System Requirements Update – Now with Vista Support!
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 3:20 PM by: Maurice LindenAs a few of you may have noticed already, we’ve updated our System Requirements Page. We have made a handful of changes, but the most significant is support for Windows Vista. This has been a long time coming and we are very excited to finally announce it!
Whether you have Vista or not, please review the new requirements page to verify support for your current setup. More Vista info after the cut…
What does support for Vista mean?
It means that we have tested the Second Life Viewer on Windows Vista and will now include Windows Vista in our QA qualification of future viewers. It also means that you can now run the Second Life Viewer on Windows Vista using one of the video cards listed on the System Requirements Page. There is one major caveat. Microsoft ships Windows Vista with their own version of the graphics card drivers for each card. In order to run Second Life successfully, you will need to update your drivers to the latest version distributed by the manufacturer.
Again, we know that you have been asking for this for quite some time and we are very happy to finally be able to do it.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:31 PM
is this why i can’t log into the support system? =P
February 12th, 2008 at 3:32 PM
Very cool, glad to see that Vista will tested for each viewer now!
I’ve been running SL with Vista for a while now, but I still experience problems now and again, and sometimes wonder if it’s because of Vista.
This is good news.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:34 PM
FYI - My video card -Nvidia 7300 GT- isn’t listed there, but it’s pretty new, it has got 512 RAM, it’s cheap and it works very well - I am on Linux Ubuntu 7.10.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:35 PM
Upon examining the updated specs it appears that no recommendation is made for the amount of video memory.
Would that have any affect on performance or stability?
February 12th, 2008 at 3:36 PM
I love it that Vista finally made it too “official” however I would review the memory requirements
They are a bit to low, for minimal. Cause you would like to have people a GOOD first experience in Second Life.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:40 PM
woohoo an open blog….oh, sorry..thinking out loud again.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:46 PM
Goooooood ))))))))))
February 12th, 2008 at 3:50 PM
Vista is not going to run well with any of the listed graphics cards with only one gig of memory. You can pick up a name brand matched pair of one gig sticks for less than 60 bucks. Vista perks right up when you give the memory management some elbow room and stop constant swap to disk
February 12th, 2008 at 3:56 PM
Second life + Vista = 2GB+ memory needed.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:59 PM
Nice to see the updated requirements page, but it doesn’t help me: I’m considering a major upgrade, and I don’t know what video card to get. I see there are many which meet the minimum requirements, but I don’t see anything about which one works BEST. I currently use an old ATI card, but I want to change to an NVIDA card. can a trust a card that merely has an NVIDIA chipset? Is a higher model number bettewr than a lower model number i.e. 7600 vs 7900? What about cards that have more than 512 MB? Should i go for SLI? What will make my client work with Windlight, a 255 meter draw distance, and maintain a 45 fps rate? Currently, my ATI 6900 only gives me about 26fps on a “good” day, with my #.00 GHz P4.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:04 PM
OK, on PC… SL officially supports the horrid Intel integrated video but not the Radeon 9200? And on Mac SL doesn’t support Intel integrated video but does support the 9200, even though Apple replaced the 9200 with the Intel junk on the low end?
Crazy.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:08 PM
@10 Hanumi
It’s more like Secondlife needs 2GB and Vista needs 2GB so you need 4GB
February 12th, 2008 at 4:09 PM
Excellent, this means they can now fix this new problem: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-4567
Thanx guys!
February 12th, 2008 at 4:13 PM
Oh, hey, how come Windows 2000 isn’t recommended? I have had fewer problems with it than XP. Less crud in the kernel.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:18 PM
Well did the bug that crashed SL with ATI cards ever get resolved?
If i remember right it was a video card reset the crashed it constantly.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:18 PM
My question is does SL support OS X “Leopard”?
February 12th, 2008 at 4:18 PM
I have a Vista Machine running on a Dell computer with 2 Gigs of memory , Nvdia 7900 GS video card with 256 Megs of video memory, and the latest drivers for Nvida. as soon as I turn my AV the video drivers crash I have tried both viewers ( windlight and the standard viewer) this started when LL updated the drivers for ATI cards
February 12th, 2008 at 4:25 PM
Wonderful…
February 12th, 2008 at 4:26 PM
Soo, will intel 965 chipset finaly hold sl without crashing so fast?…
February 12th, 2008 at 4:26 PM
hey #17 if your running a Nvidia card.. what’s the mention of the problem happening wiht drivers for ATI card. Call me confused but if you have ATI drivers with an Nvidia card.. Thats your problem. LOL
February 12th, 2008 at 4:40 PM
Very, very nice changes! I love it! Glad to see Second Life now supports Windows Vista -AND- the Intel 945 chipset! Hehe…
/me is a Windows Vista and Intel 945 chipset user!
February 12th, 2008 at 4:42 PM
I have Windows Vista 32-bit Radeon Xpress 200M Series and I downloaded the updated ATI that I needed for the video card driver and when I try to log on SL it still says my video card drivers are not up to date or unsupported can you please help me out to figure what else I need to do thank you
February 12th, 2008 at 4:43 PM
wow this is great news. I have a new computer with Vista on it and had so many video driver failures while in world I ended up swapping back to my older one.
