Strange behavior on Mac Pro + Nvidia 7300GT

I just got a Mac Pro, and have been having all sorts of strange issues running Second Life on it. I just wanted to know if I was alone with these issues, or if there's a problem with my hardware.

1) In busy areas (such as Luskwood and some clubs), the client tends to lock up for many seconds at a time, usually when I look at a group of avatars or move the camera a lot. The UI is completely unresponsive during this; I can't open any other menus on the machine.

2) I get random rendering glitches, things vanishing for an instance, a corrupted texture or two, and so on.

3) Sometimes the client goes beserk and all I see is this: http://zorin.org/share/temp/screen_last.png only a restart fixes this.

4) Throughout all this, I see this message in the dmesg: Graphics chip error! Restarted.

Apple blames the software, and I don't blame them, as Quake 4 runs absolutely perfectly with no glitching whatsoever. So I wonder... is this actually a software problem with SL? Or is my card busted and should I keep hounding Apple to replace it?

Config: Mac Pro, GeForce 7300GT, 2GB RAM, latest OSX updates.

I want to hear from people with this same configuration. Any problems?

Thanks!

-Z

Try one of these things:

* Turn off Ripple Water

* Or, turn down your graphics memory setting to one lower (in my case, 64 MB instead of 128 MB on my MacBook Pro)

I read about a glitch somewhere in these forums and tried this. Seems to fix a similar problem for me. Why it hasn't been addressed yet, though? I guess LL is too busy programming new bugs.

That's about all I can suggest. Good luck!

Tried these already; no help.

I'm really starting to suspect my graphics card, because if this were a general problem, we'd see more complaints about it. It's really bad; here's an email I sent to the Apple rep I spoke with:

-BEGIN EMAIL-

The hardware test did not turn up any problems. However, I am increasingly convinced the video card on this system is defective. It is probably a subtle defect that does not show in normal testing but is brought out by more intense applications like Second Life.

I'm seeing:

- Graphics subsystem lockups, with the message "Graphics chip error! Restarted." in the kernel log, usually following each lockup. These are complete lockups, where nothing can be done on the machine at all for 10 to 15 seconds. Sometimes the card completely resets, throwing both monitors into power save mode for a few seconds.
- Texture corruption in Second Life AND on the desktop while Second Life is running.
- Random crashes of the system, resulting in a reboot. (this is rare, but happens)
- Texture flashing and glitching in the game.

Now, it's easy to try to blame the application, but:

- I don't see any of these problems on my Macbook Pro,
- Application bugs shouldn't cause video chipset lockups. Second Life is a standard OpenGL application and uses OpenGL calls.

Given all this information, I suspect my card is defective, and I would greatly appreciate being sent a replacement.

You can contact me via E-mail or call me at (xxx)xxx-xxxx. Please help me out here; after spending a small fortune on this system I expect the same reliability and good performance I've seen from my Macbook Pro.

-- END EMAIL --

Hopefully they will get back to me soon.

I have been using SL on my macbook pro and have no problems at all, I have water ripple on as well as all the other cool video effect options, the only thing I did lower was the draw distance I have it set too 64 meters. By the way I have 2 gigs of ram I do remember people with 1 gig having some problems.

Hmm, new information...

Reducing graphics memory usage to 128MB reduces the freezing, and reducing it to 64MB pretty much eliminates it.

I suspect I have bad video RAM and will definitely be bugging Apple for a replacement. The likely case is that by reducing the amount of RAM used by SL, the bad memory on the card isn't being hit, thus eliminating the problem.

I guess we'll see if they replace the card, and if they do... whether it solves the problem.

-Z

Hey Zorin,

It's possible that lot's of other people have the same problem and don't know about this forum. I've been sending crash reports to SL for months and haven't heard back and haven't had my issues addressed in version updates. I only just discovered this forum today.

I'm using a G5 1.8MHz tower with 1.25GB RAM and an NVIDIA FX 5200 card with 64MB RAM.

I have the exact same issues you do -- except for that screenshot you posted.... It's entertaining when people's clothes disappear but otherwise it's infuriating. And to have the system freeze every single time I'm on for more than 30-40 minutes is infuriating as well. Like you mentioned, I have no problem with any other application I've used -- including graphics-intensive 3D games. I was thinking I didn't have enough VRAM, but after seeing your post, I'm more convinced than ever that it's an SL problem.

I hope that Linden addresses it soon.....

Zorin,

I am having the exact same problems:

1) "In busy areas the client tends to lock up for many seconds at a time... The UI is completely unresponsive during this; I can't open any other menus on the machine."

It has gotten so bad at times that I have to power off the machine.

