Kwakkelde Kwak

I think you accidentally opened the debug console. You can close it with Ctrl-Shift-4.

Just the display driver should be enough.

I really can't say if there's something wrong with openGL in SL. All I can say is I never had any issues since july 2012, running a slightly faster, but similair GTX670, always with the latest drivers. So I'd say it has to be a combination of factors. btw, how did you update your video drivers? It's best to remove the old one completely, restart windows, then install the new one. Or was that what you meant by a clean install?

I have to say NVidia doesn't make it very easy to find, but you can download the 314.22 driver from their site. If it doesn't fix your problem, you can always update to the most recent version. btw, I can't find a 332.81 driver anywhere. My driver is 332.21, I think that's the latest one.

Maybe in this Q&A? My first thought is your video driver might be recently updated, maybe you should roll back a version.

Kelli May wrote: Newdbies? I would say Noldbies

Aluviel Nakamura wrote: I have followed so many links on here that I am sure I have really screwed up my system with all the stupid "Suggestions" [...] You would think that One of you guys out there would have known this...... If this is your attitude, why on earth do you ask for help in the first place?

Sassy Romano wrote: Firestorm supports advanced lighting. It's the current beta that supports materials as well. Most people that I have asked don't enable ALM and shadows because of hardware constraints. My mistake, I thought they were one and the same. If people knew how to build, most people would be able to turn it on I bet. Of course that's not the case. I still think it's a bad idea to cover everything in textures with baked shadows for the reasons I mentioned.

Sassy Romano wrote: In a recent meeting, Oz started that about 20% of people had advanced lighting enabled, in other words, 4 out of 5 won't yet benefit from"materials" That statement doesn't give a reason. To my best knowledge Firestorm doesn't show the advanced lighting yet (except for the beta version). It's very possible the number will skyrocket when Firestorm catches up. On the other hand, for my old computer (which, while old, is probably about average for SL users.), performance drops significantly when I switch from mid graphics to mid-high graphics, this is where the advanced lighting is switched. Anyway, I wouldn't use (too many) baked in shadows. Baked shadows usually do not tile very well, resulting in high resolution images, taking up valuable resources at both LL's and the user's end. Users that can't see dynamic shadows, have relative low end computers. Because of that, I'd say it's especially important for them to keep the load low. On top of that, even without shadows enabled, baked in shadows can look really odd in a dynamic environment.

I would say: "no". From the Autodesk website: *Free Autodesk software and/or cloud-based services are subject to acceptance of and compliance with the terms and conditions of the software license agreement or terms of service that accompany such software or cloud-based services. Software and cloud-based services provided without charge to Education Community members may be used solely for purposes directly related to learning, teaching, training, research or development and shall not be used for commercial, professional or any other for-profit purposes. Now you said you bought a student edition, something I'm not familiar with. Maybe there are different terms and conditions for you, but I doubt it. You can't even upload anything you made with the Autodesk software to SL if you're not planning on selling them. From the LL ToS: In connection with Content you upload, publish, or submit to any part of the Service, you affirm, represent, and warrant that you own or have all necessary Intellectual Property Rights, licenses, consents, and permissions to use and authorize Linden Lab and users of Second Life to use the Content in the manner contemplated by the Service and these Terms of Service. and: Except as otherwise described in any Additional Terms (such as a contest’s official rules) which will govern the submission of your User Content, you hereby grant to Linden Lab, and you agree to grant to Linden Lab, the non-exclusive, unrestricted, unconditional, unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, and cost-free right and license to use, copy, record, distribute, reproduce, disclose, sell, re-sell, sublicense (through multiple levels), modify, display, publicly perform, transmit, publish, broadcast, translate, make derivative works of, and otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever, all or any portion of your User Content (and derivative works thereof), for any purpose whatsoever in all formats, on or through any media, software, formula, or medium now known or hereafter developed, and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed, and to advertise, market, and promote the same. You agree that the license includes the right to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing, or providing support or development services in connection with the Service and future improvements to the Service. The license granted in this Section 2.3 is referred to as the "Service Content License." To grant these rights to LL, you need to have the rights. If the Autodesk terms apply to you, you simply don't have those.

Amethyst Jetaime wrote: But $2000L a week is not $80US, its $8.09US if the exhcange is $247L to $1US. A big difference. Exactly. On top of that, between 2007 and 2011 prices dropped about 90%. I don't know what happened since, but I doubt prices are back at L$10+/sqm.

I think you're right about the GPU load, it sounds like overheating to me. It could also be an overloaded power supply. Assuming it's overheating.... Like Steph suggested, make sure there is no built up dust blocking your cooling. You could buy a cooling pad, compatible with your laptop. Lower your graphic settings, especially draw distance. If you're running windows, turn off all fancy features, like aero. Set your graphics card to performance instead of quality (I'm not sure how to do that with a Radeon card) Always monitor your temperatures. There are plenty of free programs for that like Speedfan, Realtemp, Speccy etc etc.

