Peggy Paperdoll

I refer you to this: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Bandwidth-Usage-Warning/m-p/1640337#M74504 If you are going to **bleep** about bandwidth usage then **bleep** about usage.........not speed. It's possible that the preferences could be ignored on the speed at which the data is sent. But that is not bandwidth usage. So are we talking about speed or bandwidth usage as the OP stated in the title?

Then that is not "bandwidth usage". It's your viewer trying to recieve more than the ISP's set bandwidth speed. Two entirely different things. The bandwidth settings in preferences relate to speed......not the usage. And the title of the thread and the argument the OP presented speaks of usage. That's why I said I don't think the OP knows what bandwidth usage is.......and neither do you, evidently.

I'm wondering if you know what bandwidth usage is. I mean you log into SL, TP around, do some sight seeing, visit your friends new home and expect some sort of limitation on the bandwidth all that requires? Every texture, every avatar within your view distance, every object, every script, every animation you encounter while logged into to SL has to be sent to you......that requires bandwidth usage. The busier the place you are in the more bandwidth required for you to see and experience everything. You can run into places with extremely large amounts of large textures on many many objects with tons of animations and particles running amuck.........that will require much more bandwidth than an empty sim with nothing on it. The setting in preferences do not control the bandwidth you use..........it controls the speed at wihich the bandwidth is delivered to you. If you stay in a place long enough to download all the content of that place you'll get the same bandwidth usage no matter what setting you have set in preferences (a smaller bandwidth setting will just take longer to download than a larger setting). If you are hitting your ISP's bandwidth cap then it's between you and your ISP. The SL servers will send everything your viewer requests......without regard to the total bandwidth required to send all that information.. That's the way it works and that's the only way it can work. You are way off base on who's responsible for this "problem". It's the way stuff works on the Internet. Get with your ISP if you get capped (commonly called throttled). It's your ISP who controls the total amount of data sent and recieved by you........not LL. LL can not control how much you recieve over any given time.....your ISP can.

You have to be logged in to give Lindens to anyone. You do not have to be logged in to recieve Lindens from someone.

The computer sitting on the floor is not going to hurt it........only the case is touching the carpet and even if you have a static charge and touch the computer, a well designed computer case will protect the stuff inside. But sitting on the floor, on carpet will make it more prone to "dust bunnies". In my house it would be balls of kitty fur.

You are not likely to find a laptop in the $800 or below range that will run SL "very well". The primary reason is that, in order to run SL very well, any computer is going to have to have a top end video card........those are expensive even for desktops and down right scary for laptops. Laptops being what they are require smaller, lighter, and more efficeint hardware (that's one of the main reasons laptops are so much more expensive than a comparable desktop. High performance hardware, especially video cards, require more power to run and laptops are designed to run on batteries which have a definite limitation on how long they will operate at peak performance before needing to be recharged........and that requires a high end battery pack. Then there's the heat that any electronics generate when under load. The heavier the load the more heat.......SL is going to put any computer (laptop or desktop) under just about as heavy a load as any program you can run. A "gaming laptop" is designed with all that in mind........and they are expensive (think $1500 at the bottom end and upwards from there). To run SL very well you need, at least, a good gaming computer (you don't need the best of the best but you do need a computer that has the hardware to handle the graphics load that SL presents). An $800 laptop should run SL fairly well. It would probably have a slightly below mid-range graphics card, 8 GB or more of system RAM, and 2 GHz or greater CPU. With a mid-range video card and 8 GB RAM and a modern CPU you can run SL at high settings without too much texture/object lag. It will struggle greatly with shadows and depth of field enabled (it might not even run with that enabled). "Very well, is subjective........what I call very well might be more than what you call very well. Very well in my mind is the ability to run SL at Ultra and shadows and depth of field enabled without a noticible hit on lag..........smooth video with everything enabled. Maintaining 25 (or more) frames per second gives most people smooth video. There are not a lot of SL users who can run SL at ultra without sacraficing frames per second. But that is my definition of "very well". Asus, Acer, Sony, Hewlett Packard, Dell, or any other brand really doesn't make a lot of difference........it's the hardware inside that makes one better than the other. And you do pay for the name....keep that in mind when shopping.

