What is happening to my graphics??

[jessicamalory]

Hello, all. I use a MacBook Pro. I use Firestorm (latest update). My graphics have been working fine (the computer is around 6 months old), until about three days ago. I got these colorful glitchy lines across the screen once I turned my graphics up to ultra,  and I haven't been able to figure out how to get rid of them.

I tried all the different levels of graphics and they will not go away. The only way they go away is to turn off "Basic shaders" and then my entire screen turns blue ? I already played around with all the various settings, "Advanced lighting model", "Local lights", "Basic shaders", etc. etc. None of them will make the blue screen/glitchy lines go away.

The strange thing is, ALL of these options were working perfectly up until a few days ago. I would switch ALM on and off all the time, play with the graphics, switch around the settings with NO problems whatsoever. I haven't updated ANYTHING on my computer and nothing has changed, which is what confuses me.

I am also confused because my computer is pretty much brand new. I tried rebooting the computer multiple times and reinstalling Firestorm to the latest version.

Attached are some pictures of a grass scene. It is making it hard to see anything in-world.The blue one is with Basic shaders OFF, the glitchy lines is with Basic shaders ON. Both make it very hard to see anything.

Also: It is not a windlight thing. I have played with ALL the windlights and no difference. Also changed around the phototools options to no avail. I have a lot of experience with graphics settings/photo tools and Second Life/Firestorm in general and I am truly stumped. There doesn't seem to be any information on errors like this online either. I can't find any way to fix it. Would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks ?

EDIT: I have just downloaded the Second Life viewer and I am having NO issues. So it may not be my graphics card. But I cannot change from Firestorm, to be honest. I find other viewers impossible. Is there something I can do or fix to make Firestorm work again?

Edited September 17, 2018 by jessicamalory

[Lindal Kidd]

I am not a Mac user, but that looks like a graphics driver problem to me.  Perhaps an auto-update installed a new driver that is having issues?  If so, try rolling back to a previous driver.

(but the fact that the standard viewer works and FS does not would seem to argue against my theory.  Have you checked the Firestorm Troubleshooting Guide for any issues with your particular OS version?  https://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/firestorm_troubleshooting )

 

[Whirly Fizzle]

@Gameshowfan90

Your image looks like HttpPipelining is blowing up.

Firstly try a cache clear, which may be enough to fix it.
If pipelining blows up you end up with corrupted textures in cache & those will remain until you purge them.
Preferences -> Advanced -> "Clear cache" button.
Then relog - your cache will be cleared when the viewer launches.

If that doesn't fix the problem, please come back. You may need to disable HttpPipelining.

Ref: BUG-202968 - [Alex Ivy] Pipelining still blows up frequently resulting in corrupted textures & mesh

Edited September 20, 2018 by Whirly Fizzle

[Fionalein]

could be a cache thing, try installing another viewer,

1. if new viewer works fine -> delete cache
2. if new viewer does not work fine either ... -> curse Steve Jobs
3. if it only happens after some online time -> see above
4. if it does go away after removing the "nuke my GPU" a.k.a ultra slider position -> see above and don't use ultra

Edited September 17, 2018 by Fionalein

[Alyona Su]

Which version of macOS are you using? If you're on the new beta then there are still fixes LL and FS people will need to implement. Give a little more detail on your system: which OS, what year MacBook, etc. If you have an Nvidia chipset, you may be in trouble.

@Fionalein - Steve's been dead quite a long time. Cancer. he was already cursed. LOL

@Lindal Kidd - this one doesn;t look like a driver issue, but could be the GPU depending how old the MacBook is, especially if it's an Nvidia - there was a very nasty bug in nVidia chips a few years ago to the point that Apple was even offering free repairs (class-action suit and all) - but that was quite some time ago. I have one of the newest MacBooks and it runs FS and other viewers fantastically, so it's unlikely to be a driver issue (as all Macs run a very small variety of drivers across the different machines).

Edited September 17, 2018 by Alyona Su

[Nalates Urriah]

When you ask this type of question give us the tech details of your computer and viewer. Click HELP->About... and copy that info in with your question. With that info we could have looked to see if your video driver version has issues.

Also, ask in the Firestorm Support group for fast answers. If you do a forum post as you did this time point them to your image in the thread.

In your case (hardcore Firestorm user - I understand), I would TP to a Linden region (Pooley, Furball, ?) and logout. As previously suggested, delete the viewer cache. This is a rare case of a time when that may actually help. Login and stay in the region until inventory and region completely load. Open your inventory panel to be sure. With any luck that will fix the issue.

Should that fail, find the settings file settings.xml. Rename it. Then start the viewer. It will build a new default version of the file.

If that still does not fix it, start looking at hardware. Start with temperatures. There is free software that will monitor your hardware. On Windows I use HWMonitor. 75C is HOT. Above that problems are likely.

[jessicamalory]

Thank you all so much for the suggestions. I appreciate it very much. Tried clearing cache twice and nothing Also, I did try deleting the settings file, still didn't work

Pasting the info below, hopefully this can help diagnose it?

