Windows Vista Status
Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 3:23 PM by: Steve LindenA number of people have been asking about support for Windows Vista.
The changes that are currently in the First Look Viewer are an important precursor to any reasonable attempt for us to debug problems with running Second Life under Windows Vista. These changes are just about ready for an official release, at which point we will start the process of ensuring that Second Life runs under Vista.
We hope to have the majority of these issues addressed in the next few weeks, and apologize to Windows Vista users that are currently unable to run Second Life.
Thanks for your patience,
-Steve
February 9th, 2007 at 3:26 PM
Steve Thank you again! its great ti see you on the ball!,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Looking for to it when I upgrade to vista in week.
February 9th, 2007 at 3:31 PM
I guess . . . I will wait a little longer to get my new computer.
Thanks for addressing this issue, and please keep us posted!
coco
February 9th, 2007 at 3:33 PM
Been running SL on vista for more then 2 months now… without any major problems, beside the usual bug caused by sloppy programming that every one is experiencing. In fact the 1st look viewer seem to be a great leap backward as it may be faster (double the frame rate) it introduce bugs that should delay it for at least several weeks. like the hability to run full screen…. the 1st look viewer lost it 2 update ago and is not fixed as of today (LL is probably busy adding new feature that no body wants, instead of fixing bugs like any reponsible company do)
February 9th, 2007 at 3:42 PM
Running on Vista now… works BETTER than on my MAC OSX just had to update drivers…. Running on a 2-dual core xenon Intel Mac 8 gig ram… have only had in crash a few times…. but NEVER take down the PC.
February 9th, 2007 at 3:44 PM
I run the SL client on a water-cooled quad-core 64-bit Vista machine with no issues. What’s the problem? Any glitches I see also appear on an XP SP2 machine using the same account in the same area(s).
February 9th, 2007 at 3:50 PM
Yikes ! My old desktop just blew up. Vista machine on its way by 22nd Feb.
Luckily work laptop will be staying XP or this could have been a real showstopper.
Good luck with fixing this.
February 9th, 2007 at 3:52 PM
Has anybody tried running SL under Vista with the executable set to run in WinXP compatibility mode (or whatever it’s called in Vista)?
February 9th, 2007 at 3:57 PM
sl will work under vista of you have a nvidia card thay have vista driver that is supported by secondlife
February 9th, 2007 at 3:59 PM
I am actually very happy to see this announcement and have a semi usable experience with SL under Vista. As most already know, the problem is not just on the end of the client, but also in the still beta drivers from nVidia (and newly final or beta drivers from other video card makers).
The video card industry has still not caught up to the changes in Vista that needs to be addressed in their drivers so it is still a long haul ahead even if the SL client is completed “Top Notch” for Vista usage.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:04 PM
I know a snotload of people who rushed out paid an arm, leg and their first-born to get ‘Vista’ the first day it was out, and now regret it profusely.
I really don’t see why people insist on needing the ‘latest and greatest’ when they should know that a ‘new’ OS is prone to have so many bugs it ain’t even funny. Anyone remember when XP first came out, alot had nervous breakdowns because of it!
I only went to XP Pro last June because alot of the stuff I do (like SL) require XP, I would still be running 98SE otherwise, and I’m sure as he11 not gonna switch to ‘Vista’
One request LL, please don’t screw up SL on XP for the sake of being ‘Vista Compatiable’
Thanks
February 9th, 2007 at 4:07 PM
What problems are known? Apart from lag, I’ve run happily under Vista since mid to late January on Vista Ultimate.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:09 PM
I’ve tried to run SL on the BETA release of Windows Vista Ultimate, and it refuses to load
February 9th, 2007 at 4:09 PM
I have been playing with Vista for a while and can safely say if you have a Nvidia video card your in golden. If you are using a ATI you in mud. (Which i am but not totally). I have both :).
Anyway i have tested both the “current First look” and the official version of Second Life. Both work but “First Look” as expected crashes more. The official version runs fine on my PC.
I am now going to attempt seeing if the ATI drivers will work with Second Life and a Windows Vista 64 bit install. Will let you all know if that works any better or if your still in the mud
Keep up the good work Lindens!!!!
Current System
AMD Dual Core 4200+
Asus A8V-E SE motherboard
Windows Vista Business 32bit (64 bit coming soon)
NVidia 7300 GS or ATI 1600
Soundblaster XFi Audio version
Sony 19″ LCD
2048 4000 Channel X2 RAM (Kingston)
Mad Dog Dual layer CD\DVD & Sony Dual layer with Scribe
Logitech MX Revolution Mouse and S50 Wireless Keyboard
Logitech X-5300e 5.1 speaker setup
February 9th, 2007 at 4:11 PM
If you are an early adopter of Vista at this point, I strongly suggest not just for the sake of your Second Life but for your general sanity is to install it on a separate partition and keep XP around for applications that aren’t upward compatible. Its easy:
1) Get a copy of partition magic or partiton commander and create a logical partition, a second virtual drive on your main drive. For example, I created a new “V” drive called “Vista” by resizing my “C” drive to half its size and using that space for the “V” drive.
