Viewer: Second Life 1.20.15 (92456) (Linux Beta)
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 Xeon 3.0GHz
Memory: 1Gb
OS: Debian Linux 4.0r3 (Etch)
Graphics card: ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT, ATI proprietary driver 8.8 (released 20.08.08)
GL version: 2.1.7873 Release

CPU: AMD Athlon64 x2 6400+
Memory: 4GB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 3850 (ATI Driver Version 8.8)

For individual help with your computer setup, please post a Ticket with Support http://secondlife.com/support/

There are a few Knowledge Base articles which might help

Knowledge Base > Second Life Info > Menus and Controls > How can I make Second Life run faster? Topic #: 4051-4341
http://secondlife.com/support/?questionID=4341

Knowledge Base > Second Life Info > Menus and Controls > Graphics Preferences Layout Topic #: 4051-4765
http://secondlife.com/support/?questionID=4765

Eeccho. as your OS and graphics card are different from the OP, please contact Support for help.

Thank you

Edit folllowing Sel's comments

The issue seems to be related to the latest update to ATI Catalyst 8.8. Amending the title of the issue to reflect this.

There are a number of reports across the net about issues with this update and the recommendation seems to be to revert back to Catalyst 8.7.

thanks for your quick response to this issue. I've been following your links and found kinda "workaround" from Mader6000 Bade.

• I Installed SL (Second_Life_1-20-15-92456_Setup) into another Folder (added a underscore in path)
• Set the Vertex Buffer manually to 512MB (was set to 17xx MB per default)
• deleted the SecondLife folder under C:\Users\Dan\AppData\Roaming\ (before)
• Set the Graphic Features to (Recommended Settings) with the button under Graphic
• Set a different SL Cache path to another partition. (Resulting in a brand new blank temp folder)

All this did not solve my problem. Right after login, the Viewer crashes.
The two Knowledge base Tipps, may help to slightly improve the overall performance - later, when SL is running at all.
But since the Ati 4850 card is a very fast card (even while it's dealing with some OpenGL performance loss, against NVIDIA cards) imho don't really need this optimization.

I would rather NOT downgrade to Catalyst 8.7, since there's been some OpenGL issue, which seem fixed now in 8.8
There's a free OpenGL Tool out there: http://www.ozone3d.net/gpu_caps_viewer/?from-gpu-caps-viewer
When starting the default OpenGL Demo (HDR + DoF + Radial Blur) in the GPU Caps Viewer it stutter's horrible, while it doesn't with the 8.8 Driver. This could reflect, that ATI is currently working on OpenGL issues at all (hopefully).

And yes, I will follow your suggestion to open a ticket for this issue, to help determining this, with any information I can provide.

Cheers,
Dan

what really seems funny is that ATI/AMD says they fixed an issue with SL and crossfire in the release notes!

I have gone back to using ATI Catalyst 8.7, and Second Life RC 1.20.14 as this is the most stable for me atm.

Specs.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Series Processor (3311 MHz)
Memory: 4095 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
OpenGL Version: 2.1.7769 Release
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.17608 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)

@Sandie
True, ATI wrote this in theier release notes for the 8.8 Catalyst Drivers.
"Second Life: Playing the game on a CrossFire™ configured system (ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 and above) no longer results in corruption and slow performance being noticed"

That may work for Crossfire, which i don't use (yet!). Would be nice to get a response from someone who can comfirm, it's working at all with SL.

@Otter
Yes, yesterday I installed the ATI Drivers from my Hardware Vendor (MSI), and this Drivers work with SL. Seem rockstable, since 3 hours now without a crash, but there's "other SL issues now*" with this Drivers. (I keep doing tests right now)

I'm not sure, wich Version of the Catalyst Drivers MSI used. This is the Info they provide:
Treiber-Paketversion 8.501-080602a-066077E-MSI | <- 8.5 ?
Catalyst®-Version 08.8 | <- or 8.8 ?

(Drivers have been released from MSI at 2008-08-07. ATI released the 8.8 Drivers at 2008-08-20)
I guess MSI used pre-released ATI Driver between 8.7 and 8.8 OR some even older 8.5 Drivers

Direct3D-Version 7.14.10.0590
OpenGL-Version 6.14.10.7659
Catalyst® Control Center-Version 2008.0602.2243.38732

Second remarkable Version Number is the OpenGL Version used inside the MSI ATI Drivers.
The SL Viewer give me this Version now: OpenGL Version: 2.1.7659 Release
(OpenGL Version: 2.1.7769 Release inside the 8.8 Drivers)

*New Issues:
#1 It seem that SL stutter during loading of Objects/Textures. When it's done all the loading, SL runs very well at a desirable Frame-Rate even on ULTRA Settings in Graphic Settings, but still there's a slight stutter/hang sometimes. I'll try to render a Ingame Video next, to document this behaviour.
EDIT Have to add, that also the CHAT INPUT hang/stutter, when this "loading" happen. Mean: when i type into the chatbox, keyboard strokes delay. And this happen anytime, when something is loading. It's frustrating, cuz i remember this since I play SL with my older ATI 3870 Card.

