New Video Card for Christmas-now would like advice :)

I got an Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT -128MB RAM from Santa Claus Because this isn't an inexpensive card for only 128MB RAM, what is really recommended? Do I want a card with more bells and whistles with less RAM or do I want to go with a lesser card and 256MB?

My current system is P4 1.9 with 512MB RAM, GeForce 4 MX (64MB RAM) and while SL runs, there's much to be desired. I have to keep my draw distance at 64 to move at all.

I also got an additional 512 of RAM and that should help considerably but I want to make sure I've got the most (SL) optimal card for the money.

Thanks!

This is a great card for sl. It benchmarks very well (almost as well as $300 cards) and is highly recommended.

Wait until you see SL w/ shiny and local lighting on.
I was shocked to see what a difference those two features made when I upgraded cards.
I think you will still find yourself adjusting draw distances though. Depending on the region and number of avatars present, I have to turn mine down to 96 meters on occassion.

OK, I don't know what local lighting does and am wondering what the best combo of settings is, tradeoff wise.

Anyone have any screen shots with options off and then on?

I have a GeForce4 MX with 64 MB and running a 1440 x 900 screen, anny suggestions for settings?

Local lighting means that you will see the light cast by prims that have their "material" set to "light". Your milage may vary, especialy since there's "good uses of local lighting" and "bad uses of local lighting" in SL.

Good uses: stuff like fireplaces, light bulbs, headlights and other accent lighting, lights that are scripted to be light only at night when they're needed, "self-lit prims" with side 0 set to black (neon tubes, etc) so that they glow but don't cast light...

Bad uses; Making every single prim of the floor/ceiling light, which is outright blinding and generates a lot of lag.

My sweet friend in SL, gave me a geforce4 6800 128mb card for my birthday back in august. Awsome Card!! TY LARRY!!

OK....here are some images with settings changed.
The first two are with all sliders to the right, draw at 192, all performance options checked.
The second two are with all sliders in the center, draw at 96 and all performance options unchecked.

NVIDIA GForce FX 5700 is this a good card for SL??

I've got a NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 with 128 DDR RAM and it works fine.

SL looks really good if you have these on, some of the settings i have and funny things i noticed

Anistropic Filtering
Local Lightning - this one is a killer in busy sims
Shadows
Ripple Water - eh purty water, but it can look odd when water goes high
Shiny Object - a must really

Avatar Redering - haha this one can be fun, someone think they are sooo pretty and when you turn that on you can notice they look like grannies with wrinkles, and i ususally ask them do you have bump mapped on?

Terrain Detail - Full, soo pretty compared to nooothing

Other things i usually run on
Draw distance - 128-256m
Fog Distance ratio - 1.2
Drop draw distance if FPS - 5-10 (when i build i have around 25-45fps in sky)
Bumpiness Draw distance - 25 - this one is well... try it, make things purty all over hehe
Max Particle Count - 4095
Outfit Composite Limit - 15 (what do this do again?)


I run this on a r9800pro, and 6800gt, also tried it with gf4600, and mx460 (dont laugh)


dooo turn on bump, its a huge diffrence

I have one of those with 256MB ram, and its a great card for SL. However, I've noticed that the 5000 series Nvidia products still don't seem to support ripple water. My 4200TI can do it, but my old (dead) 5600 and my current 5700 never supported it.

i build custom gaming pcs, and production media pcs and my personal deskop has a 5600 nvidiafx gforce2 256mb and ihave noooo complaints

Back to the original post. Is that 6600 GT a PCI Express card or an AGP card? Just curious, since I have yet to see the AGP version in stores.

I have 64MB SDARam i enjoy the local lighting but i had to remove all the things i had checked due to bad lag everywhere i went, if i get more Ram would i benifit in SL?

I bought an ATI months ago and was disapointed. Ill get another one of these day. SL runs great for me but I can not turn shiny objects or avatar bumps on.

Local lighting works off the CPU, not the graphics card, so you won't see any improvement in that. All the other features, however, are handled by the graphics card, so a better card means you can have more of those features activated at a time.

I'm not even sure if I have a graphics card. Do DELL computers come with graphics cards? Would I even be able to play SL without one?

I just got Half Life 2 and I love it but it's glitchy; probably because my card (if I have one) ain't up to it.

So I'm thinking I should get an Nvidia card. How much do they usually run for?

If your computer can show a picture on a screen, it has a graphics card. That said, a Dell probably has its graphics card as part of the mainboard, and in that case, it's unlikely that it's one that works with SL.

An Nvidia FX5200 card will run between $50 and $75, and will give you adequate performance for SecondLife. If you're getting into serious gaming, you'll want a more powerful card: the FX5900 (a mid-range gaming card) runs $175-$200, while the top-of-the-line Nvidia 6800 Ultra is $500.

Just got a Dell for my husband over the holidays. To add on a new graphics card, you have to get the 4700 or higher model.

Also, before buying a new card, check the specs. The Dell we got has a PCI slot, and we had to return the nVidea ATI card we purchased because the dang thing wouldn't fit

Stay with the card you have. If possible, get the same one with more VRAM, but it's the card's processor that makes the most difference, and the 6600GT is pretty awesome.

Hope that answers your question, Liadan.

(well, that and having it in AGP, not PCI, will greatly speed up rendering)



Somehow, I doubt it.

Thanks for the info everyone

Dumb question, but how do you find out which is which? Do all Dells have PCI slots, or do they vary?

When looking at the computer mainboard, PCI slots are usually white, and a computer usually has two or more of them. AGP slots are usually brown, are set back further from the rear of the computer, and a computer will have no more than one of them.

Graphics cards are available for both PCI and AGP slots, but the AGP cards tend to be significantly faster than the PCI ones.

Teeny, yes, this is AGP. It was purchased at a smaller computer store, but I saw them at CompUSA as well.

Thanks to everyone for your replies. It is awesome! I was able to turn shiny on and raise my draw distance. Now if I could upgrade my motherboard....

<weighs the options...eat or play, eat or play...>

I would have to recommend the ultra 3000 gt.556 with the 8.0 optimisation upgrade, full time.

not only does it upgrade the enhancement callibrator but the multilingual transparent language analysis. AND to top it off it also has interactive fundamental processors!