Choosing a Video Card for SL Use

Hi,

My video card is quite under-powered for SL (an nVidia 7300-based card with 256 MB of RAM) and I'd like to upgrade it. My budget is pretty limited, so I need to find the right price / performance point. How does one evaluate a video card from the perspective of SL use?

My use of 3D is pretty limited (which is why I put such a puny card in when I built this system, but then came SL...). It comes down to SL and Google Earth and a little Celestia or Stellarium (astronomy applications) from time to time.

How might I go about choosing the right video card for me? Are there existing references for this information?


Thanks.

Rudy

Basically, all the input here.

Nvidia's are still the best way to go, although AMD/ATI is slowly getting better with time. A good mid-range NVidia can be had for under $100 from Newegg.

What are the specs for the rest of your system ? (Including the power supply, cpu, video slot.)

The reason I'm asking is that I just installed an agp 7600gt (nvidia) with 512 meg in a very old system that I couldn't bear to scrap. I wound up having to also buy a vga cooler and a new power supply to get it to work.

A 7600gt will absolutely not work with a 350 watt power supply even though some online merchants claim it will. Your system becomes unstable to the point you can't use it. Also if you get that evga card still in the stores the stock cooling fan is a joke.

I'm happy with the results, the machine is quite a bit faster in SL now, but if I'd known what I was getting into before the upgrade I would have just left it and put the money towards a new system.

Everything I have read regardign SL graphics says that RAM is most performance critical for SL, as SL is a VERY texture-heavy environment, compared to 'closed' 3D environments in most games where the texture size and quantity are carefully controlled by the developers on a scene-by-scene basis.

A card with a lower performance GPU but more RAM should be expected to outperform a price comparable card with better GPU but less RAM.

It's a fairly high-end system otherwise: Core 2 Duo @ 2.9 GHz, 4 GB of dual-channel DDR2 800 MHz RAM; PCIe-16 video slot. OS on a 15,000 RPM Ultra-320 SCSI, home and non-system software (including SL) on 10,000 RPM SATA drive. The power supply is rated 550W. Since I'm also adding another 15,000 RPM SCSI drive (for unrelated purposes), I may also upgrade the power supply.


Rudy

One other thing:

I currently get very low frame rates. Given the otherwise ample characteristics of my system (in addition to what I mentioned previously, I have a 3 Mbps inbound / 512 Kbps outbound DSL link to the Internet), what video card characteristics might improve that performance measure?

Right now, I'm looking at nVidia 8600GT cards with 512 MB RAM.


Rudy

...with my 7600GT/256 while my AGP-based system lasted. The 8600GT/512 should be quite nice. The x6xx cards are generally considered offering the best performance for the price, you can get better performance from an x8xx card, but you pay for it, possibly more $$$ than the extra FPS is worth (YMMV).

I am getting a 9600GT/512 (it is in the mail now, along with the board, PSU, etc etc ), mainly becasue it has a slightly lower power envelope.

This is a little dated but here is what linden labs came up with last year:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/11/15/typical-frame-rate-performance-by-graphics-cardgpu/

At this point I actually get better framerates in Linux than in Windows with my 7600gt

Did you know you can get 1 gigabyte versions of the 8600gt ?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150285

I'm planning on a 1 gigabyte version of the 8800gt when I upgrade later in the year. It's $40 extra but might be worth it for SL.

Oh, you evil, evil avatar! I just got done ordering an ASUS 8600GT with 512 MB of DDR3 from Newegg for only $10 less than the price of that XFX card.

I wonder how the DDR2 / DDR3 distinction plays out in terms of performance for SL?


Rudy

I notice two interesting things about this:

1) My 7300 does not realize even close to the frame rate range they show in that graphic.
2) The nVidia 8600 does not appear in that chart at all.


Rudy

The card arrived yesterday. What a difference! For a $100, it seems to be just the upgrade I needed. Now I'm getting mid-20s to 30 FPS. Even a complex scene with fog and lots of continuously moving trees and vegetation maintain 25 FPS.

Rudy

I run a 7600GT with a 350W power supply, but it is a TRUE, and high quality 350W power supply: after I exchanged the original so-called-350W power supply that went with the tower case with this one, I could even overclock my Athlon XP 2600+ to 3200+ (166MHz FSB 1.9GHz core overclocked to 200MHz FSB 2.2GHz core) and I have it running rock stable for three years now, while it was not possible to overclock beyond 3000+ (and even then, with occasional segfaults) with the old power supply.

Adding the Nvidia7600GT (AGP) in place of an old ATI9200 one year ago did not change the stability of my system, and the tower being well cooled by a set of two PAPST fans (very quiet and high quality fans), the 7600GT runs cool and rock stable as well, even in Summer, when the ambiant temperature climbs over 30°C...

So my advice would be: go for good quality PSUs and fans, and your system will be rock stable.

Henri.