The model in your picture should be just fine, you should be able to fix the shading by unifying the smoothing groups and/or normals of the editable poly. That won't interfere with the skin modifier which is higher in the stack. Adding maps is not an issue either, the model should be perfectly UV mapped, so you can add any texture you like. You can find some here. Also make sure the scale is correct and the 3ds Max units are set to something metric, preferrably meters. You might want to set the viewport clipping if you use meters, so you can zoom in closely. Use the correct version of the Autodesk Collada plugin for exporting the DAE files. I think 2013.3 should work fine with 3ds Max 2012. You can find it here. Don't forget to add all missing bones to the DAE file. 3ds Max doesn't export the unused bones into the DAE file (unless you use a "trick"). You can find information about that here. (The "trick" is also described, although some people seem to have problems with it) Without you describing what your issues really are, it's hard to give any specific advice.

Sassy Romano wrote: For example, a student living at home with no costs who gets top end software for "educational use" licence can turn stuff out for any price and not care a hoot. It doesn't help a competitive situation for someone is using SL as an outlet for their RL income. If they do that, they are as much in violation of the terms as when they would be using a cracked version of the software. It is not allowed to upload anything to SL made with educational software, well at least not anything from Autodesk (3ds Max, Maya). According to the "new" ToS, but probably also the old, you need full rights to all your uploads, anything made with educational software simply doesn't qualify.

Suki Pelazzi wrote: if theres any other information i should include please let me know.. The two most important things for SL are your internet connection and your graphics adapter. Your connection doesn't need to be all that fast, I rarely see bandwidth over 300kbs, but it does need to be very stable. So can you give some details about that? Do you use a cable or wifi? What ISP do you have? What's your upload/download speed? What type of router/modem/network adapter do you use? You didn't specify what kind of graphics card you have. For SL it's highly recommended to use a dedicated video card, not the graphics adapter on your motherboard which is usually not only very slow in comparison, but also uses system RAM rather than its own memory. SL content is pretty much completely unoptimised, so your graphics card is bombarded with lots of data (geometry and maps). So the question obviously is: what kind of graphics adapter do you use? One other thing you could post is the specified version of the system rating you post. Is the 4.6 an anomaly or are all subscores close to that? With a dedicated video card I'd say 4GB of system RAM is enough. Most SL viewers are 32 bit so won't use more than 2GB if I'm not mistaken, even on a 64 bit system. However, if you run other software simultanious with SL (like 3d or 2d sofware), 4GB might not be quite enough. Just open your task manager to see if you run out of physical memory.

This might help (from the NVidia customer help): OpenGL message “lost connection” Answer ID 3007 | Published 07/14/2011 08:14 AM | Updated 02/06/2012 11:37 AM OpenGL message "lost connection" I have seen this Event Log Message: The NVIDIA OpenGL driver lost connection with the display driver due to exceeding the Windows Time-Out limit and is unable to continue. The application must close. What does it mean? If you received this message from an application (on a pop up message or in the Event Log), the application was unable to continue rendering because the Microsoft Windows imposed time limit (TDR) was exceeded. This is normally the case when the workload sent to the Graphics Card is greater than what the graphics card can process in the normal timeout of two seconds. You can find more information in this page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg487368.aspx How can this be fixed? Two possible solutions to try would be: Reduce the graphics workload if possible, such as rendering to a lower resolution or with less detail. Increase the timeout to allow more time to complete the really tough rendering parts. Microsoft provides the information on how to modify the Windows Registry to achieve this. Also keep an eye on your temperatures, the message means your card is pushed to (or even over) its limits. That can be a problem, especially when using a laptop. Btw, you say other graphic intensive programs run fine. Don't forget that SL is pretty much in a class of its own, slowing high end gaming computers down to below 30 fps in certain sims while they can handle the latest games at let's say 80 fps.

Tiffy Vella wrote: The problem set in when I started working in mesh. Before then, I could upload and name a texture logically and know it would be reused many times, through being creative with the repeats and offsets. Now, my texture uploads have quadrupled (materials may almost triple this again), as every texture has dedicated shadow baking. And now, most textures are good only for one specific project. You can (and should) still use your textures multiple times. I don't see why building in mesh requires baked shadows, although I seem to be one of few. You could make baked shadows for prim and sculpt builds and you can still use all the textures you used to use for mesh builds. Reusing textures in your builds keeps the memory use low, which means performance high and as a side benefits you don't have to upload new textures for every build and you don't end up with a messy inventory. Try to build around your textures, not texture around your builds.

You said you read the wiki, did you by any chance overlook the part where the 26 bones in the dae file are mentioned?

