HD3850 AGP and Second Life ...

Hi all,

i thought i upgrade my pc with the best agp out there available so i could enjoy sl a lot more but its been everysince one big crash event...

My setup:

Asus P4C800-E-Deluxe (i875 / 800 fsb)
socket 478 P4 3.0 ghz
2x 1GB kingston 3200 400 mhz
WD 740GD Raptor
creative Audigy ZS2
Sapphire HD 3850 512 MB GDDR3 AGP
TX650W Corsair PSU
mx518 mouse
G15 keyboard

Clean original XP pro with SP3
latest drivers from sapphire site : Catalyst 8.7 HOTFIX for HD2K/HD3K AGP cards and WinXP 32 bit

i even totaly removed second life and deleted the left over folders and done fresh instal of the latest Second_Life_1-20-15-92456_setup...

I tried all kinds of settings but messing with the recommended settings to low isnt any improvement more even a increase on crashes...

Cache cleared a lot..

Send crashlog.. well i realy wonder if it sends out anything when it says it does but if it does they would have been floated by now...

Attempts throwing pc out of window: 3214 times

Any one have an idea what to do..plz tell me !!!

Try opening the window and unplugging the monitor and other peripherals before attempting to toss the computer.

There was another thread about a person with a fancy ATI card who was also being driven mad and they also mentioned having SP 3.

I have no evidence whatsoever to suggest or support this in any way but I think if it was me I might try to revert back to SP 2.

Honored AGP
blazing with autumnal flame
gently close your eyes.

Make sure you have the auxiliary power connector plugged into the video card. If you don't plug this in, then the video card will not get enough power which in turn leads to crashing.

XP PRO has issues with SP3, revert to SP2 on pro.

This may be an example of what was being talked about in the thread on "why do people repeat posts?".

not at all. I was supporting your comment, it's not like I made the same one twice. big difference

besides, I have experience on the subject.

and this was your post, quote yourself properly:
"I have no evidence whatsoever to suggest or support this in any way but I think if it was me I might TRY to revert back to SP 2."

I have both evidence AND experience to support that call.

It's not even a little deal. The incident of "post echo" I noticed was of a list of system specs, maybe 10 lines long. Three hours later, but only a few posts down - well within sight - there would appear a nearly identical list. Five or six different times. Same person. Then it stopped.

I've seen several similar stories here, new install of SP3, SL crashing.

Post echo is better than what happens sometimes, when you create your magnum opus and go to post it and realize someone else has just posted the same thing but with bulleted lists and custom captioned illustrations.

It would be nice to see if any of these SP3 crashing people get better results with SL after "upgrading to SP2".

no such thing. that's someone supporting someone else.

yeah well I now know for sure it aint SP3 doing this....

I have done a total new instal with a minimum of hardware like in my first post...

I installed a new legal XP pro edition with SP2.
Installed chipsetdrivers and lan for mobo(latest)
Installed audiodrivers from audigy 2 SZ driver CD (connected to creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 speakerset)
Installed all the other normal updates past SP2 from microsoft updatesite
installed Net 1 and 2 completely patched and all
I updated the audigy 2 ZS and apps
Installed latest agp driver from sapphire ( connected to 22" Iiyama HM204DT A CRT monitor running 1600x1200 @85 hrz)
run the directX update again
installed mouse and keyboarddrivers
installed quicktime updated till the latest

and then installed the latest version of sl....

started it up... things start loading i look around a little and moved around to push it a little and there was the crashlogger again....


Maybe its more something with the dx10.1 and dx9.0 ... i dont know im realy lost
dx9 xp dx 10 vista. dx 10 not backwards with 9.0 or so .. or some code missing which separates these in sl or the agp catalyst 8.7 and versions below...
HD3850 is a dx 10.1 ...

I did once read an article on som sl wiki site or so about that after catalyst 8.3 a lot of issues would have been solved but if that realy did happen...

Are there any Pcie HD3850 users on XP who encounter these kind of problems as well?
Like its maybe only for AGP the case?? any one ..

I still wanna thank anyone thinking with me on this no mather whats been said i appriciate it all and a lot. (thumbs up)

P.S. Unreal Tournament 3 or a game like Crysis runns just great with this set up...

My "beware of updates" sense would be tingling less if you'd stopped right at SP2.

This latest time you used drivers from Sapphire rather than drivers from ATI, is that correct?

Might try ones from ATI.

You might try unplugging the sound card and seeing if that makes a difference.

There is at least one Jira about agp hd3850s crashing, at http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-7281 .

Zen Linden makes a comment there saying in essence "try turning off anti-aliasing".

You might want to comment in that thread.

If you don't find an issue reported that sounds similar enough to your problem, you should file one.

