Can anyone help?

Hello guys

Can anyone help us figure out why my husband is seeing strange geometrical shapes on his screen? They are different colours, i haven't seen anything like this before (His Graphics Card is ATIpowercolor x1650 512mbs), I’m attaching a photo..

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/secondlife.foruns/picture001.jpg

I was trying to help him and I also got a problem now, the objects and avatars on screen can’t stop blinking, there is no colours being emitted on mine, my case is just non-stop blinking on the screen.

We know about the ‘Show Update’ button and unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be related to that, and we looked at his and mine ‘Show Updates’ now but they are off.
If anyone has any suggestions of what those problems might be, we’d really appreciate the help.

I can't quite be sure what's wrong - are your video card drivers up to date?

That is the first thing I'd check and go from there.

Anyone else solve this?

Saw another thread like this yesterday:

/327/32/256065/1.html

Hi Desmond, yes he updated the drive on the website of the card’s manufacturer, the latest update available there..but thanks for trying to help.

Hi Isabella. Have you tried turning off VBO (Vertex Buffer Objects)?

Edit/Preferences/Graphics (custom). Choose the Hardware options button in the bottom right of the dialog, you should uncheck VBO (it is on by default, I believe).

Many ATI graphics cards have issues with VBO.
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Thanks Teejay, we're taking a look at the link you gave us to see if we find a way to stop this.

to show image

Yep, that's the VBO problem with ATI. If you turn them off, bizarrely, you may also get a slight performance improvement, Isabela.
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Hi Nika, he tried the VB0 thing and now the shapes stopped, is all working fine for him, thank you so much

Thanks to Teejay and Desmond too and also Amaranthim for making the photo link visible, I didn’t know how to do this.

If you guys have any idea on how to stop my blinking problem please let me know, I can’t seem to stop my objects and avatars from doing this.
Hope you all have a great day!

It's odd that we've seen 3 or 4 of these Vertex Buffer problems come up all in the last week. Maybe it's a problem with the new 1.20 or whatever version we're on now?

Isabela, what do you mean exactly by "blinking?" Like, the objects/avatars are there, then not there?

[Edit: What exactly DOES the Vertex Buffer option do? In plain English?]

You're quite welcome...



Visine?

I'm far from the most qualified person here to do this, but maybe that'll mean I have a better chance at sticking to Plain English

Essentially, Vertex Buffer Objects are a new, more efficient way to store and transfer 3D vertex data to your video card for rendering. It has to do with selecting one of 3 modes depending on the circumstances (static objects vs. moving objects that will need to be redrawn quickly and stuff like that), the ability to use new types of arrays to store the data, and the ability to create reusable buffers in your video card memory instead of creating a new temporary buffer every time you need one.

Whether or not that made sense, the idea is simply to increase performance - it's not gonna make SL look any different. The problem is, these new ways of handling data need to be supported by your video card hardware and drivers, and that support is incomplete and somewhat flaky on many video cards at this point.

Awesome explanation, Anti, thanks! So it's just the ATI cards that do this? Why? Does ATI have new drivers that fix this? Is it anything to do with drivers?

You bet, dunno, no idea, maybe, probably

Sorry, I haven't upgraded in a year+ so I'm out of the loop as far as current hardware and driver issues go. Maybe someone will pipe in, or it might just be a matter of searching forum threads and seeing what trends pop up.

FWIW: ATI Radeon X1900 XT, no problems here. To complicate matters I use the 3rd-party Omega drivers, which aren't updated as often as the official drivers but seem to be rock-solid on my system. I wouldn't recommend jumping to non-official drivers though, without some research, I also don't play any games less than a couple years old so there may be issues I don't know about.

do u mean blink or shimmer.. with the new update.. the hair on my avi shimmers .. makes it look like glow worms are in it

Hi Oryx and Konnie,

At the moment all objects and avatars, are literally blinking on my screen, unfortunately is not shimmering, is more like the blinking lights of a Disco but without the colours, is non-stop. The objects and avatars do disappear but is just for 1 second, this happens very quickly. After looking at the screen for a while your eyes begin to hurt a little.
To make things worst, when I click on the objects, like to seat down for example, or try edit them or my appearance, nothing happens.
I think I probably hit some wrong key on the keyboard before but can’t figure out how to fix this.
If anyone had a similar problem and can help please let me know, is a bit hard to stare at the screen the way it is now.