#2 Textures seem not to render in full quality (very strange artefacts). I'll add screenshots from inworld soon and provide the same screenshots to compare, taken with a machine using a NVIDIA 8800GT Graphic Card.

Cheers,
Dan

EDIT #2
..and while I was typing this, SL now finally crashed the first time after aprox. 3 1/2 hours. Well, that's some "normal" state.

oriana mfume reports :

When secondlife starts up, after loging in, any click with a mouse button will crash the client. This happens every time it is done.
Clicking on the clients buttons and file menu and the like will not usually cause a crash, likewise client generated popups are usually safe.

It is possible to move around using only the keyboard, but any mouse usage to attempt to look around will crash things. Sometimes even moving the mouse around will crash the client. This happens in both the current version and the release candidate version. I have uninstalled the client and manually deleted all the remaining files, and a fresh install on the release candidate with no change in it's behavior. It happens if in windowed or full screen mode, regardless of any graphics settings.

The logitech mouse drivers were uninstalled and the crash was unchanged. All non vital processes were closed, still crashed.

oriana mfume - 26/Aug/08 08:51 PM
It appears that a removal and flush of the catalyst 8.8 drivers solved this problem. The issue does not pop up when using the catalyst 8.7 drivers, at least so far.

Second Life 1.20.15 (92456) Jul 18 2008 10:58:42 (Second Life Release)

CPU: AMD (Unknown model) (2210 MHz)
Memory: 2048 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
OpenGL Version: 2.1.7873 Release
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.17627 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)

Logs attached to VWR-8777

I'm glad to hear that you gonna talk to ATI directly and I hope this will bring us closer to a Solution soon
I'm not a programmer, but worked in the Hardware Industry (thinclients) for years. While moving customers issues
from the Support department, to our software development, I've made a lot experiance, HOW QUICK issues CAN be resolved,
if necessary (in other words: order/money pressure from key accounts). Second i've learned: "THERE IS NEVER, NO SOLUTION"
I've been in a position, to make final decisions which customers issue or feature requests, will be implented in the next software release or even in agreement with the product management, how the next Hardware layout support severyl things and - and this is the point: how to give this the appropriate priority!
I hope, LL will not blame itself and let more and more users, that bought a ATI48xx Card recently, be trapped in this issues (total crash/ slow rendering due load and texture mismatch), BUT will give this just the appropriate priority and fix/improve this, for a growing crowd of affected people.

@Katya
sorry, but following your link, i just did not found this (explanatory & suspicious) statement.
If there's really kind of Conspiracy going on between LL & NVIDIA to force Users to get NVIDIA Cards so that they can use the SL Viewer in a proper way - it's just a HUGE - AGAIN HUGE LOL!!! Ok, to be honest. That doesn't make a sense in any way, cuz the World market for graphic cards, just spit on such a small community, using SL at all. It's totally unimportand for NVIDIA if there's a hundret or thousand card's sold more, cuz they want a smoother SL )
I guess it's more like the LL development team flavour of desinging the SL Viewer, because the NVIDIA Cards offers a more wide range of OpenGL Extension or so (please don't blame me, if I talk nonsense - I'm all, but a programmer

But you are absolutely right, that ANY, really ANY other application is running very well, with the newest ATI 48xx card series. WHEN any Textures have been load, it also render between 40-80 FPS for me, if it's not a crowdy place, with 1280*1024 @ ULTRA Settings. So this Card is blowing fast, indeed & there's absolutely NO REASON, it shouldn't with the SL Viewer in the future - anytime. No question this ATI Card series will become the absolutely price killer in competition with NVIDIAS hell expensive GTX260/280 Cards.

@Seann
yep, you where the first who reported this issue - and now I'm trying to force a solution in a common sense

Just FYI:
(Look what I found today, just when searching the Forum for "ATI 48")

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=2130401#post2130401
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=2130403#post2130403
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=2130408&posted=1#post2130408
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=2130410#post2130410
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=2130420#post2130420
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=2130425#post2130425
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=279407
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=271238&highlight=ati
(Some might interesting debugging here!)
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=2130434#post2130434

Thanks for all your contribution on this Issue

Cheers,
Dan

EDIT:
@Ella:
I turned apart from open a Support ticket for this issue, cuz it's nothing that need to be exermined for a single person (my computers configuration), but moreover affect a lot of people out there, using a ATI Card. So this need to be fixed generally inside the SL Viewer for anyone, not just for me. Also this have been forwarded internally allready.
So you WorkingOnIt Linden & I bet on that

1. I do not know if this is the viewer or the ATI 8.8 drivers, but here is my 2 cents:

I triple boot Windows 2003 server 32bit, Vista 64 bit, and Windows Server 2008 64bit. and problem only happens after installing ATI's 8.8 drivers.

