I'm Sick And Tired of FREEZING

Okay, firstly I know that its the update. My computer ran great before this last update, I even put in more memory for BETTER performance. Mmmkay. All other applications run fine on my computer.

Here's the problem:
I log in, and freeze in a matter of 10 seconds. So I have to shut down the application. This is very annoying and frustrating. And it did NOT happen until this last update on Thursday, the small one. Yah, obviously there is a glitch going on or a bug, and YOU GUYS NEED TO FIX IT!

I'm running a
3000+ AMD Sempron Processor
1 GB DDR SDRAM
120 GB HARD DRIVE
NVIDIA GeForce 4 Graphics Card
Windows XP
---
I think I have a fast enough processor and card to run the program so please don't say I need to upgrade, because I know better. Thank you!

Also before anyone points out:

She did:

- update her drivers
- defrag her drive
- empty the cache
- reinstall SL
- try different settings
- upgraded the RAM
- tried not to do ANYTHING in SL
- I logged into her account to see if it was really the client and not some error with her characters ... worked fine for me (although I'm on a Mac ...)
- contact sl support via email (no reply yet after 3 or 4 days I believe)

Also we live on a private sim that is extremely lag free and low number of scripts etc but makes no difference.

What she experiences is some kind of lag spikes (not a shared internet connection or on a router) where she starts to lock up and then the whole client just completely freezes. It takes a while until she actually crashes and poofs out of the world and it seems to be completely at random. Sometimes she freezes just every 2 hours, sometimes every couple minutes and sometimes within seconds after login.

Other applications and games run perfectly fine (for example Sims 2 ..) and there are no other issues with her computer at all.

She has sent dozens and dozens of crash reports and I can only hope that they will be looked into (maybe it would be too much to ask for a reply saying they've identified the problem, know the bug or at least are looking into it?)

I don't know but it's driving her nuts, and me because I don't feel like there's any reason to stay in SL, keep my 1/4 sim land and pay for my premium account if this issue can not be worked out.

I understand that Linden Labs are trying their best but obviously in this case it's not enough and I can only hope that we will see some changes in QA and testing before release in the near future as I otherwise don't see myself playing SL anymore.

Thanks for reading through this and I hope these issues can be resolved.

Kind regards,
-C.T.

It may have to do with the fact that the processor is a Sempron. There was someone else who had a problem with a Celeron.

Processors are not only about speed. I suspect the problems may be related to the two processors having difficulty with the kind of tasking SL needs. I'm not sure how SL manages its tasks but I suspect it's very complex from a processor's point of view.

Unlike The Sims 2, SL is doing a lot of data transfer and decoding. It's also doing rather complex graphics data management. SL makes most games look simple by comparison.

The specs page says Pentium and Athlon 800s. Despite the low speed number I don't assume that Celerons and Semprons are in the clear because they're built differently.

Perhaps we can hear experiences from other users of Semprons and Celerons?

Interesting thought but if that were the issue I'm sure it would be listed in the known-issues or Lindens really need to update their requirements listings. Also we can not ignore the fact that it worked fine for her before last thursday for a long time and I doubt that there was such a major change in the code in one of the last two updates that it would suddenly render certain kinds of CPU's unusable for SL.

Thanks for the feedback though. More ideas are welcome

It is NOT my processor.. HELLO I COULD PLAY BEFORE THURSDAY FOLKS!!! It is a glitch that needs to be FIXED!!

If the case was my processor, I couldn't have played SL at all. Everything worked FINE before Thursday with the little patch update. It is a GLITCH that needs to be addressed. I am NOT the only person on this forum who is having this problem. If you read the other posts, people are having similar problems with different processors, etc. WE ALL COULD PLAY BEFORE THE PATCH ON THURSDAY OR THE UPDATE ON WEDNESDAY!

*depressed sigh*

True.

But the absence of specific mention of Sempron and Celeron tells me that we're dealing with unsupported hardware. Thus complicating the issue. If it is unsupported hardware LL will not put anything in the known issues section.

It might have been that they added something just recently that involved something that makes Celerons and Semprons choke. It doesn't have to be a major change in code. It takes only one piece of unsupported microprocessor code to choke an incompatible processor.

I'd still like to hear from other users of those processors. It's the only way we can paint an accurate picture.