I also see this in the log: "Graphics chip error! Restarted."

I don't have any of the other problems you mention.

I can run other 3D programs just fine with no issues.

I have a MacPro 3.0GHz with 2GB of RAM (soon to be 4), and the 7300GT card.

It isn't your hardware - it is the software. Linden maybe (they certainly have a horrid track record so far), maybe Apple's graphics drivers (also bad track record), I don't know. I will try your 64MB trick in the meantime so I can play.

MacPro also has other weird issues like kernel panics with Parallels, etc. So there are some large differences in the hardware vs the previous intel Macs which all used the same chips more or less.

I ordered a Radeon X1900 (I do lots of creative work!) and when that comes in in a month or so I'll see if that helps the problem.

Let me add if you happen to have more than 4 RAM modules installed (any kind; I have tried Apple RAM, Micron RAM, and Kingston RAM in different configurations; - I currently have 4GB installed), you will encounter Kernel Panics either right after login or soon after if you have been using any other programs.

The problem doesn't happen in Windows on the same machine.

-sigh- Back to boot camp to play SL.

Alright, more information based on additional experience.

It's interesting to see that this appears to be a software, not hardware problem. I have more information that may help in debugging this, if LL ever gets around to reading these posts.

If you clear the cache and restart, the problem does not recur for a while. However, I notice it tends to recur sooner if I zoom in on avatars and cause textures to load fully.

It's almost as if a certain texture or type of texture is inducing the problem. If I stay zoomed out and most textures don't load, the problem does not ocurr, for the most part. But if I start zooming in and looking at various avatars (in Luskwood, for instance) the problem almost always eventually happens.

I'm thinking it may not happen when vid mem is forced to 64MB because this keeps the problematic textures from loading.

Is there an official place I can summarize all this and file a real bug report? The biggest problem is someone at LL would have to have our same hardware configuration in order to test and debug this.

-Z

Well, you're lucky. Now that I have 4GB of RAM I can't run the game at all. It just kernel panics soon after logging in.

(It works fine under Windows XP under Boot Camp, albeit a bit slowly as it only uses one CPU out of 4.)

I filed a bug report, which you can do so too in the game (it is in the menus). I don't think they have a MacPro right now to test on.

Linden has suggested lowering the network usage, but that doesn't do anything for the crashes. Try lowering your network use to 500K or less...

LL also suggested a complete removal of the application (and it's associated Library/application support folder) and reinstall.

None of that works for me. I still Kernel Panic.

Gotta love it. =)

I have this problem with my Mac Pro as well... of course, it probably doesn't help that I only have 1 gig of RAM.

At least you can play it! If you have over 2GB it seems we can't without Kernel Panics.

Under 2GB and it stutters like crazy.

BTW- under Boot Camp it runs, but for some odd reason it runs at 1/4 speed.

I'll be taking a forced break from SL for a while as a result.

Hmm, crashes as a result of adding more memory sounds like it may be a hardware problem with the riser cards. Have you talked to Apple support yet?

I can fully understand an application crashing due to bugs, but kernel panics are 99% of the time indicative of either *kernel* bugs or hardware problems.

Good luck getting it all settled. As I said before, the machine is otherwise rock solid.

-Z

Yep, I taked to AppleCare. They blame SL.

I've had to learn more tech than I wish to know to troubleshoot this problem!

Every other single app I run works just fine. Even games, even intensive applications like Final Cut Pro and Photoshop and Cinebench and Rember and on and on. They all use all 4GB and the machine runs insanely fast compared to my old iMac. The only program I have a problem with (aside from Parallels, which is a known bug according to them), is SL.

Interestingly, I have also seen reports of the exact same kernel panic with other Mac Pro users that have more than 2GB of RAM playing WoW. This makes me think it is a bizarre bug in the video card driver that SL and WoW are hitting on users that have over 2GB.

In fact, if I force the Mac Pro to use only 2GB, by taking the RAM out (it doesn't matter what RAM or what riser), I don't Kernel Panic anymore. I get the same problems you get.

If I force the Mac pro to use only 2GB by using a "boot args" command I found online, the same thing happens. Even with all 4GB installed, only 2 will be used and SL will run, just with the freezing/stuttering problems you describe.

Hell, I can even run SL fine in Windows on the same machine.

It is definitely an SL related problem.

Well, I have more information now. I'm also going to forward this to Brent Walker, who has been handling my case at Apple, as I suspect this isn't solely a SL bug, but rather a combination of things.

I noticed that the frequency of my problems went up dramatically since the other night when I purchased a new lynx avatar at Luskwood Creatures. The glitching got worse and the face of the lynx character would constantly be plagued with corrupted textures.

