Fresh Install - Nothing Showing On Screen

I Loved Second Life when I was running XP. BUT! Ever since Ive installed Vista, I cannot get the program to work.

Stats:
AMD Dual Core X2 2.5ghz
4Gb Ram
NVidia 8600GT w/ dual DVI Dual Monitor
Vista Home Prem.

Ive reloaded the PC several times and have the latest video drivers from NVidia installed (1-8-2009).

When the program "comes up" All I see is the top title bar. I double click that to make it a window, now all I see is the title bar and frame. The window is 100% transparent. Meaning there is no frozen graphics. If I move the frame, it moves without problems, always showing in the frame whatever is behind thats on the desktop. It will go full screen and window no problems. and does this on either monitor. Ive tried disabling a monitor at a time and restarting. No luck there. When I click on the X to close the program, it does not close. I have to go to the Task Manager to close the program. When I restart SL, it asks to do an error report. I which Ive clicked YES. It tells me it could not connect to server to send the logs.

Todays Date: 1-18-2009 @ 07:45 SL Time. (just in case SL servers were down at this particular time)

Help....

Tron Ballinger

Anything????

I know nothing about running dual monitors, but my first question is: What happens if you disable SLI?

You could try going to Vista's Window Color and Appearance menu and changing the color scheme to Windows Vista Standard.

Two things:

1. As Peggy said, disable Aero. It tries to use the same resources as SL, which causes problems. Often, it will cause the graphcis driver to stop working completely. Sometimes, Windows can recover. Other times, it requires a restart to get things back to normal. Aero, pretty as it is, is bad news, unfortunately.

If you don't like the Vista Basic theme (I hate it), you can download install a free patcher called VistaGlazz, which will allow you to use third party themes. DeviantArt has a few I like very much, or you can make your own.


2. The 175 series nVidia drivers work better for SL than the newer ones. 175.19 and 175.16 both work very well. I'd suggest you uninstall your current driver, and replace it with 175.xx.




Peggy, just so you know, SLI is for dual graphics cards with a single monitor, not a single card with dual monitors. SLI doesn't allow for dual monitors at all, and it's not an option if you've only got one video card.

Hmmm...SL uses OpenGL whereas Vista obviously should use DirectX. I doubt they would interfere with each other. But there is so much other under the hood we don't know. Would be interesting if someone could confirm that Vista Aero causes problems for Secondlife.

It's not a question of Direct3D or OpenGL. It's all about driver utilization, and architecture. Aero changes the way Windows composites the desktop. These changes affect OpenGL and Direct3D equally. The results can be equally good or equally bad with either.


As for "comfirmation", what exactly do you need? Beside the fact that it's fairly well known by now that Aero can and does cause conflicts with games and other graphics intensive apps, want me to share my own experience with it? OK, here you go:

When I first started using Vista, I used Aero. Why not? It's on by default, and it looks pretty. Cool new feature, right?

Well, it didn't take long before I started having problems with SL. It would frequently freeze and then crash out, then the screen would go black for a few seconds, and finally when it would come back up, Windows would say "The graphics driver stopped working, and has recovered."

This went on for a few weeks. I must have uninstalled and reinstalled my video driver a dozen times or more, tweaked settings, etc. 'til I was blue in the face. Nothing would solve the problem.

Then I happened to mention it to a friend/colleague of mine, and his immediate response was "Are you using Aero? That'll do it. Aero and SL don't mix." I turned off Aero, and the problem never happened again. That was five months ago. Absolutely no problems of that nature have surfaced since.

Thanks Frozen, was not meant as offense, I ask out of pure curiosity. I saw that article before, I also know that OpenGL is kinda step child of Microsoft and Vista that was adopted late.

What I'm really wondering about is the fact you state that Aero should cause such a major impact in applications, either based on OpenGL or DirectX, that one has to disable it. I would consider that a major issue if not a showstopper for Vista that should have been identified and fixed during product testing.

I'm not using Vista but stick to XP, so this is really just a view from an outsider scratching her head .

Who said I took offense? You asked a question, and I answered it. That's it. There was no undue emotion assigned to it. I can't imagine why you thought otherwise.

Clever play on my name, though. We could play that game all day long, if you really want to. For example, I could say something like "Maybe when you grow up to be Man instead of just Boy, you'll understand why it's so important not to insult people who are trying to give you the information you asked for." But I'd rather not go there.



A few points to consider:

1. It's not exactly unheard of for Microsoft (or Apple) to put a shiny new bell or whistle into an OS, and have it not work well or cause conflicts with applications and/or devices. It happens all the time. Aero is just another example in a very long list.

2. Not everyone who uses Windows uses the kinds of applications that conflict with Aero, so the problem is not really deserving of showstopper status. The vast majority of people who use computers do relatively simplistic things with them, like Web surfing, word processing, data management, etc. Gamers, digital artists, etc., whose software might conflict, are just a small subset of Windows users.

