Any computer experts out there....

Hi There

I am just about to purchase a new computer and I have put together what I think is a good package and one that will support SL fairly well.

Is there anybody there that wouldn't mind looking at the package I have chosen and letting me know what they think....

TIA

BB

You might want to let us know the details so as we can comment. I'm sure there's plenty of people can assist you.

Hi Dingthat

Yes I was going to do that, but didn't want to have to trouble anyone with having to read it as it's a long ole page of info.....

Am too polite aren't I - lol

I will post them up in a couple of mins if I can condense it!

BB

INTEL® PENTIUM® D 945 (2 X 3.4GHz) 800MHz FSB/2 x 2MB L2 Cache

Memory (RAM)
2048 MB CORSAIR DDR2 667MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB)

Motherboard
ASUS® P5VD2-VM: DDR2, S-ATA II, 1 x PCI-E x16, 2 PCI, etc

Operating System
WINDOWS® VISTA Home Premium (inc Genuine CD & License) (£70)

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
250GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)

RAID (HDD 1 & 2)
NONE

1st CD/DVD Drive
20x DVD±RW/RAM/Dual Layer + Lightscribe (48 x CD-RW) (£16)

Graphics Card
INTEGRATED VIA UNICHROME PRO GRAPHICS

Sound Card
6 Channel SoundMAX High Definition Audio (Onboard)

Modem
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND

Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (ETHERNET)

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)

Case
Stylish Black/Silver Trident case + 2 front USB

Power Supply & Case Cooling
STANDARD 350W PSU with CASE FAN

Processor Cooling
STANDARD CPU COOLER

Firewire & Video Editing
3 PORT FIREWIRE (IEEE1394) PCI CARD (£9)


Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Cordless Internet Pro Desktop Keyboard & Mouse (Black) (£16)


Ihave a NVidia GeForce 7300 graphics card already at home which I was going to install with the above package

Any comments gratefully received!

BB

the pentiem d is about 2 years old now and that via integrated graphics chip is worthless

youl be fine aslong as you get a 256mb graphics card put in.

what you have there is a farrari with a 50cc moped engine

I was about to buy a new system and after looking at a few voodoo machines and chatting with some computer geeks - I was advised that DirectX 10 will be out soon and I should wait to invest since its suppose to change many graphic cards configs and many current ones will have problems with it. So I am waiting a few months.

FYI - Advise was given to me from 'Best Buy' Geeks - take it for what its worth.

Does SL even use DirectX?

I know that they use OpenGL on Linux -- I suspect they use OpenGL always.

To the extent that the OpenGL implementation on other operating systems is a layer on top of DirectX, that could matter, but otherwise, for SL it probably doesn't matter.

-Rob

You definitely need a stand alone video card. And from what I've been told a 350 Watt (which I have) power supply is minimum, especially if you go to a high end graphics card.

Hi leliel

I have a Nvidia Geforce 7300 256mb graphics card at home waiting to install which is why I didn't bother to add the extra cost on to the package with an expensive card

As a hardware systems nerd, I have to agree with the above statement. The pentium D was a cobbled together "hurry up and try and save face" chip from Intel. Even an Athlon64 that costs less than $100 can trounce it.
The GeForce 7300 should be ok, but dont quote me on it. Make sure it's PCI-E and not an older AGP card.

ah! well that card will do a lot better in sl. i suppose i should have read all of your post as i see that part now at the bottem. with that in mind i think this machine will be fine

Hmmm, now I am a complete techno phobe here, but is the Athlon 64 a dual core? The thing is you see I want to be able to run other programs at the same time as having sl running.....

*sighs - gosh this really is a minefield -buying a pc!!

BB

Actually no, the regular Athlon64 is a single core processor from AMD. The Athlon64 X2 is the dual core equivalent. Anyway, those require a different motherboard and socket cuz they're a slightly different format.
I would just get a lower end Intel Core2 Duo CPU intead. They arent all that much more and definately worth it with the rest of that system being as good as it is.

2 things to remember when putting parts together, or configuring a system:
You get what you pay for.
A system is only as strong as the weakest/cheapest part in it.

a good cpu to get right now would be a core 2 duo

Ok so if I had everything as above but with this option.....

INTEL® Core 2 Duo E6420 (2 X 2.13GHz) 1066MHz FSB/4MB L2 Cache

Is that a better one to go for?

BB

Some people seem to find that on multicores it helps to restrict SL to run only on one core (probably cache coherency reasons), see http://secondlife.com/devdown/detail.php?pid=00000013 if you want to try that.

Also, I don't see lots of positive news about Vista and SL. LL does not officially support it yet: http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php

It DirectX doesnt matter for SL but - newer, better, vid cards are about to come out.

Perfect!
Now just remember the video card IS a lil on the weak side, but will prolly work fine for a while. Down the road you may need to upgrade it. Also the generic 350w power supply, like was said, is bare minimum. It will prolly work fine now, but i HIGHLY recommend you upgrade to at least 450w or 500w one if you get a better video card. That's it

*sigh, oh dear maybe I would be better then to go with the Athlon64 X2 option then.....

lol - I am so totally brainwashed with all this!! hehe

My 2 cents...

whichever machine you get, dump Windows and get a geek buddy to install Linux. If you want to run multiple programs, this is a good way to do it. Windows 'pretends' that it can multi-process but it can't really. Linux is a true multiprocessing operating system. There are lots of super user friendly Linux systems out there, and your geek buddy can configure it so that you don't have to do any of the command line stuff that geeks like to do. I think the new version of Fedora Linux is coming out in 2 days. Berry Linux is supposed to be very much like Windows. And, btw, the new Fedora will have SL already installed on it. Also already installed on Fedora are all the FREE stuff like Gimp, OpenOffice (which is the open source world's version of Office for Windows, including "Excel," "Word," "Access DB," etc) and lots of other cool stuff. Another good thing about Linux is that you don't need all that firewall/anti-virus protection because the smart people who write it make it "immune" to viruses (don't ask me how).

Like I said, just my 2 cents. And obviously if _I'm_ running, anyone can. I'm DEFINITELY not a computer geek person.

Hehe. It's not the processor, its what version of Windows he's talking about. Vista is the newest one and SL doesnt like it.

lol - told you I was a techno phobe!!

Am off to find me a geek now!!

Thanks a million everyone!

BB

"Hehe. It's not the processor, its what version of Windows he's talking about. Vista is the newest one and SL doesnt like it."

* Tosses her lovely locks * HE??? hmmpfh

Also, Barrowness, my further 2cents: I love Linux but it's not for the faint of heart, or for those who may wish to sometimes run generic office software. OpenOffice has not, unfortunately, quite gotten to the point where the ungeeks are comfy with it

The last gek buddy I asked for computer help wanted WAY to much in return (Plus I wasn't going to meet him in his Mother's Basement).

As far as the Safety of Linux, I'm sure as it goes Mainstream, the criminals will follow suit. They always do.