Difference between revisions of "Graphics cards"

Revision as of 11:12, 30 October 2008

This page is for detailing compatibility issues that certain graphics cards have with Second Life. Officially, Linden Lab only supports what's listed on our System Requirements & Recommendations and above. However, we understand some Residents want to run SL on unsupported configurations — your results may vary, but sharing info will give you a better idea of what to expect.

Buying graphics cards

A great graphics card may not be as expensive as you think! Be a savvy shopper and check deals sites & stores like:

A wealth of comparison-shopping tools like:

also exist. Those mostly focus on the US, but there are deals to be had around the world.

While there are too many possibilities to describe succinctly, it's generally true that as time goes on, progressively powerful technology gets cheaper. For instance, as of 2008-10-30, various GeForce 8800GTs which can run Second Life's graphics at Ultra (the highest) can be found for under US$100. And many capable mid-range cards are under US$50.

More tips:

Yes, card numbering can be confusing — reading hands-on reviews at Tom's Hardware can help clarify which give the best "bang for the buck", like their "Best Graphics Cards For The Money: October 2008" article.

With Nvidia cards, the second number in their model number is usually more important than the first (For example, you're better off with a 7800 than an 8400). As such, you can usually find bargains amongst older generation high-end cards, which will outperform newer generation budget cards while being comparably priced or cheaper. Never buy an Nvidia card with a second digit lower than "6" if you intend to run heavy 3D applications (which SL clearly is), unless you have no choice.

To learn more about graphics card generations, see Wikipedia's ATI and Nvidia tables.

Drivers

We highly recommend updating to the newest stable versions:

More info.

Ideally, we want SL to run and not crash on any graphics card that supports OpenGL Version 1.2 or later. Realistically, we can only support the latest version of drivers right now.

Driver issues

Sometimes you may get an error message upon starting Second Life that claims your drivers are out-of-date or unsupported. First, download the latest drivers for your graphics card and install them. If you've recently done so and have the latest drivers, uninstall them completely, then reinstall.

Drivers on Mac OS X

It's often assumed that Mac OS X does not use graphics card drivers, and it's certainly true that separate graphics card "updates" and "drivers" cannot be downloaded for the Mac.

However, OS X certainly does use graphics card drivers, but incorporates them into the OS itself. With the Mac, Apple integrates the hardware and software more closely than with Windows. The advantage: problems arise only rarely. The disadvantage: Macs are generally much less upgradeable with respect to their graphics capabilities.

Does this mean that any problems that emerge cannot be resolved? Not quite: on the occasions when a graphics driver has to be updated for Mac, it will be incorporated into the next Software Update release for the OS itself. So if you keep yourself up-to-date with these, then driver upgrades will take care of themselves.

Related resources

Knowledge Base - Search for words like "graphics". Relevant articles include:

Public Issue Tracker - We use this to help us identify bugs to be fixed. Search for terms like the model of your graphics card (e.g., "X1600" or "GeForce") or related keywords (e.g., "invisible AND avatar"). You can also report a new issue and discuss it with fellow Residents.

Technical Talk forums - The forums are searchable. This is Resident-to-Resident help; Lindens don't actively check here.

You can also contact our Support. Remember that specific details, and solid reproductions when there are bugs help us help you.

Personal experiences

If you're having problems with a specific graphics card and/or driver version, please share your details here.