2) Stick in Vista upgrade installer and instead of choosing an upgrade choose a custom install to the drive you just created. Target the “V” drive.
3) Now when you boot, you’ll have a choice between Windows Vista and “Older version of Windows.” Boot into the old partition to play Second Life.
Given that the software industry in general doesn’t seem to be “Vista ready,” this is the safest way to enjoy Vista and your second life as well. Yes, by the way, if you are in the no hair tearing zone Vista is quite an enjoyable experience.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:12 PM
I’ve tried SL under Vista every which way. Compatibility mode, administrator execute, with and without aero turned on. I even compiled the OSS version against the Vista SDK. With both ATI (an X1900XTX) and NVidia cards (7300) using their most recent drivers I can get SL to connect and “start” to render the world before it crashes out.
Glad to see the Lindens are finally taking a look at this. Can’t really blame them for the delay though - the major card vendors are only just now coming out with stable OpenGL drivers.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:12 PM
Running it in compatability mode doesn’t seem to help at all. My Vista has alot of problems running any games, not just sl. Hopefully as driver support and game updates catch up, things will run more smoothly for us Vista users.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:14 PM
PS — Apologies for those with OEM installs of Vista. I’m sure it works great with your hardware but, dude, you are going to be screwed, blued, and tattooed for a while trying to get software to work.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:26 PM
Good thing i’m running XP Pro and XP Home Edition (2 computers). I can’t live a day without TSL (Yep. Teen Second Life, folks.) , And since there’s no “SL-IM” service around, i wouldn’t even be able to IM my friends in TSL if i had upgraded to Vista.
It’s gonna take a while until i upgrade to Vista, a LOOONNNNG while.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:26 PM
Only if i could spell crap with v i s t a.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:27 PM
It generally makes the most sense to wait until Service Pack 1 of Windows comes out before even considering buying it. Otherwise you’re just paying Microsoft a few hundred dollars to be a free tester.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:45 PM
Well Secondlife works fine on Vista for me, the only issue i have is that it seems to be laggier, now with my new 512 mb video card and 0 packet loss there seems to be some issues with compatibility.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:49 PM
I just took my brand new computer out of the box, hooked it up, and installed SL onto Vista and ran it with no problems..
I am going to try First Look though.
February 9th, 2007 at 4:50 PM
Coulda bought a Mac, that has pretty much all the features of Vista and runs…
February 9th, 2007 at 4:50 PM
i am runing windows vista Ultmate and i have not had any problems running SL as a matter of fact it is running better for me under windows vista than it did with windows xp but thats my configuration
February 9th, 2007 at 4:56 PM
I upgraded to Vista and now SL is very choppy - no fluid movements AT ALL and it worked fine under XP. I have an Nvidia GeForce 6150 LE card and have their latest driver. I even up the system memeory to 3GB but it didn’t make it any better.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:03 PM
Vista is nice, but no real improvment over XP pro. If I can get a good deal on vista soon i get it. But really if you don`t need the upgrade to vista stay as XP. A computer shop people(s) I asked more then one shop workers here. They all told me they game playing really does not improve much to do the upgreade from xp pro. Unless your buying a new system then its worth getting vista but otehrwise for get it.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:03 PM
I’ve been running Vista Ultimate RTM since November, and was happy to see ATI released SL drivers the day before RTM release, but unfortunately I get a black screen and a crash will all SL clients. Hope they get it resolved soon, and I’m happy to test.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:05 PM
Get a Mac.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. But seriously… The new Intel Macs run Second Life like a dream and you’ll never have to deal with viruses, spyware, activation, or “Windows Genuine Advantage” again.
-Z
February 9th, 2007 at 5:13 PM
Bought a new Intel Mac recently. Plugged it in and it asked if I had an old machine I’d like to transfer my files from…
I hooked a firewire cable between the 2 machines, pushed a button and within an hour everything was transferred and happy. Not just everything - but EVERYTHING, all my settings, preferences, passwords, email, contacts (everything). It was like my old machine, only smokin’ new OS/Graphics/HD/etc. SCHWEET!
Not to disparage Windows users, just a (smug) comparison of experiences.
