video card

[KarenMichelle Lane]

To summarize for all future PC purchasers looking at PCs with the Intel Graphics Subsystems in them - [ e.g.Graphics Card Vendor: Intel Graphics Card: Intel® HD Graphics 2000 or 2500 or 3000 or 4000 ]...

These Intel Graphics subsystems are designed specifically to support:

1) 2D Business Graphics
2) Media Streaming [e.g. Your Blue Ray DVD's movie will look great]

Gaming is an afterthought! GPU processing on these Intel subsystems is limited by design to optimize 2D applications like the above. You are very unlikely to get SL running properly on these systems.

Serious gamers & 3D Virtual World enthusiasts need a Graphics Subsystem that focuses on 3D rendering and high GPU processing tasks. This is why you see the large cooling systems on higher-end Graphic Cards, to cool the GPU when it is busy calculating the 3D imagery & shading rendering for display multiple times per second [known as the FPS - Frames Per Second speed].

So, you may try to install and run SL on this PC but be ready to run it in the lowest possible video mode and be ready for crashes and/or unusual graphic artifacts on screen.

[KarenMichelle Lane]

To summarize for all future PC purchasers looking at PCs with the Intel Graphics Subsystems in them - [ e.g.Graphics Card Vendor: Intel Graphics Card: Intel® HD Graphics 2000 or 2500 or 3000 or 4000 ]...

These Intel Graphics subsystems are designed specifically to support:

1) 2D Business Graphics
2) Media Streaming [e.g. Your Blue Ray DVD's movie will look great]

Gaming is an afterthought! GPU processing on these Intel subsystems is limited by design to optimize 2D applications like the above. You are very unlikely to get SL running properly on these systems.

Serious gamers & 3D Virtual World enthusiasts need a Graphics Subsystem that focuses on 3D rendering and high GPU processing tasks. This is why you see the large cooling systems on higher-end Graphic Cards, to cool the GPU when it is busy calculating the 3D imagery & shading rendering for display multiple times per second [known as the FPS - Frames Per Second speed].

So, you may try to install and run SL on this PC but be ready to run it in the lowest possible video mode and be ready for crashes and/or unusual graphic artifacts on screen.

[Lindal Kidd]

Just to be perfectly clear,

There are currently two major ways for a computer to process graphics.  One way is with a "discrete" graphics card.  That's a separate circuit card that contains the graphics processor, memory, and associated parts, plus usually a cooling fan.  It plugs into a slot on your motherboard.

The second way is with "integrated" graphics.  The GPU functions are actually performed by a part of the main computer chip.  If you have "Intel HD xxxx" graphics, you have this type of system.  Many AMD-equipped computers also have integrated graphics

As KarenMichelle says, integrated graphics are NO GOOD for serious gaming or for Second Life.  Be very aware of this when shopping for a new computer, because to save money, a lot of newer computers have integrated graphics.