The only way for me to resolve it is to un-install the OS, and reinstall the 8.7 drivers. If Second Life or ATI is not taking this seriously that is not good.

Processor(s)
Number of processors 1
Number of cores 4 per processor
Number of threads 4 per processor
Name Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Code Name Kentsfield
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU @ 2.40GHz
Package Socket 775 LGA
Family/Model/Stepping 6.F.7
Extended Family/Model 6.F
Core Stepping B3
Technology 65 nm
Core Speed 2400.1 MHz
Multiplier x Bus speed 9.0 x 266.7 MHz
Rated Bus speed 1066.7 MHz
Stock frequency 2400 MHz
Instruction sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, EM64T
L1 Data cache (per processor) 4 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache (per processor) 4 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache (per processor) 2 x 4096 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size
Chipset & Memory
Northbridge NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI SPP rev. A2
Southbridge NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI MCP rev. A2
Graphic Interface PCI-Express
PCI-E Link Width x16
PCI-E Max Link Width x16
Memory Type DDR2
Memory Size 8192 MBytes
Memory Frequency 333.3 MHz (4:5)
CAS# Latency (tCL) 5.0 clocks
RAS# to CAS# (tRCD) 5 clocks
RAS# Precharge (tRP) 5 clocks
Cycle Time (tRAS) 15 clocks
Bank Cycle Time (tRC) 20 clocks
Command Rate (CR) 2T
System
System Manufacturer System manufacturer
System Name System Product Name
System S/N System Serial Number
Mainboard Vendor ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Mainboard Model StrikerExtreme
BIOS Vendor Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS Version ASUS StrikerExtreme ACPI BIOS Revision 1504
BIOS Date 02/25/2008
Memory SPD
Module 1 DDR2, PC2-6400 (667 MHz), 2048 MBytes, OCZ
Module 2 DDR2, PC2-6400 (667 MHz), 2048 MBytes, OCZ
Module 3 DDR2, PC2-6400 (667 MHz), 2048 MBytes, OCZ
Module 4 DDR2, PC2-6400 (667 MHz), 2048 MBytes, OCZ
Software
Windows Version Microsoft Windows Vista (6.0) Enterprise Edition (Full) Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
DirectX Version 10.0

ATI Radeon HD 3850 512 (1)
ATI Radeon HD 3850 512 (2)

Thanks for your patience.

ATI Radeon HD 3650 Series 1.00 GB
Processor = Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU
Q6600 @ 2.40GHz, 2400 Mhz
4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

The same ..exact..situation is true on an ATI Radeon 9600 3d pro card when upgrading to 8.8! Just for information I downgraded back to 8.7..all is MOSTLY ok now. I am still crashing lots though

Windows XP service pack 3
AMD Athlon 3000
2gb Ram
ATI Radeon 9600 3d pro 256MB

However there is an issue with 8.7s in that sometimes if i go to resize the SL window it either locks the screen completely, or crashes the driver needing a reinstall (done this twice in the past month now).

Lets hope it all gets fixed in the 8.9s

I fixed it by setting the AA in second life to disabled, then forcing AA in the Catalyst Control Center.

<3 Flea

Second Life 1.20.15 (92456) Jul 18 2008 10:58:42 (Second Life Release)

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+
2GB RAM
Windows Vista x64
ATI Radeon HD 3650 with latest drivers (8.8)

After 45 seconds successfully logged in the viewer crashes, the release-candidate crashed during startup.

Now it's a good time to take a break from SL (and test crysis) till ATI deploys the 8.9 driver.

1.20.15 92456
core2duo T7200
4GB RAM
Fedora 8 64bit
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600

Driver version 8.52.3

As soon as I login and do anything it's an instant crash. I have AA disabled in SL settings.

tried both the latest viewer and the release candidate. Both fail to login.

My board is ATI HD3850 AGP 512 MB GDDR3

I am using Catalyst 8.8 as most people here.
I have AA turned off in SL and have tried different settings in the CCC but still it crash.
If I put AA down to minimum in my board then I manage to stay in world in maybe a few minutes.
Otherwise it crash right after login.

I have looked for an older Catalyst driver as I understand that is the problem but since my board is AGP I have trouble finding an older driver.