(kisses his mac on the forehead)
February 9th, 2007 at 5:14 PM
Ok I will post here since I can say for a fact I have been testing Windows vista for the last year. I have swapped to Windows vista Ultimate on jan 31, I cannot say i have ever encountered a single problem directly related to windows vista. Now for my machine so we make no mistakes i have a 350 gig Hitache sata hard drive nvidia 7300 GT vid card 2048 syst memory (533 mhz) 3.2 gig intell pentium D processor I do encounter the usuall bugs related to the Game but i can safely say Don’t blame windows vista if you are having a problem try making sure all and i mean All drivers are up to date make sure u have proer direct x installed on said machine second life runs flawlessly and has since Windows Vista RTC copy back in october 2006
I give a hats off to Second Life for enabling open GL i now fly in the game.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:21 PM
I have Vista running on a dual core Lenovo laptop with the integrated Intel 945gm graphics chips and SL runs just fine. Better than the old XP install that was on this laptop when I got it in August.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:32 PM
Yay, one more way to support a corperation thats trying to control the geopolitical economic situation. Thanks for the upgrade though Linden Labs but I won’t be upgrading untill there price is resonable, or even worth it…
February 9th, 2007 at 5:50 PM
I’ve been running SL on Vista Ultimate 64-bit since December 06 with an Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS card, and everything works well. The first look viewer crashes occasionally. Those who say Vista isn’t different from XP haven’t looked under the hood, imho.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:53 PM
@Zorin: “Never” is a very strong word. As the popularity of MAC’s and other LINUX distros grows, so will expoits of those OS’s.
That said, I would recommend waiting until Vista SP1 is released before anybody upgrades. If you can wait until then to get a new computer, then do that, as well. If you can not wait to get a computer, then I am very sorry for you.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:53 PM
I’m fairly certain that those who are reporting success under Vista are running the newer NVidia cards. NVidia has been working pretty hard to get OpenGL support going.
ATI only just released their first RTM OpenGL support, and it appears to be a bit twitchy. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that SL will run cleanly on ATI hardware as well once they get their act together.
That being said, my notebook will not run SL at all despite having an NVidia chip (GeForce Go 7300 128mb) and their latest drivers. SL detects its fine, but crashes out after connecting to the grid.
Here’s the two hardware configs I have that I’ve been unable to get SL to run on despite having the latest and greatest drivers:
Workstation
============
Vista Ultimate
Intel Pentium D 950 (Dual Core 3.4ghz)
2GB DDR2 SDRAM (667Mhz)
512MB ATI X1900
Soundblaster X-FI
Dual 24″ displays (both running 1920×1200)
Notebook
============
Vista Ultimate
Intel T2500 (dual core 2ghz)
2gb RAM
NVidia GeForce Go 7300 (128mb)
Soundmax Digital HD Audio
WXSGA+ LCD (1680×1050)
February 9th, 2007 at 6:17 PM
cool - cool - cool…
tks
excellent
February 9th, 2007 at 6:21 PM
I have windows vista and the game works fine. I had to update my graphics card, but windows vista did it for me. Yeah the game works fine
February 9th, 2007 at 6:25 PM
I was using vista and sl was working fine , I no longer have vista now just got apple and works fine on that too.
February 9th, 2007 at 6:40 PM
Well, I sent in my obligatory crash log….
February 9th, 2007 at 6:47 PM
Working fine here under vista home (laptop/nvidia 6200 w 288MB shared vram) and vista ultimate (desktop/nvidia 7950 w 512 MB VRAM)
Been building, buying, selling etc. business as usual. Vista is great so far, much stabler and smoother than XP in general. I highly recommend the upgrade.
February 9th, 2007 at 6:50 PM
I have SL running under Vista on both my Desktop (NVidia GeForce 7950) and my Laptop (Intel GMA900 Graphics). Both were trivial to get running - just made sure my drivers were up to date, installed Second Life, and everything worked just fine. I only have one small glitch, and that is when SL is on my secondary monitor the mouse doesn’t seem to interact well with it. I can interact with UI elements (menus, et cetera) but clicking on things in-world doesn’t work.
Other than that small issue everything is fine. I was actually incredibly impressed that it’s running with the GMA900. Wasn’t sure that was going to play well (and it doesn’t if you don’t install the Intel graphics drivers) but it feels even faster than it was in XP. That part may be due to the fresh OS install however, not anything inherent to Vista.
February 9th, 2007 at 7:15 PM
Folks, Vista is *not* for your benefit. And it’s not a good choice if you want to run Second Life.
Vista deliberately breaks OpenGL, which is the basis of SL graphics. (it emulates an old version in software, so things will run, but they have no ability to talk directly to hardware anymore, making them very slow.) SL would need to be ported to DirectX to regain normal functionality and speed, and that will destroy its cross-platform rendering. That is exactly what Microsoft wants; they are using their monopoly power to destroy the OpenGL competition. As a side effect, it’s going to run SL like crap. There’s no technical reason to disable OpenGL… this is purely a business decision to exterminate a competitive graphics standard.
Just don’t buy it. Virtually none of the big Vista features are meant to make your life better; they are there to cement Microsoft’s market position. They’re charging you for the privilege of putting on handcuffs. You don’t own the computer anymore; Microsoft and Hollywood have veto power over what you’re allowed to do with your own hardware. And, possibly as a result of all the extra driver complexity involved in checking to see if you’re a thief thirty times a second, the system is often very unstable, particularly with NVidia cards. In stark contrast with prior generations, ATI drivers are much better under Vista.
But even if you get the system running fairly well, which is iffy, it’s deliberately going to run Second Life very slowly.
This operating system IS NOT for your benefit. Don’t buy it.