If you are eligible to file support tickets for this sort of problem it cant' hurt to file one of those either.

Ati drivers will not work. As you might know the HD3850 from Sapphire is the only AGP version of the HD3850 cards around!!! Ati's drivers are only for Pcie Versions!!! So i can only use drivers from Sapphire!!! Ati drivers stop at install with warning they cant find compatible hardware.


&


Maybe i should remind it all started when i only upgraded my agp vga from 9700pro 128 mb to HD3850 512 mb. both ati. Only thing else I did was upgrading my PSU from 400w to a new 650W PSU from Corsair with already the needed vga power connector on it (8 pin) So i would think that the lateset Hardware needs the latest software to function right so i can imagine a normal xp version might not know what to do with a new type dx 10.1 card released after the release of SP2.

The soundcard has always been in the system and is still up to date with todays need... welll it should be for sl at least...functions well in all other kind of games...

But to be realy sure im going to make a new install of my os... this time only the XP pro with the sp2 in it.
I need .NET and updates for catalyst and dx update for my VGA
I ll will leave the audigy card out of the system and use the onboard sound.. we will see.. no other way then to try..





Yes, thank you thats the same problem i have... i will try to post there aswell Good one !
anti-aliasing is off.

I'm just grasping at straws.

Can you get more than one version of the driver at Sapphire?

I'm looking at a thread on Tom's Hardware now about a person that put in card like yours with win xp and all games failed.

If you haven't updated your bios you might try that.

That thread is at http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/249086-33-installed-sapphire-3850-games-play . So far it is not encouraging.

There is a suggestion to try the Omega drivers.

Did you use Catalyst to set all options to "let the program decide"?

Have you posted at http://forums.sapphiretech.com ?

Have you checked you bios settings to see if there's anything that might help? I see suggestions to turn off video cache in the bios.


I see a suggestion to try Omega 3.8.442 ,

You might want to check the Sapphire forums. I didn't see anything encouraging in the lengthy thread I saw on the subject, but who knows, if you post your specs and describe the problem you might get lucky.

they have a 32bit xp version a 64bit xp version and for vista 32 and 64 and archieved
I have no other games or programs that encounter anything like this at all...
I already played with this hardware/software set up UT3, Crysis, Sims2, Oblivion, Doom3, Black and White 2 all with very high settings and mostly with anti-aliasing enabled with a res of 1920x1080 on a 40" LCD... its only SecondLife that has these problems.
My Bios for my P4c800 e deluxe mobo is updated till the latest...
bios settings are fine...
if other games would have problems or if i had further problems in general with running this agp card i might want to try that but for now i wont.
Nope havnt touch it anywhere.
No i have not... but ive been there and poorly its very silent there... not much found at all on the latest cards released

Thank you still very much SuezanneC Baskerville

Hopefully the problems somhow gets isolated

I did post now on the VWR-7281 article

Any HD3850 Pcie users having problems?

99.9% of games use directx , SL is opengl you wouldnt be experiencing the same issues, would advice trying other drivers.

Ati opengl drivers + SL typical thing.

oke... just downloaded the ati_omega_xp2k_48442

Been doing a lot of reading...

Found a thread of 79 pages on the sapphire forum about similiar..
http://forums.sapphiretech.com/showthread.php?t=18262
Also read an article about the HD4870X2 vs the GTX280
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=864
Ofcausse they use optimized drivers for the new 4870x2 already...

Lets hope for the HD3850 AGP 8.8 has som fixxed issues in them as well
No idea when they will be released tho..

Ok going back to offline... i only have one system so its hard to get back here and check things when im installing etc... Ill post result later ... Please keep posting any experiences or sulotions or anything... thank you all !!!


new day ...new changes...

i have an X1950 pro AGP card and have total graphics failure after about 1 to 2 minutes. Tried everything. was replied by a person using teh X1950 but with PCIe and his worked fine. I was using same drivers as this person. maybe that AGP theory isnt far off?

I switch back to my GeForce 5600 and it runs for a lot longer than the ATI card but the quality is worse.

Dunno if this has anything to do with your problem,but....i think im just goin to buy an Nvidia card when i can

ati_omega_xp2k_48442... did look like things are loading easier, made some meters walking..1 or 2 minutes while things still were loading...but...didn't make it...

I tried to register at the sapphire forums so I could post about this but the CAPTCHA and No-Spam questions wouldn't let me. The CAPTCHA was really hard to read, requiring me to change the picture 8 or 9 times to get one I could read, and after I finally found the darn No-Spam question, it would not accept my input, even though the question was like: type "graphics" and I answered: graphics, and just to make sure, did it again with graphics in quotes.

