Please Help

i have just bought a new computer its a dual core 2.4ghz with a ati x1650 pro card and for some reason i cant play second life. everytime i double click the icon to play it the second life screen flashing for a second then just shuts down. i have tried uninstalling adn reinstalling it and same thing happens. can someone help me out? thanks.

What's your OS? I don't have much advice but Vista + ATI has not been a happy combo. Maybe someone else will weigh in, or you can read the techical issues forum.

i do have vista. but i play microsoft flight simulator 10 and it works beautifully.

whats your ram size and your specs? i use vista and ati without (much) problems. are u on the latest driver (think 7.7 now)?

try updating the driver, uninstall sl fully and reinstall sl.

I would suggest using the Clean Boot procedure from Microsoft's Knowledge Base:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353

Many new "off the shelf" computers, especially HP/Compaq/Dell, come proloaded with a ton of gunkware that wrecks absolute havoc with games and demanding programs.

This is even more critical if the computer only came with 512MB ram, as the gunkware is likely using all of that memory and leaving nothing for SL. But true even if you had 4 gigs of ram.

==>> edit: sorry I am not as familiar with VISTA. You may need to shut down some of the fancy AERO and Desktop stuff. Run the basic Vista on the leanest settings possible. I've only logged into Vista once or twice so not sure how to do that.

Again, if you only had 512MB of ram, there is likely not enough being left over for Second Life on top of Aero etc. VISTA uses a lot more system memory to run than XP, so you may even need a full 2 gigs of ram to get Vista running SL well.

Vista won't even run decently with 512 megs ram.........minimum (absolute miniumum) is 1 gig. I would think with a memory hog like that as an OS, 2 gigs might (and I'm not sure it will) run well enough for SL to run.

I did the Vista upgrade advisor a while back and my measly 1.5 gigs is barely enough!! I'm sticking with XP for a while..........LOL.

Hopefully I won't confuse anyone, the OP hasn't said how much ram they have, the 512MB number was one I threw in for discussion. Most new systems with Vista likely come with a minimum of 1 gig, but with Vista you probably need more like 2 gigs to run SL smoothly.

But certainly first try shutting off any desktop / graphical extras. There is some desktop manager thingy program, I forget the name, that can cause screen video flashing in other games, basically it is trying to run at the same time and keeps diverting the computer from the game. Turning it off usually stops the problem.

I suspect that the OP most likely has more than 512MB of system RAM. Also, if they do only have 512MB, that system most likely has the non-Aero Home Basic version of Vista. Only a true sadistic bastard computer company would expect 512MB of RAM to work well with Aero.

I have the exact same configuration.

Check your fans... make sure that your processor and video card fans are spinning and not blocked by a stray wire..... and clean.

Make sure you have all the current microsoft updates

and

Make sure you have the latest drivers from ATI <===very important.

I don't know anything about Vista as i use XP but, from experience, graphics are the biggest cause of headaches. I know it well, i have one pc that just will not work with SL.

If your card is on the compatible list, update your drivers if necessary, as Randal said. But, that being said, i have known of the occasional game where the newest drivers won't work and you may need to take your drivers backwards.

Normally a Radeon x1650 pro is a fairly decent little card, although I have heard that Vista + Radeon has a lot more issues with SL than Windows XP + NVidia.

i have 2gigs ram ill try a couple of these suggestions and get back with you guys

how do i turn off the animations ytou guys are talking about on my desk top. i am new to vista and its hard for me to find stuff

Sorry, I only ran Vista a few times to see what it was like, then went back to WinXP, so I am not sure.

Everything I was able to find on Google about Radeon + Vista issues in SL, says it's "all about the drivers". The latest ones are *reported* to work the best, so head to ati.com and make sure you have the very recent version. DO NOT ASSUME THE DISK YOU GOT WITH THE COMPUTER IS UP TO DATE, even on a brand new computer those are usually very outdated, and for SL almost certainly too old. Go to http://ati.com and get updated.

If you are on a laptop, its tougher as many laptop makers simply don't keep videodrivers up to date. NVidia users can try laptopvideo2go.com, but I have no idea whether there is a similar site for Radeon laptop users. Heck, maybe ATI keeps their laptop drivers in better shape so that third party drivers aren't even needed.