Tech Specs

I'm putting up a tech specs page because, as is tradition, Berry makes me Blog.

My current machine was bought in 2010.  It handles my needs well, the most system intensive thing I run on it is SL. It had a dual-core CPU..that quad-core upgrade I was thinking about?  I did it.

It's a HP/Compaq CQ5320F 

It's got an upgraded Phenom II x4 925 2.8GHz quad-core CPU.  While some people (including me) thought that 4GB was the max this M2N68-LA (Narra6) motherboard supports, because HP/Compaq's info is a bit unclear and most RAM information out there is for the early versions, that is not the case, the Narra6's support more.  So I've upgraded it to 8GB of Kingston HyperX.   I've installed an EVGA GT640 SC (the rev 2. GT640 with GDDR5) and a 550W Cooler Master power supply.  I run Linux, specifically Fedora 25 64-bit.  My monitor is actually a 22" Vizio HDTV (that sits on my desk) so I run SL at 1920x1080.  I've been running SL on widescreen monitors since 2008, first 1280x800 (former windows laptop),  and then 1440x900 (my previous HDTV).

I'm usually running Firestorm 64-bit release as my viewer.  It usually runs somewhere around 20 fps in framerate.  It should be higher, this system has better specs than Berry's old system and she was running higher FPS than I do. Haven't figured out why though I am running at 256 draw not 64 like she does.

Firestorm does crashe fairly regularly for me, usually after hours of use and doing a lot of doing stuff in busy regions and camming.  I bet it's a memory leak since when it crashes it is showing HUGE memory use, eating up my Swap as well.  The RAM upgrade should  help.    That said, when it doesn't crash I can stay in SL for hours on end without much problem.  I'm usually only running my terminal along with SL, because I was trying to keep the RAM use down to free up more for SL.  Application crashes don't take the system down on Linux, though I have seen an SL crash take down "X" as well, though not in a few years.

Tips:

SL doesn't get along with GPU accelerated Flash/Video or using any other accelerated application at the same time like Minecraft.  SL wants everything for itself.  So I try to not run such things.