What is a graphics card? Will mine work with Second Life? How do I tell which one I have?

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Your graphics card (sometimes called a video card) is the hardware that actually creates the images shown on your monitor. For 3D applications like the Second Life® viewer, this card does much of the work involved in actually calculating and drawing the 3D world. As a result, your graphics card can play a very important part in the type of experience you have in Second Life. If your graphics card does not support the rendering standard (OpenGL) used to draw the Second Life world, you may not be able to use Second Life at all.

There are several ways to identify your graphics card.

While logged in to Second Life

1. Open the Help menu and choose About Second Life...
2. Your graphics card is listed under the OpenGL Renderer: line.

The Display Properties Method

1. Right-click any empty space on your desktop and choose Properties > Settings tab/Display:.OR, left-click on Start button, select Control Panel from menu, then open Display.
2. Click the Settings tab.
3. Your monitor and graphics card are listed below Display. For example: Plug and Play Monitor on NVIDIA Geforce 3
4. The words before on represent your monitor. The words after on represent your graphics card.

The DXDIAG Method

1. Click on the Start button and select Run.
2. In the Open text box, enter "dxdiag" and click OK.
3. When DirectX Diagnostic Tool appears, click on the Display tab.
4. Your graphics card is listed under Device.

Dxdiag provides plenty of useful information about your graphics card, including its name, manufacturer (this currently must be either "ATI" or "NVIDIA"), and the version number and date of your current graphics card drivers. If Windows gives an error message that it cannot find Dxdiag, Install DirectX.

Running a Mac?

On Macintosh, your graphics card can be identified with the utility application System Profiler, under "PCI/AGP Cards".

1. Click on the Apple symbol in the top left of the screen.
2. Click the More info... button.
3. From the Hardware dropdown, select PCI/AGP Cards.

For a list of Macintosh models and the cards they shipped with, see "Machine Specs" at this site: http://www.macspeedzone.com

So, do I have the right card?

• Any ATI Radeon card, model 8500 or higher, is compatible. (This includes models such as the 8500, 9700, X300, but not models such as the 320 IGP or Xpress 200; see below!)
• Any nVidia Geforce card, Geforce 2 or higher, is compatible.

In both cases, it's important to update your graphics drivers!

Unfortunately, if your graphics card includes any of the following words, it's unsupported for Second Life. (This just means that there aren't enough of them for us to test and therefore make some reasonable effort to ensure that they work. S3, for instance, may work just fine, but until there's a significant number of users for it, we're unlikely to list it as "supported".)

• Intel
• Intel Extreme
• 3DFX
• RIVA
• TNT
• SiS
• S3
• S3TC
• Savage
• Twister
• Rage
• Kyro
• Volari
• XGI
• MILENNIA
• most cards by MATROX

Additionally, there are some ATI and nVidia cards that may present compatibility issues:

• ATI cards that report as a RAGE or RAGE PRO are not compatible with Second Life.
• ATI cards that report as a RADEON 320M, 340M, 345M, or similar model numbers are not compatible with Second Life.
• ATI cards that report as a RADEON IGP or RADEON XPRESS have not been tested with Second Life, and compatibility is not certain.
• ATI cards that report as a FireGL have not been tested with Second Life, and compatibility is not certain.
• ATI cards that report as a FireMV have not been tested with Second Life. As this chipset is a 2D accelerator, it may not be compatible with Second Life.
• nVidia cards that report as a RIVA TNT or TNT2 are not compatible with Second Life.
• nVidia cards that report as a Quadro have not been tested with Second Life, and compatibility is not certain. Residents have reported success running Second Life on some Quadro cards with the latest display drivers installed.

Please check out the Second Life viewer's system requirements for current information regarding graphics cards.