Hope someone will solve this problem soon.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Series Processor (2405 MHz)
Memory: 2048 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: Radeon X1300/X1550 Series
OpenGL Version: 2.1.7873 Release

Catalyst 8.8

The GFX card is X1300

Running fine, but still crashes sooner than 1.20 did with my 8500GT before. And there seems to be a memory leak, I haven't seen 1.20 using more than 1GB RAM on 8500GT before. On this current configuration though, I was surprised it used more than 1.2 GB RAM some times.
I have X1300 as replacement in the same system

Pentium D 840 3.2, overclocked to 3.4 GHz
Vista 32 bit, SP1
3gig RAM installed
Diamond HD4870, Catalyst 8.8 drivers

And yes, 8.8 also causes a crash before the login screen appears. I'm currently back on 8.7 which doesn't cause this.

CPU: AMD (Unknown model) (2412 MHz)
Memory: 2048 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP x64 Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 3790)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 3850
OpenGL Version: 2.1.7769 Release

Roll back to 8.7 for the meantime. Previous versions of catalyst drivers at GURU3D...

http://downloads.guru3d.com/

works fine for me and seems to fix all my probs (just testing)

edit

first crash after setting 8x AA and enabling anisotropic filtering

edit2

looks like it has been just a normal crash, i still have mini freezes but the FPS seem to be pretty solid

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?referrerid=64675&t=33931358

I recommend sticking to 8.7 and waiting for 8.9 to become official (I sure hope the final isn't like this).

--> problem also with the "stable manufacturer's version" (which is 8.3 GeCube Edition)

8.3 "Stable" Version: viewer (20) crashes if many avatars are in a sim, first becoming slowlier and slowlier
8.8 AGP Hotfix Version: viewer (20) and RC (21) crash immediately at startup
8.7 AGP Hotfix Version: viewer (20) crashes if many avatars are in a sim, first becoming slowlier and slowlier

My intermediate solution: rollback to viewer (19) under 8.7, which seems to be stable

Regards
Jazzy Mission

To solve the poor FPS & Stuttering (especially when moving the camera) I had to disable Vertex Buffer objects in the Hardware options in Second Life. Frame rates are much better now with smoooooth camera movement. However they're quite a bit lower in places then on my old 8800GTX (as in, 50-65 where I used to get 180-250) but I guess that's down to not being able to use the Vertex buffers? It seems to be a driver issue, I guess we'll just have to play with vertex buffers disabled for the time being.

I'm able to stay inworld if I force in Catalyst CC the AA and AF to 2x (haven't tried with higher settings).

Configuration:

Intel Core 2 Duo Q6600 @ 2400Mhz
EVGA 680i SLi
8 GB(4x2GB) DDR2-800
Diamond HD 4870x2
Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1
Catalyst 8.8

Going to try Catalyst 8.7 and see if It's workable.

Biostar P4-M80
P4 Prescott 3.0ghz, 800Mhz FSB (Socket 478)
Sapphire Radeon HD2600XT 512MB (AGP)
1GB DDR-400
Windows XP SP3, with all updates available at time of posting.

Catalst 8.8 – Crash shortly after login.
Catalst 8.1 – Works fine

Second Life 1.20.15 (92456) Jul 18 2008 10:58:42 (Second Life Release)

CPU: AMD (Unknown model) (2211 MHz)
Memory: 1024 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
OpenGL Version: 2.1.7873 Release
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.18111 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)

please anything to solve this would be good.

Just a quick note that I've been able to use the new 8.9 Beta drivers with SL for the last week...and it's by far the best solution for Vista64 (still not perfect...unknown how it performs on other Win Platforms). They seemed to added the correct OpenGL extensions SL needed. Still not the best framerates...but, maybe the final 8.9 will fixt that. Also make sure you turn off DWM...google that (basically turns off the pretty Vista GUI) I saw a speed up after that....Check the JIRA tickets for the download link...

interesting feedback. I went back to the manfacturers driver that kept the viewer running, until I get a "out of memory" error after a couple (random) hours. Then the viewer will crash right after - oesn't matter if you choose to ignore this at the popup window. I saw this has also been reported elsewhere.

@Zen This sound good to me, and hopefully they've done a good job Let's wait another 5 days, to probably see this is fixed and furthermore I hope they changed something to the OpenGL Extenstions (handle textures(the pixelbug), and improve overall performance, like Seann wrote above.

I have tried the 8.9 drivers from ATI's site and I am still having problems.

After doing a little research and playing with WIndows 2003 Server and Window XP on my other machines I found out that the Hardware Acceleration in the display properties on 64bit Vista and 64bit WIndows Server 2008 is disabled for most of the 3000 series or newer cards.