Thank you for listing what is the best choice in hardware. Whew looks like my new card is on the list.
Keep up the good work. : )
February 12th, 2008 at 4:45 PM
TP does not work. Anybody else?
February 12th, 2008 at 4:47 PM
It’s nice to hear that Vista will be supported.
Since I haven’t been able to move my avatar or camera without crashing in SL - and only SL - for a few weeks, I guess I need a new system and they all come with Vista now. If only it wasn’t the top end system that I have that is crashing instead of the old laptop.
In regard to technical support for whatever operating system we use - it would be nice if someone got back to you within a week with more than the usual need more information blow off. Especially when the majority of data is in the crash logs submitted with the original ticket.
Right now the Support system is down so I can’t even check the state of my support ticket..
It makes me think that SL doesn’t want the 100 US per month I spend on tier. It’s also got me thinking about how else I can spend my money. A complete HD satellite package with money left over for beer looks pretty attractive right now - especially the beer.
Really Lindens - if I buy a $150.00 graphics card and have a problem with it, I get telephone technical support that gets bumped up the line to increasingly knowledgeable techs until the problem is solved, and that’s for the functional life of the product. Even a self-confessed SL addict like myself finds this equation of cost versus support level hard to reconcile. Perhaps its time to look into starting an SL support village in India? Even access to the diagnostic software that the LL techs must be using would be a help. Just to know whether to look at a memory problem, a hardware conflict, or a network setting would probably save me hours of my time.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:48 PM
I really think the recommended system RAM should be set at 2Gb. 1Gb is NOT enough in busy areas, and I used to frequently crash from running out of memory in places like barerose, when I had 1GB of Ram.
I have a memory monitor in the system tray, and every time I watched it fall all the way to 0 as SL tried to eat more than there was, and crashed.
tl:dr, SL needs more than 1Gb of RAM.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:59 PM
Andromeda - If you’re looking for more information on recommended graphics cards, you might want to take a look at the wiki:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Graphics_Cards
February 12th, 2008 at 5:06 PM
Finally a full support of Vista. Now its getting time to build a new system. Been waiting for this.
Thank You,
M linden
February 12th, 2008 at 5:08 PM
Very good news indeed, gonna make it all easier for everyone who is using any Second Life viewer in my opinion, plus the fact that most, if not all, new computers are now being sold with Windows Vista as the operating system
Good work..!
February 12th, 2008 at 5:19 PM
@26
Hey WarKirby,
you are right.
Specialy the ram-part of the recommended system specification looks a bit low.
Everybody know: RAM is KING.
But please keep in mind, SL needs customers, as every company does. There is a psychologic effect in the decision what you recommend in such a situation.
So LL would tend to keep the hardware-barrier low. I am sure its not a bad will behind this. Especially with this ram-prices. Ram isn`t the expensive part of a good SL-pc.
My personal recommendation would follow mostly LL’s, but with a 4gb-ram and a fast HD for all the cache-files or better a nice ram-drive for this. The ram-drive was my success for a stable beautiful WindLight. Ok, with the ram-drive i had someone hwo helped me
Ciao
February 12th, 2008 at 5:35 PM
Warkirby: I have never had any problems running SL with 1GB of RAM, and rarely have more than 600 or 700 K used. But then I’m not running bloatware like XP or Vista, but rather the *unsupported* Windows 2000.
February 12th, 2008 at 5:37 PM
Do anyone realize SL Requirements are higher than Vista Requirements!!!!!!
We pretty much need our own servers with multiple fiber optic connections & 100 Gigs of RAM.
Next version of SL will have the new P2P connections…. That might help their servers out some…..
& the kiddies trying to connect to SL with the One Laptop Per Child you need 4 of them networked up to connect to SL….
February 12th, 2008 at 6:44 PM
Now how about the choppy performance in OS X Leopard?
Does 10.5.2 still break the viewer?
February 12th, 2008 at 7:35 PM
Wow, sweet… no more crashing while running vista. You guys rock. I have a super duper fast PC which I have build myself with 8800 gtx sli setup and 4 GB of ram. I have no problems running second life at all. Windlight version of second life is simply amazing.
February 12th, 2008 at 7:40 PM
So, is it safe for me to buy a MacBook Pro now?
February 12th, 2008 at 7:47 PM
ah? I don`t think so. Anyways I have a 100mbps fiber optical connection. I very happy to see a vista fix. Can`t wait to build a new computer in the coming months now. This one will be Vista.
Usagi M
February 12th, 2008 at 7:47 PM
BTW, I’ve run SL on Vista and XP Pro for months, and have never had any problems with them. I just want to switch to a unix based system.
So, will SL now run on a MacBook Pro laptop?
February 12th, 2008 at 9:21 PM
Thank you, Jeska Linden, but the page that you sent me to is too vague. Maybe I’m not asking my question right. First, I am interested in Windows XP, and not Windows Vista, or other OS’s. Also, I think I want to switch from ATI, to NVIDIA, which seems to have fewer problems with SL. NVIDIA cards listed include 6000 series, 7000 series, 8000 series, and GO series. I don’t know which series is the best for SL, and I don’t know which card within a given series is best for SL. There are 12 different cards listed, and I don’t want to buy old junk.
