Visual Problem

I'm sorry if this was asked and answered somewhere else, but I don't even know what to search on to find an answer. This is difficult to describe. Sometimes my image of SL will flake out. I'll turn one click to the left or right and suddenly it looks like I'm standing in middle of a hill, but burried up to my waist. One click back and everything is fine. It's similar to what happens if you turn when you are too close to a wall, but I'll get it when I'm not standing next to a wall.

Does this make sense to anybody? If somebody could point me to an answer, I'd be very appreciative.

Malcom

Hi Malcom, and welcome to the forums!

Your problem sounds a little confusing; I don't think I quite get it. Post your operating system and version of Second Life that you're running, as well as a more detailed description of your problem? Can you reproduce it regularly? What are the steps to take to reproduce it?

And again, welcome!

Does it look like this?

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3258

You can use the Snapshot feature to take a picture of what is happening to you and save it to your hard drive. You can then upload this picture into an imaging hosting site such as www.tinypic.com Once you upload it, you can paste the URL here so we can see what you mean.

Here's with the problem:

http://i13.tinypic.com/85zor52.jpg

If I take a couple of clicks to the side it goes away:

http://i10.tinypic.com/6si7uo4.jpg

It occurs randomly and frequently.

Welcome to the forums, Malcom.

That is very odd. I've had this on occasion, but not repeatedly for long periods of time. Does it happen everywhere, or just in certain places?

First some general tips:

I suggest posting the errors in the "Technical Issues" forum (You'll find it further down the list of forums). Also do a search there for 'artifacts' or 'graphics glitch' and for the brand and type of your gfx card.

To really diagnose the problem. You need to give a little more info on your system in your post there too, like:
- Type of computer (PC/Mac)
- What hardware you're using (brand and model of graphics card
- What OS you're running
etc.

Also make sure you're running the latest version of your graphics card drivers etc.


Now on to the problem:

It's hard to judge from the one pic, but it could be artifacts from the gfx card. This can have several reasons.

1. Overheating of the gfx card.
2. Bad drivers

Does it happen immediately or can you usually run fine and it starts happening after running SL for a while? (points to overheated gfx card)
Do you see these same or comparable glitches in other 3d software / games?
Did you overclock your gfx card?

I detect a slight marble patern, which suggests to me your cammera was too close to a wall, or possiblely some other structure, or the owner did something funny with volumetric shadows... in either case your vid card caught and misinterpreted the edge and drew it wrong (either as being in a different position or having less transparency)... but that's just a guess

Try Edit / Preferences / Adv Graphics and uncheck "Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects".

(Or if you happen to be using the WindLight viewer, you'll find it under: Edit / Preferences / Graphics / Hardware Options)

My first guess would be one or more of the following:

1. Bad graphics card drivers

2. Graphics card not fully SL compliant

3. Overheating graphics card


Malcom, several people have asked you to post your system specs. Please do so. There's no way we can eliminate the above three possibilities to settle on the real problem without knowing what you've got under the hood. A full spec list would be best, but a very minimum, we need to know the following:

What OS?

What graphics card? (make & model)

When's the last time you updated the graphics card drivers?

What SL viewer are you using? (Linden Lab standard viewer? Windlight? Third party?)