Windows Vista

When is there going to be an update for Second Life that works with Windows Vista. I bought a new computer and found that the latest version of Second Life crashes immediately on entering the world. I have to keep my old computer just to run Second Life.

SL runs fine on Vista /assuming/ you have a video card and drivers that work with vista. That is the real problem.

What video card/chipset do you have? Have you DLed the latest driver for it from the video manufacturers website?

It always comes down to what video card you have and how current are your drivers. There seem to be only two major graphics card vendors that work with SL.......one is better than the other in most cases. It stems from Linden Labs rendering engine (openGL) which is understandable. But everytime theres a problem with SL and any operatiing system/graphics card the fingers always get pointed at those two systems. On the minimum requirements page for successful use of Second Life I haven't found anthing that says nVidia is the only graphics card that will work. So how are people who heard of Second Life and want to give it a shot supposed to know that?

I don't know the solution but it seems Linden Labs is quite content to just tell everyone to go out spend more money to get what will work..........after they have tried what they have (which, according to the minimum requirements posted meets the requirements). Not everyone is a geek and know that they must have a card with the best openGL engine for a program such as SL. It's easy to point fingers at everyone's computer when stuff doesn't work..........but it's not fair since according to the information available on the download page they have what is required.

Vista is new and a lot of hardware drivers will have to be put out to get programs to run correctly........happens with every new OS. That takes time of course. But Linden Labs knew about Vista for as long as I knew about Vista (probably longer since they are in the software business themeselves)...........where was any mention of Vista and Second Life not meshing like expected? Only after many have purchased new computers with the new Vista did LL decide to say......."oh, you might have problems with Vista. You should contact your manufacturer and get an nVidia card". They don't care. And now people who have brand new (and, in many cases, very powerful machines that should handle SL with ease) computers..........and can't run the program.

I don't believe Microsoft, ATI or nVidia are going to cater to Second Life. Maybe Second Life needs to sort of bend a little to accomodate those three much larger and more reputable companies? Second Life is not nearly large enough to dictate those manufacturers do anything for them.

What's the point? It leaves us out in the cold is the point.

i dunno ive never had any issues with either my ati or nvidia cards, altho my much nicer nvidia does alot better job

also its nice to know about vista, i knew about it well over a year before it came out, but since MS waited till the last moment to disclose details it really caught alot of developers off guard, fact is vista is new and theres a shit-ton of programs (mostly ones made by smaller companies) that simply dont work with it 100% with every possible combination of hardware

now its been a few months and these problems should be well underway to being fixed yes i do agree, and LL does need to get in gear over it, it took less time for them to have fixes out for the mactel machines, vista being basicly windows XP with even more bloat really shouldnt be that big of a deal and they are responsible for making it work with the new version of the biggest OS in the universe

It's not up to GFX companies to cater for specific games, just to ensure their hardware meets the standards of the rendering engines (DirectX and OpenGL). As it is, NVidia was the fastest to provide OpenGL hardware support for Vista which is nothing less than I expected. ATI was behind and undoubtedly has the buggier drivers of the two. That's just what ATI has always been, and will always be like.

Linden Lab can't really meet Microsoft halfway because they'd have to go *all* the way to DirectX .. which would be detrimental to Mac and Linux users. Therein lies the problem. Microsoft wants developers to choose DirectX over OpenGL and this is proving detrimental to software developers like Linden Lab who are trying to create truly cross-platform products.

Linden Lab could provide a graphics abstraction layer (like Multiverse) I suppose which would at least give users the choice of OpenGL or DirectX, but I imagine that would be a lot of work and give quite a performance hit.

2 new IBM T60 Laptops unboxed
1 with vista
1 with xp

both identical hardware

XP works fine vista crashes on startup

This is an SL issue

However SL runs with no problems on my 4 other pc's all with ati 7.5 drivers 2 with vista 2 with xp)

I am always amused when I hear statements like 'Vista is new', it was nearly 6 years in the making, more 3rd party companies were involved with the evolution of Vista, than any other OS in the history of the PC. What must be embarrasing is how many companies shoved out drivers that didn't work only at the point when the systems we going out the door.
ATI being the biggest offender. Mainly because they don't want to support OpenGL and want every 'game' producer to use DirectX10.
I dumped my ATI cards 6 months ago, when nVidia cards got better supported by SL, prior to which, ATI ruled the roost.

Vista in my book is an utter shambles, more eyecandy, less functionality and control, more accountability to some 3rd party overseer (Time Warner and Music Companies) checking if my mouse is compliant and whether its possible to steal some protected copyright music using its connection.

I threw the Vista CD in the bin, when it shutdown my soundcard because it said my headphones weren't compliant, and to harass the manufacturers for replacement Vista compatible versions.

Just because the computers are identical doesn't mean that it's an SL issue. In fact, if you look at what's identical, the only thing that isn't would be the drivers, not the computer or SL.

For me SL runs faster and more reliably in Vista than it did in XP, by about 10-20fps.

That isn't true. For a while, both Nvidia and ATI drivers were capable of detecting Doom 3 and modifying themselves for it. They may do so for other games, too.

Yeah, there are time when the graphics card companies realize certain bugs in a game are their fault, and other times when it's the game companies fault. Still though often even if the bug is the game companies fault, the graphics card company will still work with them to get it fixed.

My 2 cents: Its not just 1 thing. Its a combination of factors- drivers, hardware, OS's, RAM, video, sound, etc. Maybe even Northbridge/Southbridge? Who knows!

Look, honestly, I don't care about the debate between SL's fault and card company's faults. I'd really just like to enjoy playing SL, which I can't really do without a temp fix like the Corboso Client had going for awhile.

I've just had to get a new portable which came with Vista. Has an ATI Radeon Mobility x1300 and after a driver update is working with SL in windowed mode. Full screen works unless I do something (like uploading) that triggers a Vista dialog box. I suspect this might still be driver related as it seems to be switching to and from the full screen opengl display causing the issues.

Those are the specs of my system yet it doesn't even get a chance to run anything.

Mines an Acer Aspire 5103WLMi, I updated to latest bios and installed all the latest drivers. SL wouldn't run at all until I put the latest ATI drivers from Acer's site on it. This had it's own challenges as kept failing with no sensible error report to identify the problem. I ran the setup from a command prompt with the /VERBOSE_TRACE option and instead of giving me info on what was wrong, it just worked and fully installed the drivers. Then SL worked as described above.