NVIDIA Driver 516.40 rolled out on 6/15/2022

[J Canucci]

If you have updated your NVIDA graphics driver and are experiencing issues in SL...this is a known issue, and you will need to roll back your graphics driver to fix the problem, until NVIDIA corrects it

[TiaShaw]

THANK YOU!  THATS EXACTLY WHAT I was looking for.. broken lighting and glitching out .. i just did update on 2x pc's previously and both on win11 have problem

[bigmoe Whitfield]

typically I stay 2 generations behind on drivers for just this reason.

[Aishagain]

Just a quick "heads up".  NVidia are now aware of this issue and it is on the list of "Open Issues".  I am assured that  they are "working on it" (sic).

[Jackson Redstar]

But I am sure over at Nvidia when a new driver has issues in SL, they are like, "yeah, I'll get right on that boss!" lol

[Chris Corvinus]

Nvidia doesn't care about Second Life since LL is like 3 generations behind the current tech age. 

[Extrude Ragu]

I wonder if SL should team up with either ATI or Nvidia in some kind of sponsorship to modernize the graphics pipeline of the viewer.

I mean for the graphics company, it's a nice business case study, to show how their technology and expertise could make an old game run much faster, and for LL even though it costs money to get engineers from one of these graphics cards to use their expertise to improve the viewer, they'd probably be able to do it in 1/5th of the time it would take for a less graphically experienced in-house linden to do it.

It'd also be good for publicity if there's a big name like ATI or NVidia coming up when the viewer opens, it'd probably change the public perception of SecondLife into something that has been modernized.. Yes I know LL are modernizing it as we speak but public perception matters

[Aishagain]

4 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

I wonder if SL should team up with either ATI or Nvidia in some kind of sponsorship to modernize the graphics pipeline of the viewer.

Pipe-dream.  NVidia has shown scant regard for some of the minor videogames in the virtual firmament, and most of them have a much larger userbase than Second Life.  I share your sentiment that it would indeed be a good case-study for NVidia but my  limited interractions with them (most recently over this currect debacle) suggest to me that most of their technical staff neither know nor care about SL.  For us in SL we are fortunate that this issue affects a far wider userbase than SL, I understand Minecraft is impacted as well, and THAT ought to set alarm bells ringing at NVidia.

For now we must stick with the known workarounds, namely a rollback to a driver previously known to be good for SL or try using a Studio driver from NVidia, about which I know nothing.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Aishagain
spelling...I kan't spel

[arabellajones]

I had a look on the NVIDIA site, and the Studio drivers are apparently not available for Linux But my video card is a bit old and that may be affecting what choices NVIDIA are offering me. If you are using Linux, you may have more options from going through your distribution's native upgrade  system.

[Henri Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, arabellajones said:

I had a look on the NVIDIA site, and the Studio drivers are apparently not available for Linux But my video card is a bit old and that may be affecting what choices NVIDIA are offering me. If you are using Linux, you may have more options from going through your distribution's native upgrade  system.

For Linux, you may use the last (working) beta version (515.43.04), or any other legacy versions (for older cards): 470.129.06, 390.151, etc... The list is available here.

[arabellajones]

Inara Pey has reported that there are a couple of other dodgy version numbers, NVIDIA driver versions 512.95 and 515.48

My distribution does make v515.48.07 available, but nothing later. I was using the 470 series, which still gets regular updates, but is old enough that I switched to v510.73.05 — I think I should have done that a while back, but it was still working.

I know I have good video hardware, and there has been a lot of fake hardware infesting the markets. I am not in any hurry to change.

[Silent Mistwalker]

I just updated on the 15th to 516.40. I haven't logged in to SL yet, but I have been playing another game that is far harder on graphics without any issues. This particular game has a min requirement of a GTX 1660.

[Aishagain]

28 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

I just updated on the 15th to 516.40. I haven't logged in to SL yet, but I have been playing another game that is far harder on graphics without any issues. This particular game has a min requirement of a GTX 1660.

Yes, some games apparently do play without issues, but that is NOT the point.  Just because it is "far harder on graphics" does not mean that it uses the parts of the graphics system that are affected by this bug.  When you log into SL and use either ambient occlusion of any of the advanced lighting model, ie deferred rendering, ie shadows etc, be assured you WILL see artefacts.  (As a test I tried the driver on my system which uses a GTX1660Ti, and sure enough I got striations etc as soon as I turned on shadows in SL.

I rolled back to an earlier (MUCH earlier) driver and they went away.  I will not be doing that again.

ETA: Oh, and by the way the GTX 1660 series are not particularly powerful GPUs by today's standards.  I found that out to my dismay some time ago.

