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Papadave Darwin

I don't know what the heck is happening since the new server roll-out or whether is related or not but here are the facts:

MY SYSTEM:
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 (Unknown model) (3192 MHz)
Memory: 3071 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon X300/X550/X1050 Series
OpenGL Version: 2.1.7873 Release
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.17629 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)

Additonal system facts:
Dual monitors

What happens is when I teleport to ANY region, I work fine for about 5 - 10 minutes and then it gets to the point where I can not move at all. If I teleport to a different region, or even a different area in the SAME region, the cycle starts again.

This did not start happening until the new server roll out started. While it may be coincidence, I don't think so.

Video card overheating is not suspect here as when I teleport somewhere else, it works fine again for 5 - 10 more minutes.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue and is there a resolution for it?

I'm thinking about buying the latest and greatest video card for SL (one that SL actauly says it supports). Any suggestions for that also?

Thanks for the input . . .

Markubis

My guess is the graphics card is being overwhelmed. The series that you are using is a low to middle ATI card. It might have worked before but minimally, and you were able to put up with it.
Relace the card with a higher performance one (preferrably an nVidia one) and you should see the problem go away.

btw, I am seeing some weird stuff happening now also, but it is tolerable on my nvidia 6600GT (yikes...time for an update..sooon!!)
I get the "walk and lock" while trying to walk around...as if the graphics is trying to catch up....it just started about a month ago.

Papadave Darwin

Here's the thing, I have not changed anything on my system for quite some time and I used to be able to run two instances of Sl without any issue. Now I can only run one instance with the issues above so I don't think it's got anything to do with the card itself unless the new server rollout is changing requirements.

What had you changed in your system a month ago?

Cindy Claveau

Be that as it may, you seriously need a new graphics card.

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MoxZ Mokeev

Since the new server was rolled out, I've suffered a lot of these same issues. Before I could log in and everything rezzed nicely around me. Now everything is gray for almost 5 minutes and I have to get up and find something RL to do while it rezzes. And that's on my lag free parcel! I can forget about tp'ing somewhere else. Wanted to visit the hair fair but from what I've read, I can forget that too.

Mostly I'm spending a lot of time in my very high skybox. Here I can walk without glitches and freezes. I'm SL'ing on my duo core Acer laptop with an Intel Graphic's Accelerator. Never had problems before. I actually get better SL on it than I do my souped up desktop.

Ram wouldn't hurt. Nor would getting a nice new video card. Hopefully when they upgrade the viewer, things will plane out.

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Markubis

I think you nailed it right there. (in bold)

LL is constantly adding things and attempting to make SL better with more content.


And those changes are finally affecting me.

Mabb Dilweg

I get freezeups constantly now. I have a pretty good Video card too - GE Force Go 7900 with 256Mb Ram plus I have a dual core & 2Gb RAM. I can and have run Ultra Graphics settings when I want to take pretty pics, with no ill effects altho the recommended is High for my hardware.

Just in the past few week tho, I have been getting crashy again, and the walk/pan and freeze thing far more often. The RC was fine for me and client 1.2 was also good for the first week or so but now...

I dont keep up with server upgrades. When did that happen?

I turned on sim statistics on my Mysti Tool to see what it did. I have been getting a lot of warnings from it with sim fps frequently under 20 in practically every place I visit (naturally i took the thing off at Hair Fair, I shudder to think what it would have reported!). I was astounded to get this on my own VERY empty sim yesterday... I havent unpacked even a quarter of the stuff from our move yet and there are very few scripty things running - yet

Not to mention two serious melt-downs in two weeks, both on a Sunday, with login and transaction issues...

Sounds like there is an Issue somewhere...

M

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Brodie Landar

Your graphix card is close to 4x below requirements. pickup a nvidia or something that more up to date. like an 8600 or better and watch your compute zoom. also follow the tech guide sticky on the forum and adjust your settings as stated there and watch your system zoom!

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Cincia Singh

Actually I've talked to people running Quad Core systems with NVidia 9800 graphics cards and even they get high settings recommended!

