Computer Hardware Question.

I'm not getting any responces in the Technical area so I thought I'd post these questions here, if that's permitted.


Would a high end Video card make a substantial difference in the viewing quality and detail in SL?

And;

What difference would I see if I had a gaming machine rather than a standard Pentium PC?

Thanks in advance for you responce and time.

With yoru video card, video ram means more than the card itself. 512mb or better. Integrated cards pull ram from the system, so are usualy "weaker" than a plug-in card.

More system ram and a good graphics card with decent ram will do you better than a high end CPU.

I run at aboutt mid-level prferences with an AMD Athlon 1.47GHz, 512mb SDR Ram, and a GeForce 5500 FX with 256mb RAM.

Tested on a new system I'm upgrading to (AMD Sempron 3200, 2gigs DDR Ram, and a GeForce 6150 with 512mb RAM) and SL flew.

It's more about the system as a whole than any one component. Though if I had to pick one component, I'd say Ram, Ram and more Ram. SL is a Ram hog.

~Jessy

Absolutely. A good video card with high speed and a lot of video memory will make a big difference, but the video card is far from the only thing that makes or breaks SL. The amount and type of system RAM you have, your processor type and speed, and your internet connection speed are also all huge factors in the quality of your SL experience.

SL doesn't operate the way traditional video games do. It's extremely resource intensive across the board.


"Gaming machines" tend to be optimized for high performance with resource intensive applications. Like all machines, some live up to their sales pitch promises and some don't. There's nothing magical about a machine labeled "gaming machine" that makes any more special than any other PC. It's just that high end components have been chosen for speed and power. You could easily piece together the same thing yourself.

Because their emphasis tends to be on graphics and sound performance at speed, gaming machines also tend to be good for things like video editing in addition to just playing games. They're also good for SL, of course, but the "gaming machine" label doesn't automatically mean SL will perform well for you. My friend paid almost $6000 for his uber rig with specs out the wazoo, but his SL performance is no better than mine on my non "gaming machine", which cost less than half what his cost.

If you are interested, the two big fish in the gaming PC pond for a while have been Alienware and Dell XPS (Dell owns Alienware now, so why XPS still exists is beyond me, but it does). From what I've seen, Dell XPS systems are very good. I'm a big fan of how Alienware looks on paper, mainly for their innovation before they were bought by Dell (first company to use dual graphics cards, first to have upgradeable graphics cards in laptops, etc), but I've heard mixed reviews from their customers. Voodoo is another brand that looks great on paper, but I've never seen one in the flesh or spoken with anyone who's got one, so I have no idea if they're any good or not.

Thanks Jessica / Jessy,

I thought as much. Well, if all goes smoothly and I enjoy the mainland as much as I hope I will, I'll look into a new machine. The one I have is about three to four years old. It works great for for normal internet browsing, excel & word processing, but it's not meant to be a gameing machine. I'm into the graphics more than the sound and I can't wait to get a more detailed skin and additional clothes!!!!!

Thanks Chosen Few for the additional input. I'll browse the Dell site and check it out.

Alienware was in trouble, basically. They do have the volume because of the name, but orders and expedition of the product lines was falling way behind. In the merger, they are somewhat separate entities as opposed to a full on merge... they will each steal from design of components, but they are treating the whole thing separately.

My theory in this, is that Dell, uses some of the technology to bolster thier XPS's, then basically shut Alienware's name out of the market. While Alienware looks good on paper, I have personally been through several laptops with them in a year and lots of other people have had issues with overheating, with completely different models. While some components are great, the generic necessities are lacking. Such as a good flow through system. Trying to run a game like SL on many AW's more than a year old... VERY taxing. Mine, was a year old when I first came to SL. It cannot run SL, I cannot move with it, but I could log on and be in chat. My XPS, ran it better than my 2 year old gaming desktop.

Dell, can take the technology, create a better XPS, but iron out the big bugs. Use the Alienware name to connotate the Dell name to gaming, and in 5 years... Alienware's will be completely gone.