No turning off the electicity does not help.........in fact, I assumed you knew that not only to turn off the computer but also unplug it from the electrical source. Static electricity is like lightning.........it's independant from the electrical source. It's electricity that occurs due to static build up. Your body can obtain an electrical charge (as can other objects). Ever reach for the door knob after walking across the room and get "zapped" when you touch it?. How about when you were a kid and you would rub a balloon on a blanket or other such cloth and "stick" it to the wall? That's static electricity. You need to remove that build up before doing anything inside your computer case. What I do is make sure I touch the back metal plate on my tower before I unplug it or any of the other peripheral devices. I keep contact with that metal when I carry the tower to where ever it is that I want to place it for cleaning. Since my house does not have carpet (only area rugs) I try to stay off the rugs throughout the cleaning process......and I make sure I touch the metal chasis often as I clean (or do anything inside the computer). You evidently got by with the swiffer use. Static electricity is not built up every time you to do anything..........you don't get zapped everytime you open your door. But it is a known "phonomenon" and since you know that, take simple precausions to avoid a head ache later. They actually make static "bracelets" for computer technician (a bracelet that has a electrical conductor that you clip to the chasis when working inside). I don't think it's necessary to go that far but discharging any static electricity build up is simple and, in my mind, a no brainer about being done every time you open your computer case. Please don't use a swiffer duster again.....those things utilize static electricity to "attract" dust. You're asking for trouble using anything that is prone to static build up.....and swiffer dusters certainly qualify in the area of static electricity build up.

I wouldn't use a swiffer duster. It takes only a little bit of static electricity to zap a transistor or chipset. That's the reason to touching a metal part of the chasis before reaching inside your case........you really should touch the wand to the chasis to discharge any static build up. If you used the swiffer and got away with it, don't do that again.

If you are trying to install a viewer that is not for the operating system of your computer it won't install. The common result is that the installation simply fails without an error message........your operating system sees jiberish if the viewer is coded for any OS other than the one your computer uses. You need to install a Windows viewer for a Windows machine, a Mac viewer for a Mac machine and a Linux viewer for a Linux machine. If you are trying to install a viewer for a tablet or smart phone you'll get the same results..........the viewer must be compatible with the operating system of the computer the viewer is being installed on. Here's my suggestion. Go back to the download site for the viewer you want. Then download the viewer and save the setup file to your computer (do not "run" from the website). Scan the downloaded file with your anti-virus to make sure it's mal-ware free. Also double check that you are downloading the proper viewer for your computer. Then get off the Internet and install it.

Water and keyboards, water and mice, really water and anthing computer is a disaster looking for a place to happen. Don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise........even those "water proof" hardware peripherals need to be protected for liquid (they are not water proof.....they are water resistant. There's a huge difference. Just because the ad says it will survive a cup of coffee spilled on it doesn't mean that's true.........it means, it MIGHT take a few seconds longer for the liquid to kill the keyboard. Might is a key word to pay attention to. You can use a vacuum cleaner to clean your computer......even the high suction ones. Two things that are absolutely imparative to do. Touch a metal part of the computer tower chasis with both your hand and the vacuum hose (do not touch any an printed circuit board or hardware in the computer case) And when vacuuming make sure you do not bang anything in the computer with the hose wand...........a clean uphostry brush is good (just make sure it's clean with no kitty fur you sucked up while doing house cleaning). That can of compressed air you blow dust out with most likly has several times more air pressure blowing about the the components than your vacuum exerts sucking air around the same component. I've vacuumed my computers over the years without harm. And I've tried those Best Buy computer vacs.......they are junk.

If you are talking about wireless, as in 3G or 4G (like your wireless data plan for your smart phone or tablet), then I'm going to say none are really "compatible" with SL. It's not a matter of whether or not 3G or 4G would work (under ideal conditions both would work). It's about the consistancy of the connections and how fast the data transfer is on a consistant basis......3G and 4G fluctuate dramatically. You need a good, solid connection to the Internet in order for you to stay connected to the Linden Lab servers. Most wireless connections via a modem or router are not nearly stable enough for reliable use on SL......and 3G and 4G are less stable than modems or router connections. SL is compatible to any Internet connection. It's all about the quality of that connection. If the servers recieve the data from you and you recieve the data from the servers everything's hunky dory.......it's when the data exchange is variable and unstable that problems occur.

"... 2x EVGA GTX560 TIs in SLI ..." --------------------------------------- Last I heard SLI and SL are enemies. I think that's your problem. But, I would still pay attention to what Rolig said..........heat is always a very big suspect when crashes occur after a few minutes under heavy load. SL puts a pretty heavy load on your graphics.

