Graphics Card Crashers

[LillyEure]

I’ve been having trouble lately with people crashing my graphics card. My screen will instantly go black and I will get a windows message stating that my GPU driver has stopped working but I stay connected to the grid and I can even still hear and use voice. At first, I thought it could be a problem with my GPU or drivers until someone told me they were going to do it to me and even told me what GPU I have before they did it. The problem is fixed by reloging but in this instance, the person would do it again as soon as I entered the area so I wasn’t able to get his name for a report and it didn’t seem to be affecting others in the area.

 

My question is twofold: If he could see my GPU information what other system info could he see and is there a way to stop this from happening at least long enough to file an abuse report?

 

I'm using Firestorm V 4.7.7.48706, Windows, 64bit

 

[Lindal Kidd]

Bree gives some great advice, but I'm afraid I disagree with her on a few points.

Mesh graphics crashers can be made invisible with CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+1 (although as she says, switching to wireframe with CTRL+SHIFT+R will work too...it just makes things a little harder to see.)

Her advice about using the scroll wheel to quickly back your camera viewpoint out of draw distance range of the crasher is good.  Remember to use the Advanced menu and check "disable camera constraints" to allow this.

Graphics crashers cannot harm your chipset.  Your graphics card will shut down and drop you out of SL before this can happen.  NOTE:  I have heard this claim, "a graphics crasher can destroy your graphics card", many times.  However, I believe it is "internet legend."  I have never seen an actual occurrence of this, or heard of one from a source I can trust.  It's always, "yeah, that happened to a friend of a friend of mine..."

Just because a person has a graphics crasher does NOT mean he can hack into your computer.  You have to give access, usually by falling for a "phishing" scam and/or downloading malware (a keylogger).  This cannot be done from directly in SL, although someone can certainly give you a URL to a malware site, and if you go there you could be in trouble.

I don't know exactly how the griefer knew your GPU.  I think he was probably guessing, or he had perhaps crashed you before and knew that his crasher was effective against a certain GPU.  No one can actually see your system info from within SL, unless they have managed to install malware on your system (see the preceding paragraph.)  If you are worried that this might be the case, you should first scan your machine with a malware detection and removal program...the free Windows Defender software is reasonably effective.  Use two different programs if you have them.  If you are still worried, the next step is probably to back up your data files and then wipe your hard drive and reinstall Windows and all your applications.

[Rolig Loon]

You can disable your ability to see the crasher with CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+1. It will derender everything, so you won't see what's going on any more, but it will give you enough time to get away and/or to Mute the person who's wearing the item, and possibly to submit an Abuse Report.  Once you have teleported away, you can type the same sequence to undo the derendering.  Logging out and back in again should also clear it.

[Bree McMahon]

I report them all the time. And with the makers of the crashers.LL does not respond..And now the crashers are using Mesh so , Crtrl-Alt-Shift-9 doesn't help much, so use,(Ctrl-Shift-R) FAST!,and cam cam out 333 meters, them right click, then make a hot key to take a 3rd party app screen shot..Because they use mesh , not prims.They are always upgrading their crashes.And the crasher will crash you , with and ALT, so they don't get caught.pfttt..The fight against Crashers, is an endless task.The more data , viewer takes in , the faster you will crash..
I have reported a 500 meter mesh crasher,with screen shot, and no one from LL returned a message.As far as them entering your system, they can not.Most the time they crash themselves, in the process.So all you can do is block the persons, and type the info , in there profile, that they have used a crasher.Wire frame is the best defense,And cam out fast.If you can.,Right click on the crasher, itself,, itself, which should give you the owner and makers profile names, take a screen shot,.Then Block them, I use the Linden Lab Viewer.I was told by the Lindens, on the phone, that they will not help anyone using a 3rd party viewer.I have many screen shots of sim crashers.SIM CRASHERS! Not small person crashers.So block and report.Use low viewer graphic settings..And a 3rd party sreen shot app.The SL viewers are not going to work, to get a shot.Remember, that is what these twisted people are crashing.A Desktop Screen shot app , will capture it.But you better be FAST!.

The best thing to do, is to learn the habits of Clan members and groups that make Crashers , in-world.And just stay away from them.After all, if they will crash you, they most likely will hack your SL account..
(LL viewer)
Make a preset viewer setting. In Advanced settings, turn object down to o, or 1..GL OFF.Draw distance 333 Leave on , only your, basic shaders..Then save the preset to Anti GrieferTurn off GL.So the anti griever preset can get the screen shot.One click.Linden Labs Viewer has improved, so much..So now that you have this preset, use it, as your FPS lowers.And as always, have a cooling system in your GPU, like a fan that runs on D.C. power, from a wall outlet.
It sounds like a really pain in the __.But they can tunnel into your PC, and turn off all your fan speeds, by remote..And , the truth is, they can destroy chip sets.
So, good luck.If you wish the find the enemy.I wish I could call out, and drop names, but LL protects them under T.O.S.