When Hardware Acceleration is set to low on the slider in 32bit windows versions, Catalyst Control Center does not load, it tells you that the driver version is not supported. So to fix that all you do is move the slider to high, close any open games, etc that would use Hardware Acceleration and go back into them and they work fine.

I checked my display properties on 64bit windows versions and is is not even accessable.

I think the 8.9 drivers are fine, and is a problem with the horrible crap microsoft is promoting on the market. Infact, the 8.8 drivers and 8.7 drivers may be fine also.... they never had a problem with the Hardware Acceleration turned up all the way.

Oh... not to take away from the subject, the Catalyst Control Center..... This is another story.... Luckily on Server I can kill it with out rebooting.

Major, Major Memory leakage.... you could fill all the planets oceans with the amount of memory leaks in the CCC. I came home from work and tried to wake up the computer from sleep mode... well 15 minutes later the screens light up and I run task manager and Catalyst Control is eating up around 6144000k to run and the other 2gb of ram is being used by the rest of windows and the computer is almost locked up.

If anyone else is having problems with 8.9 I hope this helps...... I don't like nvidia cards, but after this I may change everything over to nvidia.

After more research ability to set Hardware Acceleration is determined by the video card driver? if so, when you have this problem how do you manually over ride it so it works the way it is suppose to?

I installed 8.9, then because I am running a 64bit OS I had to go into the windows registry and manually edit it to turn my hardware acceleration on to get the Catalyst Control Center to load.

Every time I click on a link in a note card or type in a location and click the teleport link second life dies (Viewer) this is the the public release and the last 2 release candidate versions of the viewer.

It does me no good to log into SL if I can not teleport to other locations. This all started with Catalyst Version 8.8 the biggest mistake I made was installing that driver.

Right now SL or ATI need to fix this problem.

To Ozymandias Zehetbauer - ,

open task manager and look for CCC listed, that is what Catalyst Control Center is listed as. Mine figured out a way to use over 6gb of ram and almost crashed my machine, I have 8gb total, CCC would have used the remaining 2gb but all the other windows stuff was loaded in that memory.

Tip: If you can't find a copy of the old driver:
Unless you delete it, the ATI driver installer leaves a copy of itself on your windows drive (usually C:\ATI\SUPPORT(build name)\issetup.exe).
Make sure you use add/remove programs to uninstall the driver and catalyst control center (CCC), and reboot before trying to install an older driver.

Results:

• Latest Release Viewer: Does crash as in the "commonly known rate". Mean suddenly, or after some hours of playing. Nothing i can directly adress to the ATI Driver. (Just "normal" Viewer crashes)
  The Performance did not get to much better. It's still slow in comparison with a NVIDIA GT 8800 card, but it's playable.
  The Pixel Errors (The Screenshots of my posting here on top) still persists, wich makes SL slightly ugly, if you get closer to images.

Hints:
Disabling Water Reflection did some Frames performance boost. (If there's Water around of course)
Disabling OpenGL VBO give it another performance gain, when tilting/moving around the camera in open spaces with lots of prims.

BUT, it seems this Driver seem to be capped, because i have around 20 - 25 Frames per seconds anywhere now. Just at empty spaces (high up in the sky, where is NOTHING to calculate a get around 35-40fps. I wonder, who hit the brakes all the time? This card would be capable of rendering "nothing" with 200 fps..(wich is indeed not needed)
The Crowdy Place test is showing definately there's some changes done inside this Driver. I went to a place, where's 65 Avatars around, dancing. (Who would like to make an instant test, jsut do a search for "Dance Island".)
Frames went down to 13..when moving zooming into the crowd and cam around maybe down to 9, but still this is ok, in comparison of what happened before (Slide show with 2 fps). It's playable.
Unfortunately the "Out of memory Error" occour definately after a while (NOT a ATI Driver issues at all !).
I did already limit the cache to 500MB. Maybe i should disable the cache at all..? Any suggestion?

• Latest RC Viewer: Does crash after aprox. 10 minutes. Performance is even MUCH worse, then with the latest released Viewer.
  Did not do any further testing with that Viewer, cause of it's short period of time, when it'll crash. it's unusable yet.

So that's my status report in this issue.
Greetins, Dandare

But is isn´t playable.... If i turn off the water reflections, the FPS is OK, but the Viewer (1.20 and 1.21) always crashing after a short time...

Sometime i can play for a longer time, but when i change some Graphic Options, the Viewer crashes mostly.

I play in full screen mode, and when I change to desktop (with alt + tab) the game crashes.

It is a little better than the Catalyst 8.8 but it is not playable yet.

(I installed the RC 1.21, but with this Viewer i have the same problems...)

