Random Crashes

Well, a BIOS upgrade didn't do me any good either. Do you suppose it's the motherboard at fault, though?

Then again, SL DOES seem to be in need of some sort of patching at this rate...

Well, speaking personally, I know I'll never buy another VIA chipset motherboard or ATI video card again. ATI makes decent hardware, but terrible drivers. VIA's bad at both.

It could just be that the combination of the motherboard chipset and video card just doesn't work right. I haven't been able to find enough information about the motherboard chipset, but I wonder if it's a case of not finishing something before they shipped it. Beta-quality hardware makes it out to market more often than a lot of companies would like to have us believe.

ATI is (or was) well known for their excellent drivers. For some time in fact, they were known to have better and more stable drivers than Nvidia simply because they weren't tweaking all the hell out of them for every last ounce of performance. That being said I like both cards and there are versions of drivers available from both companies that are stable. I've owned an ati/via combo and an nvidia/via combo before. I'll have to agree via doesn't have the best of drivers but if they work, they work. My point is if you're running many other types of directx and opengl things flawlessly, as I am, don't go pointing fingers at the drivers.

Currently, in SL, I'm basically in software mode (no agp, draw distances down as far as they go, things like that).

HAH! I used to own an ATI Radeon 7000 with an extra chunk of RAM built by some third rate manufacturer that Gateway decided to use. ATI's OWN DRIVERS wouldn't automatically install with the damn card. It took them SIX MONTHS for them to add my card to their list of supported devices in their drivers after I wrote them. That's AFTER I wrote them. They didn't even write back! I ended up dealing with having to manually extract and install drivers for a YEAR. Then, on top of that, half the betas I'd play would have ATI problems, ESPECIALLY with my card (including Shadowbane which ended up having a workaround of having TWO copies of the same game open at the same time) and no NVidia problems at all. I still see an occasional game with ATI, and that's not counting SL's consistant issues with them.

ATI, writing good drivers? On a cold day in hell, maybe.

I've got the same troubles...random crashes after every five to twenty minutes online. I've more or less stopped playing for now, it's just too frustrating. I've got faith they'll fix it but for now I'm spending more time in RL.

Philip Linden was speculating that there's a bug with enabling far clipping. I found that far clipping in combination with local lighting seems to be a bad idea (shortening my online time down to thirty seconds or less). I've tried several combinations but have far clipping on for now.

Hope to see you all online before too long!

Lumi

I'm really sorry to hear that. You're a major contributor to the game too.

I've pretty much stopped playing for now. I'm going to have to wait until a new patch is released and see if that fixes it. If it turns out it's just that my computer can't keep up, I won't be able to play at all for at least a year or more. :/

Emphasis added.

The drivers are for a reference card. Adding extra ram means you're not following the reference. The drivers function perfectly with non-oem cards. Results vary with oems. Comparing an oem ATI card to a non-oem nvidia one is a pointless comparison for the purpose of drivers. I could take you to task for the inability of Nvidia drivers to function on my waffle iron in much the same light.

Further:

Second Life: newview.exe Application Error
The instruction at "0x0b9be27b" referenced memory at "0x00000030". The memory could not be "read".

Click on OK to terminate the program

OK

*clicks*

How strange...

My SL client's now far more stable. I'm able to stay on for about an hour at a time now with little trouble.

Do you suppose SL is sensing the upcoming patch and is getting its act together to help the Lindens fix it?

Or is it just one of those growing pains?

Well, Im unable to get into SL tonite without crashing. I last less than 5 minutes then crash out. Been playing for 3 months and never seen this before. GRRRRRRRRRR