1.1 and Radeons?

I dunno if it's just me and my computer, but SL has been slowing down with every patch... I'm talking HUGE stuttering issues. if I move anywhere now, the computer will freeze for upwards of 5 seconds while the client tries to push along new prims and whatnot. It's completely sporadic, but only happens if I try to move.

Computer specs, for the record:

AMD Athlon XP 1600 (1.4 ghz)
512 MB DDR Ram

Radeon 9500 4x AGP

latest Radeon drivers.

Now, I rolled back to 3.1, and everything ran GREAT! However, none of my other games played at all... they simply complained that the drivers were too old and crashed. So, that's not an option.

BTW, this is only marginally solved by throttling my graphics options to minimum... 64 meter viewing range, nothing else selected (no shadows, no lights, no nothing). It still freaks out if I move anywhere.

Is this going to be fixed at all in 1.1? Or at the least, in Catalyst 3.7 drivers?

I'd love to go exploring, but I simply can't anymore.

Well, the good news is, it's not just you. I've seen exactly the same slow down on my system. Radeon 9200 128MB DDR, PIII Xeon. Freezes of thirty seconds or more are becoming common if I set preferences to anything much above minimal. I've been forced to run in 800x600 much of the time. *GACK*

I've been using the Catalyst 3.7 driver since the day it was released. Sorry to say, it isn't any improvement for SL versus the 3.6 version. I'm surprised to hear that the 3.1 produced such a dramatic difference. Mostly I've been assuming that the problem is server lag. Now I'm forced to conclude that ATI's notoriously poor implementation of OpenGL is the culprit.

My hope is that 1.1's ability to utilize more video memory may ease the bottle neck. ( mind you, I still believe in the tooth fairy )

Just to comiserate, I've been having the same problem with the Radeon 9700 Pro. Serious speed problems. Should I try catalyst 3.1?

I stress again that 3.1 will most likely break any program made in the last year. None of my games would run after installing 3.1. SL ran like butter though.

Lordfly

I own a Dell Inspiron 8200 and opted for the more expensive Mobility Radeon 9k 64 MB, then the Nvidia Go 32 MB card that came standard (those were my only two choices, sadly). SL runs OK with my system, usually >20 FPS. I use the drivers that Dell installed when I first got the system, which are of the Radeon 3.1 catalyst type. I downloaded the 3.6 drivers, and modded them with a online hacking tool to work with mobility (OEM) radeon models. I crashed everytime I moved with the 3.6'ers. I tryed the same with the 3.7 version. I crashed about every 10 minutes with those, and didnt notice much of an improvment.

WinXP driver rollback is god. I saved my virtural arse with it TWICE.

Dell still hasnt upgraded its OEM drivers, on the website, the drivers for my model are still listed as the 3.1 catalyst.(I think that tells me something about why they arent upgrading.)

I got OK performance in the 1.1 test, Death ensued when I tryed to uncheck flat water, FPS went down to < 1. The only problem I had with 1.1 was that I occasionally crashed with a DOS box coming up on my computer when I was in an exteemely high prim/high avitar concentration area, and that all avitars' clothes didn't appear (they were coloured green, which, Im assuming, is the default).

-Chris

All we hear is Radeon gaga...

Running a P4 2.4Ghz, and an ATI RADEON PRO 9600

3.7 catalyst drivers - and I am getting a nice little crash when i zoom in close and around most objects. Fun as that is - i can't wait til there is a fix for this.

I run windowed (cause i NEED to do textures and such in PS from time to time) and I run at 1280X1024 with modest options - It's chugging on me the odd time - but not toooo bad - it's the zoom/crash thing that has me crying in my virtual beer.

Dood, I have the exact same problem (w/ Radeon 9500Pro/9700) posted in a link below...why didn't you bump my thread?

I run windowed too, this might not happen in fullscreen but I haven't tried playing for a long period of time in fullscreen (need to be able to access the scripting chm). Hmm..

It isn't just the windowed warriors having trouble in Radeon land...I almost always run full screen and I have been in constant crash for a week now...sometimes I can stay logged for 2 hours and then the next thing I know I spend an hour trying to get all of my objects out of olive...Prayer to the linden Gods in progress for the ati users of sl.

A few thoughts:

1. When you're upgrading your drivers, are you uninstalling the earlier drivers through the Add/Remove Programs tool in your Windows Control Panel? If not, it's something you should always do to try and ensure older .dll's are unregistered and removed.

2. As our KDB mentions, in the ATI control panel (Display, Advanced Button) Goto the Open GL Tab and make sure antialiasing is set to "Application Preference" Anisotropic filtering should be set to "Off" You should also have SmartGart (sp?) set to App Preference or off as well.

These two steps can help with a fair amount of ATI issues, though step 1 should be a standard procedure for any graphics card update.

Hope this can help some folks,

Colin Linden

Yes, I uninstalled the previous driver before installing the current one. I'm currently using the Catalyst 3.7 driver downloaded from their website.

The anialiasing is set to "Application Preference" by default.

I really hope this bug can be resolved, as I often crash at the worst times. Like... "Thank you all for coming to the $5000-dollar lottery. And the winner is--[CRASH]"

Hehe yeah I hope this issue is resolved as well. That would be superiffic.