Obsolete GPU + Windows 10 Problem

[Lyssa Greymoon]

I'm trying to get SL to run under Windows 10 (1903, x64) with an Nvidia Quadro FX4500. Every viewer I've tried opens with a blank, transparent window. Anyone have any ideas on how to get this combination to work, or seen a fix for that issue? (Yes, I am aware I can fix it by using a video card that is supported by SL and not old enough to be in high school, I want to get this card working if possible).

Thanks!

[Fritigern Gothly]

52 minutes ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

I'm trying to get SL to run under Windows 10 (1903, x64) with an Nvidia Quadro FX4500.

I'm afraid I can't offer you any hope. This card is so old that, even if you were to get a viewer to recognise the card, its performance would be so incredibly horrible that you wouldn't be able to even run it at low graphics.

You are trying to run a 2019 operating system and viewer on a 2009 graphics card. I doubt that Win10 even recognises the card. Moreover, in order to get decent performance from any graphics card, you have to use the drivers from the manufacturer and I am pretty certain that Nvidia ceased support for the FX 4500 well before Win 10, or even Win8.1 came out.

So why do you want to use a 10 year old graphics card for SL, if you don't mind me asking?

Edited July 15, 2019 by Fritigern Gothly

[Mollymews]

i think your best chance would be a Windows 7 gfx driver. Maybe this one might work:

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/110262/en-us

and most likely the LL Obsolete Viewer here:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Release/3.7.28.300847

 

[Whirly Fizzle]

38 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

and most likely the LL Obsolete Viewer here:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Release/3.7.28.300847

Note that since UDP asset fetch was disabled a couple of weeks ago, that viewer will have major problems because it doesn't support asset-HTTP.
Your avatar will never rez, you'll be unable to see any animations playing on yourself or other avatars, you'll be unable to hear any viewer sounds etc etc.
Oz did say he was going to remove the download but he either changed his mind or forgot.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

9 hours ago, Mollymews said:

i think your best chance would be a Windows 7 gfx driver. Maybe this one might work:

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/110262/en-us

and most likely the LL Obsolete Viewer here:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Release/3.7.28.300847

 

Thanks. I was able to get that far. The last Windows 7/8/8.1 driver (309.something) works in Windows 10 as far as recognizing the card and running it. I tried the Obsolete Viewer and it does the same thing as the current viewer. I get the SL window, but there's nothing in it. FWIW, I get the same results from TPVs and older versions of the LL viewer, back to 1.23.5.

[cykarushb]

This has to do with older versions of OpenGL that these old cards are limited by and Windows 10 not getting along.

Theres a lengthy list of things you could potentially try but the easiest would be to just install windows 7 instead. It's EOL soon but presumably so is the rest of this pc.

Ive run some cards about that age and older with SL, high end stuff from the time even will struggle pretty bad. G80/G92 high end like an 8800GT/GTX/Ultra or Quadro FX 4600/5600 are kinda the lower threshold for "not complete garbage performance".

[Fionalein]

3 hours ago, cykarushb said:

Theres a lengthy list of things you could potentially try but the easiest would be to just install windows 7 instead.

or install an Ubuntu Linux double boot and run SL on Linux with legacy Nvidia drivers.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

12 hours ago, cykarushb said:

Theres a lengthy list of things you could potentially try 

If you run across someone with that list, it’d be great if you would point them at this thread.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

Yes! I managed to get it to work. It has to run in fullscreen mode.