Upon examining the head I found it contained two VERY LARGE textures, 2048x2048 and 2048x1024. It also seems that the problems begin as soon as those textures download completely and there are other objects with large textures in the room. Additionally, it's always these very large textures that become corrupted when the glitching hits.

Could we be hitting some sort of bug involving large textures, either in SL or in the Nvidia drivers? (Again, my Macbook Pro is completely unaffected by any of these issues, so it sounds like it might be a driver issue)

This would also explain why setting the video memory usage down reduces the problem; larger textures are less likely to load when video memory usage is capped by the client.

I'd like to bring this post to the attention of the Lindens to see if they have any input. Anyone know a good way to do this? They don't seem to read this forum very reliably.

-Z

Hi,

I'm having the same problems. I got my new Mac Pro on Friday.

I went to the apple store, they told me that it's on SL and went on the sl web site, to this thread. We need some kind of update to fix this.

Apart form the weird graphics bugs and crashes, im gettign 70 FPS and its soooo smooth Please please please fix it Lindens! I'm a devloper and all the textures are messed up every time i TP anywhere. Finding it relaly hard.

What graphics card do you have? 7300GT?

I'm just wondering how you can be getting 70FPS as I've never gotten anywhere near that even when things are working.

It's understandable, as the 7300GT isn't that great a card. I'm going to probably be ordering a 1900XT when they're available, but only AFTER finding out if SL runs well on them first.

-Z

Yet more info.

When showing the frame console, it seems the lockups are occurring in the green, or "ImageUpdate" routine. Whenever the framerate drops the green bars get ridiculously long.

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the lockups; they just happen randomly no matter which way I'm looking.

Clearing the cache and restarting makes them go away, but only temporarily. Once textures start loading again and video memory usage goes up (even at 64M!), the lockups commence.

-Z

Hi Z,

Yes I have a Nvidia 7300 GT. I got 70 FPS on a quiet sim, 25 to 50 fps most other places, but I only have a 2 meg connection.

My friend said all the graphics bugs are due to something where SL and the graphics card memory are miscommunicating - something about graphics shaders and memory. Thats why when you clear you cache and relog, it gets fixed, cause then it's not remembering the texures and then bringing them up on the wrong things. (I'm not a techincal person, but thats how he explained it to me).

It's just very annoying to have to clear you cache and relog every time you teleport you fix it.

Okay folks.. I found a workaround that'll at least allow you to play Second Life, albeit at slightly reduced performance, until this is fixed.

Basically, I created an OpenGL profile with some features disabled; you can then launch Second Life from the OpenGL Profiler and run it fine.

First, install the opengl profiler from the developer kit. Run it once, so it creates its configuration directories and such. Then, download this file:

http://zorin.org/share/custom2.strings

and place it in ~/Library/OpenGL Profiler/Driver Emulators

You need to restart the Profiler for the configuration to show up, under Launch settings. Choose custom2. Then, go to "OpenGL Profiler -> Preferences" and set the Function sample interval to 10000msec (so it doesn't slow down Second Life during operation). Drag SL to the list of Applications and start it.

It should run fine like this. Overall framerate goes down a bit, but it runs at full video memory with no lockups or texture corruption.

To create this profile I started with a provided low end card (ATI Rage 12 profile and slowly enabled features until I got reasonable speed. If anyone else manages to tweak it to get even more speed without lockups/corruption, let me know.

At least this will allow us to run SL until Apple/LL fixes this bug.

-Zorin

Zorin,

Thank you for so much of your hard work on this problem. It would be great if the Lindens were working on it too (or keeping us updated if there); but in the meantime, I'm happy to see that we may be getting somewhere.

I'm asking Brent Linden about these issues, stay tuned!

Heh, no problem. Having spent $2700 on hardware and not being able to be online reliably with your sweetheart (yes, long distance relationship. But I'm willing to do it for her!) with it really sort of motivates someone to hack and slash it into working.

I hope this gets fixed, though. This is quite a kludge just to be able to run SL.

-Z

Reading this thread is making my dreams of playing on a new mac fizzle away I guess I will stay tuned and keep playing on my old powerbook and tower. But thanks for the work and research Zorin.

PLEASE DON"T MAKE ME GO TO THE DARKSIDE AND BUY A PC> Steve Jobs might show up at my front door and slap me..

Zorin,

I searched for the developer kit on my drive and couldn't find it. I then googled it and it appears that I have to be an Apple Developer or somesuch to download it. Is that right?

Is there any way that you could post a link to your workaround so that we can use it too?

Thanks!