own avatar texture corruption on Geforce 6800's?

My friend, new to SL, bought a shiny new Geforce 6800... latest drivers.

When he uses SL, everything works fine, except for HIS avatar. His clothes and his skin are blotchy, screwed up, and generally ugly.

He tried deleting the cache, uninstalling SL completely, etc. etc., to no avail.

Any ideas?

LF

I am using a 6800GT without issues (3.2ghz p4, 1gb ram). Do you have system specs?

It's probably a problem with his video RAM. Either it's overheating, or isn't getting the proper power. (Or is just broken.) Your friend should download and install the Nvidia Coolbits registry "hack" (or enter it into his registry manually) which will enable the clockspeed tab in the Nvidia properties applet under Display > System. He should then try underclocking his video RAM. This will allow him to know if it's likely a cooling issue or not.

Other than that, the complete system specs would help. Particularly important are the exact make and model of video card and power supply.

i reccomend trying out the latest nvidia in testing drivers (available on their developer site, www.nzone.com) also he may want to try puttin on a whole body outfit from the library folder (like the fireman etc) to see if that helps

I'm in-world with him now...

Going into appearance mode, getting totally naked, and making new clothes works for about 5 minutes, but then his avatar will randomly corrupt again.

His comp specs:

AMD 3000 xp +
1024 MB DDR Ram
BFG Tech Geforce6800 oc

Hmm, he says his power supply is "either a 250 or a 300 watt, whatever came with the computer". it used to be an HP computer prior to his case-modding and Geforce purchase.

Power supply, then?

LF

I would concur , the AMD and the 6800 will place additional load on Power Supply and may cause these problems. Try the software fixes first ,as its much easier. Then check for dust bunny , ventilation issues. Then seriously think about a PS upgrade as Spec is 300W minimum from BFG.

Honestly, booting up with a 300W PSU and a GeForce 6800 is impressive. I'd go with a PSU by Enermax or Antec, personally.

I am impressed as well. There is no way that should be working. I am using an Antec TruPower 330w on mine without any issues. Since he may be getting a new PS anyway, the 400w is more future proof.

Having exactly the same trouble with Geforce 6600...searching for an apparent patch on
nVIDEA website to no avail. Ideas anyone? Lord Darkholme

If your avatar's corrupted, it's likely an issue that your client has "baked" a copy of your skin (putting all those textures together) that's a bit goofed up. Try rebaking with these steps:

1) Right-click yourself and choose Appearance.
2) Click on the body part that's messed up.
3) Change something of that part. I suggest changing the color of a skin, or the length of a shirt or pants.
4) Click Save All, then Close.
5) Hopefully, you're un-corrupted. If you're not, you might disable antivirus, then uninstall and reinstall your graphics drivers.
6) You can go back to Appearance and set things back.

Hope this helps!

nvidia has not updated the 'core' drivers for basically 3 months now.. which is pretty unusual for them...

you can get more recent drivers from their software developers page i mentioned earlier (www.nzone.com)... look to downloads, and then 'beta drivers'

i was having some strange freezes for multiple seconds with corruption then resumes normally' kind of issues on my 6800 GT with the 'official' november drivers, with the most recent betas that has since been fixed

I had these problems about 2-3 months back, as did a lot of other people. It was discussed quite a bit. Try search the forums.

Calling Linden for help and tech supp resulted in the usual. Nothing.

It IS all a problem with the local "baking" of the layers, but forcing a rebake only hold for about 2 minutes, then I'm fucked up again with shredded clothes and mouths all over the face.

It's still a problem, so I'll just have to make do with my old Nvidia card

It really would be great if Linden would SERIOUSLY look into this, as the 6800 card is awesome.
But judging from the ATI issues, guess we're as fried as the ATI users.

/RR

An update...

He's tried everything with his 6800-equipped computer. Now he's on a laptop (different vid card entirely) and his avatar is STILL screwed up.

What now?

LF

Anytime the avatar is sent back to SL in a corrupted "baked" form, you'll have to go back into Appearance and change things and save... even if you're on a different computer.

As a reminder: nVidia drivers corrupt VERY easily. You MUST turn off antivirus, uninstall the previous drivers in the Control Panel, then install the new drivers before re-activating antivirus. Failure to do the steps in this order can result in corrupt drivers that may be a cause of borked textures.

Got exactly the same problem as you Lordfly - spent all weekend trying to fix it! - does your friend have a VIA chipset motherboard? If so then it's down to an incompatability between the VIA CPU to AGP controller & the 6800, looks like you have to replace it with a standard microsoft one in device manager. You can then install the latest nivida drivers (because without altering the controller the new ones just corrupts XP) go back in to SL & select an entirely different skin & hey presto it all works! Drop us a line if you want some help -a.