Sticky Request: Optimal Windows Hardware

Hi Folks,

It's time in my house to buy a new computer and I know that it's important to buy a computer the suits your most important application. Here in the hinter-land that's Second Life baby.

I reviewed the hardware requirements page at http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php but I would love to see a description of what the SL developers view as the ultimate machine for in-world goodness.

In addition, a view of at least 2 years out would also be really, really helpful. I know it would be speculative, but I want the best SL experience I can get and I can't buy new hardware every week! This dual-core issue is a great case in point. I'm really torn between to know where my US$ per gigahertz is best applied.

If there are existing threads on this, I'd appreciate the pointers.

thank you good SLifers!

OH here's this...

/139/52/112406/1.html

Heh, don't count on LL guys to tell you much about optimum hardware as most of them are working with older machines so SL attemts to remain compatible with lower end machines. They have been known to activate features they have no way of testing like when they added 500 meg video memory support. They didn't have a way to test it, none of their machines had that sort of memory at the time.

Here is my recommendation: Get the fastest CPU you can afford with as much system memory you can afford but at least 2 gig for optimal performance. Get a quality motherboard from a trusted brand, never skimp on the MB but don't pay extra for crap you don't need. Unless you intend to use it, don't get raid support as it just slows down boot times. Get a good power supply, don't skimp on this either, a cheap 450W PS is not going to keep the computer running under load (like running SL for instance) anyway near like a quality one. Many cheap PS run up the amp ratings on voltages that don't see a lot of current to get the wattage, this is missleading but common. You need at least 17 Amps on the 12 volt rails, higher the better.

The video card is lower on the list for a reason, you don't need the greatist video card to have a great SL experience since it is dependant on CPU rather than video processing. Avoid ATI cards especially the 9xxx series and under, SL has lots of heartburn with these cards as they aren't really OpenGL friendly and cause lots of crashing and other problems although current cards seem to run better with SL than the older ones. ATI has some really great cards, just not great SL cards. A middling, inexpensive card like an Nvidia 6600 GT is ideal for SL. A 7800 GTX would be even better but not significantly for SL unless you use the advanced 3d graphis settings to increase AA and AF filtering and such. Using them can make all the difference in the world but standard SL settings won't see a lot of difference between them. Avoid Nvidia cards with less than a 6 on the second number, the lower the second number, the crappier its performance is. Also pay attention to the last letters as a GS card is not nearly as good as GTX even though they are both 7800 series cards. They make it confusing on purpose so they can unload their reject bin GPU's for nearly as much as a good GPU because most folks assume a 7800 is a 7800 card and assume the cheaper one is a bargan.

Get a humungus widescreen LCD monitor and SL will take on qualities of a virtual reality almost like VR goggles. I loves my 37 inch