ATI & SL

I just re-installed SL and upgraded my account from a multiple-month hiatus and thought it would be fun to play again... wrong.

I had a ATI Radeon 9800XT (non-overclocked) w/ Catalyst 5.10 (the newest).
I *NOW* have a ATI Radeon X850 (non-overclocked) w/ Catalyst 5.10 after getting so sick of the problems and figuring I'd upgrade anyways.

BOTH are doing the following:
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1. A few minutes into game the video card will stop responding to driver commands. This causes a VPU recover error in windows. During this time, SL is locked up (but I can still hear music playing, etc.). I just can't see any changes on the screen. It takes a full minute or two to get the error, at which point I can re-enter SL (it minizes when error occurs) but unfortunately the program is no longer contacting the server or something, so I can't do a thing except look around.

2. I can close SL and start over, but then a few minutes into the game it happens again.
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As I said above, I went out tonight and even spent over $300 on a new card figuring it was the old 9800xt causing the problem, and I wanted to upgrade anyways.

More info:
1. Newest Direct-X is installed.
2. Newest ATI Catalyst drivers installed.
3. All WinXP Pro Updates are installed.
4. Soundcard driver is up to date.
5. Chipset drivers are up to date.
6. NO other game does this.
7. I've tried changing all sorts of video settings, from running minized to full-screen, to reducing graphics to increasing them, etc etc.
8. I've even changed desktop settings, such as changing to 16bit color on desktop.
9. DxDiag shows no errors on any tab, and all DirectDraw and Direct3d (7/8/9) tests run fine.
10. First video card was uninstalled in WinXp properly and the new card was installed w/ drivers properly installed via catalyst as opposed to windows finding them.
11. I even removed the side of my case to test for heat -- not it. The board's not even that hot.

ASUS A7v880 mobo (I think that's the right model, can't remember off top of my head)
ATI Radeon X850 w/ Catalyst 5.10
DirectX 9.0c
WinXP Pro w/ all updates
Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS Soundcard w/ newest drivers
AMD XP3000+ (non-overclocked.)

If you need any other info please ask. This is pissing me off.

Just happened again. This time I wasn't even in SL for 20 seconds.

dont use catalyst , especially for ati this place helps , www.omegadrivers.net

SL and ATI dont go well togeather unless

Just downloaded and installed latest OMEGA drivers. Just happened again 5 minutes into SL. (I uninstalled ATI drivers, rebooted, cancelled on WinXP popups about new hardware, then installed OMEGA, rebooted and tried to play.)

Ok, also tried setting the video settings back to windowed, that didn't help... in fact this time I even got a reboot. Awesome.

I just set AGP back to 4x (from 8x) and gonna see if that changes anything.

fun innit , what watt'age do you have on that pc, rebooting cause of software stress can be to low voltage delivered.

When i had ati cards, i always disabled the vpu recovery thing in control panel , it causes more trouble then it was worth.

Check your temperatures and make sure your power supply is big enough to handle that power hungry card.

Ok, after another restart and setting AGP to 4x it APPEARS to be working fine. We'll see how it goes when I set my video settings back to fullscreen and all that jazz. Thx.

I'd just like to say (don't ask me why, I don't know myself ):

I've only ever used SL on ATI cards and have never had any problems (well, discounting the occasional corrupted reflection map but that hasn't happened for ages now).

I actually have dual 7800 PCI express cards by Nvidia and I get the same problem. But, it depends on what area I'm in. What the issue is I have no clue, but it seems to affect all new video cards. (This may also be in part due to Nvidia and ATI's helping each other with cards).

Also, a thing I find very annoying with ATI drivers: After uninstalling the old drivers, use a program called Driver Cleaner (which is free) to make sure ALL the old driver files are gone. Then install the new ones. Failing to do so might cause errors, or it might not. Either way, using it will help you a lot when installing new ATI drivers.

Best tip though: Get a GeForce next time :x

If you're only using it for SL, fair enough. But last time I checked (which admittedly was over a year ago) ATI cards produced better quality 3D and crisper 2D.

I'm using an ATI Radeon 9800pro and I have zero problems. I'm using the catalyst drivers.

Actually I'm a 3d animator, and 2d animator. So far Nvidia has been the best card to have for it. ATI is more for gaming. But since I do both, well I think you get my point.

Neither card is better then the other, just depends on what you're using them for.

Well, obviously an Intense3D Wildcat would be the best graphics card to have, but I may be a bit biased. It's FUN to design $4000 graphics cards!

Anyway, I have the same crashbug. The fun part is that it's consistent -- it's getting hung up in one loop in atioglxx.dll. From the basic structure I saw in the debugger, it looks like SL runs an event-driven client similar to GLUT; GLUT calls a callback in SL, and SL initiates an OpenGL command that manages to hang the system. I have the stack trace for all of this, but I'm a bit swamped at the moment, so I haven't gone through to map the call locations to the functions exported by atioglxx.dll. It's very, very consistent, though, so anyone at LL can fire up their handy debugger and trace through the crashbug.

If there are any other techies with more experience with Windows dynamic linking, the crash is very very regular. Hit the client up with a debugger and trace. (Your Addresses May Vary, but at atioglxx.dll!0x692ff9ee it calls 692ff680, which never returns. If I manually set the conditions for return in the debugger, it unfreezes for a quick quarter-second, then returns to stick in the same place. The SL.exe function call that sets the OpenGL crash in motion is located at 00652f05() (well, that's where the stack trace indicates, which is as we all know, one instruction after the call)).

What would be REALLY helpful for us technical non-LL'ers is a map of the functions in that call stack; if the problem is in HandleFARClipPlane or something similar, we'd know where to start futzing with ATITool or the CCC to twist knobs. Then we'd find a generic fix, like "always set 24-bit Z buffer with CCC" and we'd be off. If life were only that simple. atiogldxx.dll only exports 22 functions, and they're relatively low-level.

I'm more than willing to provide more stack traces, etc., but I'm sure that's what the "Please Report Crash" dialog is doing, too. (And no, I don't submit crash reports when I've been debugging, so don't worry about wonky reports.) And after I finish grading Project 3, I wonder if they'd provide volunteer debuggers with with use of a symbol table in exchange for our promising to be White Hats. I'm a newbie, so I'd be willing to be paid in L$... (*grin*)

If I can stay in more than 30 seconds without crashing, I hope to meet some of you...
Jhounen

Welcome to SL Jhounen!

Like I said earlier, I've hardly had any crashes with my setup; so if there's any info I can provide you with to help with your tweakings just let me know.