Pentium D 840/3.2 GHz OC'd to 3.4 GHz
Vista 32 SP1
3G RAM installed, 2.556 G recognized
Diamond HD4870

Update: The above had no impact on the random crashes.

Update 10/5/08:
Now running RC 1.21.4 (98167) and Catalyst 8.10 beta. Cannot stay connected for more than 10 -15 minutes without crashing if there are other AV's present.

Update 10/8/08
Upgraded to RC 1.21.5 (98701). Crashed within 20 min. of logon.

I have been reading over the parts of this thread that refer to changing settings in the preferences and I have started playing around with them and SL does not crash for me anymore (At least the last few hours).

Here are my settings:

Second Life 1.21.3 (97611) Sep 24 2008 17:11:26 (Second Life Release Candidate)
Release Notes

CPU: Intel Core 2 Series Processor (2637 MHz)
Memory: 8190 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista Server Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 3850
OpenGL Version: 2.1.7976 Release

libcurl Version: libcurl/7.16.4 OpenSSL/0.9.7c zlib/1.2.3
J2C Decoder Version: KDU
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.18386 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)
=====
Catalyst 8.9
=====
Max Bandwidth: 1500 kbps
Disk Cache Size (MB) 750
AF = Off
AA = 16x
VBO = Off
Text Mem = 2048
Window Size 1920x1150
Quality and Performance = Ultra

I set the Max Bandwidth at 1500 becauseI am on a Road Runner Connection rated at 1024 kb and I regularly get 1.5mb download speads.

Question:

1. What are the real life (Not stated) requirements to run the SL Viewer? Because now I can telelport with out being bumped out of the client?

1) It does not crash immediately anymore, but most after a while playing (Out of memory most)
2) It still stutters horrible when theres a lot Prims (textures) or Avatars nearby, even with a system ANY OTHER GAME (need to point this out!) runs VERY SMOOTH compared to SL
3) The Textures still got artefacts (look at the pictures on top of this)
4) Sometimes a bunch of prims just dissapear from screen and i allready took screenshots but not yet investigating this issue, because i can easy fix this bug, just by teleporting once.

I go along with Ozymandias and ask myself, is there any improvements done in the new ATI Drivers or the latest Clients at all, except it does not crash immediatly anymore? I also could not find anything in the release notes, and just wait for the 9.0 release of the ATI Drivers, and hope hope hope, this will getting better sometime.

Cheers,
Dandare (who work in SL, but cannot really enjoy playing it, or explore, cuz it's just annoying to crash all the time or run into slideshow...)

Want to add my experiences, too:
(I´m running XP32 and Vista64 on the same PC with an AMD X2 5200, 4GB DDR2-800, ATI 4850)

Tested like mad for days: here are the results:

• the same problems with Catalyst 8.8, 8.9 and 8.10 Beta: POOR POOR POOR PERFORMANCE, but no crashes, (same in XP and Vista)
• frame rates below 20 at crowded places (about 30 avs), about 30-45 at empty places
• only small differences between offical viewer and RCV
• disabling AA, AF and VBO improves performance almost not noticeable (nice try ... but forget this!)

FACTS:

• FRAME RATE BOOSTS EVERYTIME WHEN ALL TEXTURES ARE LOADED!!!! Open frame console SHIFT-CTRL-3 and wait untill the queue is empty! Try at an empty place!
• But even then i only get a max. frame rate at empty places of 50-55 @ 1280x1024?!?!? The 4850 just MUST be faster!
• had an ATI X1950PRO before installed in the same PC. The frames rates have NOT been much lower!!!

Watching the Fast Timers Console (SHIFT-CTRL-9) i can see that these stuff takes most of the render time:

20%: Sleep (???)
10% Idle (???)
25-30%: RenderPool (Simple and Alpha mostly!)
10-15%: UI !!!

As i can see by all these comments here it seems to me as if this defenitely is a LL bug! ALL other games run at frame rates of 100+!

@LINDEN LAB: The frame rate boost completely comes from disappearing SLEEP timer when all textures are loaded - RENDER timer stays the same !!!

Greets,
Chris

Environment:
Second Life 1.20.17 (98669) Oct 5 2008 10:25:42 (Second Life Release)

CPU: AMD Athlon64 3500+
Memory: 2047 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
OpenGL Version: 2.1.7976 Release
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.18831 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)

I'm using Version Second Life 1.21.6 (99587) Oct 14 2008 (latest official release) and the official ATI Catalyst 8.10 Drivers

• ANY problem seem to be solved!!
• no more texture artefacts
• no more stuttering during loading of textures
• average FPS ~30 (in crowdy or high textured places) ~50-70 (low prim places)
  (with ultra settings. Exceptions: no water reflection / draw distance 128m / no Anti Alaising / no A- filtering / no VBO)

I just could not believe this, but it's like that now for me
I hope this will be standard for any further versions as well, and would like to know, HOW this is been solved finally?

