Second Life and graphics requirement

[Hard Ball]

I'll be building a system for my cousin in the next couple of weeks. She doesn't do all that much, a little video encoding and web surfing and such. But the most hardware intensive program that she runs is Second Life, and that's the main purpose of upgrading the computer.

The thing is, I'm not too sure about which video card would be appropriate; does anyone here know the hardware requirement for SL well? She needs the frame rates for SL to be smooth at 1920X1200; I guess it probably isn't as GPU intensive as some of the FPS games, but I can't really be sure.

Would anyone have a good idea? Would something like HD 3850 w/ 512MB be sufficient for that purpose?

Thanks in advance.
--HB

 

[taltamir]

Indeed, it should suffice. good choice on the 512MB of ram as it is the ideal for 1920x1200 resolution.

 

[Hard Ball]

Originally posted by: taltamir
Indeed, it should suffice. good choice on the 512MB of ram as it is the ideal for 1920x1200 resolution.

Thanks, that's helpful; so you think a 3850 should be able to get let's say 30-40 fps or something?

 

[Nedder]

The SL graphics are so crap that a TNT 1 could probably handle it.

 

[Hajpoj]

The game is more CPU bound than GPU I think, so make sure to have a nice processor with decent L2 cache.

 

[myocardia]

Here are the Second Life system requirements, for what it's worth.

 

[AVP]

Yeah go with a 3850

 

[TanisHalfElven]

3850 would probably be overkill.
something of the 6600gt class could handle SL

 

[fire400]

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
3850 would probably be overkill.
something of the 6600gt class could handle SL

I know that's what I'm sayin' .. I'm lookin' at the recco. specs. from the link.

The 38-- is a highend card at the moment. 6600GT or an x800 would probably do very well with the game.

A pentium 4 3.0GHz would probably already be overkill, too, technically.