New PC for SL advice - technical questions

I know a reasonable amount about PC's, but very little about SL or what makes it tick on a technical level. I hopefully will be able to get a new PC in the next month (this one is dying anyway).

What I hope to have in the PC will be, an AMD dual core, possibly 4200, or 4400. Running 2 cores at 2.2GHz, but is 2 lots of 512kb of cache or 2 lots of 1024kb of cache going to make much difference? I dont think I will need the extra cache for most other things I do with a PC, but will SL see much benefit? What about these chips anyway? Does SL even like them or am I looking at the more complicated means more problems scenario?

RAM, dual channel as fast it can go, 1GB or 2GB? Does SL use that extra memory? A lot of game and programs dont, will I see any benefit for the extra cash? I go under the assumption that, if I really need it later, I can buy upgrade, but its quite cheap to do so now. Is more going to mean better, or just, more space wasted?

The graphics card. Does SL use it very much? My suspician was not much. I figure, an 1800XT 512MB or 7800GT 256MB series is going to be overkill regardless. What about crossfire or SLi, either of those make a difference?

Any help or advice on what to look out for and what to not worry with will be appreciated. Thanks to anyone that can help

Moved to Technical Issues.

Uh ... why? I don't see any technical issues here. A technical subject, yes, but that's not the same thing.

These are all great questions Chloe. It would be very handy to know which hardware choices would make the most difference in SL. Anyone who plays SL and is planning to build a new machine could benefit.

I have been curious myself about using the dual Athlon set-up or the two video card SLI options.

I hope that some hardware gurus to visit this thread

invest into an sli dual gpu system with 3Go of ram (1 allocated to sl, 1 as a ramdisk to boost SL's cache, 1 for the rest of your stuffs) and the biggest cpu you can fit

too big? well do not confuse "best" and "cheap"

SL won't utilise both cores, in fact you need to set the affinity to one in order to avoid problems with SL, but they will help you run other applications in the background.

WRT Cache - I have a single core 3700 running at 2.2GHz with 1Mb cache and what I can say is that known bugs aside, SL is running very well for me despite the problems a lot of others are experiencing with high end machines, and as SL is very cpu reliant, i'd surmise a larger cache may be helping things along.



2Gig without a doubt.



Really, I would recommend nVidia not ATI, SL uses openGL and nVidia is known to be generally more suited to that; while not all ATI users experience problems, no one would dispute that generally, nVidia cards make for a happier SL existance.

Whilst a reasonable video card is essential, SL is heavily cpu bound, so you don't have to buy the most expensive out there. The 6600GT with 256Mb cache used to be the best bang for the buck but there may be better deals on newer cards now. SLi will do almost nothing for you, for the previously mentioned reason, and the fact that Second Life is not optimised for it anyway.

I have a single nVidia 7800GT and can get frame rates of over 75fps in my skybox.

If you are picking your motherboard, I'd opt for an nVidia chipset too, seems to make sense if you're also using an nVidia graphics card. I use an Asus A8N-SLi.

Good luck with your new machine !

chloe, there are no limits to how good your computer can be for sl. SL can use 100% of all of your resources 100% of the time under high settings.

CPU --> SL will always use 100% of one core. you can't go wrong spending more.

RAM --> the greater your draw distance the more RAM you need. at 128m draw, you easily need over 1 GB of RAM to multitask. 1 GB of RAM was a real drag. now i have 3 GB and no complaints

VCard --> get the best you can afford. more RAM also means more textures can be loaded rather than cached. this is a good thing. also - shiney, light, shadows. it all adds up to greater immersion. LL is upgrading their rendering engine soon which will probably take advantage of more vcard features.

I build dual cpu machines as a matter of principal - its like having a ACE up your sleeve when your box is bogged down playing game, working in photoshop, etc etc. And as dual core beocmes more popular, expect game developers to start supporting it.

If I were buying for SL, I would get the fastest dual core CPU I could find, 2gb ram, and a gfx card with 256mb ram min.

Very helpful replies guys, thank you!!

Looking like a 4400 then, without a doubt from what you said, and the most ram I can afford. I'll also look at an SLi compatalbe board, but with only a single 7800GT/GTX for now, especialy seeing as SL doesn't support it (thats important to know).

Whatever I get will be far better than the conistently less than 15FPS I get now, often less than 10 in pretty places

I have 1GB of RAM and an nVidia FX5200 256MB card and I still get <15fps. My CPU is an AMD Sempron 2.4 or something, which is all I can guess is still the problem (maybe a slow IDE HD might be contributing too, not sure). So get as much CPU as you can as well, as SL eats it up!

MM

I have a 4400+ with a 7800GTX and 2 gigs of ram, dont expect to see a huge difference when you are in a sim of 20 or more people.

Very nice to know this. I was wondering what hardware might improve the Draw Distance performance.

Really great info in here folks, thanks for sharing.

Get the 4400 or single core with 1MB+ cache
2GB+ RAM
nVidia Card, 6600 or better

SL doesn't utilize your video card that much, so an SLI isn't that neccesary. HOWEVER, building your computer with SLI in mind will mean that you will have a wider upgrade patch in the future.

One other thing to keep in mind, if you are going to buy an AMD system now, buy the BEST CPU you can. AMD is changing their socket (AM2) whcih means that a couple years from now, you may have toubles finding a CPU to upgrade your current one. However, if you are willing to wait, an AM2 system will have better upgrade potential down the road.

Excelent post Ketra, I second this. I have a 4400+ X2 and its the best bang for the buck.