Also A graphics card problem

I already tried to contact support sveral times, but don't get response back, maybe they are busy, but I hope somebody can help me here.

I bought recently a new computer, and it requires all the nessecairy systems to play the game, but it keeps crashing, my thoughts are that it is my graphicscard, which is a SIS M 760 GX, 64 mb. I don't see it in the list of supported cards. But i don't see the problem. Al graphic cards should image the same view, right?

If this aint the problem it keeps crashing after precaching, what is it then? This one is even better then the other one i use to play on, i never had any problems with it.

Does this mean i cannot play the game on my laptop, cos if soo........ I will cry . Will this cart soon be added in the list of graphic cards?

Yeah

*hands you a tissue*

Will this cart soon be added in the list of graphic cards?

Doubtful. Looks like a rather limited card with a small amount of memory.

Probably not, no. I can't find much information on it right off, but it looks like it's pretty limited. It's not likely to be supported, in my opinion.

Though it's more the case that they don't support us (and the graphics rendering standard we're using, OpenGL)...

Yes, Lee's right. To elaborate on what I was saying before, video chipsets that are "supported" in SL are ones where the drivers either support the OpenGL extensions they claim to, or, as in the case of Intel extreme cards, where the Lindens have hacked a workaround to make SL ignore the broken parts.

That's why some users are able to run SL on non-Nvidia/ATI/Intel hardware without problems, because their hardware and drivers support the OpenGL features SL makes use of, or they don't support them and don't claim to, so SL doesn't try to use them. It's partial or broken OpenGL implementations where things break down. Unfortunately, that covers just about all of them -- video drivers really suck.

Can somebody explain it better, open GL? hmm you talk acra kadabra for me... +

It's a special way to draw graphics

Don't quote me, but I think it goes a little something like this...

OpenGL is a "Graphics Library" - a set of commands for drawing graphics, in particular 3D ones. It is an "Industry Standard" which means lots of people use it so it's supported in many applications.

There's another one called "DirectX" by Microsoft which uses "Direct 3D".

Now, this is the bit not to quote me on, but I think is right. I'm sure someone will cloobat me if I'm wrong:

If SL was written in DirectX, it'd probably run on more graphics cards for Windows, but Mac OSX does not support DirectX, it supports "OpenGL". So in order to save having to completely rewrite the SL client for Mac OSX, LL chose to do the graphics in OpenGL which makes it easier to write two clients.. one for each platform. It also means if they want to expand into Linux or another operating system in the future they can do so much more easily since there tends to be OpenGL support in more operating systems. DirectX is Microsoft-only and although it can be sort of emulated (faked) on other systems, Microsoft can change the way it works tomorrow so it no longer works on other systems (they are not well-known for making their stuff so it works everywhere -- usually only on Windows).

So the choice comes down to:
A) Write it so it works on lots and lots of Windows cards but Mac OSX and other people miss out.
or
B) Write it so it works on the majority of most 'modern' computer's graphics cards and also is able to be used on other systems.

LL chose (B) for 50 points and a holiday to Fiji.

Sorry not responding, but internet, well isn't here in Canada available for me atm Anyway, I checked my computer, but my open gl seems to be closed (woot, correct me if I make some mistake here) Is there a way to open it up? Cos this is required for SL and even "sigh" other games too

----> wants to go back to Holland to his old fashioned computer, where SL runs at least. And I am missing all my buddies in SL

Well, what happens when you try to run SL? What does it say? Does it crash? Does something else happen? Do you know what video card you have?

heh. erm "OpenGL" is just a name.

The "Open" it refers to means "Open Source" which means many people can contribute to and use it without paying license fees. Such as when people in SL publish their scripts for free on the forum. Free for use, abuse and changing.

Microsoft's DirectX is "Closed Source" which means only Microsoft and those whom MS deem 'worthy' may have access to the code.

But back to the question.