I watch server upgrades pretty regularly and the 1.24 upgrade is stalled right now. It stalled the first time after they rolled it to 500 regions, stalled again when they fixed the original (now 1.24.1) and rolled it to 3000 regions .. and that's where it's stuck waiting on more fixes (1.24.2?) before they roll the latest fixed version to the regions already running 1.24.1, then after baking it there for a while they plan to roll it to the rest of the grid.

I've noticed a lot of lag and low frame rates too; Dual core 3.0 GHz, NVidia 8000 series with 1GB video RAM ... high settings. Feeling lag-a-licious!

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Cindy Claveau

Correct me if I'm wrong, but SL isn't designed to take advantage of Quad Core is it? I thought software had to aggressively multithread to take advantage of it.

Joshua Nightshade

Very little software is designed to take advantage of Quad Cores.

Software barely even takes advantage of duos.

Papadave Darwin

Where is this sticky you speak of? I don't see it . . .

O.K. Going to get this . . .

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8800gt.html

On sale right now at Best Buy for $149.00!

Seems like a good deal to me so off I go

Mecha Dinosaur

It's very difficult and time consuming for game developers to make a single threaded game multi threaded. The net gain could be minimum or non-existent. Games with AIs and Physics (ran client side) would get benefits.

There are also some dual/quad core CPUs who's cores are less powerful individually then a single core CPU in the same price range, so it is possible to see worse performance on dual/quad systems because of this.

Now the SL client has/had a texture multi-threaded option in the advance menu.

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Markubis

/me knocks you over as he runs past




Not if I get there first!! I've been eyeing this card for several weeks.
I know its not the top of the line, but its been out long enough to get the kinks worked out of it and be an affordable price.

Papadave Darwin

/me gets up, brushes himself off and still gets to the store and now has it in his greedy little hands waiting to get home to install it.

While you say it's not top of the line, it does have 512M memory and it is over clocked but I believe that it will make a HUGE ass difference in my performance in SL.

Will let you all know at about 5:30 p.m. EST.

Does anyone else here use this exact card that can provide some feedback before I actually open the box? LOL

Markubis

A lot of people use that board and say it is very suiited for running SL.

Give us an update when you get it installed. Try using the drivers that come with it also before updating to any newer drivers.

Brodie Landar

same card im using bro. got it about 2.5 weeks ago and LOVINGGGGGG IT!!! your gonna notice a huge difference. look at my profile and pictures in the "random sl shit" album. those are pics taken with the new graphics card in and they are sexay...

Jagger Allen

That's the card I have been using for the past year or so and it is awesome! Go for it. You won't be sorry.

Alexa Lioncourt

A couple of quick things:

1. Always check to see if your video drivers are updated. If you update and things get worse (and ya, it's happened) go back to the previous driver.

2. When running SL and using 2 monitors, run SL on your main monitor. Running on the 2nd can:

a. cause your skin or parts of your skin to go black
b. cause the chat/backgrounds on your clothing bug

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Papadave Darwin

I would like to thank everyone for all of their input today. I posted on that OTHER forum and got a few helpful tips from Kitty Barnett, but other than her info, nothing that deserved any attention. Guess I will start coming her more often.

Once again, thanks for the help and expect and update at about 5:30 EST.

Papadave Darwin

The card works GREAT! Thanks again everyone!

Shyotl

Ah, it's resolved now, but eh.. for ATI users having issues with cards that should be able to run SL acceptably...


While I normally believe the same thing about updating drivers, I have to disagree with this for SL right now. SL has been broken for ATI cards since, well, December. There is something horribly wrong with SL while running with drivers that are more recent than catalyst 7.11. Turning on AA completely breaks retrieving values from the deph buffer(aka altcam is rendered completely useless. No joke.), sl randomly locks up or crashes, etc. If you have these issues, it may be this driver problem. You however, don't need to downgrade your drivers to 7.11 to see if that's the issue..

You can easily put the ati 7.11 opengl dlls right in the secondlife folder and it'll use those instead of your current drivers.

atioglxx.7z
atioglx2.7z

I just have atioglxx.dll in my secondlife folder which seems to work fine, and if it doesn't work for you, reversing the changes is as easy as deleting the atioglxx.dll/atioglx2.dll from the secondlife folder.... It's certainly easier than messing with driver installs.

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