A note about updating Video Drivers

If you are seeing graphical glitches or anything similar could you please make sure your graphics drivers are upto date first

For ati this is catalyst 6.4
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=640

and for nvidia this is 84.21
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_84.21.html

Some ati laptops are supported on the ati page
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=19546

ATi support the Windows XP Media Edition here
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=1154

NVidia support the Windows XP Media Edition here
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxpmce_81.98.html

omegadrivers.net also provide an ati driver based on catalyst 6.3 for laptops not listed above etc.

Also remember the minimum system requirements which can be seen here
http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php

Thanks
Milo

Actually there are more up to date drivers for nVidia:

• ForceWare 84.25 (Beta)
• ForceWare 84.26 (Leaked) <-- tested by NGOHq.com to be the fastest OEM nVidia driver in the 84.xx series, found bundled with some MSI cards.
• ForceWare 84.30 (Leaked)
• ForceWare 84.43 (Beta)

And NGOHq provides a really good 3rd party modified driver called NGO Optimized nVidia Driver. Current version of the NGO driver is 1.8426 and is based off the Forceware 84.26 driver since their tests concluded its the fastest of the 84.xx series. So far I've had really good results with this driver for my GeForceFX 5500 256mb AGP card. On the main grid I'm always in or near the 20's in FPS. For laptop users there are 2 guys on their forums who will further optimize the NGO driver for your setup.

NGO also makes optimized ATI drivers though being an nVidia user, I don't know how they compare to Omega.

EDIT: forgot to mension NGO also comes with two very usefull tools:

nHancer, an application profile editor. I used this to squeeze a few extra frames.

PCI Latency Tool, doesn't support PCI-e but works wonders for PCI/AGP cards who studder.

There is also a version for computers with the Winows XP Media Center Edition.

Yah us WMCE users are stuck with Forceware 81.98 it seems. I wonder if we can use the regular XP drivers?

I tried the regular Windows XP drivers with my WMCE computer and it didn't work as well as the WMCE drivers, especially in SL.

ATI recently released Catalyst 6.4.

Direct link to ATi Catalyst Mobility 6.4 drivers (laptop graphics cards) for XP Media Center Edition users that get rejected by the XP "compatibility check".

http://www.ati.com/online/mobilecatalyst/

I can verify that these drivers work flawlessly with MCE 2005 (and why wouldn't they? XP MCE is just a prettier and more bloated XP).

Hmm, I suppose that makes sense, its a different beast with the special TV needs. I just wish Nvidia didn't lag so far behind with it. But then I guess, the benefit to that is, when we do finally get the drivers, its already been mostly debugged by all teh regular users.

Heh

Any suggestions for the driverless world of Mac OS X users?

Namely, it seems that 1.9.1.16 now allows "some" cards to use vertex shaders, and others (ATI Mobility 9600 Radeon, 64 MB) not. Is there a way to enable these somehow by downloading a recommended patch? The ATI site is not clear at all about any available updates/patches/firmware upgrades for Mac laptop versions of their cards.

The avatar vertex program on 1.9.0 (and previous versions) always worked flawlessly, as well as the rippling effect.

little update. New drivers are available for nVidia users:

Forceware 84.56

NGO Optimized nVidia 1.8456

What is likely to be better, the Omega drivers or stock ATI drivers? (umm, there's another optimized driver I can't think of the name of.)

ATI's OEM drivers are pretty bad from what I can tell. There's 2 3rd party drivers for ATI that I'm aware of: Omega and NGO (they make both ATI & nVidia).

Would just like to note that Omegadrivers got hammered by an nVidia 'Cease and Desist'. They no longer are releasing nVidia drivers, and havn't been for a while now. Did NGO get spared?

Has anyone been running into problems with ati catalyst 6.4? I havn't really heard anything about it.

nVidia can't touch NGO, they're based outside the US and thus not affected by US copyright law. NGO countinues to roll out new versions. nVidia tried to attack them over the use of the name SLI in a program they hosted. They've removed the patch, but otherwise nothing came of it.

If you have a notebook computer that has ATI integrated graphics such as the Radeon XPress 200m (or, for that matter, a desktop with a Radeon XPress 200), your system is considered a "motherboard with ATI graphics" for purposes of getting a driver, not a "notebook with ATI graphics". It takes a different version of the ATI driver download, which includes drivers for the GART and southbridge as well as for the video interface itself.

The Radeon XPress 200 is not an officially supported device for Second Life, but I can report that it does work, both in 1.9.0 and in 1.9.1 Preview. Furthermore, performance seems to be increasing noticeably with each new ATI driver release; Catalyst 6.4 is visibly faster than 6.3, which in turn was better than what preceded it. Even with current drivers, it's slow, and you'll have to set most of the quality level settings all the way down to get even marginally acceptable performance. (Anisotropic filtering appears to have no bad effect on frame rate at all.) And for 1.9.0, turn the avatar vertex program OFF; turning it on totally kills performance.

If you own a desktop system with the Radeon XPress 200, you will improve your SL performance DRAMATICALLY by installing a good PCI Express video card. If you've got a laptop, there isn't much you can do to get better SL performance other than trade it in.

Another good set of 3rd Party drivers: XTreme-G. They make both nVidia and ATI optimized drivers available in both desktop and mobile optimizations. Bench marked the nVidia drivers and compaired them to my NGO drivers, the XG drivers outperformed in 3dmark2003 by 200 points in both stock and overclocked setups. Only problem I have is the XG drivers do not come with nHancer or PCI Latency Tool.

Also since 1.9.1 is more dependant on the videocard, overclocking should start affecting performance especially with vertex shaders. For example, some nVidia 6200 and the 6600LE chipsets that use the NV43 core can be softmodded or flashed into 6600GT level cards and those 4 extra pipelines can be unlocked (really helps the vertex shaders) upping it from 4x1 to 8x1. Some 6800GS cards can also have their exta pipelines unlocked allowing them to greatly exceed the 6800GT cards when overclocked. After unlocking any pipelines, generic GPU and VRAM overclocking should affect things.

XTreme-G drivers

I tried to OC my 6200 like you suggested ron. While it did give me more FPS, SL keeps freezing up for short periods of time. So i had to lower it. TES4: Oblivion works perfectly at highest settings. Right now the card is clocked at 350/655mhz. Thats the best i can get it without SL freezing up. All the problems are with SL.

I do still have noticable differences. My FPS went up a whole 4 points with Sl settings at minimal. If i turn on shaders i drop to single digits. Also I noticed Ripple Water and Shinyness no longer have toggles... I dont like having to turn on shaders to see that stuff cuz the shaders eat up my FPS and look terrible.

Did you try unlocking the extra pipelines or is your chipset an NV44 (64bit)? The NV44 chipset doesn't have pipelines to unlock. Unlocking the extra pipelines can really make the difference with your vertex shader issues if its an NV43 (128bit).

Im not sure what that meens but if you meen check the box next to the red dot, it was already checked before i began.


That tutorial you showed me was helpful but thats about as far as it got me since it was missing a image (badly linked). It was like "If your window looks like this *missing image* then congradualations!!!". heh..

New nVidia beta drivers have been leaked and so far they're looking pretty good. Versions 87.06 and 87.25 have been leaked out in the past few days and they're running smooth as silk. Installed them in my computer and wow, they run just as good FPS wise as my XG 84.56v2 Rev1 drivers and they haven't been tweaked yet! You can find them here .