February 9th, 2007 at 7:17 PM
(oh, and it’s possible that NVidia may be doing OpenGL support on its own, but the last time I read about this, several months ago, OpenGL just flat was never going to work in Vista.)
February 9th, 2007 at 8:00 PM
I am running SL under vista with good results. The key is to use the new beta drivers nvidia has for the geforce 6 and 7 processors. They seem to have much better OpenGL support. I didn’t even have to change the compatabilty features listed in the blogs. If you run the 97.46 drivers (for older cards), the performance is really bad. I would also recommend having 1GB in the machine as it really does seem to increase performance over 512MB. Just my thoughts.
BTW, basic specs for my machine (in case you care)
AMD Sempron 3300+ (newer one that unlocks 64-bit instructions)
Vista Ultimate (64-bit edition)
GEForce 7600 with 256MB (not shared memory)
1 GB System RAM
This provides me with a 4.0 performance rating through games explorer’s link.
February 9th, 2007 at 8:12 PM
Re-read the post above from Slartibartfast Magicthise - and REALLY do a comparison on why you would put yourself through upgrade Hell for the next two years. Vista is STILL trying to catch up to the Mac. Play this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo9kaKePqMM - it’s the voice of the Vista Project Manager talking about all the great new features of Vista, but the movie is somebody actually doing the features as he speaks on an existing MAC. This is the 3rd video in the set, this one doing iPhoto. Really. Think long and hard this time before just automatically picking Vista.
February 9th, 2007 at 9:03 PM
[...] Second Life won’t run on Windows Vista yet. Bummer. Hope the guys at Linden Labs get it working soon, cause my First Life sucks. [...]
February 9th, 2007 at 9:19 PM
Get the real windows upgrade. Get a Mac. Windows is your parents operating system.
February 9th, 2007 at 10:38 PM
I upgraded to Vista Premiem on the morning of release. On and off, I spent 2 days trying to get my vidio cards working in sli, before I bothered to actually read in some forums that sli was not supported yet by nvidia!! lol, guys and directions ya know. Sl running in SLI crashes for some reason still. With a single card, I have no problems with VISTA. From the first try, second life has worked great for me under VISTA using a single card, stable and it looks great on my 50″ plasma screen!!
Go ahead and keep your horse, Ill buy the car. VISTAS here, like it or not.. The future marches on… You dont have to like old Bill, but I remember DOS. Where did I put my old Texas Instruments TI80…? With the whopping 16 kilobites of memory..
AMD 5000 cpu
gigabyte GA-m59SLI-S5 motherboard
segate 500 gig hard drive
2x 8800 GTX evga nvidia graphics cards (runninhg in single mode)
50″ Plasma hdtv
VISTA premium
February 9th, 2007 at 11:40 PM
hahha sorry if you believe all the hype about vista then, i save that money possible and do more upgrades. Sounds like you resently bought a new system and just added it….
February 9th, 2007 at 11:43 PM
I always wait until a new o/s has been out of ‘beta’ for at least a year and prefer it to be out a year and a half before I go run to buy anything to do with it as I have found that microsoft should keep its products in beta testing much longer than they do and I really don’t care to be a microsoft guinea pig any sooner than I have to be.
February 9th, 2007 at 11:56 PM
vista sucks much like most MS products save your money
February 10th, 2007 at 2:37 AM
always makes me laugh when apple say that……..
I used both over the apple/windows 20+ years and i feel the world needs both. not just one…..
shakeshead……
February 10th, 2007 at 4:15 AM
Thank you very much for looking into this. I am planning to upgrade to an 64bit Windows Vista Enterprise and I am currently testing it on a separate hdd. It installed fine but when I try to open it it crashes just before the main window should appear (the one with the landscape where you write your username and password). It just stays blank a few seconds while its working then it closes and I get the SL crash logger window (I sent some error reports). I would be really grateful if anyone can help me solve this, so if anybody knows what to do IM me in SL (Neo Devoix). Thank you.
February 10th, 2007 at 4:35 AM
My 2 cents here guys:
For the Vista users: I’ll wait for service pack 1 to fix the bugs and by then the hardware vendors will have a decent set of drivers. (Vista ran horribly slow compared to WinXP Pro when it came to games on my machine)
For the Mac guys who keep chanting “get a mac:” I like being able to upgrade without forking over another 2+ grand for newer machine and have a choice of aftermarket parts to choose from when building my own rig thank you.
To LL: Keep up with the good work, but please don’t screw up/ditch your XP support by focusing all your efforts on the Vista compatability.
February 10th, 2007 at 5:23 AM
The only thing I worry about with Vista is another virus like Blaster, that all you had to do was run Windows XP out of the box with default settings and you’d get nailed by a virus. I hope history doesn’t repeat itself with Vista. But then again if it does, I’ll make money removing the viruses so maybe it would be good for me at least
February 10th, 2007 at 5:55 AM
So glad I read this before this new Vista disk fell in the slot….
