Where My Weakest Link?

Hello Everyone,

First post here.

I'm getting pretty horrid lag and / or FPS so I thought I'd post my specs and see if anyone can tell me my weakest link as far as performance.

I'm fairly computer literate but honestly haven't been following the newest advances in processor speeds etc... much lately.

I bought this box about 1 1/2 years ago and it's the first one I *didn't* build myself. I've also just been informed that I *cannot* upgrade my processor.....(never again!)

Here's the dope:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+
2.2 GHz
2 GB DDR RAM
GeForce 6100
Typical Comcast cable connection 400 - 500+ down

My video card seems decent enough to run games like F.E.A.R., but I'm wondering just *how* good it is.

Anyway, hopefully this is enough info to get a good idea of what I've got going on here.

I sure will appreciate any advice.

Thanks in advance

on nvidia cards as of late anything below a X600 is considered budget like your 6100

it would be a good bump to to all your games to upgrade your video, but ill tell you now SL is a piggy program so dont expect to go from like 8fps to 100fps

from my computer room...

the only pc i currently have sl installed on is my old athlon xp 2200+ its running (overclocked) at 1.9 ghz has 1gb ram and a overclocked geforce 6600GT, with the windlight client and everything turned up full blast i get about 15fps

if i drop my overclocked geforce 7600GT in it i see it running about 20fps constantly

if i wanted to buy yet another agp card and put in something like a 7900GTX i probally could push that up to 30 fps

but again to hammer it in if i was able to put something like a 8100 in, i would be worse off than with the 6600GT (altho i would have all the new features running horribly slow)

Osgeld,

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

Your posted info has given me some frame of reference.

Yesterday, I bought an e-GeForce 7600 GS. Not top of the line by any means, but was told by a "sales associate" that it would make a definite improvent.

Well, for other things, like a game called F.E.A.R. ( a graphics intensive 3rd person shooter), it has brought things to a whole other level. Amazing (to me).

However, with Second Life, I have noticed almost no improvement.

Average FPS = 3

And this is with *a lot* of options turned off in the Client ==> Render menu.

Draw distance 96. Graphics sliders all the way to the left. Etc. Etc.....

After I stay in one spot and let everything rez, if I check my processor, it's never below 90%......


So, it's looking like it's my processor, which, unfortunately is hardwired to the motherboard....

Guess it's time for a new box........ /shakes head