Graphics card for Second Life

The F12 will give better FPS in SL at native resolution. The F series also have a better balance of CPU and GPU, both of which are important. If it were me, I'd go with the F12, but I also like the higher resolution for normal office tasks, so the F11 would be better for non-SL (except it has a slower HDD). So I'm probably not helping: each has its strengths. For SL, I'd say 1st F12, second F11, third EC2 if I were to rank the systems you list.

 

Thanks a lot for your help and suggestions. I was about to order the i3/5650, but I read reports that Sony is underlocking the 5650 in that degree that... it doesn't perform like a 5650 at all.

I finally ordered the F11 with the FullHD screen, because a high resolution is far more important for me than top 3G performance, since I will use the notebook mostly for office/graphics 2D applications and only occasionally for SL or some 3D work.

I ordered it first thing in the morning and I had it delivered in 2 hours -the advantages of ordering from a local online store with its own delivery service

Currently is updating.. and updating... haven't seen so much bloatware and conflicting update procedures in any of my 3 previous Dell laptops! Sony update runs at the same time with Windows update, which results, e.g., Sony Update to request a restart while Windows update is still installing updates (and the opposite).

When all the important updates finish, I'll test Second Life and report here my impressions, in case someone wants to purchase a system with a similar configuration.

Thank you all again for your valuable help.

 

Good luck. Sounds like a good system.

 

Not quite true. The i5 Envy 17-1080 costs NOK 10.000. The i5 Asus G73 also costs 10.000..

Asus G73JH-TY171V - Finn laveste pris, omtaler og informasjon omBærbare datamaskiner (Asus G73 i5)

HP Envy 17-1080eo - Finn laveste pris, omtaler og informasjon omBærbare datamaskiner (Envy 17 i5)

 

OK, I just tested the newly purchased Vaio VPC-F11M1E/H (i5-520M 2.4GHz, GeForce GT 330M, 1GB VRAM, 1920x1080) on the above SIMs to have a comparison (even if a direct comparison cannot be done in SL, except when both computers show exactly the same scene at the same time).

Linden Labs Viewer 2.1 Final

Freebie Island
Low: 47-50
Mid: 41-45
High: 32-33
Ultra 26-28

Fort Serenity Ranch
Low: 98-104
Mid: 85-91
High: 65-68
Ultra: 55-58

I was quite surprised by the high FPS on the second SIM, which actually confirms what you've said before, that the GPU plays much more important role than the CPU in running SL.

The FPS values were measured while standing on the landing point of the SIMs, after the textures were loaded and in full screen 1920x1080 resolution. Quite adequate performance, given that I never run SL in full screen mode. and that the Nvidia driver version, is the "old" one from Sony (v188.67).

Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the laptop so far, considering its price of 920 Euro (760GBP, 1200USD). Yes, the "normal" screen shows some backlight bleeding but not quite as bad as the photos posted on the other thread. Perhaps because it's the dual-lamp EU model?

 

Does anyone here have the Sony Vaio VPC-EB2S1E ? It's on sale here in Norway and I'm considering it. Unsure about performance though. I'm a SL content creator and business owner myself so performance counts.

 

Not wanting to take over the thread, just curious how much, someone lik honey or korlian make on SL? is it a good profit? Or would you consider it more as an add on to what you make in real life? If infact you have another job outside of SL

 

To me it's just an hobby for now. However I still make a nice profit.

 

I ran SL on a 3.2 Pentium with an Nvidia 5500 card starting in 2004. If I kept the draw distance at 64 and kept all the fancy stuff turned off I could move. I could crank out a massive 6 fps and even use LOCAL LIGHTING AND WAVY WATER! Back in June, I tossed out the old HP laptop with its steel L bracket and duct tape lid and replaced it with a Sager 8760 running an ATI 5870. Everything is now flipped on MAX, even using some anti-aliasing, and everything is all purty now, complete with a realistic framerate. My only issue seems to be that when running two clients, the graphics card crashes. Something my old piece of sh!t could do without a problem ( albeit slooowly). Not sure why this superduper speed card is having problems with this task. That said, SL with some horsepower behind it looks very nice.