I have been like a broken record since MS-DOS , but why do we PC users put up with this? Have they stopped claiming backward compatible? Would it be too niieve to expect that the same version of sl be supported by a new version of an OS?
If so should we also check the BIOS?
Must be lack of competition but I really think we have come to expect low quality, poorly planned OSs as the norm. Yes yes I know about MACs.
Well lets put it this way, if I saw a windows or apple logo on a screen of an airplane I was boarding I would turn around and get a bus!
OK I’m off to try to install Linux again…….
February 10th, 2007 at 6:01 AM
Hey Im a little dumb here so speak laymans terms for me. Will i be able to play with my current video card or am i gonna have to shell out money for a new one? I already know i wont be able to get on for several weeks due to the fact of upgrading to Vista . Very friendly word of advice, if you are on SL alot and you want to stay on SL do not upgrade to Vista yet. Save it for after they come out with a compatible version for the system. HURRY UP lol Im gonna be climbing the walls not being able to get on
February 10th, 2007 at 6:42 AM
I’m glad, that i could add a little help to that - hope that you get my new laptop working in Second Life… can’t live without!
Btw… you all do a great job and should get acclamations by all 3,444,373 residents for all you do for us! Updates included…
Kisses from Beatrice!
February 10th, 2007 at 7:01 AM
also : this is my vid card XFX 7800 GT 256MB DDR3 PCI X
thats good enough right? was good enough before lol
February 10th, 2007 at 8:18 AM
SL works with Vista on a HP Pavilion dv9000 laptop with NAVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 (256KB)graphics
February 10th, 2007 at 8:28 AM
Vista 32 bit home premium installed here, and all works fine.
any problems you have may be due to driver issues. note in vista you can still install xp drivers if you cant find the latest drivers. also note. nividia beta driver 107 is what you need to download for your nvidia graphics card. dont stick with the vista version.
if you have a via board however. on first install there are sound problems. but if you let windows update those drivers vis windows update, they will sort themselves out.
CPU: Not supported (2800 Mhz)
Memory: 1022 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista (Build 6000)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 7600 GT/PCI/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 2.1.1
LLMozLib Version: 1.1.0 (Mozilla GRE:1.8.0.9_0000000000)
February 10th, 2007 at 9:14 AM
I am proud to say My new computer came with Vista and have had little problems with it… The only problem was the graphic card driver… once the new one was installed second life ran without a hitch… I am told there are problems with the ATI drivers that should run SL… and that most computers that run Vista should run SL… I am over all happy with the new OS from the fine people at Microsoft… Making an OS more like a Macintosh is so ice
LOVE
February 10th, 2007 at 10:02 AM
I’ve been running second life on vista for months, it works fine.
February 10th, 2007 at 10:22 AM
SL will never work on Vista on my machine, due to the fact I only have 520 meg, and a NVIDIA MX400, a card so old, NVIDIA have not made vista drivers for
February 10th, 2007 at 10:54 AM
@Steve,
If you need feedback, give me a ring. I beta test(ed) Vista on this machine and have run SL since the first beta here. Runs smooth, bit of RL lag with dual screen though…
February 10th, 2007 at 11:58 AM
MAC SUX BECAUSE YOU CANNOT UPGRADE
February 10th, 2007 at 11:58 AM
VISTA RULEZ!
February 10th, 2007 at 12:47 PM
I’m running Vista on a Core2 Duo 6600, with Nvidia 7950GTX
It runs fine and smooth, but i have problems logging in. I get high cpu utilization, even if i turn off 1 cpu (affinity).
But 1 out of 10 login attempts logs in and when it does it runs perfectly.
The default vista geforce driver was not supported, the latest nvidia driver does work well.
February 10th, 2007 at 12:59 PM
I bought Windows Vista the day after it came out, and I did have problems getting Second Life to work. For people with ATI cards, or older nVidia card, I suggest the following.
1) You can use the VistaSL client done by Lockhart Cordoso which can be found at Stable version of http://www.noxforum.net/files/Vista…up-1.13.3.2.exe
2) You can revert your Windows Vista GFX drivers to Windows XP drivers. I suggest the OmegaDrivers site to get working drivers, I have successfully used the OmegaDrivers for my ATI Mobility x1400 and Second Life has worked like a charm. (note Aero will not work with XP drivers)
February 10th, 2007 at 1:17 PM
I too, have been running Second Life on Vista since the first publicly released beta, on an Nvidia 7900GT and I have absolutely no issues. I DO however, have issues on XP and Vista when trying to run SL @ 1920×1080 resolution. It seems that the client GUI does not properly map itself onto this high of resolution. I hope they address this issue for those of us running SL on very large monitors.
February 10th, 2007 at 4:13 PM
Installed Vista beta in November, notebook computer with old ATI card. Second Life would start, but that’s it. Couldn’t even move my avatar.
January, ATI released a new driver for Vista - installed it - Second life is now blazing fast, even on an old, crapping ATI video card with only 16megs of memory.