Edited June 19, 2022 by Aishagain
spelling..my perennial bugbear

[Silent Mistwalker]

26 minutes ago, Aishagain said:

Yes, some games apparently do play without issues, but that is NOT the point.  Just because it is "far harder on graphics" does not mean that it uses the parts of the graphics system that are affected by this bug.  When you log into SL and use either ambient occlusion of any of the advanced lighting model, ie deferred rendering, ie shadows etc, be assured you WILL see artefacts.  (As a test I tried the driver on my system which uses a GTX1660Ti, and sure enough I got striations etc as soon as I turned on shadows in SL.

I rolled back to an earlier (MUCH earlier) driver and they went away.  I will not be doing that again.

ETA: Oh, and by the way the GTX 1660 series are not particularly powerful GPUs by today's standards.  I found that out to my dismay some time ago.

I have what I can afford to build.

[Aishagain]

@Silent Mistwalker  I was in no way critical of your rig, I suspect you have quite missed my point.

[Ardy Lay]

I suspect the point is, SL is an unusual beast and nvidia doesn't test against, so, if you have no absolute need to run the newest video drivers, stick with what is working.  Rest assured that when nvidia touts "performance improvements" in new driver release they are not talking about the old parts of the driver that SL uses.

[Aishagain]

20 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

I suspect the point is, SL is an unusual beast and nvidia doesn't test against, so, if you have no absolute need to run the newest video drivers, stick with what is working.

And that is the best advice that can be given.  Frankly SL is running without issues for me on a driver which is upwards of 6 months old now (497.09) and I see absolutely no point in updating to a driver that perhaps has a profile for a new fad game and little else.  NVidia do not test against such systems as SL, (perhaps they should since SL is a beast of a programme), because it is a vanishingly small minority interest.

NVidia have a list of "open isssues" which need addressing and the one afflicting SL (which is only one among several other applications affected, I might add) is on the "to do" list.

Sadly several on this list, I suspect, also appear on the "too hard, can't be bothered" list.

[Mollymews]

On 6/20/2022 at 1:00 PM, Ardy Lay said:

I suspect the point is, SL is an unusual beast and nvidia doesn't test against, so, if you have no absolute need to run the newest video drivers, stick with what is working.  Rest assured that when nvidia touts "performance improvements" in new driver release they are not talking about the old parts of the driver that SL uses.

this is me

i have a GTX 1050Ti graphics card. I am still on the NVidia 456.71 driver. For a while I was updating regularly then the driver after 456.71 caused some issues for my SL. So I never bothered updating since. It still goes as it always has

[Gunner Grun]

One other thing always do a custom install and make sure you do a clean install of the drivers. One of the worst things you can do is just run an update on your old driver that causes more problems than anything. I'm running the updated driver win10 on a 2080 pro and having no problems.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Gunner Grun

[Emmie Silverspar]

How do you roll back the graphics driver?

[Mollymews]

14 minutes ago, Emmie Silverspar said:

How do you roll back the graphics driver?

google on keywords: roll back Nvidia graphics driver

lots of help websites will come up showing how to do this

[LykanXEclipse]

1 hour ago, Emmie Silverspar said:

How do you roll back the graphics driver?

Guide https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/driver-rollback/

You can search your drivers using this (you must know your gpu model name, series and if is desktop or laptop)https://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx

In case of being windows 10/11 in the select menu you must select DCH and recommended/certified, Example:

Is recommended if you play other "games" stick to the GRD(gaming ready drivers) and rollback/download the 512.95 or 512.77 which are stable, If you just use SL go ahead with the SRD(studio ready driver) but have in mind this one is optimized for creators workflow Stable SRD: 512.96

When you select and downloaded one of these run the installer>when it opens and ask you for select a option check custom(avanced) then press next/continue>in the section were it tells you what's gonna install in the checkbox at the bottom check "perform a clean install" then start the rollback/install. Your pc screen will flash black or will blackout for a few minutes during this. Is a normal driver install behavior do not panic

After that you ready until Nvidia fixes the problem in the next update soon or later

[arabellajones]

On 6/15/2022 at 10:17 PM, J Canucci said:

If you have updated your NVIDIA graphics driver and are experiencing issues in SL...this is a known issue, and you will need to roll back your graphics driver to fix the problem, until NVIDIA corrects it

NVIDIA have now brought out v516.59 for Windows, which is reported to correct the problem.

I am not sure that a fix is out for Linux yet.

[LykanXEclipse]

8 minutes ago, arabellajones said:

NVIDIA have now brought out v516.59 for Windows, which is reported to correct the problem.

I am not sure that a fix is out for Linux yet.

Windows 11 pro and current using the new GRD 516.59 (on a 3060 desktop and tested on a lap 1660) look like it fixed those opengl artifacts behavior. No problems on the viewer I use (it should be fixed for all now including thirdparties)

[Katherine Heartsong]

I don;'t even know how to update the graphics drivers on my PC gaming system with a 3070 nVidia.

Mainly Mac user.