear, even on alpha textures. Rather annoying, especially as I enjoy SL photography and it wrecks snapshots. I've fiddled with the 3D settings on the GC settings panel, and tried all sorts of combo's of SL graphics settings, to no avail.

Any suggestions from the brains out there?

Thanks in advance

Skinks xx


My PC Specs ::

ASUS P4S800-MX rev.2.01 SiS661 ATX Motherboard
PC Intel P4 2,8GHz 1M FSB533
1GB DDR RAM
HDD IDE 80 GB Maxtor Di.MaxPlus9 6Y080L0
Win XP Home SP2

ADSL Internet Connection 8MB (av. 7MB)

From my experience of GC's artifacts are caused mainly by memory errors generated by either a failing card, bad drivers or overheating. SL will tax your video hardware to the max.

Try running your PC with the case open (this may or may not improve air flow) and check for video issues in SL.

Download the newest drivers and install them, and then perhaps download 3Dmark 2003 / 2005 or 2006, run that and watch for artifacts. If you are unable to run these benchmark programs without issues then SL will never look right.

If you have issues in benchmark programs and SL then you may need to get a replacement GC... they do go bad occassioanly and most vendors are good at replacing faulty equipment.

Hope this info helps.

Hi Lulu. Interesting problem. I wouldn't mind catching up with you in-world to discuss this. My last machine was a Sempron 2800 (XP) with a 7600GS and I generally got 7 to 15 fps and it was bearable. My new PC is a E6750 (Vista x64) and an 8600GT. Now I get 25-30 fps. I put the difference down to the CPU, not the video card. I doubt the issue of whether you're using 16 or 4 PCI-e channels matters. It's far too low a frame rate to use up the PCI-e bandwidth. I'm more interested in your 500 ms ping time. I'd like to see what ktris/sec you get and whether your network is backlogged. I suspect you can't download data fast enough to display it. IM me if you want.