February 12th, 2008 at 9:30 PM
Althougth Vista has finally made it to ‘official’…that doesnt help me. I’m running on a laptop from college…and I have an Intel 965 Chipset Family video card. Wont work w/ SL, and wondering if anyone forseeds Intel graphics cards coming into workings w/ SL, since I dearly miss SL from my old computer.
February 12th, 2008 at 10:10 PM
Argent Stonecutter Says: “Oh, hey, how come Windows 2000 isn’t recommended? I have had fewer problems with it than XP. Less crud in the kernel.”
Probably same reason windows 98 and 95 aren’t reccommended
Does this mean SL works on 64bit machines now too or do they just run it in 32 bit mode I guess?
February 12th, 2008 at 10:24 PM
still on an 1 GB laptop with ATI x-300 chip , and still working nicley, without Windlight - that not so good
…. but it’s ok for now.
February 12th, 2008 at 10:38 PM
phfft I’ve had SL on vista since it came out, i’d rather see dual core support instead… preferably before quad core becomes the norm.
February 12th, 2008 at 11:00 PM
Well as many know not everyone ran vista without problems. Atleast its fixed and we can now move in the dircetion of the next OS ego.
Nice Work LL.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:56 AM
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!! I was getting a new compu with Vista and panicked because of all the trouble I heard of in re. Vista not working with SL (or vice versa). Now I can just update the drivers and have the info I need. Thanks again Lindens
February 13th, 2008 at 2:20 AM
[...] Linden Lab updated the System Requirements for the first time that we can recall. [...]
February 13th, 2008 at 8:29 AM
“OR Intel 945 chipset”
on lowest settings using Nickolas viewer. if I try to run the main client it crashes as soon as log in is done.
Toshibia lap top (JIRA#????) its in there is ther now a fix and the JIRA hasent been updated?
February 13th, 2008 at 9:28 AM
Wow. All this time I had been using Vista. I hadn’t realized that it wasn’t supported until now.
February 13th, 2008 at 10:14 AM
wow, I am so happy that my 3 (THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) months old VAIO with vista meets the MINIMUM!!!!!!!!!!!! requirements.
So, I am far away form recommended requiements with a THREE months old laptop????????
February 13th, 2008 at 10:35 AM
Well with the New WindLight Viewer (79674) blog full expect this one to be maxed in a short time.
February 13th, 2008 at 10:59 AM
So what do they have on the desks at LL? If I was to get a new job at LL what would be sitting on my desk when I walk in? also what do the LL old timers have?TORYs look great in the vids whats he got?
February 13th, 2008 at 11:04 AM
ok, I am back now to standard viewer 1.18.5 (3) as the new windlight viewer does really strange things, changes my screen resolution and so on and and on, really unusable on my 3 (THREE!!!!) months old laptop.
I was quite cynical and sarcastic for a while, but now I am really ANGRY, SL sucks
and.. this kind of policy, it is your choice to download bla bla bal……….. and then forcing one to download a new viewer WITHOUT a choice and (windlight)…………. forcing ones hardware to change the resolution of the screen without a choice. something is really wrong in the state of Denmark.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Series Processor (1795 MHz)
Memory: 2046 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista (Build 6000)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 8400M GT/PCI/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 2.1.2
LL make it work again or you will die, better to give away some thousand m2 of land then suffer like this in world
February 13th, 2008 at 11:07 AM
sorry to post my anger here, but this is the only open forum to do so and I needed to let it out
February 13th, 2008 at 11:14 AM
Windlight ….Out of interest is there a setting that doesnt make my face look like ive come out a coal mine on the new viewer? I dont mean all black but grey smudges on tip of nose, top lip, across both cheeks and bridge of nose? or is it early 6 o/c shadow??
have taken a snap but no idea how to add here…
February 14th, 2008 at 1:55 PM
Does this mean I will not get those out of memory messages, when I use Windlight for like 20 minutes?
February 16th, 2008 at 2:52 AM
I have windows vista 64 bit, and i can’t use SL, is that a problem to solve again?
February 19th, 2008 at 5:52 AM
so will this work on the NVA not NVIA card and has the problem of second life radomly restarting vista been sorted
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:03 PM
Second Life cannot start on my geforce 8400m gs…Help…
May 4th, 2008 at 12:20 AM
I had solved…. Making changes to the nvidia control panel….
May 5th, 2008 at 9:51 PM
[...] you should know that LL officially supported Windows Vista was only just this past FEBRUARY! Seems LL is slow on supporting, and dropping, on many OSes. Thanks Gawd that most of the Linux [...]
June 21st, 2008 at 11:45 AM
It keeps on crashing
so i can’t get in:(?
October 21st, 2008 at 6:18 PM
So much for secondlife supporting Vista Joke still keeps crashing NO its not my computer meets the requirements and the drivers ARE up to date
I have only just installed Vista What a mistake
YES it is a SL problem sometimes will connect for up to 30 mins sometimes not at all
Yet can get on with the release candidate
Come on SL sort Vista out once and for all