Shiny or no Shiny...That's the Question...

Hi all,

Its coming on my ninth month here in SL, and all this time I've never been able to see the shiny that many folks use when creating objects in SL. Under Preferences the box that usually allows you to check or uncheck all the things you want/don't want going on - the shiny option along with a few other things has always been greyed out.

I figured it was my semi-craptacular vid/graphics card I have and left it at that. However while helping me with another matter, I asked Kona Linden about it, and he checked my card and said that really I should be able to see shiny - but alas - I still cant.

SO!

I have to shell out another 100 - 150 bucks to get a better card I GUESS. That doesn't seem a lot, but to me it is. But I've been missing out on a key part of SL, so I'll eventually go ahead and upgrade when the cash flow is correct.

Why am I writing this? I'd like to know if anyone out there knows if I'm missing something, the right drivers, chipsets, DirectX wtf ever that I might tweak or upgrade or something that might work with my current equipment before I go spending.

AND

A plea to LL for MORE SPECIFICS on exactly what sort of stuff is needed specifically to allow residents to see shiny - posted on the Requirements section. There is a grey area between the basic requirements to be able to get SL functioning to the uber expensive ideal requirements, that I think should be filled in.

Not everyone can get the honkin gear, but I think somewhere in between those two extremes a person can be able to see the beauty around them in SL without goin broke.

Thanks for listing to my rambling
~BC
My System:
Brand New as of 9 months ago
Dell Dimension 4600
Pentium(R) 4
3.06GHz, 256 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 card
Windows XP
DirectX 9

PS: go easy on any technical lingo - I'm a wanna be geek, but really no clue about all of this for the most part. basic english works best ty

You could see if the newest drivers from Nvidia help. I have a GeForce 5200 too, and I see teh shiny fine... (when I'm logged in at least)...

Brace, are you running on the latest version of the nVidia Detonator drivers for your video card? If not, go here to get the newest:

http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp



Also... what else is greyed out?

Hmm on the PC I'm on now when I log into SL everything goes blurry and after 2 minutes of logging in I crash and it won't let me log in again until I restart. But its always been screwy

WOOT

ty Sio and Tor!

will try those out and see wha happen

*crosses fingers chanting shiny shiny shiny......*

i would of saved the WOOT for if it worked personally...

I used to suffer from loss of shiny until Dan Linden cured me with this email.


We turn off some features if you have 256M of memory because they tend to crash or run very slow. You can turn bump/shiny on again at your own risk:

remove this line
RenderObjectBump FALSE

from
C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\ApplicationData\SecondLife\user_settings\settings.ini

There is a command line argument or some other way to force the client to redetect the GFX card.

What also should help, in that case, is completely deinstalling the client and then reinstalling it.. should force the redetect, too

*meow*
Leopard Loveless

In my ideosyncratic aesthetic opinion, you aren't missing much by "no shiny". But try as recommended above, see if ya like it and then upgrade your card. Note that nVidia's marketing department went crazy with model numbers so: 5200 is hardly better than 4200 and FX is code for "like a 5200 only with certain capabilities disabled".

I wish could point you at a source for real reviews.

Er... all the 5x00 series were FX ... the disabled ones were the MX ones.

Tor: The other stuff that's greyed out is - Ripple Water, ALL the stuff under Avatar renderings

martin: I tend to WOOT at the drop of a hat

Leopard: I've re-installed SL like TWICE since I started - no change but TY for the suggestion *petpet*

Buck: TY I'll try that too, since for the Nth time I downloaded the latest drivers and nuttin happened.

Am I supposed to manually toggle or tweak somethin?? GAH!!

Malachai: In MY opinion, I'm missing MUCH. For one, I really can't take my yearning to design to the next levels: jewelry, interesting accessories etc or even sculpture, and I think my pals are gettin TIRED of takin pics of stuff for me to see how stuff is actually looking like.

eg: someone shows me their honkin new plane. I'm like umm how um pretty? (Its just a big black blank matte mass to me) Then they take a pic and WOAH!! Contours, shinyness and beeeyooooteeeeee mmm

WOOOT!!!

ok this adventure begins anew......will lecha know what all happens and THANKS !

I love this place - lotsa helpful ppls for newless cloobs lika me

WOW chucking that line from the .ini file did the trick

THANK YOU!


Woooty WOOT!

I can finally see the LOVELY sculpture my One Ariel created as it SHOULD be, and not from a pic

Check it out below

Yep, Mondes need their shiny.

Its like, in the family by-laws or something.

Shine is such an interesting and useful design element. My robot avatar looks nowhere near as interesting without the metallic highlighting that shiny gives.

I rate shiny objects as one of the most critical of eyecandy options. Very good thread for folks having trouble enabling this critical prettiness.