ATI Radeon Issues

I have two laptops. One has a GeForce GO card with 64 MB of video memory, so obviously not a powerful video card, that runs SL pretty darn well, to the point that I can have local lighting on about 30% of the time and be happy.

My new computer is a bit of a beast, and has 128 MB ATI Radeon card. SL itself runs fine, but the moment I have to render an AV, including my own when not in MLook, I go from a 25-30 FPS to 2 FPS. At best.

This newer laptop is superior to the old one in every way, but I can't run SL for *censored* on it.

Any ideas?

ATI cards are known to have issues with SL, thats why i never bought one.

Regreatfully ATI & Their driver sets, do not Handle OpenGL very well, which is the rendering engine used by SL. Part of this problem is evident by having a AGP ATI Card and not being able to select the AGP option under graphics in prefrence. Every Driver Release from ATI is supposed to be getting a little closer with the OpenGL support but as of this moment, not much you can do, unless you find some custom driver sets by a third party

I've played SL on a Radeon 7200, 9600, and X800 GTO.

Never had any problems with OpenGL.

Tis easy to hack SL to enable AGP mode, although it's obvious why it's disabled when you do.

Check all drivers are upgraded correctly (no installing new ones on top of old ones)- GPU, Chipset and all, then compare performance.

This issue makes no sense to me what so ever. What is so wrong about ATI video cards?

I'm using an OLD Radeon 7200 card with 64m ram on it, that isn't even supported by SL (it complains every time I run the client but it STILL WORKS!) on a 1ghz Pentium III rig 512m RAM. I doesn't crash and burn, and is a lot more stable than my other more powerful PC.

My other computer has a Radeon 9600 XT w/ 128m RAM (2.1ghz Athlon XP, just bought new ram for it, 1gb RAM) and it's constantly crashing every DAY randomly. Especially when the sim I'm on is being shut down is often when it crashes on me. It's like it can't handle a forced logoff or something.

I have a laptop with an ATI video device. My solution was to use the drivers from my manufacturer. This made SL run, not very well, but at least it ran (I was using a hack to use the catalyst drivers prior to this, which I still have to do when I play WoW on it.)

I'm glad it's so easy for you...not everyone who plays the game knows their computer like so many techno geeks who play this game do. I know a lot about my pc, but I am no hacker/techno geek. So, instead of saying "it's so easy" why not share the how to of it? A link or instructions.

I have a friend with an ATI card, I think it's a 9550, but I am not sure. Her first problem is it requires at least a 350W powersupply and she's only running a 250 I think...So, that's going to be handled.

However, she keeps freezing, can't move very well and the game has become unplayable. NOW, the game was fine with her current setup before the last update...so what's up? Any ideas all you techno-savvy geeks got some ideas?

I second Lizbeth's question!

I have off-the shelf computers with ATI cards - I play enough to want better performance, but not enough to justify buying new cards. I'm not a geek and hesitate muchly to tamper with my pc.

It seems to me that if LL wants to bring more people to SL, they need to be more accessible to more basic types of computers. Not everyone wants to invest in a gaming machine, nor spend vast sums to upgrade their cards.

Well, not only investing in gaming machines. SL has such hit or miss performance with video cards, even witin manufacterers, that you can't be sure it will un well until you try it, and I'm frankly not wiling to return a computer because it won't run SL.

I can run FEAR, Rome: TOtal War, Hal Life 2, all on high settings, even HDR on HL2, and SL is nowhere near those, graphically.

Thi is an issue that alot of people have, th fact that SL causes some hardare to choke at random, and one that LL needs to ddresss. Sure, flexibleprims are great, but I'd rather be able to play on my top of the line laptop, so lets actually look aat compatibility issues, shall we?

another -.-
"i can run this game and this game, alot better then SL , so SL should to"

no game.. read NO GAME in exsistance has so much textures, and polygons as SL has, no one, period, talk about size?, games = small , SL mammoth.

Look up some avatars they have more polygons then entire map of any game, thats why its so insane heavy, games are optimized for performance tweaked and dont render what you cant see, SL is trying to do that now on 1.9.1 but not to good yet, SL is all user content so performance is bound to take a hit cause of all the millions of textures.

SL is pretty slacking on performance we all know, but youll never never get as good performance as a game, dont expect this to run 30-40fps unless you have a empty sim/no people

1 Sim SL can have 900-2000+mb just in textures show me a game that has that much when you account all the sims SL have .

The min requirement for SL is just bad, a few people in view can eat up 100's of ram due to all the details/textures/prims, can easy get 700-900mb ram use wich then chockes your pc , i havnt played a game that goes near that much and i play..alot

Ati is a card i wouldnt recommend for SL due to drivers, had one had more issues then id wanna count, flexiprims are sposedly able to be disabled in debug, havnt checked preview about it.

Ati - laptop - bad, you are using omegadrivers, after using a drivercleaner ?, really easy to get wierdness with drivers.

==== SL is ... not... a game so dont compare it to one ====

Well, to each their own. In my opinion, its a game; I play in my leisure for enjoyment. I do not intend to become a $L or US$ millionaire from my activities within.

Others see this as a platform; their springboard to wealth - and I wish them the best in their endeavors.

However, in order to build their empire within that platform, they need other players-residents willing to fork over $L. To that end, SL needs to provide a platform/game which the masses of non-geeks can easily use. Otherwise, they will join, become confused and wander away.

The checklist:

1) Does she have any problems with any other OpenGL games ?
2) Does she have any problems with any other DirectX games ? (if both are yes, then the problem is most likely with the hardware or drivers)
3) Are ALL her drivers up to date (make sure the correct chipset drivers are installed- incorrect chipset drivers can cause SL to take a hissy fit, BIOS generally doesn't need upgrading)
4) Does the problem exist in the 1.9.1 preview release ?
5) Are you installing the Catalyst or the Mobility drivers (it's a laptop, so the Mobility drivers should be installed)
6) Has she ruled out any other technical problems with the laptop ?

Hey SignpostMarv,

Know how i can get SL to work with my old IBM X31? So that I can play sl on the move.

It runs on a Mobility Radeon card with 16MB (the notebook equivalent of the Radeon VE/Radeon 7000).

I have tried the omega 3.8.231 drivers and also lowering the game perfomance but i still get no details. Anything else i can try, short of buying a new machine?

thx!

Get an error message trying to install SL that says "Outdated Intel Chipset"....wow, and this computer is <2 years old and has WinXP.

thanks!

Those are 2 totaly unrelated things.

If you are looking for the latest ATI drivers go to:

http://www.omegadrivers.net/ati/win2k_xp.php


If you are looking for the latest Intel drivers for your chipset:
http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=N&ProductID=816&DwnldID=9589&strOSs=44&OSFullName=Windows*%20XP%20Professional&lang=eng

Been having problems with random blanks and crashes while in SL - at first I'd put it down to CPU but having (I think) ruled that out this evening my attention turned to the ATI card...

First step, installed the latest Catalyst drivers from the ATI website. Version 6.4 now. But Second Life says that these drivers are much too old, and that I should install something more modern, like version.. er.. 3.8 or above. (!)

For the record, it seems to work fine. Not sure why SL takes such exception to the version number, though. (It didn't throw this error with the older ones, certainly.) The Catalyst software displays the driver version as "06.4" so maybe that's where the problem lies.

Ho hum. Anyway, fingers crossed that this will solve things.