strange sl and vista trouble

I upgraded my system to Windows Vista Ultimate. I have the latest working drivers for my ATI X1050, and then full 3d hardware acceleration. Also AERO works great. I just can't run SecondLife at all. When I launch it, I can see no window, SL client just look for hardware and then disappear... but it doesn't crash! in task manager it is still running... I just can't see the window... argh! someone can help me??

Sorry, I don't have a good answer. Bump to keep it on the first page.

For what it's worth ... go into device manager and make sure the ATI card is the only display device you have. If there is an onboard vidoe chip, it needs to be disabled.

Also, just to cover all the easy stuff, have you tried uninstalling Second Life then downloading it again? You may also want to try the windlight version (First Look ?? something like that) I have at times had problems with one but not the other.

Hi Maverick,

Firstly, I know nothing about Vista! heheh So I searched around and found this in an other thread posted by Dig Somme (hope he doesn't mind).

"Try this before you completely give up on Vista. I know most of you have probably already tried this, but I'll put it out in case you haven't.
-Right click on your desktop SL icon. (The one you use to start SL.)
-Select properties from the bottom of the list.
-Once the properties window opens, click on the "Compatibility" tab.
The following configuration worked for me, you may have to play with yours a bit to get it to work. Don't forget to press "Apply" or "Ok" each time you change the settings.

Settings:
*Run this program in compatibility for: [Windows XP(Service Pack2)]
*Disable Visual Themes
*Disable Desktop Composition"

Also, some people were saying that ATI users were having problems getting SL to work so you're not alone. Hope someone else jumps in...
Anywhooo, bump.

Ty guys.. I really tried all ... I tried all videocard drivers from ati website, I tried to deactivate graphic desktop enanchements, I tried windlight version, and I have not an integrated chip on my motherboard... It's very strange, it doesn't seem to be a videocard toruble... bc the window doesn't show up at all and the process of sl client runs without problems as i can see in task manager.. argh

Did you right click and select run as administrator? Sometimes that helps with Vista.

Yes, I started it as administrator, but nothing change. Btw the support of ati for my videocard is weird. Ati X1050 vista drivers in the cd don't work at all!! Ati Catalyst suites from 7.5 to 7.8 work great with my card. The newer Catalyst suites don't support 3d acceleration for my card as I can see from xdiag menu. I hope someone can help me

Dont use the drivers from the CD - Just throw it away, you will never need it

go to the ATI website and get the driver and software that are current On The Website!

that should fix your problem

and don't bother with compatability mode, its no fix at all.

Please let me know if the new ATI website software fixes it, Im kind of keeping track of Vista fixes....

FOr the record of the person that is keeping track of vista issues.

I played holy #*)) getting SL installed Vista kept telling me I didnt have permission to install it even though I was on an admin account and installing to a folder I created and had given full perms to. I finally had to boot into safe mode with network to download and install succesfully.

Running vista home and Dual ATI 1950s crossfire. SL runs fantastically. It was an install only problem

There is no answer to this problem. Basically, LL need to get their thumbs out of their rectums and actually make SL compatible with Vista (yes, yes, we've all read the blog where they say it has been compatible with Vista for months - but this issue proves them to be lying.)

In the mean time - make do with spending more time on the fora instead and living SL vicariously like many hundreds of us are having to do.

It's not a driver issue... I tried all drivers from ati website and from 7.8 version my card is not supported anymore, no 3d acceleration. BTW Catalyst 7.8 works great, with full 3d acceleration. I tried all, as I said in my last message but sl window simply still doesn't show up, the whole window, neither in the windows toolbar, even if the process run. It seems SL can't work on vista ultimate?

I'm running the Able edition that goes with 1.18.06 official build underneath on Vista Home Premium and having no problems so far. I just have a POS integrated 6150 NVidia video adapter and although I know you said ATI maybe this will help? I haven't used an ATI in a long time, so this entire post might be utterly useless but for what it's worth the Able viewers have never given me the problems with performance that the standard viewers have.

It is here: http://ablewhitman.blogspot.com/

Still I can't wait to go get my 8800GT next week

I don't suppose Ultimate upgrade did something daft like closing off a port in your firewall?
I read recently about one particular port that needs to be kept but have little knowledge on this, sorry.

I had similar problems trying to run the SL viewer with Vista Premium. It had worked OK for many months then back in December (after an updated viewer) it decided not to play. It would only ever work one time, after I did a reinstall and chose to run SL at the end of the insatllation. After logging out from SL it would never load again until I did another install over the old one.

At the same time I was also running the Windlight viewer and this all worked OK.

After trying all the usual driver updates, clearing out all SL stuff from the hard drive etc etc. my problem was resolved as per previous comments. I went into the properties of the SL shortcut (right click / properties) and in there chose to always run the program as an administrater. This works fine for me although it is annoying to have to give it adminstaror clearance every time it loads.

Have fun.

Damn Ati! They seems to have not noticed that the cards from X1050 to 1950 are not suported by earlier drivers... btw the same releases that don't work with vista (from 7.9 to 8.1) works well under windows xp... I'm hating ATI drivers suport (I had similar troubles with a radeon 7500 also). btw nothing seems to work for me. I'm stuck to the version 7.8 of Catalyst... and sl keeps on not to work. I can't see no window when I launch it. someone of you with similar trouble could see at least the window?

Ehm... I tried also the unofficial Able Edition... nothing changed

Have you done a clean install of vista?

I tried upgrading XP when Vista came out, It didn't work well

so.... I save my imprtant files to CD and did a clean install, downloaded the updated drivers and all was well in the world...

yeah mine is a clean installation of Vista Ultimate. Anyway even if SL is still not working, I found a solution for the strange Ati radeon X1050 problem reading this ati support page:
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31542
Now sl say that my videocard is not supported (an ati X1050!). Now it decided so. Unbelievable.

Now I know, damn Ati... this hotfix completely deactivates opengl support as I can see using OpenGL Extension Viewer... bah I'm hating ati support. ty guys

In effect today I tried also GPU Caps Viewer... and the version of OpenGL is 1.1 (it is a generic GDI OpenGL, not that one of my card, and it has only 2 extension!)
What I have to do? Is it possible that the file atioglxx.dll is not correctly registered?