"... Image sizes other than power of 2 sizes like; 64x64, 128x128, 256x256, and 1024x1024 are resized to power of 2 sizes. I think a 128x1024 avoids being resized... Doing anything else results in images of lower quality." ------------------------------------------- As long as each deminsion (vertical or horizontal) is at a power or two and under the 1024 pixel max limit, the image will not be resized by the software on upload. A 128 x 1024 will not be resized, but neither will 256 x 128 or a 64 x 1024 or a 1024 x 32. All those deminsions are at a power of 2 on each side and will survive the upload undistorted. Distortion will occur if you size the prim without considering the final uploaded size.......a 128 x 1024 texture on a prim that is sized 64 meters x 32 meters will be distorted.

"08-13-201212:02 PM People who keeps sl separated from rl are either ugly as ****** or male/female playing opposite gender. Not that I have any problems with them, but I prefer to mix RL with SL. I can't see myself asking to someone what they did today in sl or if they see the grid grass greener. Know what I mean?" ---------------------------------------------------- Here's my take: People who prefer to mix RL with SL are either children or stupid. It's those very people who, on more than just a few occassions, come to the forums whining and crying about Linden Lab needs to protect it's users. They are being stalked, or harrassed in RL, or their account got "hacked". They are suddenly brought into the real world.......when you are dealing with absolute strangers, with absolutely no way to know who it is that you are dealing with, you had better conduct your actions with caution. Lots of caution. How many terrified threads have some of us older forum users read over the years about someone actually has access to the user in a very real way? More than just a few that I've read over the almost 7 years. That is what you are opening yourself up to. Get smart.....be just a little bit paranoid. Your life (your real life, not SL life) could very well be at stake. If not your life (as in getting hurt or killed) then your financial life. The Internet is fun........but it's also very danerous. Stupid people should not be allowed access........but there's not way to stop them. I will, however, point out the stupidity everytime I see it. Do like it? The stop talking stupid talk.

You can update drivers until you are blue in the face but if your graphics accellerator can't handle SL it will never handle SL. You said your laptop is old. So since you say you have an Intel graphics chipset it's probably either a GMA 945 or a GMA 965 (depending on just how old the computer is). Both those cards will run SL on a viewer based on the very old SL viewer 1.23 viewer code. Some of the TPV's still have viewers based on that code (but for how long I wouldn't guarantee more than a few more months........viewers based on the old code are missing about half of what SL has to offer and any viewer based on the 1.23 code days are numbered). You won't be able to run SL at settings higher than mid-range (and the texture lag will be pretty high........low works better but the graphics are ugly). It might be time to save your pennies and get a newer and better computer...........something with a discrete video card (not onboard or on chip graphics). SL is not a program designed for low end computers. Editing to say I meant to reply to Elizabeth.....not Supersatan. Sorry about that.

This software for the "forums" is not the proper software for a discussion........it's blog software modified to mimick forum software (somewhat but it's not suited for a discussion at all). You answering using the "Options-Edit" is the best way. So don't feel bad about not knowing how to respond........very few do with this blog software.

You do not have to log in to get the specs from the Help menu. Just launch it and click on the "Help" menu at the log in screen. And, if you do a Google search for "VFS" you'll find lots of information that will help you understand where the problem lies......and once you find out where the problem lies you can start fixing it. A VFS error is a problem that originates with the operating system. You're crashing could have damaged some files that your system needs in order for you to log in. You're Google search will give some information about how to repair the damaged files.

This is the second thread you've started. It would be much faster and very much more organized if you kept your problem to a single thread. Catch up on what has already been suggested: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Technical/Computer-Crashing/qaq-p/1631657 We are waiting for somthing that will help us help you........we can play the multi-thread game all night and you'll still have your problem.

That might help with all the requests for assistance without clues. Hurry up with the crystal ball.........we need one here in Answers.