Microsoft has publicly stated that hardware manufacturers are not keeping up with driver development for Vista, and this is the biggest hurdle for existing computers. And this most definately seems the case with Second Life - video card drivers are going to being the firts and foremost reason SL has problems in Visita.
February 10th, 2007 at 5:56 PM
I am always very very critical at Linden cause I think they are not doing a good job handling the growth but in this case I have to say: Microsoft should be appologizing to us and you linden for not being fully backwards compatible. I think it is crazy you have to chnage the software becuase Microsoft thought of some new feautures. And to all you buyers of new computers with Vista: Its your own stupid fault. Just demand XP on a new machine and expect rouble when using such a new system. look at history. The beginning of a new windows version is always trouble.
February 10th, 2007 at 6:03 PM
I’ve been working on what keeps SL from running on vista and I found out that all it is is the video card in a PC. I’m using an ATI Card in one PC and a Nvidia card in another ATI Crashed Nvidia worked.
February 10th, 2007 at 6:47 PM
Let me state that I have been running Windows Vista for approximately two months now, using an NVidia 6800 card. So far, I have not seen any major issues with Vista and SL at this time. Since SL requires OpenGL, you have to make certain that whatever version drivers you are using load OpenGL to work properly.
Part of the issue is that since SecondLife was built on OpenGL, and Microsoft doesn’t embrace it, it’s up to the video driver manufacturers to provide the necessary support here. NVidia is at least working hard to give us (the players) what we need, and I know ATI/AMD is working hard as well. But unless SL wants to do a total re-write and go to DirectX, it’s the best we’re going to see right now, I’m afraid.
February 10th, 2007 at 7:12 PM
I upgraded to Vista the day it was released (it’s an adventure) on a newish Dell XPS. I could not get Second Life to run. It took 2 days before Nvidia (graphics card) had a new driver to solve the issue. It required removing all my graphics software and driver and then a full updated reinstal. Works great now, would have had to update that driver anyway!
IMO, don’t upgrade to Vista yet. There are still many things that need to be fixed as far as software compatibility and driver updates. I still have issues without fixes.
February 10th, 2007 at 8:36 PM
I run it under Vista just fine. The first look client, however, gives me some graphical bugs, such as flickering rainbow textures (which I’ve seen mostly on HUDs and movie screens).
I saw it on land once, but only once: http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=137951&sort=Pictures.PictureID+desc&Search=torley
February 10th, 2007 at 11:34 PM
This issue mostly affects ATI users if you’re a nvidia user and you have SL running on Vista just fine, theres no need to chime in (read: brag) about it.
ATi recently released the Catalyst 7.1 drivers for Vista which does have OpenGL support unfortunately SL still does not run on ATi hardware under Vista, not even in compatibility mode, the farthest you’ll get with these drivers is the crash logger.
February 11th, 2007 at 12:33 AM
just got a dual core laptop with 1gb ram, vista, and ati radeon xpress 200M. uptaded to catalyst 7.1, did everything and it’s not running, really sad.
February 11th, 2007 at 2:21 AM
I installed vista on a laptop with a ATI Radeon Mobile 9600/9700 graphics card. Can’t run vista get generic card message ect…tried to install Catalyst 7.1 and it cant find the card either? but Im sure its the Radeon…..any ideas if I should or should not be able install the Catalyst? the graphics card is up to date according to windows.
Can try to install the new look sl prog but if the Catalyst can’t find any compatble hardware, it must be a vista issue?????
February 11th, 2007 at 3:51 AM
Avoid the bloated piece of crap that is Vista!, About the only good thing in Vista is that its looks prettier, most of the other features are pointless or actually make your experienced worse, extremely annoying security questions, more resource usage and DRM, stick with XP as long as possible. Theres a whole bunch of anti-vista stuff around, like here: http://badvista.org/ although thats probably more aimed at businesses than regular end users.
Otherwise try Linux, Ubuntu is a good first Linux distro, theres no harm in trying it, its free. Even if you don’t use it much its still very handy to have a full 2ndary operating system on your computer you can use it for fixing broken windows installs or as a backup.
I’m not a Max fan but I guess it would be a better choice than vista, unless your a gamer in which case it would be useless.
February 11th, 2007 at 5:47 AM
HELLL!!!. Who need the new version of windows when you already have the skin with the “pretty” new features. Afterall, thats all the new Vista program is good for. Until they fix it, which should have been done before a release to the public, I will stick to my pretty little skin masking windows XP!
February 11th, 2007 at 6:01 AM
Wahoo!! My computer has an SiS graphics card. It is not compatable and everything goes black.
I’m glad there making it compatable for Windows Vista since I’m getting a new computer in 2 weeks. (Just for Second Life). I won’t get Windows Vista, I don’t wanna take a risk with £399 at stake
February 11th, 2007 at 7:59 AM
I use ATI, so thats probably why I can’t start it. I hope ATI will release opengl in the next month for Vista. I wonder if the XP video drivers can be temporarily used though…
February 11th, 2007 at 8:50 AM
I am running Second Life (standard) nicely on an HP Pavilion dv9235nr.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo
Video: nVidia geForce Go 7600 (256MB dedicated video RAM)
RAM: 2GB
OS: Windows Vista (build 6000)
I didn’t tell the installation program to do anything in “XP Mode”… It just worked.
