SL Viewer not working

[AhnoldSchwarz]

I've just started with SL. I have updated my video card drivers to version 13.1 (my graphics card is AMD Radeon HD 7970), I have tried Firestorm viewer, I have uninstalled and reinstalled and it hasn't been fixed.

The problem is that I open the viewer and all it displays is a white screen or a black screen. I can also only close the viewer from Task Manager once it is opened.

Any known fixes for this?

I am running on Windows 7 64 bit

Thanks

[AhnoldSchwarz]

Ahh fixed it:

I downloaded and installed AMD Catalyst BETA driver (Version 13.3) and it works now... someone else said it was something to do with "support for OpenGL".

[Rolig Loon]

Yup.  AMD has thrown most of its efforts into optimizing for DirectX.  NVidia is more OpenGL friendly and thus been more problem-free for SL residents in recent years.  None of them stay great forever, though.  You have to staty up with changes in the SL viewers and keep your graphics card drivers current.

[Cerise Sorbet]

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AhnoldSchwarz wrote:

Ahh fixed it:

 

I downloaded and installed AMD Catalyst BETA driver (Version 13.3) and it works now... someone else said it was something to do with "support for OpenGL".

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Yes, AMD has been holding back final driver releases for a couple months, because they are making some bigger changes than usual. Valve's Linux push, including a console-like thing of their own, suddenly make better OpenGL support a priority, so they've been going through the games and attacking them.

[Scully Munster]

My laptop meets minimum requirements for running the program but it will not.  It ran it fine when it was windows vista.  I recently updated it to windows 7 and it keeps giving me an error message telling me my graphics driver is out of date and it's the most updated driver out I checked it with the intel site.  PLEASE HELP ME!

[Rolig Loon]

You can have problems if you install updates for graphics drivers on top of currently installed ones. The following procedure, called a clean install, will often fix problems related to graphics cards and drivers:

1. Download the latest graphics driver from the chipset manufacturer (ATI, Nvidia, or Intel), not the maker of your graphics card or computer. Save the file where you can easily find it, but do not install it yet.
2. Run Windows Update and make sure your system is fully patched.
3. Reboot your computer and enter Safe Mode by pressing F8 at the Windows logo screen.
4. Uninstall your old video driver. On Windows XP use Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager (steps will be different on other operating systems). Then open Display Adapters, right-click and choose Uninstall.
5. Reboot your computer.
6. If Windows displays a message that it found new hardware, do not let it automatically install drivers. Instead, run the installation program that you downloaded in step 1.
7. Reboot your computer

You should now have a clean version of your video driver. If this doesn't solve the problem, try searching the Issue Tracker for known issues.

Note: Intel Extreme graphics are not compatible with Second Life. It may be possible for certain configurations of hardware and software to successfully run Second Life while using Intel Extreme graphics; however, these configurations are inherently unstable.