After perhaps 20 minutes of that I gave up and sent email to the webmaster.

I had to also when i only try to do a search... its hopeless... maybe thats why its so quiet there ..

Thank you again SuezanneC Baskerville for your trying

FINALY

I finaly made a full hour of sl today without crashing Ive been flying again at a sim packed with over 80 avatars and stocked with shops, i could freely rotate evrywhere but wrnt able to walk fast..flying was a lot quicker could zoom in and out with mousescrollwheel without any pauses or crashes seen the best graphics so far all with the recommended settings active

What have i done this time...

h/w setup still the same

installed Os cd: xp pro+SP2 (legal)
installed chipsetdrivers and lan for mobo (originals from cd)
got to windows update and downloaded
.NET and updates
mediaplayer 11 and updates
IE 7 and its updates
and a few more..total of 24 it says
This time I left out all the ones called essential and then just only named: update for xp or security update for xp...a total of 84
installed audigy 2ZS (this time only original drivers and software from cd)
installed mx518 mouse and G15 keyboard (directly with latest web drivers)
installed HD3850 agp

This time i first installed the:
1-24-07-2008--Catalyst 8.7 HOTFIX for HD2K/HD3k AGP cards and WinXP 32-bit
then
2-22-07-2008--AVIVO Xcode for X1k/HD2k/HD3k/HD4k Series
and as last
3-22-07-2008--WDM Driver Catalyst 8.7 Windows XP (32bit and 64bit) 22 july

installed secondlife latest...

I also have set my screensetting to 1024x768 @85 for desktop..
I have not opened Catalyst control centre ( read about isue opening it cozzin some settings being made)

And i left Quicktime out... havent istalled it this time.

So im pretty naked so to say lol
but oke like this it works so SuezanneC Baskerville you were not so wrong about reverting back afterall

But oke i surely could need alot of those lleft over updates i could install so ill be taken it stepp by stepp and try to post most of my experiences here..im very used to 1600x1200 so thats what im first going to test ..

First i need some sleep hehe

Congratulations!

Hard to believe. I think in your place my computer might not be able to be put back into one piece.

oke updatetime...

I done some resolution tests(very simple)
its unbelievable but im now on my fullHD 40 inch LCD running second life at 1920x1020 (windowed) so here is no limit reached yet.

I also done all the security and just xp updates from microsoftupdate site.
I started with the oldest security updates to the latest in parts...
And then did the same with the just xp updates.

Probably becausse i first installed IE7.0 befor these updates i encountered some problems with IE 7. ( not able to set start page or not able to install update for IE 6 as example) so i removed IE 7 and revert back to IE 6 which then got some updates aswell.

Now i completly updated XP SP2.
Only update remain for my OS is the SP3 package and IE7

So... what do i still have left out now...

I havnt installed all the updates for my audigy2ZS and on the windowsupdatessite/hardware is an update still for it available..
Thats just one microsoft certified(?)
On the otherhand..thru the creative webupdate app i get around 200+ mb of several updates..and i remebered from befor there was this latest driverversion which gave that widows warning pop up about not being certified(?) yet and risk about stability if i continue..

I also still did not install any Quicktime or updates...
I did not do the DX webupdate after all was installed...

Well i m not planning on installing quicktime or the DXwebupdate.. all runs just fine and i wouldnt know yet why i should lol
But ..tho the sound is already great i m planning to get updates for the audigy2ZS...
and if that goes well..then i surely also going to try the SP3 update...

Where what went wrong befor is still a clue to me but till now all is just working fine...
Its amazing sl @ 1920x1020 on a 40 inch lcd

some specs

Second Life 1.20.15 (92456) Jul 18 2008 10:58:42 (Second Life Release)

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 Northwood (2998 MHz)
Memory: 2047 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 3850 AGP
OpenGL Version: 2.1.7769 Release
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.17513 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)

Hi guys,

I just entered your forum to look for a solution to my graphic problem.
I had to dump my GeForce card because it shorted my PSU and istead I this time bought a ATI Shappire Radeon HD3650 AGP with 512 MB
Problems problems problems....only when I run SL.
I can stay online for just a few minutes until it crash my whole computer. The screen goes black, the monitor reports that the VGA signal is out of range, and I have to turn the PC on and off.
I have updated the latest drived (AGP hotfix) from the ATI website.

Anyone here actually managed to solve this problem ???
I read that some people did a lot of different updating, different files....is there no easy solution to this problem ???

I might aswell buy a new gard with a NVIDIA chip istead if I dont manage to find a fix.

Norseman:

It would probably be better to start a new thread.

System specs are always useful.

You say one video card shorted your PSU. Are you still using that PSU?

What wattage is your PSU?