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7820HQ CPU @ 2.90GHz (2900 MHz)
Memory: 16384 MB
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.13.1 Darwin 17.2.0 Darwin Kernel Version 17.2.0
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon Pro 560 OpenGL Engine

 

I don't think it's hardware related because it's working fine with other viewers, I think the issue may be the compatibility between the hardware and Firestorm. Also, I don't understand why it suddenly just cropped up after 6 months. No updates on drivers, no changes to the computer or viewer when this happened. I'm so confused. ?

Edited September 17, 2018 by jessicamalory

[Alyona Su]

5 minutes ago, jessicamalory said:

I don't think it's hardware related

It's likely something in FS got corrupted - so try this:

In Finder, choose GO and hold Option key - then you will see LIBRARY (It's in your home folder and hidden by default).

In Library, go to Application Support then Firestorm. Perhaps delete all the contents in there. If that doesn't work then perhaps follow Clean Install instructions at their web sire and reinstall. I'd suggest you give Catznip a go, but they haven't created the Mac version in a while

[cykarushb]

That is not a driver or any other kind of software problem, that's a dead gpu. Or at least one near death.

from personal experience, those kinds of artifacts on the screen are the signs of dead video memory 

warranty to apple, get it replaced

the regular LL viewer isn't as intense on the GPU as firestorm is with firestorms extended graphical options, you're most likely hitting higher video memory usage and tapping into the dead vram

heat tends to cause these issues

[Lindal Kidd]

cykarushb...I'm not so sure.  The OP said she has no issues when using the stock LL viewer.  This would seem to argue against the problem being graphics hardware related.

[Whirly Fizzle]

Did you twiddle with the glow settings in Phototools?

Go to World -> Photo & Video -> Phototools -> DoF/Glow tab
Click the D buttons next to all the glow settings.
 

[Gameshowfan90]

That's weird i'm having the same type of problem on SL viewer when i had an auto update  on Monday my graphics went all wonky when i logged in and i can't figure out what is wrong they work fine on Firestorm but it takes so much longer for things to load/rez with it and seems to use more memory.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Gameshowfan90

[Nalates Urriah]

@Gameshowfan90

This is typically a graphics driver problem. 

When you jump into a similar thread rather than making a new one, it makes it difficult. Also, it helps a bunch to click the viewer's Help->About... and copy paste that info with you post.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Nalates Urriah

[Gameshowfan90]

7 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

@Gameshowfan90

This is typically a graphics driver problem. 

When you jump into a similar thread rather than making a new one, it makes it difficult. Also, it helps a bunch to click the viewer's Help->About... and copy paste that info with you post.

Should i make a new thread @Nalates Urriah with that information?

[Nalates Urriah]

@Gameshowfan90

Yeah. Start over. And say you are starting over so people here know what's going on. But, check your drivers first. If that is the problem, your done and fixed. No need to continue.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Nalates Urriah

[jessicamalory]

@Whirly Fizzle Thank you so much! This fixed it! I just had to turn down iterations and now everything is fixed ? Who would have ever thought that was the culprit? Thank you so much!!

On 9/19/2018 at 8:51 PM, Whirly Fizzle said:

Did you twiddle with the glow settings in Phototools?

Go to World -> Photo & Video -> Phototools -> DoF/Glow tab
Click the D buttons next to all the glow settings.
 

 

Edited September 22, 2018 by jessicamalory

[jessicamalory]

Also thank you so much to everyone who took the time out to answer me! ❤️ You are all so kind and I am forever grateful to all of you! SL is finally fixed again and I am so relieved. ?

[Whirly Fizzle]

1 hour ago, jessicamalory said:

@Whirly Fizzle Thank you so much! This fixed it! I just had to turn down iterations and now everything is fixed ? Who would have ever thought that was the culprit? Thank you so much!!

Haha yeah - you need to be careful with those glow settings - the glow shaders can produce some wacky effects!

I love phototools, but it exposes some settings that can really break you if you are not careful with the settings you choose.
It's great for some unusual effects for photographs, but as you can see, it's not so great for every day use 

[cykarushb]

On 9/19/2018 at 12:31 PM, Lindal Kidd said:

cykarushb...I'm not so sure.  The OP said she has no issues when using the stock LL viewer.  This would seem to argue against the problem being graphics hardware related.

the below post is what a software issue would result in

On 9/19/2018 at 8:35 PM, Gameshowfan90 said:

That's weird i'm having the same type of problem on SL viewer when i had an auto update  on Monday my graphics went all wonky when i logged in and i can't figure out what is wrong they work fine on Firestorm but it takes so much longer for things to load/rez with it and seems to use more memory.

the top picture is the result of graphics drivers or a misused openGL api, that used to happen to a lot of mesh objects for me on windows XP because of an issue where my gpu supported a version of openGL that XP didnt and the viewer didnt and the GPU was trying to use a newer version than what was being used by everything else

the bottom picture showing the broken textures and visible UV map makes me think of a cache problem

 

OP's issue was resolved and was related to glow settings, however i would still relate that to hardware at some level, you dont usually see whole screen artifacting without it being a hardware problem, i still think it is related to what i mentioned about it being in FS and not the LL viewer about hitting a certain portion of video memory thats probably damaged.

[Whirly Fizzle]

12 hours ago, cykarushb said:

you dont usually see whole screen artifacting without it being a hardware problem

Oh you can, if shaders blow up for some reason. Having your glow settings set in a certain way will absolutely produce the crazy effects shown in the OPs post.