Transparent Avatars

A couple weeks or so ago, SL started getting weird on me. It was after some "update". My avatars all appear transparent or completely invisible. I'm pretty sure it's not my graphics drivers (ATI Radeon 2400 AGP) because they work fine with every other 3D game I try. LOTRO, etc. I have the latest version of the ATI drivers and I have tried just about every setting that SL has for graphics. I'm NOT going to get a new card just to compensate for Second Life's lousy programming. Can anyone make a suggestion that'll help before I just sell off my assets and quit the game? Oh yes, this happens in both Second Life and the release candidate.

I've had times when my avatar would be invisible..........only the prims I was wearing would show. From what I get from your post is that is what you are experiencing. There are a couple things you can do to see if it helps (the things I've done that stopped the problem for me).

1 Clear your cache
2 Rebake your textures
3 Check for new video drivers (even if you can play other games..........SL is unique)
4 Log into a quiet sim instead of your usual log in point
5 Defrag your hard drive

When someone says it's not their drivers or video card and refuses to explore the very real possibility that the problem is in those drivers (or cards), they shut off a lot of good suggestions from knowledgable people here. In fact, I'm not sure why I'm even attempting to help since you already excluded most everything I suggested.

But, give it a try..........it sure won't hurt. And if just may solve your issue.

I have a comperable problem.

As soon as any avatar is from a camera perspective
in front of an prim that has a partially or fully alphaed texture,
the avatars own textures become partially or fully transparent.

Most intrestingly it seems that zooming the cam out,
very far removes this effect...

That problem actually appeared,
after I put in a new graphics card:
an Ati Radeon 3650 (Athlon X2 4400Mhz, 4GB Ram, Win XP Pro SP3).

The card is running fine with LOTRO / EVE,
as well as The Witcher and NWN2.

After some further experiments it seems that the problem
lies primarily with the bump & shiny option.
I can reproduce the problem by switching it on / off.
Yet I still experienced the phenomenon suddenly once during testing
while the option was switched off,
without any chance to get rid of it again
until a restart of the client.

So far that is the only graphic option inside SL with a consistent effect,
on the problem.

I tried all the usual steps,
purging & reinstalling the graphic drivers aso..

Originally I planned to try an earlier catalyst version,
to check if it might be just a driver problem,
unfortunatly the 36x series is just supported since 0.2 builds..

So instead I tested client.

After cleaning the system from
any SL program or preference file and cache,
installed first the 18.0.5.3. version
with help of the nicholaz modification.
I hoped to find the culprit in windlight,
but even on this pre windlight client,
the problem still appeared..

So I guess there is probably a
problem with the Radeon HD 3650 and Sl...

I have yet to look into the available
debug settings for the SL client.

P.S.:
I just discovered this threat about some other issues,
I had with the 1800xt as well since maybe a month or two ago,
but not with the 3650...

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[edited with update]