Interesting take on it. You're probably right about a lot of what you said, but I hope you're wrrong about the name thing. "Alienware" is just such a cool brand name. Regardless of what they make/sell, the word "alienware" itself is so great, I'd hate to see it disappear.

I am a couple of weeks ahead of you researching this question. So far as I can tell, the video card (and the bandwidth, or course) is the most important issue.

My old computer gets 3-10 fps. My sons, with an ATI 1600 gets 15-35 fps. This means that on my computer, motion is jerkey, while over 20 fps is almost perfectly smooth and clear.

I recommend either an ATI 1600 (or better) of an NVidia 7600 (or better). These cost around $150. If your computer has an available slot (probably PCI-e) then you can just add the card. Since your machine is older, you might not have a slot.

Google for Custom Gaming PC and you will find lots of places both mail order and local that will fix you up. Notice that the *serious* gamers spend upwards of $5,000 on their water cooled super PC. A customizer will be able to configure a good SL setup for you for about $1100 (no monitor).

The newer ATI 1900 and NVidia 7900 cost about $450 or so. There are several variants. They *are* faster.

Good luck.

These are going to be worth nothing if you can't recommend a great processor and RAM pack to go with it. It's all connected and will do nothing just sticking in the slot, even if they have one, without other upgrades.



Serious gamers, stay away from water cooled. While the people that advert them would like you to believe they are superior (SO AND SO REVIEWED IT AND IT WAS AWESOME A MUST HAVE FOR ANY HARDCORE OR SERIOUS GAMER!!!! [sound familiar?]), they are far too problem filled for what else you can get out there. My roommates comp is water cooled, the system itself for nothing else was 450. While it does make it look interesting with the glowing water and blacklight, it's a waste of money compared to a good case with good ventilation, especially since a lot of components come with fans standard already. The serious gaming machines, with the high end components, surprisingly do not generate a lot of heat. A good setup doesn't cost near that much actually. Mine runs SL at 40fps averaging (60 in low lag and about 25-30 in the pop. sims) and without case or monitor, I spent 700 on a new vid card, processor, extra RAM, sound card, a new motherboard, 300g Hard Drive and a DVD-R rom. I also got 3 free games. (AoE for teh winz!) A case can be as cheap as $100, putting the whole shebang at 800.

www.newegg.com

They sell awesome packages, I got a deal on my vid card and processor sold together. The prices, after searching endlessly are great, the deals are fantastic and you get your parts fairly quickly, and even in a customer goof (I did at first) were prompt, helpful and I didn't even have to pay extra aside from shipping back.



Not always. Depending on the brands you mix and match, either card could run WORSE, than a 7600, even if the technology on say... the processor can't be beat. Lots of compatibility issues can arise if you aren't careful.

One little thing to add. As an irregular reviewer of PC kit for magazines for the last 20 years or so, I was appalled to find that the old disasters with cards in slots, and video performance, have by no means gone away. If you are getting an add-on card for your existing PC, make sure you can take it back, or switch on and off onboard bits (serial & parallel ports are good for this)...

yeah, I know, the old hardware greybeards will Tsk, and say "that went out with the 386" but now hear this - specifically for SL, I put a 7300GS Nvidia card in my Dell Precision 470, and the performance commenced to suck, bigtime. Turned out that the particular card I bought sat on the interrupt for the network card - I had to add a different net card to make the system slap itself back into decent operation.

So make sure you are enough of a wonk to fix these issues, or that you're buying bits, or systems, from a vendor with a bit of online info, support forum, or what-have-you.

I have also seen some very well buried error messages from SL when starting up on PCs which, on paper, I'd expect to carry it very nicely - "found an AMD AGP controlelr" was a bit of a shock, and SL didn't do well after it said that. So was finding that a dual PIII 700 with a Matrox card runs SL like a crazed furry on crystal meth...

I guess overall what I'm saying is, if your PC is slow in SL, ponder whether you can get in there and hit the interrupts with a big stick before you lay out the readies...