Possible Intel Graphics Card vs SL Viewer fix

My computer is a Dell P4 Optiplex GX620, XP, with Intel 945G Graphics Card. Since the 1.16 release, I regularly got crashes within about 10 mins of starting SL where the display driver stopped working, the PC resolution went to 640x480 and I had to restart the PC to get things back to normal again.

HOWEVER - I've run SL successfully (ie no crashes - touch wood!) for about a month and a good number sessions since doing the stuff below:

1. Installed Nicholaz Beresford's viewer:
Current version in:
Installation instructions:

I understand that not everybody is happy trusting an open-source Scripter; but Nicholaz has a very good reputation and has contributed the most bug fixes to LL, as reported by Torley Linden: . You may well get good results if you only carry out points 2 & 3 below.

2. Installed an *older* version of the Graphics Card Driver.
The advice from LL was to make sure we had the latest drivers installed; when I'd checked my drivers with Dell/Intel, it had said that the one that was installed on my PC was newer than the one that I was trying to download, so I hadn't done anything. Then I read on one of the Blog posts that some people were having more problems with 1.14 after they downloaded the latest drivers from Intel.

So I went to the Intel site and downloaded the older Graphics Driver.
2.1 Go to and find the right Driver for your machine,
2.2 Install it as per instructions on

For me, this meant installing the A00 driver version 6.14.10.4299, to replace the 6.14.10.4332 version that was on my PC.

3. Amended some of my SL Preferences:
From some of what I've read, VBO and some Graphics settings might be contributing to the crashes.
3.1 Graphics Detail -
Disabled 'bumpmapped and shiny'
Avatar Rendering - normal
Lighting Detail - sun & moon only
Terrain Detail - low
3.2 Adv Graphics -
Disabled 'Enable VBO'
Reduced 'Max Particle Count' from 4096 to 96

Check out as well.

As I said, for me this has (hopefully) stopped the Graphics Card-induced crashes I hope it can help some others as well.

Thats fantastic work, and hopefully those that can only use a Intel welded in Graphics Chip will find this a good resolution.
From what I understand, when using a Dell, you should always get the GC drivers direct from them and not from the chip supplier, as they 'tweak' their MB's.