February 11th, 2007 at 8:58 AM
I just hope that SL will always run on Windows XP, cause I don’t want to have to buy Vista-crap just to run my favourite game.
February 11th, 2007 at 1:50 PM
I am certain that Vista’s downfall will be it’s graphical demands. The performance difference when I tried Vista on a year old desktop was so noticable that within a week I had reinstalled XP. My advice is that if you don’t have some serious graphics hardware in your PC (I didn’t) don’t bother with Vista.
Until they get all my favourite apps working properly with Vista I’ll be sticking with XP, Linux and OS-X (all of which run SL just fine!).
February 11th, 2007 at 3:27 PM
Well, I decided to try the SL / Vista test, out of sheer curiosity since I’ve been testing Vista compatibility factors lately. I had the advantage of using a BRAND NEW, Dual-core Athlon system with Nvidia graphics built right in. Second Life installed, but upon execurtion stated that my “video card drivers are not up to date” (I believe they’re as up to date as humanly possible, considering they came pre-installed on a VISTA system).
HOWEVER, I don’t blame Linden Lab on this one. Not at all. Considering that Vista isn’t compatible with Micro$oft’s own Visual Studio and Visual Basic, the fact that Second Life doesn’t run isn’t all that surprising.
The reports are starting to roll in, and Vista is starting to be viewed as another “Windows Me” fiasco, with serious installation and compatibility problems. From what I’ve seen, comments are running 2 to 1 against Vista, and the current recommendation to “Stick with XP, which amazingly enough, still runs with ALL the XP software on the market!”
Word is XP is going to be around for a long time. As someone stated above, “Newest” isn’t always the best. And considering the price-gouging stunts Micro$oft is pulling with Vista, I’d love to see a Vista boycott ensue anytime soon.
I bet the Mac users are just dancing jigs. LOL If there was ever a reason for the industry to migrate away from Windows and adopt Linux….
Since Vista has serious compatibility problems… why not? Come on U.S. businesses, wake up! Break the Micro$oft stranglehold, bust the monopoly and declare your OS freedom! whoohoo!
(No, I’m not a Linux user. But man, I’d love to see Micro$ofts $tranglehold go limp).
February 11th, 2007 at 3:29 PM
I’ve had no problems so far running sl under vista. It came preloaded on my laptop so I didnt really have a choice there. My desktop machine is running xp so I do have a backup just in case!
February 11th, 2007 at 5:02 PM
@wayfinder, download the nvidia drivers from nvidia’s website, you shouldnt have any problems running windows.
@ati users - ati have never been particularly good with opengl support but they are very good at fixing problems when you tell them about them especially if you’re a developer. Go to their website and log the issue with them and they should be able to fix it fairly quickly and include the fixes in the next driver release.
LL should also be doing this as they’ll have a better idea than most people what is causing the problems.
Fingers crossed it won’t take ati too long to sort it out for everyone.
@mac users, nice to see you finally have windows compatible machines at 3 times the price, u might not have noticed but not too many people want mac compatibility added to windows. keep smiling though, u bought what u wanted and thats what matters.
From my own experience, vista is a nice upgrade but not earth shattering, it’s got a lot of features that probably should have been included with xp. The interface is nice and I don’t think I’d want to go back to xp. It’s by no means a must have at the moment but it is nice.
February 11th, 2007 at 5:13 PM
I have 2 machines running Vista Home Premium, my desktop with an ATI Radeon X1300 Pro, and my laptop with an nVidia GeForce go 7300. My laptop ran like a dream, while my desktop of course crashed. I had been keeping my eye on a forum thread on this issue, and there is someone that had compiled the open soursed code of the SL viewer, and it runs on my ATI card, and Vista fine, it is only a temporary fix until ATI fixes their drivers, and LL tweaks their viewer to run SL on Vista.
February 11th, 2007 at 8:58 PM
SL runs on Nvida cards.. Unfortionalty not on any ATI card right now. alot has to do with ATI drivers. And some of us have new machines and all new PC’s will have vista. so its not an option to just say stick with XP when Vista is the latest current OS. If you dont have 2 pcs with one that has XP still. my suggestion is.. if you cant wait and have a XP OS copy too is to make a dual boot on your PC so you have both OS’s until it fixed that or just stick with XP for now if you can.
February 11th, 2007 at 9:11 PM
I updated my video drivers which were waiting at the manufacturers website. I had no problem getting up and running. Check with your manufacturers support section and there probably is an update already in place.
February 11th, 2007 at 9:15 PM
Running under vista right now with no problems
amd 1800+ @1750mhz
1.2gb ram
Nvidia 7600gs 256 agp
February 12th, 2007 at 12:05 AM
I have the current release running under Vista with few problems - seen one crash which appears unusual, but otherwise just as stable (or unstable) as XP. Configuration is Windows Vista business, 3Ghz Pentium, 1791Mb RAM, nVidia 6600GT with latest (beta) drivers.
