Why doesn't ATI Radeon 9.3 drivers work?

I have ATI Radeon 9600 and I just installed the 9.3 drivers.
But now Second Life won't start. It just closes itself when I'm about to start it.
Initializing blahblah...
And then it shuts down.

What to do? D:

There seems to be some problem with ATI cards (see many other posts on this subject). I also have a Radeon 9600 and could not get any stability at all. Even Catalyst 7.11 did not perform that well. Two things helped me: use the ATI Cool Viewer from Boy Lane (see earlier post in this forum) and make sure VBO is disabled, otherwise you get a jumbled mess of triangles. I am now using Catalyst 9.3 with the Cool Viewer and get very few crashes - those that do happen reset themselves.

Hope that helps.

Thank you, I tried that one now but I still can't start the program. It shuts down after initializing now too.
I suppose I could go back to those old drivers but I have other games that prefers the newer drivers.D:

Sorry you're still having trouble. I'm no technical expert so I don't know why things work or don't. You've probably tried these other tips already:
Dust removal - form CPU heatsink and GPU - there is a small fan on the 9600 which easily clogs.
Removing all trace of old drivers before reinstalling - I had to use CCleaner to get the bits out of the Registry.
Completely remove SL before reinstalling Catalyst including manually removing old folders not deleted by the uninstall routine. Then reinstall second life and run the Cool Viewer installer. Don't forget to start SL using the CV link and not the original SL link!

As I say, you've probably done all this - others may have more informed suggestions!

Clear your cache. That helps fairly often in crashing on startup scenarios.

Hello

I have just built a new PC and have 2 ati 4890 in it but sl will not load up. Where is the VBO setting to?.

Gary.

One other suggestion. Check your Catalyst settings. I have found that enabling Advanced AI crashes SL. Go back to factory defaults to make sure.

Thanks for the help everyone!
I ended up going back to the older working drivers for now. Too much of a hassle right now. Will test a bit more some other time. xP