To echo what Echo said (how's that for a play on words? ), when you edit your post to include some information so that people might be able to help make sure your discribing the problem. You said your computer is crashing. I doubt that your computer, itself, is crashing yet that is what you said. A computer crash is very different than a program crash. When your computer crashes your computer operating system stops responding (meaning you can do absolutely nothing with it.....sometimes the only way out of the crash is to force a shut down by removing the power source). Sometimes the computer will restart on it's own. Sometimes, if you wait long enough, the operating system will recover enough so that you can restart it normally (but that's rare). A computer crash is a pretty big crash and usually indicates something is very wrong and needs to be investigated. A program crash is what people normally experience. When a program crashes the only thing effected is the program itself......it stops responding, or you suddenly find yourself looking at your desktop, maybe it just freezes up. But you do not have to do anything severe like force a shut down of your complete system to recover. You simply shut down the crashed program (either by the normal method to going to the task manager and shuting the crashed program down). Other than the program that crashed, everything else on the computer is uneffected. You said your computer crashed without any discription........that forces anyone who might want to help to make assumptions. Those assumptions could very well be incorrect and because of that their attempts to help are all in vain. Your problem doesn't get solved and everyone wastes time trying to help. You wouldn't email your mechanic with "My car won't go when I want it to" without a discription because you know your mechanic needs more information than that to help you.......why do you think posting your problem on a forum is any different? After you clarify your problem with a accurate discription you really need to include some basic computer specs. A very easy way to do that is to launch your viewer and under the "Help" menu click "About Second Life". You'll see the basic specs that are reported to the servers of the computer you are using. Copy those specs and paste them back here. And my final comment (and this is just a guess since I have nothing to go on) is that you are not crashing at all when you try to upload a picture. What is happening is that you are loosing the connection to the servers. That happens a lot with wireless connections. And also on minimal connections (such as low bandwidth DSL connections). Sometimes it's router and/or modem problems. But if you give an accurate discription of the problem that possibly can be explored and might fix your problem. Otherwise, everything is a guess. And guessing is not a very effective way to fix a problem.

Somewhat incorrect. Here's the quote from the Live Chat initiation page (when you want to start a session): ---------------------- Need Help? Chat Now Live with a Support Representative Start Chat Welcome to Live Chat Support! Live Chat is available 8am to Midnight PST, M-F; and 8am to 8pm PST Saturday and Sunday.

Near the top of the page you are viewing you'll see "Help". Click on it and on the page that pops up scroll down to "Contact Support". That will get you to the page where you can initiate a Live Chat session.

I can't answer any questions about Blender except that, yes, you can import GIMP images into Blender (I've tried Blender and I just can't get my head around 3D graphics but I played with Blender and did import images from GIMP to mess around with). On creating brushes start here: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Custom_Brushes/ Also Google "Making GIMP Brushes".........you'll get tons of hits. Browse some of those sites and you'll get a good idea of how to do anything you want to do with brushes. Any image you have on your computer (or a memory stick from you camera that you can view on your computer) can be opened and edited in GIMP. All you have to do is to launch GIMP and on the main editing window click on "File". Then "Open" and navigate to where that image is located. Double click the image and it will open at full resolution in the editing window.

You're computer is trying to tell you something...........something that is important. Crashing to shut down is one of the most serious of computer crashes. Usually that kind of a crash is due to an important hardware device triggering the system to shut down.........it's the computer protecting itself from damage (which could be very serious damage). Just like a circuit breaker tripping and shutting down the power when you connect a certain device to it and turn it on...........something's wrong and you need to investigate to find out what it is (and fix it before you burn your house down.......or, in this case, frying your computer). Second Life is just about as graphically intensive as any program you can run on your computer. The probable hardware device that is causing the crash is your graphics card. It could be as simple as a driver needing to be updated (though an outdated or damaged driver very seldom takes you computer completely down with shut down crash). One common cause is your computer needs cleaning......all that dust holds in the heat and heat kills electronics. But, it's more than likely your video card is failing (which very well could be due to your computer needing cleaning and it wasn't done). A failed video card can shut down your computer.......and you won't be able to start it back up again either (of if you can start it up you can't see anything). Take that message seriously.......look at your video card. Replace it if you have to. Don't wait for it fail.......that failure can (and often does) take out other hardware devices when it goes boom.

Yes the HD 3000 Intel graphics accellerator will work. Medium graphics settings in preferences are about the highest you can get away with.........but you will have a noticable amount of texture lag. In busy areas that lag will be significant. The graphics will not handle shadows or depth of field well (if it handles at all). But, it will work. Depending on what you want from your SL experience will determine if it's good enough (I wouldn't want what the chipset has to offer for SL.......it just isn't designed for an invironment like SL). If you can stuff as much system RAM in the computer as it will take it will improve the performance somewhat. 8 GB would be nice.