Video Card That Will Run SL GUARANTEED ?

Hello friends, since the "culling" update a while back, the system I built to run SL will no longer work. As far as I can tell, it must be the video card (SL has outgrown mine I guess). Since I find Linden Lab's new laundry list of words that cannot be in the video card's title (without a list of actual working cards) to be extremely non-user friendly and vague, can anyone suggest a video card that is under $100 to $150 that has been proven to run SL from personal experience?

Newegg link appreciated.

Thanks!

Before we start making suggestions, could you tell us if you are shopping for an AGP video card or a PCI-E video card?

Good point. AGP. Thanks.

Amazing. This was $250 when I bought mine. Big price drop and still a great card. I can run Everquest 1 and 2, WoW and SL flawlessly with it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814195027

I just got this one (PCI Express) and have to say that it rocks...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130062

That's the same card I'm running right now and it works well. Can't beat that price, either!

ATI X1600

On my Desktop PC, AMD 2600+, AGP card : ATI X1600 PRO 256MB (below 200$)
On my Macbook Pro, intel core duo, PCI-E : ATI X1600 Mobility
On my iMac 17", intel core duo, PCI-E : ATI X1600

I can say i heavily tested the X1600 with secondlife and it work well

Be carefull with latest generation AGP Card, they are all PCI-E native with an embeded AGP<->PCI-E bridge. And they're used to HEAT A LOT. Be sure you're tower have some working fan

Edit : i love green smiley

I use the 9800 on one of my machines here, and it works well for SL in Windows and in Kubuntu. Sheesh, I paid about $300 for mine, now it is totally cheap.

If you have a newish computer that has AGP then it probably AGP8 but if it's a 5 year old machine, it may only support up to AGP4 (my old computer only supported AGP2 & AGP4 cards). So if you have an older computer be sure to look up the manual for it online and see what it supports.

It's AGP 8. I built this computer less than a year ago to SL's specs.

A Nvidia 6800 GTO/GTU card will run your SL with no problem and they shouldn't cost too much.

Yes, the nVidia stuff is more OpenGL compliant, and supports more OpenGL extensions than any of the ATI cards. Since SL is an OpenGL application, I strongly encourage a good nVidia card.

What I would do is find one of those little hole in the wall PC shops and ask the guys which nVidia cards are good for gaming.

I agree with the Dr about Nvidia cards and SL. I have to add that you want to stay away from anything lower than the 6000 series cards, since they don't do pixel shader model 3 , which gives us ripple water. Also, stay away from anything with "LE" in its name. LE cards have GPUs which fall short of specifications, so they are crippled and used on budget versions of video cards. Buy a LE card at your own risk.

Is NVIDIA also preferred over ATI on a new Intel Mac?

If you want guaranteed then go with NVIDIA instead of ATI.

Its already been stated that NVIDIA works with OpenGL better.

Also, SL seems to have an issue with reading the drivers for ATIs and then getting confused. My laptop has a ATI 9600 mobility in it which *should* run SL. Saddly SL believes that its a low quaily video card that I've never had. Then not only does it not work, but tech support will not talk to you. This is a known issue but not being fixed. Oddly enough it seems to be random on who and which ATI cards it affects.

Then again not everything is guaranteed when it comes to SL. Even the most highend computers aren't running it decently.

I found a =on of these http://www.xfxforce.com/web/product/listConfigurationDetails.jspa?productConfigurationId=964
on sale for $49. USD

It runs SL just great...Besides the fact I have to set my draw distance 96m or lower for best preformance.

before the lag/packet loss issues it ran even better. this on a under powerd white box set up mainly as a home recording studio.

I woudn't run an FX card. The FX cards are the low-end GPU's, kind of like the LE's.

When I joined about three weeks back I was running an ATI Radeon 7500. It displayed enough for me to decide on upgrading. In the local PCWorld they had a Radeon 9500 which even shows water ripple. Here in UK it was under £60 and worth every penny.

I later upgraded RAM from 520Mb to a gig and now it really flies.

Interesting to read your comments on nVidia Dr. Next time then

7500 9500 ... bout the same but with pixelshaders, which explains your ripple water

realy tho SL is mostly CPU and RAM, between my overclocked geforce2 GTS and my overclocked Geforce 6600GT theres about 15 fps differance overall, thats a 6 year gap, and the old card is over 25fps average ...

i dont like the FX cards as much, you can get a uber nasty Gf4, a nice 6 series, or even a lower (not bottom) line 7 series for 150 bucks

but for 50-60 bucks its a nice upgrade, just not great, its probally the exact same speed you had but with nifty features like pixel shading (which looks purdy but actually slows things down)

overall nvidia has a better track record with SL ... i would personally recomend a 6600+, if your powersupply will allow it

in "perfect" conditions my amd athalon xp (1.9 real ghz) can hit well above 150fps with a 6600 GT, a nice chunk of ram and reasonable options set

Osgeld,

6600 nvida what size power supply would you recomend, running amd athlon 2.13ghz
1024ram and a e-mu pci recording card?

it needs to be an AGP.

Im running with a Nvidia Geforce 6800 GT. But I can't get ANYTHING to load...people are complaining about a black screen, or it freezing when they get to a certain point in the loading screen.....I'm not even getting a black screen or a loading screen! The only thing that happens when I double click Second Life.exe is it appears under the processes tab of my task manager. Please...any help?!?!

*splits off Gwydion Halberd post and puts into new thread in tech support*
/111/e8/150116/1.html

EDIT:
opps already has a tech support thread ^^; *merges back in & changes link*

I'll bite. The 6600 AGP cards usually need a secondary power connection, because the AGP slot can't supply sufficient power to the card. The PCI-E versions don't need a secondary connection, because the PCI-E slot can supply enough power. For the AGP card, you need a direct, dedicated connection from the power supply. Its best not to use a splitter cable to piggyback a connection from one of your drives. I wouldn't even try to run a 6600 with less than a good 400w power supply. If you have multiple optical and hard drives, get a 500w power supply.

In this house we have a pretty good eperience on the following cardS: ATI X1600 w/ 256MB RAM, ATI X800XT w/ 256MB RAM and ATI 9600 w/ 128MB RAM.

The 1600 kicks the llama's ass in our house followed by the X800 and the 9600.

Have you installed drivers properly Gwydion? Do games run ok? Was SL running on your old graphics?