It's too late now, but if a card or computer isn't supported for future updates, it shouldn't be allowed to begin with. At least, not with ample time to upgrade, like a 30 day or more warning that the game will be upgraded and certain cards and computers won't run it anymore. This is what the game EverQuest did. Some complained about having to upgrade, but most did it without complaint and some just couldn't afford to, so those customers were lost, at least until they could afford to upgrade. Every game should have some kind of Lite version, in my opinion. Most do have many options for turning off new graphics, textures and features, for instance EQ has old model characters and new model characters, toggle /showgrass and sky, even in the bazaar a /hide traders feature so you can walk around lag free. There are different settings for graphics....low, medium and high quality. Other games are even more detailed in the settings they offer. The customer has the choice of how to use their RAM. As far as the PC no longer running it....a Lite version could remedy that.

Since there was no announcement about a complete change to the graphics engine, I tend to think there are just some bugs that still need to be fixed.

I use an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro and can hardly move in the game now now. My computer runs EverQuest, EverQuest II and WoW with full graphics on and ran Second Life fine before the update and second bug fix update. Now I crash sometimes on teleporting, try to walk straight and walk in a random direction, try to stop walking and instead keep moving, press the fly button and won't fly sometimes, other times I can but then can't stop flying for awhile, can see into my neighbor's apartment, sink into my floor.....I guess that's it so far until I test some more....logged off to come post. Since walking is so choppy, how about giving us a skate feature? Flying is often choppy too and hard to maneuver. Skating just above the surface would be really sweet.

@Porsha

That's the thing that's intriguing me to no end. In just one update suddenly we have a vast difference in game performance. There are those like me experiencing absolutely no major problems and just little bugs like difficulty selecting textures. Then there are those experiencing lockups and behavior as if they were in the twilight zone.

The hard part is since the problem is not universal LL has a difficult time isolating it.

All we can do is hope that it's not an issue of processor because if so, there is no recourse but to upgrade. The specs page always said Pentium and Athlon.

Try making your way to Rieul or the sims southeast of that. Find out if the behavior is still the same, at least to eliminate the possibility that it's the location causing the problem.

Just got off the game again before I saw this reply. I do run a Pentium btw. Anyway, upon further investigation, I've surmised that my problem at the moment is nothing more than lag. Is SL running in diagnostic mode, perchance? This time I was able to port to some places. Maneuvering is still very difficult, and I still sink into the ground but pop back up after landing from Stop Flying. I can fly and stop now....I just have to give it time to get the commands. My dance animations aren't working though....or at least I didn't wait over one minute to see if they'd kick in. I think it's all just a lag problem for all of us and once that's cleared up, we'll be ok.

Well it maybe lag, but the lag is more like FROZEN! And if it is lag, why aren't other users in the same reigion getting the same lag/freeze as me? I just think that the last update had TONS of glitches and it affected a lot of us, and they just need to resolve the issue and quit telling us its on our end. I know good and well, that my processor is just fine for this game otherwise I would of never been able to play. I have played smoothly for months now. So yeah. Get off the "Its your computer" kick and do something about the glitch or problem.

could possibly be a firewall problem. Try turing your firewall off and see if that helps.

I'm running fine now as of Tuesday in the day and all night. My problem was just lag.

Nope, my firewall is set to allow SL. OKAY ITS WEDNESDAY AND GUESS WHAT!!! I STILL FREEZE AND CRASH!! Wow.. As soon as I download the update, I log on for 5 seconds and freeze, and crash. Wooptie doo. I want to know what the problem is NOW, or else I'm just going to quit Second Life. This is absolutely and utterly ridiculous. I am totally appauled by NO EMAIL SUPPORT, which I send in a complain and got NO response, and now I post of the forums and not ONE linden responds to my issue which has been on here for days now.

I posted what kind of system I have, which will run SL perfectly, OH and one other thing, all day yesterday I played JUST FINE WITHOUT ANY FREEZING, then last night around 8 PM EST I freeze and crash for an entire hour, then I'm okay again. NOW EXPLAIN THAT! Obviously my processor can handle SL, so thats not the case, or else I wouldn't of played ALL DAY yesterday, its not my computer.. IT IS A BUG!