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Second Life may not run on graphics/video cards other than the ones listed above. Unfortunately, if your graphics card includes any of the following words, it's NOT compatible with Second Life:
* nVidia cards that report as a RIVA TNT or TNT2
The following cards have not been tested with Second Life, and compatibility is not certain:
* nVidia cards that report as Quadro
How can I tell what a card reports as, for the love of Mike?
How can I tell what a card reports as, for the love of Mike?
If somebody sells you a computer with a TNT or TNT2, then report them to the Better Business Bureau. They are quite ancient and no new machine will have them.
Quadro cards are specifically for high-end graphics workstations. Again, unlikely that anybody would try to sell you that for a home machine. They're quite expensive.
Having said that, TNT and Quadro are names that would appear in the description of the "graphics" for a computer, if they applied. Which they won't.
How soon do you need the machine? If it can hold until the mid-april I'd be happy to build one for him and it could be in a custom case like the Bat Computer I built for Joe and Aimee.
RIVA, TNT, and TNT2 are really old chipsets, you might find TNT2 in some generic $25 video card, but generally they aren't available anymore. Quadro is the Nvidia workstation video card, it will be branded that way and won't be in any mainstream computer.
Edit: Nvidia chipset crosspost.
The 7300LE looks okay, it has DX9 support according to Nvidia. The 6600GT and 6600 are probably faster, but I have no idea how much difference it would make.
I've heard ND builds excellent computers. His secret ingredient? Love.
Awwww.
It also comes from the fact that most of the machines I build are meant to run in situations where failure would mean ruining a large performace.
ND, I think that would be a treat for him, but I should ask. The birthday is April 7th.
Do you have a link to a screenshot of the BatComputer so I can show him?
I got the case from Directron.com and would be happy to build a machine into pretty much any case they have. I could probably finish the machine by April 15th so he'd have to be okay with waiting a week on his gift.
If you're in the Bay Area then Central Computers will build systems for you. Here's their choices for gaming systems, but I imagine they'll put in anything you want.
I doubt there will be love, though.
That would be amazing, ND; let me talk to the kid.