February 12th, 2007 at 12:21 AM
I hope you meant that certain changes specific to Windows Vista are “just about ready” for release. I do not think First Look as a whole is anywhere near ready for release, and neither do a lot of people who are posting in the FL threads. I like what you’re doing but it would be really nice to see an SL release where obvious glaring bugs were actually fixed, rather than being left alone, as is often the case.
February 12th, 2007 at 3:17 AM
Sad thing is, I’m running an ATI X600 on a Clunker (HP WideScreen ZD8000) of a laptop that when she was running XP..flew through SL like a dream ..if there wasn’t super super heavy lag…. So I believe I might b e stuck in the mud until the update. I hope the update allows this because I’ve been stuck..twitching in SL/Laptop withdrawl
February 12th, 2007 at 4:08 AM
Ive bee running Windows Vista since the day it came out and havhad no issues running SL on it……
February 12th, 2007 at 6:01 AM
Ariabella, I installed Vista Home Premium on the zd8000 without any problems cept that since we both have the x600 ATI card secondlife will not run just crashes. I can’t wait for the update! YAY! I’m holding off installing the 7.1 catalyst drivers until the opengl update. The only thing you wont get is an update for the hot buttons but I never used em anyway. Oh and that mac comercial is too funny the one about allow and deny cause its soooo true.
February 12th, 2007 at 6:38 AM
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned this, but there *IS* a way for people to get their Second Life Fix on Windows Vista. On the Second Life Forum, a generous user by the name of “Lockhart Cordoso” has provided a version of the Second Life Opensource client to do some modifications that allow SL to run on ATI cards. However, it doesn’t neccesarily run perfectly, some users do report crashes still. But while LL and ATI work to get things fixed up properly, this client will be more than functional for ones’ basic needs.
The thread in the forum can be found here:
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=1407276&highlight=vista#post1407276
As of February 12th, 2007, you can find the client downloadable here:
http://www.noxforum.net/files/VistaSL%20Setup-1.13.3.2.exe
Please refer to the Forum Thread for assistance, and check for updated versions there!
I’ve been using it for the past few days. While it is slower than XP run SL on my computer, I have found it to work well enough to converse with friends and build. If you can’t/don’t wish to change your video card to an nVidia, or you are a notebook user (like me), give it a try! And don’t forget to give Lockhart Cordoso a thank you note!
February 13th, 2007 at 9:52 AM
if you like DRM, get Vista.
if you like remote control, get Vista.
if you like degraded video/audio quality in the multimedia material YOU OWN, get Vista.
stay away. far away.
February 14th, 2007 at 5:03 AM
[...] on Jan 30th, 2007 in both real as well as virtual world i.e. Second Life, with great pomp and show. Microsoft boasted greatly its new OS that has powerful graphics engine for high resolution [...]
February 14th, 2007 at 6:07 AM
What is the install procedure for the workaround. Do I install the 7.1 drivers from ATI, then latest SL, then the work around? Will this effect future versions of SL and is the uninstall clean? Just wondering if I should wait or any idea when the latest SL Vista capable will be released? Thank you!!!
February 15th, 2007 at 11:10 PM
[...] I’ve been using it for the past few days. While it is slower than XP run SL on my computer, I have found it to work well enough to converse with friends and build. If you can’t/don’t wish to change your video card to an nVidia, or you are a notebook user (like me), give it a try! And don’t forget to give Lockhart Cordoso a thank you note! Source: Windows Vista Status [...]
February 16th, 2007 at 12:16 AM
Stacey, just stick with Windows XP, download firefox from firefox.com, stop using internet explorer as it is way too insecure, download all updates, use a better software firewall than microsoft’s cheapo version, download zonealarm firewall from zonelabs.com and download avast.com antivirus which both is completely free and you shall be ok and perfectly compatible with all of your games and programs. Or install a linux distribution (or hire a PC tech if you are unsure on how to do it) and you shall still be fine with second life as they have a linux version
February 17th, 2007 at 7:53 AM
For some reason it appears that SL, ATI and Vista don’t play nice. I had a Radeon 9550 and it picked it up as a GDI Generic. So I think what the heck I just buy a newer card. I picked up a Radeon x1650 and it still says the same thing. Almost like SL does not actually go look at the drivers.
February 17th, 2007 at 12:41 PM
Gentleman, i am using vista enterprise edition on my lenovo 3000 n100 series laptop but i m not able to hear sound in vista.can u please anyone assist me to get sound and play music and game .
i m really very much frustrated with intel graphics 945gm chipset.
1GB Ram, HD 100 GB 5400 RPM, 1.83ghz,
please mail me anyone know solution
February 17th, 2007 at 2:08 PM
im reading all this about people running secondlife on a vista system with ATI cards… ok well all you intelligent people PLEASE help me out. heres my situation…