If nothing else appear within a couple days i will mark this issue as solved.
(because may i did change something else and that caused to solve aynthing here on my machine, so comments welcome)

EDIT:

• The memory leak seem to be solved also, because i noticed the client just eat up to 740~mb of memory, even when moving to different places and running for hours now)

24th oct. - UPDATE
Ok, i need to slight< redeem my euphoric enthusiasm, that anything seem to be solved.

• The performance still seem vary from day to day. While i experiance pretty well performance at one spot, it can slow down a lot again at another spot. Is this maybe overall server sided performance? I don't know yet.
• the viewer still crashes from time to time - but indeed the memory leak seem to be fixed!

@Zen
We would like to know, what have been changed, because the client release notes (haven't found the release notes for the latest client (1.21.6.99587) at all yet, don't say something about it, nor the ATI drivers does)
At least you're on the right track, because it's getting much better now

24th oct. - UPDATE #2:

Ok, i think i get mad by the time. It's ALL THE SAME SHIT AGAIN NOW. I DID NOT CHANGE ANYTHING.

• again texture artefacts - stuttering while texture load... what the heck is wrong with this?!?

GIVE US INFOS - SO WE CONTRIBUTE THE SAME, WHEN DOING ERROR REPORTING HERE..sight
When i hate something in my life - it's temporarely errors from out of nowhere, whilst i can deal better with persistant bugs...

Now I can make changes in the Graphic options, without a crash.

I had an crash, but I think that was a "normal" crash. After that, I logged in for an hour and I had no crash.

I can play at highest Details, but I have turn of "Water Reflections". With "Water Reflections" turned on, it is stuttering.

So, it much much better. But not complete solved, yet.

But why don´t we get any infos, here?

Yesterday I needed to update my ATI Drivers to run "Farcry II". ATI released a HOTFIX Driver just for this game, and that seem to fix something to SL too. SL run smoother so far, but will crash like usuall sometimes.
Here is the Link: http://www.gamershell.com/download_34560.shtml

It seem, it's a modified 8.10 driver, with some minor OpenGL fixes inside. May this help to anyone here.

Update: I attempted to simply sit on the rail at Help Island. Three crashes in the space of 30 minutes before I gave up.

Update II: Sorry DanDare, the Hotfix does nothing for me. I am crashing like clockwork every ten minutes. Bog slow frame rates, texture artifacts, etc, etc.

Update III: The Hotfix appears to have disabled my Catalyst control center, so now I've lost control of my fan speed and 3D settings. Release 8.11 will fix everything, right?

Want to add my experiences, too:

Just as Dandare Daniels mentioned above the behavior of SL strongly changes depending on where you are. However performance of my 4850 with SL ist JUST A JOKE for my opinion. Never more than 30 fps except at totaly empty sims. Details not even set to Ultimate! Draw distance less than 128m! Stuttering sometimes happens, sometimes not. Different settings only improve performance slightly, e.g. disabling AA, AF and OpenGL Vertax shader, disabling shaders and so on. Tried all available ATI catalyst versions from 8.7 to 8.10 - well MAYBE there was an improvment but if so it is almost not noticeable. Different driver settings dont help much either.

Funny thing is that EVERY other game runs with far more than 100 fps on the same system:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200, ATI 4850, 4GB DDR2 @800MHz, both WinXP 32Bit and Vista 64Bit installed (no difference in frame rate) - running SL with only 1280 x 1024 resolution.

Well, after reading countless forum comments I´m absolutely sure that this is a SL bug. Linden Labs seems not to be able to locate the REAL bug in the viewer because all suggestions they made till now are just for improving performance with different settings. THAT IS NOT THE PROBLEM!

Only good thing to report is that SL runs very stable. I can play hours without any crash. Meantime I play SL with disabling everything i dont need ... sometimes even the basic shaders to get 25+ fps. My old ATI X1950Pro performed better .....

Greets,
Fazer

This issue is obviously affecting many people. There has been 63 votes on this issue so far, I guess this is only the top of the iceberg as many owners of ATI cards might not bother coming here and vote.

What do we need to do to get Linden working on this issue? How do they actually prioritize their fixes? Why do they decide to let so many people in trouble?

Cheers,
Momoi

EDIT after some researches:

There are many many more people having problems with ATI cards. I suggest you go to this page https://jira.secondlife.com/secure/QuickSearch.jspa and do a quick search with the word ATI. Now look at the number of UNRESOLVED status... Scary isn't it?

Linden, what should we do to get you on this?

Everything at lowest setting (all sliders left, even basic shaders disabled): 30 fps
Everything at highest setting (all sliders right, all shaders and water reflections on): 25fps

Isn´t that strange?

