System Requirements

The Catznip viewer is based on Linden Lab's Second Life client and as such our basic system requirements are much the same, however we hope the following guidelines will prove useful above and beyond the official system requirements.

System Guidelines

The Catznip viewer will run on almost any sufficiently OpenGL capable platform, we don't as such have any minimum system specification. If you can get it to run, more power to you and good luck.

• Internet Connection : Cable or DSL
• Operating System :
  • Windows 8.1 (recommended), Windows 7, Windows Vista
  • 32 / 64 bit Linux (tested on Mint 16)
  • Mac OS X 10.9 strongly recommended (10.7.5 bare minimum)
• Processor : 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or above (i3, i5, i7 recommended)
• Memory : 3GB or more
• Graphics :
  • NVIDIA Graphics cards strongly recommended
    • 9600, 9800, 275 GTX, 295 GTX and above.
  • ATI Graphics Cards
    • 4000 Series: 4850, 4870, 4890, 5850, 5870, 5970

Notes

32 or 64 bit

The viewer does not require a 64 bit OS, however it's more reliable when run on one. This holds true for all platforms.

We do not at this time make a dedicated 64 bit version of the viewer as there would be little actual benefit above and beyond running the 32bit client on a 64 bit platform. It may actually make debugging some issues harder and cause the viewer to simply consume more memory.

Bandwidth

The bandwidth and latency requirements for Second Life are too high for dial-up internet. Likewise some mobile, satellite & wireless services might not be suitable. For low bandwidth situations we recommend you reduce your draw distance to the lowest setting, skyboxes and patience. Press SHIFT+CTRL+1 in the viewer to see current bandwidth use in kbps.

Graphics Cards

As a rule, NVIDIA graphics are strongly recommended for all SL clients on all platforms. For NVIDIA graphics cards, the second number is important; A 650 is a better choice than a 710. Newer drivers are always better.

ATI/AMD graphics are more prone to graphical glitches and driver issues / crashes. Do not assume newer is better.

Intel/integrated graphics are not recommended, expect very poor performance. Certain Intel HD / Windows 10 combinations may require a special version of the client.

Memory

General rule of thumb, the more memory you have, the better. If you have less than 4GB of memory then adding more is the single most effective thing you can do to improve performance of your entire computer. In low memory situations the viewer may simply crash without warning, lowering your draw distance can help. Avoid multitasking or running a web browser at the same time.

Operating System

The official system requirements seem to suggest there is some variability in requirements depending on OS. In our experience this is not the case. The viewer on each platform is built from the same source code, functions in the same way and has the same fundamental CPU, Memory and GPU requirements.

Windows XP & 2K : While the current Catznip release will install on any version of XP and 2000, doing so is no longer supported and is in our experience disproportionally crash prone. It's time to think about an upgrade or maybe a free version of Linux.