[Bree McMahon]

https://community.secondlife.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/88152?lightbox-my-images=187155i9E99FFBDC417AE98

[Ivanova Shostakovich]

Does keeping the render complexity limit low help against this type of thing? I'm sorry for the necropost. I had Firestorm crash on me a few times during a session at SLB14.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Ivanova Shostakovich
Because I didn't notice at first.

[Alwin Alcott]

2 hours ago, Ivanova Shostakovich said:

Does keeping the render complexity limit low help against this type of thing?

yes

[Madelaine McMasters]

You needn't necessarily keep it "low", Ivanova. I've got mine set for 300,000. The important thing is not to drag the slider all the way to the right, which is "no limit". That's where the trouble starts, unless you enter a sim filled with 300,000 ARC goofballs, all seeing jelly dolls because they set their ARC limits at 80K.

And your crashing might not have been due to a graphics crasher, you might have actually encountered the situation I just imagined. In that case, yes, "low" will help.

;-).

Edited June 14, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Claireschen Hesten]

12 hours ago, Ivanova Shostakovich said:

Does keeping the render complexity limit low help against this type of thing? I'm sorry for the necropost. I had Firestorm crash on me a few times during a session at SLB14.

if my experience of people using worn crashers and laggers is anything to go by keeping a low complexity limit won't help you mines limited to 80k i find anyone using such devices has effected me before they've had a chance to become a jelly doll

At SL14B i found the best thing to do was to set a low draw distance around 32 that way i never got logged due to any extreme lag or random Firestorm crashes

[Madelaine McMasters]

4 minutes ago, Claireschen Hesten said:

if my experience of people using worn crashers and laggers is anything to go by keeping a low complexity limit won't help you mines limited to 80k i find anyone using such devices has effected me before they've had a chance to become a jelly doll

At SL14B i found the best thing to do was to set a low draw distance around 32 that way i never got logged due to any extreme lag or random Firestorm crashes

This is interesting. I wonder if @Whirly Fizzlehas some insight.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Klytyna]

12 hours ago, Ivanova Shostakovich said:

Does keeping the render complexity limit low help against this type of thing? I'm sorry for the necropost. I had Firestorm crash on me a few times during a session at SLB14.

Questionable, I'd have to run tests... See, when auto-blob was introduced, there was more than just the auto-blob...

First, there is no such thing as a gpu crasher that can wreck your card, what they actually do is crash your cards opengl support, opengl has issues with certain combos of overlapping shaders, so those multi layered glowing translucent spheres drive your drivers to suicide...

As part of the auto-blob launch, your viewer aquired additional debug settings, not just the render complexity limiter, but also values for auto derendering objects and avis with more than a certain surface area etc. 

THIS is your 'protection' setting against 'gpu crashers', you'd have to check the values for these parameters after adjusting your autoblob limit to see if the autoblob slider affects them.

Black Dragon viewer actually has SEPARATE sliders for these, so you can set them independantly of the autoblob.
 

[Nalates Urriah]

16 hours ago, Ivanova Shostakovich said:

Does keeping the render complexity limit low help against this type of thing? I'm sorry for the necropost. I had Firestorm crash on me a few times during a session at SLB14.

It may... depends. It is a step in the right direction.

Changing your max ACI will reduce the number of textures you are rendering. So, theoretically it should save texture memory. But, if there are no high ACI avatars around, you may still see thrashing.

I am not sure if this has been fixed, but... With Firestorm turn off the icons in chat. Those tiny little icons pull in the whole profile images and shrink them. Because these icons are part of the user interface the large and small images are retained in texture memory with a high priority. The card then holds them at the expense of the other textures you see bing thrashed.

Remove any HUD's you are not using. Mesh body and head HUD's are high texture items.

[Ivanova Shostakovich]

We need a "like this a lot" button.

[Bobbie Faulds]

I don't know how they did it but I've seen a screenshot of a person that was a jelly doll but the displayed render cost was 5 billion. I think whirly is the one that posted it. 

[Lindal Kidd]

Bobbie,

That person was wearing a graphics crasher.  They have absolutely insane complexity levels...millions or billions.  That is, in fact, how they crash your graphics card!  If your complexity slider is set to anything below "unlimited", the person wearing the crasher will render as a jelly doll.  If you have your viewer set to display individual complexity numbers, you'll see that insanely high complexity number in their nametag.

Note that the complexity slider does not protect against crashers that are not worn, but rezzed in world as a separate object.

[Lucia Nightfire]

As long as the worn crasher is legacy based(prims or sculpts) and not mesh, setting a realistic max complexity will defend against it.

The viewer doesn't report numbers over 2,147,483,647 or singed 32 bit value but will still defend correctly if it is exceeded as shown in https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-41034

If the laggers are mesh, the size of your render memory mainly factors if you crash or not.

There was a limited available(3 days) project viewer codenamed "Love Me Render" that was supposed to address the latter by dropping LoD's of attachments that exceeded your max complexity setting as requested in https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-37668, but it had many bugs as hasn't been worked on in months.

[Carl Thibodeaux]

Are you visiting places where people are prone to be crashing sims? This happens at many public places throughout SL. One solution is maybe not visit those places, and move elsewhere.