3. The majority of computers sold these days are cheapo laptops that can't even use Aero anyway. So most people already have it "disabled". It's only on by default if Windows determines your system can handle it, and then it's just a matter of a couple clicks to turn it off, if you don't want to use it. It's really not a big deal not to use it.

4. Here's a non-graphics example of a very similar issue, just to demonstrate that these kinds of things are not considered showstoppers. In addition to graphics work, I also do audio. The new sound architecture in Vista, particularly in the 64-bit version, has wreaked absolute havoc with recording equipment and software.

The difficulties with pro audio in Vista are far, far, far worse than those of high end graphics with Aero. It's 100% impossible for me to do my audio work on my main computer. I need to keep an XP machine here, just for that, which I really hate having to do.

I can't believe MS wasn't aware of the problems their new sound architecture would cause. I'm sure they just figured the number of people affected would be relatively low, and that device and software makers would eventually catch up (which is happening, albeit very slowly). And I'm sure the thinking with Aero was similar. MS considers itself the rule maker, and they expect everyone else to follow their lead. If that means completely redesigning hardware, software, etc., then so be it, as far as they seem to be concerned.

In any case, Aero is just one Windows feature among thousands. Like ALL such features, it works for some purposes, and doesn't for others. If you're using your PC for Aero-friendly apps, it does no harm. But if you're doing gaming or high end graphics work, it's a waste of resources at best, and a source of conflict at worst. Again, similar words can be said of just about every feature Windows has.

There was no play with your name.

You provide some list of problems with Microsoft/Vista you see. I don't say it is perfect or even a good OS. But you also say most users may not be affected by the issues you see. I simply would like to get some proof for your hypothesis that Secondlife does not work with Aero on Vista. It may well be a specific issue with your particular hardware or installation.

When you called me Frozen instead of Chosen, that wasn't a play on my name? What was it then, a typo? That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?


I've got three different Vista machines here, with three different hardware configurations. All exhibit the same behavior. My friend who pinpointed the cause of the problem for me also experienced it, on no less than 25 different machines. He's a professor of 3D graphics at a large university, and has 20-ish PC's in his lab, plus the four he's got at home.

Look, It's very well known at this point that Aero causes problems for graphics intensive apps. It really couldn't do otherwise, given the way it hogs video memory for itself, always leaving some portion (often a very large portion) unusable for anything else. This is exactly why Windows gives you the option to disable Aero in the Properties dialog for every singe program, in addition to the (quick and easy) ability to disable it globally.

I'm not sure why you won't just take my word for it on this, but if you Google for "Vista Aero problems", you'll find tons of similar stories. Happy reading (if you insist).


ETA: As for your comment on whether or not its a good OS, I'll have to say yes and no.

The yes part is this. Aforementioned audio disappointments aside, I have to say Vista Ultimate x64 is hands down the best OS I've ever used. It's quick, flexible, and it's solid as a rock. It's just a little lacking in backwards compatibility is all.

Now here's the no part. Vista x86 is a totally different animal. I had it on two of my machines for a while, and I'll never touch it again. It was painfully slow, and was exactly what I'd call stable. Vista really requires more resources than 32-bit architecture can throw at it.

I understand perfectly why Vista tends to get such a bad rap, since most people out there are using 32-bit OS's these days. If Vista x86 were my only experience, I'd be right there bashing Vista with the best of 'em. (Read some of my old posts, in fact, to see me doing exactly that.) But the 64-bit version turned out to be a godsend for me. I absolutely love it (again, except for the audio issue).

To summarize, for 32-bit, XP is still the best option, but for 64-bit, Vista is really impressive.

Gosh...you are right....really sorry, not sure what I thought, Chosen and Few made it to Frozen . Was really a typo. Sorry.
Dear, I take your word for it. It's just the first time that I bump into such extreme measures and I had no complains so far about things like that. That's why I think it may be a configuration thing. SL is not "that" graphic intensive like recent games you usually find in system benchmarks like Crysis. But you offered a solution if people run into problems and I will suggest to try that.

Again, was really no offense intended

Gotcha. Transposition of the F. That makes total sense, actually. Apology accepted. I'm glad we cleared that up.

You know what? If we take that to its next logical step, and transpose the beginnings of both words, we come up with Frozen Chew, which actually sounds pretty good. I do love putting Charleston Chews in the freezer! Mmm, I'm hungry now.


Anyway, I have to disagree with your choice of wording in describing the disabling of Aero as "extreme". It's really a simple thing, totally analogous to changing themes in XP. Some people pick one theme that they like, and stick with it for years, be it Vista Aero Glass, XP Silver, or what have you, while others change to a new theme every other day. Turning Aero on or off for the latter camp would be something done as a matter of course, whenever a new look strikes their fancy. It's really not a big thing.

Alright, thanks

I can only say I am happy with my XP, got this laptop with Vista and immediately deleted it. Probably I am old fashioned . Using a Vista theme tho . But more and more people move over to Vista and probably I need to do some testing too using this. Perhaps the Aero issue would have appeared earlier. SL hates us all anyway *smirks*


...and now we drift totally away from the original question