Can You Run Second Life on a Netbook?

One of Second Life's biggest adoption hurdles now is the growing popularity of low cost, low spec netbooks, which are ideal for working on web applications, but with little or no 3D graphics computing power, not so great an entry point into the metaverse. So I was surprised to read this post by Peter Stindberg, who managed to get Second Life running on a $280 Asus Eee PC. Slight drawback: it only runs at three fricking frames per second. "[N]ot thrilling," Mr. Stinberg allows, "however I can walk around, access objects, work with my inventory, script, pay people, deliver notecards and interact socially." Read how he did it here. Anyone else manage to get Second Life or OpenSim running (or maybe better to say, crawling) on a Netbook?

Comments

[Doreen Garrigus]

Netbooks, yay! My daughter's netbook fits in her purse, so she takes it everywhere. I've been trying for weeks to get her to try to log in to SL from the thing. =D Thanks for bringing this to my attention, gentlemen.

[DD Ra]

I have Second Life running on a Dell Mini 9 running with Ubuntu. It's prone to crash, but if i don't move to quickly or go in to laggy places, it's ok.

[Stacey]

I have a Asus netbook and can run SL-- but I use Kristen's viewer. It is OK, but not the best experience.

[Ann Otoole]

sounds like it runs better on that cheapie than on most notebooks i have seen. 3fps is better than no fps or weird triangles all over or scarecrow avatars. Which is what most notebooks deliver including so-called "multimedia notebooks".

LL needs to develop a light weight client. No windlight. No glow. etc etc.

[radar]

I wouldn't worry about it. Netbooks are a momentary fad, they certainly aren't the future of portability. I realize that sounds ludicrous, but I believe it's true. They're a horrible compromise for ergonomics AND power. The mobile devices that use a totally different UI/form factor model are the ones that will eventually carry the day. Real laptops and real mobile devices will span the gap, and netbooks are neither.

Ok, now I'll proceed to get lambasted because I find netbook owners tend to be surprisingly emotional and downright savage when someone doesn't like netbooks. And they say Mac owners are religious about their computers. ;)

[Snowy Hoobinoo]

I wrote a small guide to installing and optimising SL on netbooks here:

http://snowyhoobinoo.blogspot.com/2009/06/installing-and-setting-up-slopensim-on.html

Depending on the location I can average up to 15fps, it's great for experiencing lectures/talks etc.

[Elrik Merlin]

I'm using an original Asus Aspire One running Ubuntu 9.04 NRM. The regular viewer is very creaky and not very usable. However Snowglobe works passably, albeit with a fairly slow frame rate. I can move, deal with stuff, listen to audio, perfectly usable in an emergency.

Frankly I was astonished that it worked at all. I have not tried optimising the installation at all at this point, so I'll be checking out Snowy Hoobinoo's guide immediately I get the unit in front of me.

[Elrik Merlin]

Argh. Belay that: Snowy's tutorial is nice, but Windows only.

[Snowy Hoobinoo]

Hi Elrik, just skip to STEP 3, from then on all the viewers settings are the same on windows/Linux.

[Wordfromthe Wise]

i have a HP Mini and it runs with up to 10 frames/second with basic settings..

but as a info: i use it as a region server in the OSgrid .. 8 sims with a total of 8000 prims and 500 'normal' scripts are my current MAX ..

Sim Crossings are slow but thats because they run from my home DSL ...

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I think there's a niche for netbooks; as noted, you can put it in your purse, but you don't have to type with a toothpick and a magnifying glass. But if they're going to thrive, they're going to need to find a way to deliver full-scale graphics performance at a fraction of the cost (and a fraction of the power, and the heat...)

If those issues are solvable, that would put netbooks in the sweet spot for the next generation of 3D web games/worlds.

[James Corbett]

I've been running SL and Opensim on a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 for a number of months and find it pretty ok for the most part. Admittedly, it was barely usable among the large crowd at VWBPE but on low avatar sims the frame rate is fine.

[Skate Foss]

Netbooks! lol, I'm waiting for the day we can log into SL fully with our iPhones! Right now we use Sparkle to communicate inWorld, its only a matter of time before the iPhone will have me addicted 24 hours a day to SL!

[Hamlet Au]

Great tutorial, Snowy, thanks!

Radar, I disagree somewhat that Netbooks are a fad, the trend lines are really pointing to them as a dominating force for the next few years. What will happen, I think, is Netbooks will gradually get more powerful while staying cheap, so in say three-five years you'll be able to run SL with all the bells and whistles on a system that's just $300. I was recently talking with the Blue Mars folks and they sorta had that view too.

[BTRIPP]

I got a $199.00 refurbished Acer netbook (running XP) a month or so back, and I was very pleased to find it was just fine for Second Life.

[sl waffle]

i have an aging dell inspiron notebook, the specs are less than most of these netbooks on the market, i average 5 fps in even high lag areas. for some odd reason, i have never crashed, it may freeze up for a few seconds but not lock and crash like my desktop does
i am using a viewer called "Nicholaz" which is based off the older version of SL
my specs are as follows:
intel 2.4 P4 533fsb
512mb pc 2100 ram
8mb shared intel 845g onboard video
xp pro

if you are using a newer netbook, you should atleast be getting 5 fps, if not try this viewer out, it seems to run on my old laptop, it most definately should be running on yours

good luck

[Bryanna]

I have the Dell Inspiron Mini 1018 and it has no lag. It takes time to load, like any computer, then once its used to SL, it runs smoothly.