Cath: no, it loads up, trying to load the screen and shuts down at the moment the image should appear (that is my graph card, i guess) For the vid cart, check my first posrt in this thread.

then the opengl. Is there a way to change that the so called "opengl" get's open instead of closed.... cos I am getting messed up now... you are throwing way to many info to my head, and it aint clear now already due to alcohol.... *smirks and takes a sip out of the bottle of wine*

Open GL is just in plain words a Refrence terms to a language used by the games and graphics cards to share instructions on how to do things.
There is no way your card will be running Second Life.
If you can return the Laptop get one with a Nvidia or ATI based Graphics card in it, but honestly if your going for a decent bargin when buy a laptop, very doubtful you will get something that can run SL.

No, it's not something that can be "open" or "closed". "OpenGL" is just the name for the graphics library SL uses to draw a 3D image. The other common one is Direct3D. It's not "direct", that's just what it happens to have been named.

These libraries are a way for programmers to standardize their programs, so it's easier to work with, because they already know how to use it, even if they've never done work on SL. Standards are important, because they allow different programs and computers to communicate.

...which brings us to what's happening:

Suppose we want to communicate over a long distance. We could work out a system of dots and dashes with which to do it -- Morse code. Now, as long as we both agree on which dots and dashes translate to which letter or number, we can talk to each other. However, if we change the system, adding other characters, like punctuation marks, we need to make sure we both understand it. If I say, "okay, I understand the new rules" and actually don't, then messages you send won't make sense to me.

What's happening with your video card is it says that yes, it DOES understand the code, and so SL says, "okay, then do this:" and gives it something to draw. The problem is, your video card only CLAIMS to understand the code, and doesn't actually meet the standard SL attempts to run. That's where things break.

So long story short, no, you're not going to get SL to run on an SiS video chipset. Its drivers (the software that communicates between the card and Windows) claim to support features SL uses, but they actually don't. Consequently, when SL attempts to use those features, the video card doesn't know how to handle them, and the program crashes.

help me now....

do I: 1. put my laptop for sale and buy a new one
2. Throw my laptop out of the window
3. Burn my laptop in the fireplace
4. Combining 2 and 3 and then 1
5. Crying and wait till he can use his normal computer at home in holland

Cath, thanks so much for your help on my matter.....

Personally, I'd try to get another laptop with a Nvidia video chipset. Your options may vary, however.

There is a way to get some openGL support without specific hardware support. However, the way has become outdated because openGL hardware support is very cheap these days.

Based on my testing, SL does something with the UI overlay that is officially supported in the Open GL specification but is implemented drasticly differently between ATI and Nvidia hardware. And ATI x300 card is supposed to be a bit better off than an Nvidia Geforce 2MX, but I've gotten the latter to run at 5-15 fps, while the former runs about at 1fps. The main difference is that the UI under ATI GPUs seems to really lag, even when typing.

the OpenGL support is written by the hardware makers to translate openGL instructions to their hardware's GPU. A long time back, when OpenGL was still called SGI Graphics Library, someone wrote a software only version of the GL called MesaGL, rebranded Mesa3D. it isn't 100% the same, but its intended to be compatible. Since that time, some harware accelleration support was worked in. Mainly for Voodoo 1 2 and 3 cards. However there's also a Direct3D 'driver' which maps Mesa3D onto Direct3D. Sis usually has some limited Direct3D support.

My brother once bought a toshiba laptop that compusa said was OpenGL compatible. It had a Trident Cyber3D 9294 or something like that. It turns out that Trident had no interest in supporting OpenGL, and Toshiba misrepresented that.

But these threads had helped me back then:
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:D8y-Fjd0LwgJ:www.altsoftware.com/products/opengl-directx.html+altogl&hl=en
http://www.glexcess.com/mesaalto.htm
http://opengl.gamedev.net/downloads.asp

Alt wrote the Mesa3D to Direct3D drivers. But they don't offer it for download anymore, because it's now part of the mesa3D source. You could download it and build it but that's a lot of work. I'm trying to locate someone who built it into the opengl.dll that a windows system would need.

You can pickup from here. Or you can decide that in the future you use only supported graphics cards where you KNOW you can get the openGL drivers for them.