Severe performance issues with ATI Radeon X300 PCI-e.

Hi.

I'm playing Second Life on a Dell Dimension 8400 desktop. P4 3GHz, 512mb ram, ATI Radeon X300 SE (shows up as Radeon X300/550 in dxdiag). It runs /awful/, gameplay is extremely choppy on seemingly any settings in almost all areas. It freezes up for very intolerable periods of time.

I've been told it may have nothing to do with the computer performance but rather the network connection. Well I'm on 8mbit cable and I can't imagine any game this popular demanding more than that. I've tinkered with many settings and have the latest drivers from ATI, I cannot resolve this.

Second Life's graphics do not appear very demanding, something must be wrong.

512 ram to low really, youll get awefull performance , 2gig recommended now.

could try omegadrivers but doubt they will do much, drop draw distance to 64m if you havnt already

If I recall correctly from the last time I was looking at vid cards (I'm not technogeek here but somone can probably verify for me) the SE variations of the Radeon cards use a type of shared memory, which takes away from your somewhat peckish 512mb or RAM already. I (refer to my caveat above) would suggest at least a x1600 Radeon or 7300/7600 GeForce (with thier own RAM) and 1Gb of system RAM for an enjoyable experience in SL and most other 3D games.

I would catagorize your statment that the graphicsin SL not being too demanding as false, a good graphics card and a good ampount of system memory make all of the difference, and are the two areas that your computer is weak. This, of course, depends on a lot of things, like your setting, and the location in SL that you visit.

I'm aware of the deficiencies of my system, though I didn't know the X300 used shared memory. Guess that explains some.

I meant only that I play a lot of games which are much more impressive in appearance and scope than SL and get much more acceptable results (WoW, America's Army, EVE Online come to mind). Although they aren't complicated by the streaming user created content bit.

The X300 card isn't much different than my 9550 card. More likely, your system is bottlenecking at the system memory and not the card itself. That being said, the X300 isn't exactly a high end card. You could look into getting an X1300 Pro for pretty cheap, and it would probably get you better FPS but your system's memory is still gunna be a problem. I run 1 Gig and SL still has memory problems at that level.

According to my system, my ATI 300X card doesn't have shared memory, though mine is a mobility card so it may be different to a desktop version.

Yeah, SL works just fine on that thick of a pipe. SL is not a high FPS game, if you are getting 10 -15 FPS on average you are doing quite well actually. SL is a CPU dependent application and the video card doesn't play into it like say Doom 3 for instance.

BIG difference between games and SL. With games, the models and textures are predetermined and held on your harddrive. SL is entirely streamed from the servers since the content is dynamically created on the fly by the users. Games, because of the set content, can be optimized much more easily and more effectively than SL.

The other thing to do is take a look at the characters in your games. Take a GOOD look and see how many polygons make up the face and hair. Now, go to one of the better looking AVs in SL with prim hair and accessories, then turn on wireframe mode using your Client Debug menu (Ctrl+Alt+D). One SL AV can have as many polys as an entire scene in most games.

Though not the best rendering engine out there, SL does make due pretty well with the load it is under.

Appearances can be deceiving!

I began playing SL on a system with 512mb of RAM and a mediocre graphics card. It was playable (or so I thought). I was fascinated by the concept rather than the visuals, which were rather humdrum.

Then I got a new computer with 2gb of RAM and a decent graphics card -- the change was AWESOME. It was like going from Kansas to OZ. I spent days wandering around SL, revisiting every place I'd ever been and marveling at the explosion of colors and textures that I had never realized I was missing. Not to mention movement of objects according to wind and the flex of flexible prims.

Now my only regret is that I didn't get an even better graphics card. Makes me wonder just how much more is still hidden to me.

I think people going overboard on the polys is probably half the problem.

let`s make this a little more clear...................http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php

"System Recommendations; Minimum System Recommendation

If you actually want anything to run properly , double/tripple/quad everything they stated , just about every game that has ""minimum"" is like that.

Ask anyone in SL that went from 512 to 2gig ram, theres a world a of diffrence, those requirements is abselute bs and they know it -.o, wonder how many tried SL and quit quickly cause its way way to choppy.

Open map ~500-900 mb ram use
stay near 10-20 avatars ~400-700mb ram use

Linden Labs is odd

System Recommendations; Minimum System Recommendation
(where recommended?)

You been here awhile to and know that 512 requirment is abselute minimum, not recommended at all anyone in SL that went from 512 to 2gig ram, theres a world a of diffrence, those requirements is abselute bs and everyone in SL know it -.o, wonder how many tried SL and quit quickly cause its way way to choppy.

Open map ~500-900 mb ram use
stay near 10-20 avatars ~400-700mb ram use

(enchanted interface - full WYSIWYG Editing - is broke btw)

hahah well they have to redo a few parts don`t they ehhehe