Windows Vista

Hello, I see under downloads there is not anything that says Windows vista. If I buy a new computer will I be able to run Second Life? All new computers come with Windows Vista now days!

Hi

There are numerous threads on this. Do a search for 'Vista'.

In summary, there are many of us successfully playing SL on machines with Vista but the general experience seems to be:

1) have at least 2Gb RAM, preferably more
2) use nvidia graphics cards, rather than ATI or Intel
3) ensure you are using the very latest graphics drivers

See also this thread for other useful info

/111/47/216208/1.html

Seems like LLABS have included vista alone with XP in their requirement for computer specs........I do wonder if its fully usesable. Or is it buggie?!

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

Yes, Vista is now included on the SL 'Windows System' page under both 'Requirements' and 'Recommendations'.

I have had no problems which I can directly attribute to Vista. Any problems I have had with SL on Vista turned out to be either SL itself, graphics drivers or hardware related.

These problems have been largely resolved by
a) decent PC spec with 3Gb RAM
b) upgrading PSU to 850W
c) regularly checking for and installing any new nvidia driver releases
d) using the bleeding-edge Nicholaz viewers.

I consider SL to be now stable and have good fps (although v1.18 is still has a massively reduced fps compared to v1.17). That is not to say I *never* crash, only that it is few & far between (usually occurring Sunday evenings GMT, or other times of high concurrency)



For me, SL on Vista is totally usable and only experience those bugs which are already known about for SL and are well documented on these forums, the blogs and JIRA; none of which I can say are related to Vista

a) decent PC spec with 3Gb RAM<--------------------Has 4GigaB
b) upgrading PSU to 850W<---------------------------THIS ONE YOUR JOKING RIGHT?
c) regularly checking for and installing any new nvidia driver releases<----Always Updated
d) using the bleeding-edge Nicholaz viewers.<------This however doesnt matter

I have no idea what point, if any, you are trying to make.

That advice was merely offered as to how I achieved a stable SL with good fps on Vista.

Anyone can take it or leave it. *shrugs* But to rule something as "a joke" and "doesn't matter" without any stated justification, logic or reasoning contributes nothing to this thread nor does it answer the OP's original question of "If I buy a new computer (with Vista) will I be able to run Second Life?".

What graphic cards are you running? running a dual 8800 gtx ? you shouldnt have to upgrade top that powerful power supple to run 3 giga of DDR2 and a single graphic card? Its over kill. What CPU are you using quad core?

ASUS Extreme Striker motherboard
Intel Core2 E6600 1068MHz overclocked to 1475
3 x 1Gb CORSAIR paired and sequentially numbered DDR2 800MHZ overclocked to 900
2 x nvidia 8600GTS in SLI
1 x nvidia 7950 GT OC
2 x 300Mb SATA drives with 16Mb cache each
5 x 80mm fans
2 x 120mm fans
Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit
and so on....

The size of the required PSU unit was determined using a number of different PSU Calculators, rather than relying on shouted ascertains from someone with absolutely no information at all to hand. Each calculator determined that 800W was required, but price-wise it was equally economically to purchase a 850W & allow for future upgrades, including quad-core for which this mobo is compatible.

Performance comparsions on 3DMark06 and actually *using* this specification with both a 550W and 850W PSU unit *prove* that 850W is not "overkill", is not a "joke" but does in fact provide a stable machine from which (to return to the OP's original question) SL can successfully and stablely be run on Vista.

Here is what I am looking at, This will be for my son who seems to be addicted to teen Second life;
Intel Pentium Dual Core processor E2140 (1.60GHz,800FSB)
1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
250GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, English
From what I have been reading I am confused as to weather this new system will run Second Life. Any thoughts?

I suspect that any PC with only 1GB RAM will struggle to run SL on Vista ~ at least comfortably (I haven't actually tried it tho', perhaps someone who has could comment).

Bear in mind that Vista uses 950Mb to 1GB RAM when it is just sitting doing nothing ~ that doesn't leave a whole lot of RAM for exclusive use by SL and therefore will force alot of writing to hard drive paging.

As an example (using Vista Ultimate), I currently have SL open on one monitor and IE7 on the other, this is using 1.9Gb of RAM.

Hope this helps somewhat & good luck with whatever decision you make

I guess this would be better!
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E4500 (2MB L2 Cache,2.20GHz,800 FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
MEMORY 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
HARD DRIVE 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
VIDEO CARD 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8300GS
SOUND Integrated Sound Blaster®Audigy™ HD Software Edition

A lot of people upgrade their system or buy a ready made unit at a cheap price. What is grossly overlooked by many people is the Power Supply. It is not good running a high powered system with the power supply running at full power, there is a lot of heat generated by the Triacs, Zeneer Diodes and transformers used. The more stress=more heat=less life span and more heat dissapation.

Anyone contemplating pruchasing a system or upgrading, do not forget the power supply.

850Watts may have seemed a lot a few years ago, but so was quad cores, dual GC's, 4GB ram, HD's in the TB capacity range, Dual layer DVD re-writers, HDTV outputs, and even multi megabyte bandwidth connections. If your system is going to be useful for the next couple of years, seriously consider using a 750Watt Power Supply as a minimum.

Dual Cores aren't supported by SL's Client atm, but a wise choice for a new system.
Vista - well personally I won't use it. SL is having some issues with it, so to run out of the box, try getting XP.
2GB ram is ok, but 3-4GB would serve you for the future. It would be useful for Vista and SL alike, espcially as we are expecting Havoc4 soon.
HD is ok.
GC, 128mb is a bit lean, try 256mb.
Sound is ok.

Hope that helps.