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 == Buying graphics cards ==
-A great graphics card may be
+A great graphics card may not be as expensive as you think! Be a savvy shopper and check deals sites & stores like:
+* '''[http://dealspl.us/ DealsPlus]'''
+* '''[http://forums.slickdeals.net/forumdisplay.php?f=9 SlickDeals forums]'''
+* '''[http://www.newegg.com/ NewEgg]'''
+* '''[http://amazon.com/ Amazon.com]'''
+A wealth of comparison-shopping tools like:
+* '''[http://www.shopzilla.com/ Shopzilla]'''
+* '''[http://www.pricegrabber.com/ PriceGrabber]'''
+* '''[http://www.google.com/products Google Product Search]'''
+also exist. Those mostly focus on the US, but there are deals to be had around the world.
+While there are too many possibilities to describe succinctly, it's generally true that as time goes on, progressively powerful technology gets cheaper. For instance, as of 2008-10-30, various GeForce 8800GTs which can run Second Life's graphics at Ultra (the highest) can be found for under US$100. And many capable mid-range cards are under US$50.
+More tips:
+* Yes, card numbering can be confusing — reading hands-on reviews at [http://www.tomshardware.com Tom's Hardware] can help clarify which give the best "bang for the buck", like their "[http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Best-Graphics-Card,2033.html Best Graphics Cards For The Money: October 2008]" article.
+* With Nvidia cards, the ''second'' number in their model number is usually more important than the first (For example, you're better off with a 7800 than an 8400). As such, you can usually find bargains amongst older generation high-end cards, which will outperform newer generation budget cards while being comparably priced or cheaper. Never buy an Nvidia card with a second digit lower than "6" if you intend to run heavy 3D applications (which SL clearly is), unless you have no choice.
+* To learn more about graphics card generations, see Wikipedia's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ATI_graphics_processing_units ATI] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units Nvidia] tables.
 == Drivers ==
@@ Line 14: / Line 37: @@
 * [http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html Download ATI drivers]
-[http://secondlife.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=001 More info.]
+[http://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=3884 More info.]
 Ideally, we want SL to run and not crash on any graphics card that supports OpenGL Version 1.2 or later. Realistically, we can only support the latest version of drivers right now.
 == Driver issues ==
+Sometimes you may get an error message upon starting Second Life that claims your drivers are out-of-date or unsupported. First, download the latest drivers for your graphics card and install them. If you've recently done so and have the latest drivers, uninstall them completely, then reinstall.
-Sometimes you may get an error message upon starting Second Life that claims your drivers are out of date or unsupported.  First download the latest drivers for your graphics card and install them.  If you have recently done so and have the latest drivers, try reinstalling them, as sometimes a broken install occurs silently (especially with NVIDIA drivers) and a reinstall clears up the problem.
 == Drivers on Mac OS X ==
@@ Line 36: / Line 58: @@
 * '''[[Issue_tracker|Public Issue Tracker]]''' - We use this to help us identify bugs to be fixed. Search for terms like the model of your graphics card (e.g., "X1600" or "GeForce") or related keywords (e.g., "invisible AND avatar"). You can also report a new issue and discuss it with fellow Residents.
-* '''[http://blog.secondlife.com/ Official Linden Blog]''' - You can [http://blog.secondlife.com/?s=graphics search] this too. Of recent particular interest is:
-** [http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/03/28/1140-known-issues-drivers-vbo-ati-x300x600-notebooks-and-other-woes/ 1.14.0 Known Issues: Drivers, VBO, ATI X300/X600 notebooks, and other woes]
 * '''[http://forums.secondlife.com/forumdisplay.php?f=296 Technical Talk forums]''' - The forums are [http://forums.secondlife.com/search.php? searchable]. This is Resident-to-Resident help; Lindens don't actively check here.
@@ Line 46: / Line 65: @@
 == Personal experiences ==
 If you're having problems with a specific graphics card and/or driver version, [[Talk:Graphics Cards|please share your details here]].
-== Known Driver Status ==
-{| border="1"
-|- style="background:#ffdead;"
-|OS||Hardware||Driver Version||Status||Workaround||Related Bug
-|-
-|Win XP||Nvidia GO series||77.24, 6/20/2005||Crashes after a few minutes||Upgrade Drivers to 84.63, 7/5/2006 or turn of Vertex Buffer Objects||
-|-
-|Win XP||Nvidia GO series||84.63, 7/5/2006||Works great||||
-|-
-| ||||||||||
-|-
-|Win XP||Nvidia Desktop cards||91.47, 9/14/2006||Fullbright objects will flicker rainbow colors||Upgrade Drivers to 93.71, http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_93.71.html||
-|-
-|Win XP||Nvidia Desktop cards||93.71, 11/2/2006||Works great||||
-|-
-|Win XP||Nvidia Desktop cards||169.21, 1/28/2008||Works great with latest version of WindLight r78760||||
-|-
-| ||||||||||
-|-
-|Win XP||ATI||Catalyst(R) 7.4||Works great||||
-|-
-|Win XP||ATI||Catalyst(R) 7.6||Issue with dual monitors||Upgraded from 7.4 to 7.6.  I had dual monitors setup with DVI being the primary.  SL client would not load.  Workaround is to make VGA monitor primary, then SL will load on DVI monitor.||
-|-
-|Win XP||ATI||Catalyst(R) 8.1||With WindLight r78760 works relatively well except avatar hardware skinning is turned off for higher end Radeon 2xxx and 3xxx cards.  8.2 will address the issue and we will be able to turn avatar skinning back on||||
-|-
-| ||||||||||
-|-
-|Vista||Nvidia||driver bundled with vista||Fullbright objects will flicker rainbow colors||Does updating the driver fix this? http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_158.18.html||
-|-
-|Vista||Nvidia||97.42||Works great||||
-|-
-|Vista||Nvidia||158.18, 5/2/2007||unknown||||
-|-
-|Vista||Nvidia||162.22, 7/27/2007||Unsupported Hardware/Old Drivers error||||
-|-
-|Vista||Nvidia Desktop cards||169.21, 1/28/2008||Works great with latest version of WindLight r78760||||
-|-
-| ||||||||||
-|-
-|Vista||ATI||Catalyst(R) 7.4||Works great||||
-|-
-|Vista||ATI||Catalyst(R) 8.1||With WindLight r78760 works relatively well except avatar hardware skinning is turned off for higher end Radeon 2xxx and 3xxx cards.  8.2 will address the issue and we will be able to turn avatar skinning back on||||
-|-
-|Linux Ubuntu 7.10||Nvidia 7300 GT 512 MB RAM||Nvidia proprietary driver from Ubuntu Multiverse repository||Works apparently great||||
-|}