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Is my graphics card not compatable with "shiny objects"?
Foxknight Graff
Registered User
Join date: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 5
10-12-2005 17:28
...because its greyed out.

I have a Radeon 9200SE and I have the latest drivers.
Sitearm Madonna
Registered User
Join date: 6 Oct 2005
Posts: 535
10-12-2005 17:44
Hm... sounds right, has 32MB ram or higher?

Have you checked the "shiny" checkbox on your video preferences? <ctrl-p>
From: Foxknight Graff
...because its greyed out.


I have a Radeon 9200SE and I have the latest drivers.
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... software packages, acting in society... life creating, and accepted, and widely... spread throughout the world... freeing, liberating... allow... each person individual control and decision making... to create living structure... wherever they are. / Christopher Alexander, 1996
Michael Martinez
Don't poke me!
Join date: 28 Jul 2004
Posts: 515
10-12-2005 18:35
How much memory do you have in your machine?

If you have 256 or less then option is turned off as well..
Foxknight Graff
Registered User
Join date: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 5
10-12-2005 19:03
My video card has 128MB of memory and I have 256MB of RAM.

I'm also using Windows 2000 and I think that there could be some hidden system resources that could be making it come up as less. One time I did a memory test and it read that I only had 240MB of RAM. Do you think that I can have shiny objects enabled and get better performance with a fresh install of win98 or can I use win98 at all?
Sitearm Madonna
Registered User
Join date: 6 Oct 2005
Posts: 535
10-12-2005 19:53
Can't run sl client on win98.

Why not just go XP?

p.s. I am reading these things off the sysreqs web page.

From: Foxknight Graff
My video card has 128MB of memory and I have 256MB of RAM.

I'm also using Windows 2000 and I think that there could be some hidden system resources that could be making it come up as less. One time I did a memory test and it read that I only had 240MB of RAM. Do you think that I can have shiny objects enabled and get better performance with a fresh install of win98 or can I use win98 at all?
_____________________
... software packages, acting in society... life creating, and accepted, and widely... spread throughout the world... freeing, liberating... allow... each person individual control and decision making... to create living structure... wherever they are. / Christopher Alexander, 1996
Foxknight Graff
Registered User
Join date: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 5
10-12-2005 20:11
Because XP hogs a lot more resources. Thats why.
Sitearm Madonna
Registered User
Join date: 6 Oct 2005
Posts: 535
10-12-2005 20:16
?

1. Sounds like 2000 is doing that to you anyway?
2. Haven't had that problem... I have XP on a 1-2 year old desktop and a 4-5 year old laptop and they both run great.

but to each their own

From: Foxknight Graff
Because XP hogs a lot more resources. Thats why.
_____________________
... software packages, acting in society... life creating, and accepted, and widely... spread throughout the world... freeing, liberating... allow... each person individual control and decision making... to create living structure... wherever they are. / Christopher Alexander, 1996
Foxknight Graff
Registered User
Join date: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 5
10-12-2005 20:36
But it would hog resources a lot more than what 2000 would. I may concider using XP when I upgrade pass a 3 Gig processer.

From: Sitearm Madonna
?
1. Sounds like 2000 is doing that to you anyway?
Mike Westerburg
Who, What, Where?
Join date: 2 May 2004
Posts: 317
10-13-2005 06:15
Who manufactured your mainboard? Did you get the latest chipset drivers from the manufacturer? Is your video card 100% supported by the mainboard? Often times video cards and their associated features do not work as expected due to out of date mainboard chipset drivers or the video card was tested and has been deemed non-compatable with the mainboard's BIOS/Core Chipset. Best bet to be sure is to check the web page of the mainboard's manufaturer and look for the Hardware Compatability List for your mainboard model. Each of the big time manufactureres offer this HCL.
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Mike Westerburg
Who, What, Where?
Join date: 2 May 2004
Posts: 317
10-13-2005 06:28
From: Foxknight Graff
But it would hog resources a lot more than what 2000 would. I may concider using XP when I upgrade pass a 3 Gig processer.



I would disagree with this statement for the reason below:

I am running an AMD Athlon 1.4GHz with 512MB RAM, an nVidia 4000 128MB DDR with local lighting and shinyness turned on using an XP box and SL runs pretty decently for me. Mainboard is an old MSI K7T Pro Limited Edition vith a VIA chipset. All pushed out through Cable Modem.
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"Life throws you a lemon, you make lemonade and then plant the seeds"
Michael Martinez
Don't poke me!
Join date: 28 Jul 2004
Posts: 515
10-13-2005 08:08
You have 256 megs of ram (in your system not your video card) that is why the option is disabled..

You can enable if you want, but at your own risk (bad performance)...

In the secondlife folder, there is a file called featuretable.txt...

in this section :

//
// RAM based feature masks
//
// Avatar and object bump mapping can't be enabled (too little video memory)
list RAM256MB

change the 0 0 for RenderObjectBump to 1 1 ( first 1 sets so can be changed, second 1 enables it by default)

But if you want this enabled as your system can do it if you had more ram. 256 is the bare minimum in todays world, jump to atleast 512 and you will get these options without the hack... Good Luck.
Rodrick Harrington
Registered User
Join date: 9 Jul 2005
Posts: 150
10-13-2005 13:20
From: Foxknight Graff
But it would hog resources a lot more than what 2000 would. I may concider using XP when I upgrade pass a 3 Gig processer.


Though the resource requirements are higher for XP, I actually have witnessed a performance increase by going to XP, across the board each machine I have upgraded, might be worth a try. (though has nothing to do with 2L)
Foxknight Graff
Registered User
Join date: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 5
10-15-2005 01:12
From: Michael Martinez
You have 256 megs of ram (in your system not your video card) that is why the option is disabled..

You can enable if you want, but at your own risk (bad performance)...

In the secondlife folder, there is a file called featuretable.txt...

in this section :

//
// RAM based feature masks
//
// Avatar and object bump mapping can't be enabled (too little video memory)
list RAM256MB

change the 0 0 for RenderObjectBump to 1 1 ( first 1 sets so can be changed, second 1 enables it by default)

But if you want this enabled as your system can do it if you had more ram. 256 is the bare minimum in todays world, jump to atleast 512 and you will get these options without the hack... Good Luck.


Thank you very much and I'm not receiving a noticeable performance decrease either.

From: Rodrick Harrington
Though the resource requirements are higher for XP, I actually have witnessed a performance increase by going to XP, across the board each machine I have upgraded, might be worth a try. (though has nothing to do with 2L)
It depends on the type of program and weather or not it requires a feature specific to XP. From what I've tested, all the games that I had that supported win98 as the minimum requirement and win2000 and XP as the recommended requirement actually ran best in win98 but I imagine that the reason for this is that the win98 uses a lot less memory, so there more memory left for the game to use. I use a slightly tweaked version of windows 2000 that has many hidden system tasks disabled so I have more memory to spare. After I removed the tasks, noticed a significant permormance boost in my games and playing flash movies and little boost with Photoshop. Also, I have win98 installed too but with a win95 shell and Internet Explorer uninstalled. It boots up in less than 5 seconds (2 seconds before I installed my video card drivers) and UT2004 runs like a beast in it. :)
Lee Linden
llBuildMonkey();
Join date: 31 Dec 1969
Posts: 743
10-17-2005 13:40
Well, as always, if you're not running Win2k SP4 or WinXP SP2, we can't provide effective support.

Just have to be the spoilsport here. ;^)