Recommended Graphics Card?

I'm going to buy a new laptop within the next couple of weeks and my favorite model comes with either one of the following two graphics cards:

ATI Mobility FireGL V5600
NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M

Both have 256MB and I think the NVidia allows another 256MB shared. Not sure about the ATI.

I'm wondering how I determine which graphics card is the best for Second Life (other than trying which won't be possible). Do I have to expect issues at all with new models? Or with a certain brand? Any ideas?

I'm currently using an ATI card, the Mobility Radeon 9200 and it works flawlessly with Second Life, so I'm tempted to stick with ATI. Is that wise or stupid? Seriously, what do you think?

I would very much appreciate your educated opinion or gut feeling.
Thank you very much in advance for giving advice.

Cheers!
Tina Marlin

I think these are really high end cards, right? They should work fine

i wouldnt recommend either, from mobile benchmark
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

ati - FireGL v5200
http://ati.amd.com/products/fireglv5600/index.html
Wouldnt recommedn firegl cards, they are 2d/cad cards.

Gforce fx go7500
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-FX-Go-5700.2150
euw..slow and fx are notorious heat makers, crazy hot

If a video card says "shared" memory run, don't walk, *RUN* away as fast as you can. (for something such as SL).

Put put it simply, if you want to run any graphics intensive program (such as SL), you need a normal video card (or dedicated, in a laptop), not one of the cheap shared memory things.

Shared memory on a video card is fine for an office or low use home machine (like your grannys), but it is not meant for high use applications, such as 3D games or SL.

Thanks Thili and Abyssin!

I know that shared isn't good, but it's 256MB dedicated plus 256MB shared which is optional, so up to 512MB. No idea how that works.

Currently I'm on an ATI card with only 128MB (dedicated), a laptop with only 1GB RAM (with 512MB SL also worked well) and an old Centrino M 1.5GHz.

The new laptop will have twice the ram and about four times the GHz. So shouldn't I be safe, even if the graphics cards are not THAT good in benchmarks? Either one should still be better than what I have, shouldn't they?

So, I guess I could have a better graphics card built in custom. Is there any you would recommend for SL / 3D games?

fire gl and Quadro are not all that great at doing real time graphics, their job is to work on 3d where perfection is needed and time is available, such as 3d animation CAD ect

yea they can do real time rendering, where instead of spending 7 min rendering a pixel perfect single frame, your doing "best guess" at 20-30-60-100+ frames PER second

but for the same money you could get a gamer card that will do SL better

Thanks a lot for the explanation Osgeld! I guess in this light it does make sense to request a different card to be built into the laptop I want and not take the standard.

Having said that, if anyone is using a laptop on Second Life with a state of the art graphics card, can you please share which model you are using and how it's performing (freezes, crashes, fixes if any)?

I do not care about benchmarks! Apart from Second Life I don't play 3D games, so all I want is a smooth experience with Second Life. Of course I don't want to buy a new laptop and end up having endless issues with fixing the drivers or whatever to get SL to run. Hence my questions beforehand.

Thank you very much again for all your recommendations and help!

Although not definitive, you should at least be aware of the following from the Second Life system requirements page on:

http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php

(section towards very bottom of the web page)



Others are listed too, but felt you'd be most interested in these two for the time being...

Good luck

Thanks a lot Debbie!
In fact I did look at system requirements and Linden recommendations first, but since they generally refuse to support laptops it's no wonder that they don't recommend mobile graphics cards. But yeah, at least they list what is not tested, but I doubt they test laptop hardware at all.

fire gl and Quadro are usually not seen in laptops becuase they are power hogs meant for some serious stuff

what LL refuses to support is CHEAP chipsets such as intel sis s3 trident ect that do not bother to adhere to the standards that were set more than a decade ago, not laptops

the hardware for the most part the same stuff as a desktop ... you can get a geforce 8 and quad core in a laptop, just as you can get a worthless intel video chip in a desktop

those things tend to pop up in major brand computers (desktops and laptops) because

A the average user thinks "solitaire" is a video game
B to make the system as inexpensive as possible so they can add bonuses to your machine

as i scan hp, dell, gateway, and whoever else i often think of this quote

"congratulations, you just paid 300$ for your free printer, retard"

which was from an article detailing how if you went to the small business website the same computer as on the home website was 300 less, but minus the free printer (@ dell.com)

Well, I guess I'll go with my favorite laptop model nevertheless. There are just too many factors why I don't want to pick another one. With the exception of the graphics card, it's perfect! And I'll throw a dice whether to take the ATI or the NVIDIA. Kinda prefer the NVIDIA though.

And if I don't get SL to run at all, I will have to decide whether to get another laptop after all or just play SL with my old one. Fortunately I will be able to return the new laptop within 2 weeks and receive a full refund and I don't even have to give a reason.

Thanks all for your input!

I run, and have done for some months, a DELL Latitude D620 fitted with a NVIDA Quadro NVS 110M. I am on SL everyday, normally from hotels, and it runs perfectly (If there is such a word in SL). No graphics issues whatsoever. OS is XP pro and I have 2G memory.

PS It does run really hot and I have gotten into the habit of propping a book under the back of the notebook to get the air circulating. I just went and bought a 'fan stand' which is a platform it sits on with it's own fan to help cooling. Doesn't even get slightly warm now.I paid £25 for the stand and is a worthwhile investment for any notebook running a 'hot' video card.