... i really hope there is a solution soon!

Fazer

Crossfire
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Extreme CPU X9650 @ 3.00GHz
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
Caption: ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2
Adapter RAM: 512MB

I can log in and play ok for a bit but eventually framerates will slow to a crawl, less than 1fps with the menus and GUI being delayed as well, only responding on the next frame. If I leave it like this for too long it will crash, however if I teleport somewhere else and come back then I can play fine again.

I am also finding an occasional flickering horizontal blue line about 2/5ths up from the bottom of the screen, but only when playing SL, not when playing any other games

Viewer: Second Life 1.21.6. (99587)
CPU: Intel® Core™2 E8400 (6MB,3.0 GHz, 1333FSB)
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 DIMMs
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 4850 (ATI Driver Version 8.11)

For all who got SL running fine with a 4850: Would you please tell on which frame rate SL is running at your PC´s? Thanks!

Fazer

windowmode: 1280 x 974
Ultra settings: exceptions: flexi / trees at MID. Water reflections OFF. Draw Distance: 192m
NO anitrosopic Filtering. NO Anti Alaising. NO VBO
Network Bandwith: 1500
Disk Cache: 500mb

• The Viewer is most stable as ever experianced yet (after close to 2 years). Not even one crash after hours at all, during last 2 weeks.
• No stuttering while loading textures anymore
• No texture artefacts anymore
• No more megalaag in crowdy areas

I assume there's was remarkable changes in the recent Ati Driver, that solved a lot OpenGL issues in summery (also for other games) leading in the right direction. There maybe changes in the latest SL Viewer involved as well, but no Linden comment here anymore, so this is just presumtions.

While i opened this Issue, i will close it as resolved within next days, if nobody else still stuck into this problems.

Sorry for the non technical comment.

for the tech side ..I am running the 3650 card with the lates release and latest ATI drivers and I get about 28 fps.

At least my frame rates are up.

Fazer

What is the status of this bug? Is a fix planned?
It is generally a ATI Problem. And to be fixes inside the drivers from ATI. Or is it a Viewer problem?

If I am logged on for 20 min+, I will crash every time I tty to tp. I cannot relog until I reboot the computer.

I have a Radeon HD 2400, running on an HP Pavilion with Windows XP. I installed the Radeon about 2 months ago and it worked fine for about a month. Then I started having this problem. I do get the occasional crash with out tp-ing, but not often.

I have contacted ATI, Microsoft, even my DSL provider, and no one can offer any help. I have downloaded all the latest releases, drivers, etc. without any improvment. SL implied that the problem was my choice of graphics card. They also suggested there is a compatibility problem between that card and Windows. ATI appears ignorant of any compatiblity problems with Windows.

If anyone has any suggestions, I would really appreciate it. I am ready to take a sledge hammer to the cpu, or reformat the hard drive, which may be the same thing!

I installed the new driver, uninstalled and reinstalled Second Life. It now works perfectly

OK, made 40 minutes tonight before crashing. Better, but not solved.

Thank you : )

Thank you : )

Note the status of this is "Resolved" when none has EVER been provided in this tread.

Support has washed hands of me about three different times on this issue. No solutions suggested or provided.

Buy Nvidia or leave the game. Those are our options.

I have to note that the performance with a ATI (48xx) Card in comparison with a NVIDIA (88xx) Card is remarkable worse.

Having about 15-20FPS on a ATI's 4870x2 is unacceptable. Normally everyone would say "fix it!" but I would suggest investing on CryEngine2's Rendering system already. Using and patching an old rendering system is long over due for a complete replacement in order to keep up with the rest of the world.

For ATI FPS issues VWR-11874 "Second Life Viewer 1.18 - 1.22 still slow and glitchy with ati catalyst drivers 7.12 - now 9.4 10-15 max fps"#

For ATI Catalyst 9.4 issues VWR-12139

Zen Linden added a comment - 14/Apr/09 09:55 AM
Comment from ATI: "Current update is that we will be aiming for having this fix to Catalyst 9.5."

Sorry for the wait.

For SLI/Crossfire issues VWR-7964 "Add SLI and Crossfire support"

For a further response tailored to your individual situation please Submit a Ticket with Support see JIRA Home page

Thank you : )

I'm using the regular SL build 1.23.4.

I have the 9-6 Catalyst and 3800 series ATI driver updates. These latest versions still did not fix the problem and SL remained unusable on my laptop

I found tonight, through trial and error, that by unchecking the "Enable Open GL Vertex Buffer Objects" box under hardware options in preferences fixes the problem and I can now login and play normally ^ . ^.

I hope this helps.

Cheers