Memory question

I have 256 memory and I am very laggy iin sl. If I get an upgrade on memory would that help my performance in sl? Sometimes it takes me forever to walk across a store and then I end up against the wall. Its so aggrevating!!!
I was thinking of upgrading to 1 gig of ram, hows that sound??

My specs are:
Intel Pent. 1.60
798 MHz
256 MB RAM
Nvidia Ge Force 6800

Thanks

And believe me i know just enuff to be dangerous,
more memory will make your PC run faster, so maybe this would help in some ways with your lag. But check out other sims, it could be the game itself, do you always lag everywhere, or in just some areas of SL?

SL will be very laggy with 512 MB RAM. With 256 MB only, it will be tremendously laggy (as you found out already). 1 GB sounds exactly like the amount of RAM you need for a less laggy SL experience

Your graphics card is definitely up to the task, the processor should do it too... if the 1.60 means 1.6 GHz, I'm a little confused about the 798 MHz

My 512M was painful to watch. 1G flies .. I promise

I'm using the GeForce 6800 XT with 2gbs of RAM and SL is simply AWESOME in comparison to what I first saw when I came inworld.

What you don't realize when you're underperforming, is just how many textures and colors you're missing. My first exposure to SL was of simple, rather drab, surroundings and some lag. After my upgrade to a new computer system, it was like walking from Kansas into Oz. Brilliant colors, rich textures, movement, music -- I was totally entranced and spent days just revisiting places to see what I'd been missing.

I'd been missing a lot.

So my recommendation is get as much memory as you can afford, or your computer can handle. 1gb is a good start, but if you can do more you won't regret it. SL loads within seconds, and if you keep your draw rate reasonable, there is almost no lag. In fact, the only time I experience lag now is when I visit a VERY popular place, like a crowded shopping mall. And even that lag is just a faint flutter.

And, as one final note, I could probably remove lag altogether if I hadn't chosen some very high visual quality preferences. I'd rather lag than lose draw distance (mine is set at 96 or above). I've pushed all my sliders completely to the right, etc. etc. In other words, I've just about maxxed out what my system offers.

So apparently your new pc has fixed all of the server-side issues with SL?

mebbe he never leaves his skybox

Both types of memory (PC and Video) help tremedously in SL.

I've found that 1 Gig PC Ram is where the limit is. More helps still, but the gains are less after this. Less than 1 Gig and you feel the load.

Anything less than 256Mb of Video Ram and you'll feel the laod. SL is heavily graphics intensive (though plans are in the work to streamline the texture pipeline), and the memory of your card is actually more inportant that it's processing power.

The last thing a lot overlook is your connection. Cable modems vary (esspecially at peak-load times in yoru area) and may not be transfering what you think they are. If you can, log onto SL during times when not many are online in yoru area (RL not SL) and see how the dataflow goes. This will give you a better idea of how your system is actually handling things. The big thing to think about (for me at least) was to do this when kids are at school. This reduces a HUGE load on any network service as kids are one of our driving forces in the net today.

~Jessy

If you are running windows XP, 256 Mb isn't even enought to run XP smoothly.
I advised some friends with 256 Mb who were complaining that their PC was so slow to get another 256. In all 3 occasions it was a major improvement.
So like the others said: if you can afford it and you have enough slots, try 1 Gb.

(and I'm also confused about a Pentium 1,6 at 800 MHz. Try checking if it is in power save mode. Some PC's can switch to a lower clock speed. Maybe yours is only running on half the clock speed, so only half the expected performance...)

Which issues are you referring to?

By definition, I can't fix server-side issues from my machine, so what I've done is to remove most of the issues that are dependent on client-side performance capacity.

For example, I ran a stress test last night by going to a very popular shopping SIM, filled with customers and merchandise scripts. The (expected) result was that I encountered considerable lag which hadn't been evident when I was sitting at home on my deck.

I found that reducing my draw distance down to 96 was all that was needed to fix the lag. I could have reduced it more, but I wasn't really interested in staying in that sim any longer than was needed for the testing. Most places I visit are not crowded, so I'll probably keep a draw distance above 96 as my daily setting and then adjust downward as needed for specific locations.

Do not underestimate the importance of having enough memory on your system. Going from 512mb to 2gb of RAM was probably as much of a boost as a getting a better graphics card. SL is hungry, but if you feed it right, the game annoyances reduce significantly.