Playing SPORE screws up my SL Avatar!!

I just got a copy of Spore for Xmas, and I know this is going to sound really really weird but I have tried testing this on multiple computers, with different Video Cards and tried running multiple different Video Drivers on those Cards, rebooting the machines, even turning them off completely, and powering them back up. Yes even taken Vid Cards out and switched them around!

Also, bare in mind. I also tested running Second Life on one computer, it ran fine and all textures looked great. THEN, I installed Spore, ran it, played it for 5 minutes, then closed it then loaded up Second Life again, and suddenly its got this really weird Texture problem with Second Life!

The Texture problem is this...

The entire bottom half of my AV refuses to render. Originally this problem only occured when I was wearing something on the Jacket Layer, it would cause the entire bottom half of my AV to turn a pair of ugly white/textureless legs.

Now they just flat black, no texture and no matter when layer item I wear anywhere, they do not change.

So after playing Spore, I just lost the entire bottom half of my SL AV!

This is completely baffling me and I cant find the answer anywhere!

Did you clear the local SL cache? It sounds like it has corrupt information in the cache.

System specs, hardware specs, version of SL, drivers, etc.

Did you play Spore on all the machines?

Did you try turning off palletized textures, clearing caches, and rebaking?

Yes I have tried turning off palletized textures, clearing caches, and rebaking.

I have tried changing Antialiase settings, OpenGL settings, and every other Setting I can think off..

Do you want Specs for every single Machine this was tested on? there's four of them and I used 4 different vid cards on them all, and tested all drivers for those cards going back to December 2007.

I've basically spent my entire weekend trying to fix this...

Machine1
Athlon XP 2400
512 Ram DDR1 266mhz
Geforce FX5200 64mb
Windows XP Home Serv Pack 3
AGP Only

Machine 2
Athlon64 4000 2.4ghz
2g DDR 400
Dual Geforce 8800GT 512 (in SLI) also tested with single cards
WinXP Pro
PCI-E Only

Machine 3
Athlon64 4000 2.4ghz
1g DDR 333
Dual Geforce 7600GT 256 (in SLI) also tested with single cards
WinXP Home
PCI-E Only

Machine 4
HP P4 Dual Core 2.4ghz
1g DDR 400
Geforce 6400 Onboard Video (tried disabling this and adding each of the above mentioned cards)
Win Vista (had driver issues testing on this one, wouldn't take some older drivers)
PCI-E and AGP Slots available

Also tested using an old Geforce 4200Ti 128mb Vid Card in each machine that had an AGP slot available.


SL Ver. 1.21.6.99587

nVidia Drivers tested:
163.75 - Released Nov, 2007
169.21 - Released Dec. 2007
175.15 - Released June. 2008
175.19 - Released July 2008
178.24 - Released Nov. 2008
180.48 - Released Dec. 2008

When you say you tested it, exactly what steps did you take on each test?

You could try clearing cache, then doing Advanced, Character, Character Tests, Test Male, then restarting the computer, then trying a different skin.

You could consider paying for a month of premium and asking LL for support.

Have you tried installing SL on someone else's computer at a different location and seeing what results that gets you?

When you clear the cache do you check manually in explorer to see if the cache is really empty?

"When you say you tested it, exactly what steps did you take on each test?"

How much time do you have? If you want me to type out each and every step, for each computer... uhm... over the entire weekend... uhm.. You might want me to email that to you when I finish it and get it published, as it would likely end up being an entire book.





"You could try clearing cache, then doing Advanced, Character, Character Tests, Test Male, then restarting the computer, then trying a different skin."

Yes I have attempted this on each computer after playing Spore and then loading SL... yes I have tried multiple different Skins from several Vendors.

After doing "Test FEMALE" .. as I am female and not Male... after doing that and then restarting the system and loading up again... AV has no face texture, nor any texture on the Shoes or pant cuffs.

Changing back to my normal Skin and losing all the "noob" cloths, it all looks fine... until again, I put something on the Jacket layer and then the entire bottom half of my AV loses its textures; meaning the problem is still there...






"You could consider paying for a month of premium and asking LL for support."

I am working a Full Time Job that is only giving me Part Time hours because there is no business anymore, and I'm flat broke and can't pay my rent next month. How would you propose I pay for a service that I should in theory be getting for free anyway?







"Have you tried installing SL on someone else's computer at a different location and seeing what results that gets you?"

Yes, one machine tested on is my roomates. Another is my fathers, in another State. Neither had SL or Spore installed on them.






"When you clear the cache do you check manually in explorer to see if the cache is really empty?"

Yes Cache has been cleared, several times, and verified each time.

Oh it even does this problem with the Noobie Skin that I first started out with!

Sorry to burden you with questions that require typing.

You can go to premium for ten bucks at secondlife.com/account .

To check the Knowledge Base go to secondlife.com/support

Maybe you can find someone in-world that will help you on voice chat so you don't have to type.

Best of luck with your problem.

Also!

If I wear a Pants Layer item, that item rezzes and shows up fine. But my AV's skin will still refuse to load any skin texture for the legs, no matter what Skin I am wearing.

Also, Underwear Layer Items refuse to load.

I don't even have $10 in the bank at this time.

Believe me, I WOULD be paying for Premium if I could afford it.

But at the moment there are more important priorities such as keeping a roof over my head.

Second Life, at the moment is a Luxury that helps relieve certain woeful stress.

Now that half my Avatar is missing due to playing Spore for the first time... I am now terribly distressed over it.

Oh and one more thing.

My AV looks fine to everyone else.

Only I can see this problem.

Yes, I have chatted with others online about it, and yes I have searched the Knowledge base.

Forgive my rudeness, I am just very very frustrated over this.

I just spoke to one of the Lindens in world.

Turns out this is an issue they are actually aware of. IT DOES have to do with Palletized Textures. Turning those off should have fixed it for me, they claimed...

But it didn't, until I disabled my SLI.

Now its fixed!

Sorry, but I've never heard of Spore. Is it some software that is supposed to do something unusual for your graphics or something? Why not uninstall that program (if that's the case) and manually searching for any tid bit of the program and deleting them? Once you've done that uninstall all the drivers you are using and resinstalling drivers known to work properly with SL. Uninstall all versions of SL and manually searching for tid bits and deleting..........reinstall known good (fresh download) versions. Before you try SL again do a very thorough disk clean up (CCleaner is good for this). Check your registry for issues like dlls left over from Spore........again CCleaner is pretty good for that. And finally defrag your hard drive.

If you are the only one seeing this issue on your computers then it's not anything to do with SL. It's limited to your viewer or your machine..........or both.

Keep digging........you'll get it worked out.

see http://www.spore.com Extremely overly hyped game by Wil Wright, the Sims guy.

hmmm... possibly upset by the mass exodus from SimsOnline to SL? nah. they'd never do that. and microsoft and apple have never purposely made noncompatible programs or software...

hahaha.........thanks suezanne. Looks like a game I'd really like...........NOT!!!