64 Bit Frustrations

Hey everyone,

I have been away from SL for some time. I recently purchased a new computer, and decided that this would be a good time to re-introduce myself. My problem is that I decided to use Windows Vista 64 bit as my OS. SL runs fine for the most part, except for one thing (maybe two). Most of the time when I' in world, clothing textures are not appearing the way they are supposed to. I see black or grey, or soetimes various colored striped, body parts. I have adjusted the settings both in my prefferences and with t hardware, but nothing has helped. I do not think that my problem resides with y hardware, but just in case, here is my set up.

AMD Phenom 2.5Ghz Quad Core
4Gb Ram
ATI Radeon HD4870 512Mb graphics card
Dual 22" monitors
I run everything through a router, but it's a wired set up.

I also have a lot of air flow though my case, so I don't think it's a cooling issue. I tried updating the drivers for the GPU, but that cause SL to crash before I was even through the login process. I was forced to do a system restore, and that at least lets me get in world. Now I only crash after twenty or thirty minutes, if I don't try to run any other programs. I tried running SL on my wifes laptop, and while a bit slow to load things, everything displayed perfectly. The only real difference between the two achines is that ine is 64 bit and hers is 32 bit.
Is there any way to get my 64 bit machine to behave like a 32 bit machine? ANy help would greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Nonahmi

Buy a regular 32bit OS.

You don't have to use a 64 bit OS do you? I have a Hp dv6000 AMD 64bit laptop and it has always had regular XP installed - never a problem with SL, until SL burned it up....twice.

On the Vista DVD, both versions are usually included, and maybe just to play with both, a dual boot would be fun.

Haven't those sorts of texturing problems been discussed recently here in the forums and are due to video drivers?

I know that whenever I have issues displaying textures, I always try turning off palletized texture and flexible object rendering in the advanced menu and rebaking. But then again, my card's an nVidia and I know that nVidia drivers take issues with that palletized texture thing.

Did you install the 64-bit Vista to utilize the 4GB RAM? Even with Vista, you get about 3.5GB on a 32-bit version (Windows XP 32-bit gives you 3.33GB out of 4GB) of Vista. Unless there's a specific reason that you need the 64-bit version of Vista, I'd say to either downgrade to XP or switch to the 32-bit version.

Another alternative is to try the Omega Drivers. They're alternative/modded drivers geared for gamers who require more flexibility with the graphics settings than the stock from ATI/nVidia. But who knows, they might be worth a try. Just Google "omega drivers" and it should come right up.

You might try the Technical forum - I am pretty sure that Chosen Few has mentioned that he has SL running on a Vista 64-bit setup.

Or maybe search some of his posts

Thanks guys. I will definitely check those out.

I run 64 bit with no real troubles. yes I do get the black legs issue but I think its more to do with the Vid card drivers.. I to was frustrated with this and looked around at a better driver. Then I read somewhere in these forms that to just turn off the palletized textures and re-bake.. The black legs went away and I can use the latest version of the vid drivers to boot.

Look at Advanced/rendering/features/palletized textures un check and rebake as see how that works....It works for me, and it may work for you

One thing that is mentioned everytime this comes up is to turn off Aero.

Your wife's laptop has a quad core AMD Phenom and an ATI 4870?

x64 is almost certainly not the problem here.

ATI's drivers have issues with Vertex Buffer Objects. In Preferences > Graphics > Hardware settings, uncheck that option.

Some of the ATI drivers are better than others, perhaps an ATI user can point you to the most stable ones.

I'd also try deleting the SL user folder ( /users[your account name]/AppData/Roaming/SecondLife ) (back it up first, chat logs are stored there). Then uninstall and reinstall Second Life.

As far as I know, I do not have Areo. Although, if I did, where would I find it to turn it off? I have adjusted the rendering options with little change. I decided to go with the 64 bit because I'm going to school for computer programing, and I am a heavy gamer. I plan to upgrade my Ram to 8 or 12 Gb in the future, and a 32 bit OS wont handle it. A dual boot might be an option, but I didn't get both versions of the OS. I just spend a ton of money on this machine, and I realy don't want to have to spend any more to get it to work. It's only four weeks old.

Increase memory to 8GB, get the free VM Player, and make a 4 GB XP VM Partition. Runs great!

This issue with Nvidia cards has been fixed in the Release Candidate viewer

Sorry. She has an Intel and Nvidia set up, but the OS is the same except it's 32 bit.

I'm also running Vista x64 with an HD4870, dual monitors, but with an Intel Core2 Quad processor and 8 gigs of memory (neither of which I would expect to have any effect on the issues you've been experiencing). I also leave Aero on. *shrug*

(By the way, Aero is presented as a simple visual Theme in Vista, so the way to turn it off is to Personalize your desktop and pick another theme. You know you're running it if the frames of all your open windows have a cool see-through frosted glass look to them.)

You could try that, but I'd head first to try out the things Clyde and Milla suggested. Be sure and nuke your cache folder after making any changes or you may not see any difference despite the problem having been fixed.

I am having trouble locating the settings for the Vertex Buffer Objects. It may be that I am still getting to know Vista, but I can't find it in the control panel, or in the ATI settings screen.

It's in Second Life's Preferences settings, under the "Edit" menu. Sorry, I wasn't very specific.

Thanks Milla

I disabled the VBO with no real difference. I also cleared the cache again, but that didn't help either. This is really frustrating me.

Try setting a System Restore point and installing the Omega Drivers to see if that improves the stability of your game. They're not the standard ATI drivers, but are tweaked for use with games, and just might solve the problem that you have. If they don't, you can always use the System Restore point to revert back to your original drivers.

If you are running SL on both of your monitors, put it on just one.

I looked into the Omega Drivers. They have no driver for my card yet. Most of the time I run SL in a window. I tried turning one of the monitors off, but it still sees two screens. I don't want to disable the second screen, as it allows me to multitask. I even tried to run SL in XP compatibility mode, same results.

I've got 3 machines here running Vista x64. SL runs very well on all three. I'm using all Intel and nVidia hardware, though, so none of my systems are really a match for yours.

Whatever's going on, it's not Windows itself that's the problem. My guess is your trouble is driver related. In addition to updating your video card drivers, I'd also suggest you update all drivers for your motherboard, chipset, network card, and sound card. All will need 64-bit versions.

Beyond that, do the usual "smart" SL things, like disable VBO's and palletized textures.

That's about all I can think of to try. Good luck.

I have no idea which version of the Catalyst suite you have, but I believe the latest one is 9.1, so if yours is prior to that, try updating to the 9.1 and see if you have better luck. I'd also try getting updates for the AMD Chipset from their website and see what comes up; or check the motherboard manufacturer's support site and see if there are any updates/utilities or whatever that you haven't installed.

Like Chosen said, I'm also thinking that it's your drivers and not Windows. Some drivers for Vista are still rife with issues that are being slowly patched as Microsoft continues its work on Windows 7.

Maybe these JIRA reports might be of more assistance?

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-8014
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-8717

I updated my drivers, at least the ones I can find, I uninstalled and reinstalled SL, and I'm running it in XP compatablity mode. I'm still having the same problem. I submitted a ticket about four days ago, with no response so far. Someone please help. The clumps of hair I'm pulling out are starting to pile up.