Nalates Urriah wrote: The CPU you have is good. The video card is the problem. You can get a new one on eBay for a great price. Decent nVidia cards go for US$30 and up. Google has a load of video tutorials on how to upgrade a video card. If you are into DIY, the tutorials are a must. Power supplies are realively cheap. New ones at Frys or Best Buy are $40 to $150. You can detremine the size power supply you need online. ASUS Power Supply Calculator. eBay has used and refurbished power supplies at bargan basement prices. @OP Please watch out when you're going to look for new parts. Your computer is not a full desktop tower, so it probably doesn't have a standard PSU or room for any standard graphics card. In a box that small, cooling might become an issue with an extra card crammed in. I don't think you'll be able to find anything for a reasonable price to be honest. I'd advice to either lower your graphic settings and check your internet connection or buy a new computer altogether. Even though the one you currently have is not that old (about 3 years old or less?), it's not designed to run any serious 3d applications, like SL.

I'd go with a GTX560Ti or save up for a GTX660 (Ti). To get the most out of a 6-series card you will need a PCi3.0 slot on your motherboard, so make sure about that if you decide to go for one of those. There are plenty of pages on the net that will calculate the minimum and required wattage for your system. I used this page and a bit of guesswork and it came up with 489W minimum and 539W recommended for the system specs you posted in combination with the 560Ti. With the 650 it's considerably less, 401W and 451W. There's no need for a whole lot of overhead, but do make sure it's powerful enough. Failing power supplies are a real pain since they will give you a whole range of errors, making it very hard to determine what the issue is. I've been through that a couple of years ago, first it looked like a failing memory stick, then motherboard, graphics card, etc. (I got a nice mix of blue screens, black screens and rainbow screens). Luckily I didn't replace any of those components before I figured out it was the power supply, but you can imagine troubleshooting can get very expensive.

I can think of a couple of things from the top of my head: Your graphics preferences aren't the same. If for example your wife doesn't have shadows enabled, but you do, that will make a huge difference. Use ctrl-P to see what the settings are, don't forget to look in the advanced settings and hardware settings. Your avatar has some very complex attachments. Since your avatar is usually very close to your POV, that can result in a higher load. You are low on video memory. Since your card has twice the memory of the GTX460, that's unlikely, but the higher resolution certainly means higher memory use, especially with anti-aliasing and shadows turned on. Your i7 isn't as fast as the one your wife has. Your power supply isn't powerful enough to run your video card at full performance. btw, why do you expect twice the fps your wife has? The 670 might have a benchmark about twice as high as the 460, but that doesn't translate in double overall performance of your system of course.

Medhue Simoni wrote: I don't see how clothing creators would have a hard time with wings and tails. They just wouldn't weight anything to those bones. We have extra bones in the skeleton now, and it's not an issue. I'd wearing wings and a tail all the time, if they were bone animation based. I haven't done a lot of rigging, so it's hard for me to comment on that, but the fact that you would be wearing wings and a tail all the time is in no way representative of the average SL dweller. Unlike fingers, they are anomalies. I do see a problem with fingers, as important as I think they are. The problem would be the morphs. How would LL have finger bones and still have the old morphs work when there is no bone data, or how would they know when for the bones to work, and when the morphs should work. I think the only way to have finger bones is to eliminate the hand morphs completely. For finger bones I'd like to see a complete new avatar, whether that's offered by LL or a third party as attachment. I don't think finger bones will work well with the current SL avatar. I like my SL vintages and don't want to see anything broken.

Medhue Simoni wrote: Ultimately, it would be great to have custom bones that could attach, like CP has. I don't think this should replace what I'm talking about in my list, well the top 5, for the reasons I stated earlier. No idea what CP is, but that sounds promising. Standard bones for tails and wings I'm not so sure about. I can't remember the last time I saw wings, but I see shoes, pants and shirts every day and pretty much everyone has fingers. Most mesh attachments are clothes, not bodyparts. If LL could rewrite their importer a bit (I'm not a coder/scripter, but how hard can it be to read a dae file with less than the total amount of bones?), people could work around a human skeleton or a winged/tailed one. If that was the case, standard extra bones would work pretty well. I think a lot of clothing creators would be annoyed if they had to work around tail and wing bones they never use. The same might be the case for fingers, although they wouldn't get in the way so much.

Medhue Simoni wrote: Finger bones Ear bones Tail bones (at least 5 bones) Jaw bone Wing bones Multiple Arm bones (for people with many arms, or a spider) Multiple Leg bones (for centuars, spiders, crabs) I would say fingers for the default avatar plus the option to add a limited number of bones anywhere you want. That way you can add wings for an angel, a neck for a giraffe (might be difficult because the new bone is "inside" the existing hierarchy), legs for a centaur, arms for Vishnu, a belly for the pregnant, hair for Medusa or a face for Kuato (etc etc). If that's possible the options would be so much greater than with just a new standard skeleton.

All I can think of is your UV map is mirrored, which is fine for a diffuse texture, but not for normal maps. I have only seen this effect on prims, not on mesh. If the effect is only visible on one SL face, you could adjust the normal map by inverting the R and/or G channel.