SL and the NVIDIA OpenGL error Terror

[LeonaFox Asalia]

I've been reading forums on SL and outside SL about this BS issue with NVIDIA and OpenGL errors. Not sure if this is actual fact or not (someone tell me) but I've been seeing, and heard, that its not the cause of your card or system but its LL's fault: Something about newer NVIDIA card's drivers have changed the way it reads OpenGL and SL has not bothered to get with the program for over a year. Is this why people with brand spanking new systems like say..an Alien Ware..or my friends brand new ROB ASUS gaming laptop cannot run SL without crashing after 5secs of being logged in? What is worse? Some newer card drivers can only go back so far, so older drivers that WOULD work with sl just wont do.

It used to be "Oh your comp is CRAP that's why you can't hang with SL" Now its "Oh..your comp is just too good to run SL"

Even I get crashes (Both my comps are gaming machines)...RARE..but I crash, and its not because of a crap connection. Its because of that OpenGL error causing my driver to fail and its the same notice everytime. I don't crash, SL is just failing my driver at random moments. I feel severely lucky that I am able to log on at all considering many people are getting screwed over for investing into proper, SOLID, gaming computers. My Liege is currently struggling with this issue and he's trying his best to get his system to run SL. He's been stuck with ancient laptops and unbelievable lag for THREE YEARS..but you know what? He could at least still be on SL! Now hes got a brand new system and SL refuses to take it. It's horrible that he and others going through this, which had inspired me to post this and rant lol

The OpenGL error is all over the place, and people are desperately trying to figure out what they can do. Has anyone found a cure for this problem??? Are the Lindens aware and working on a fix? Or are they saying a big F'YOU to those of us who use NVIDIA for our brand new computers? I mean, NVIDIA is only one of the most well known and popular gaming cards you can get your hands on -_- Do they WANT to push people away and lose money? Or shall we just say its all NVIDIA's fault and too bad we didn't go with ATI? I just don't know =/

[Theresa Tennyson]

What message are you seeing and where are you seeing all these reports? This is the first I've heard about problems recently. All the Nvidia problems with new drivers I've heard about have been about a situation that was happening in the second half of 2011 and was fixed in early 2012. (I have a fairly new Nvidia card and it affected me too). The OpenGL calls were completely re-written then to use the latest standards. I'm not saying there isn't anything happening now, but it would be so new that a web search doesn't turn up anything about it. Check the dates on those reports and make sure you're not looking at a report of an old problem.

[Nalates Urriah]

The first thing to do is file a JIRA BUG.

I use a GTX560 and the 9.18.0013.1070 (or just 310.70) driver. The main viewer has been running just fine: 3-4-2-267137. However, I have had some problems with the Development version: 3-4-5-268856, but that is sort of to be expected and I haven't had long to experiment with it..

I haven't tied the newer 310.90 WHQL version.

When you write about tech include information about your computer and viewer. Get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. Your post as written doesn't really say much more than you are having problems. Since there aren't 30k or 40k people here screaming it would appear most people are not having problems. So...

Also, Google is not showing a flood of recent SL-nVidia problem posts. 

The Lab has test machines and more QA people testing the viewers on various cards. So, if there were a core problem, it would likely be right in their face.

It would appear that your friend and you have a local problem. You aren't really asking for help or providing much information by which we can help you. So, your post reads more like a troll's flame to slam the Lab. If you need help, try a different approach.

[Innula Zenovka]

I'm a bit skeptical, too.   There were huge problems with Nvidia GTX460 and higher a couple of years ago -- I had big difficulties because of them, so I remember it very well -- but they have been long since fixed.

What card is it, and what viewer, that you're having problems with?  

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Dangit where's the kudos button in this section? 

[Cincia Singh]

I'm running a GTX560 Ti and the 310.90 driver with no errors or faults.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

GTX 550 Ti.  Driver version 306.97 (yeah I know it's not anywhere near the newest......but it works for everything I need my GPU to do).  No issues, no crashes, and little lag.

[HoIger]

I have three computers with Nvidia cards and friends with Nvidia but no problem.

So with 660 Ti, 560 Ti, 460 GLH, GTS 250 and 8800 GTS Second Life running without problems. ( 660, 560 and 460 card always in Ultra mode )

There was a short period with problem for the 460 GLH but that is solved.

 

[HollyAnneBigs]

I'm also running into this problem I just bought a bran spanking new desktop today all updated graphics and such. SL worked fine for the first 2 hours then it started to crash and claim my card was the problem "which is why I laughed it did this to two other computers I was on" after the second crash I'm back to the start lag central on even low graphics hmmm odd indeed. Has anyone else noticed how LL is avoiding admiting they may actually be in the wrong. I was in a sim yesterday and everyone was complaining about it. Considering the massive problem SL had last night that's an indication it is infact a problem with SL not people's computers so LL get cracking on fixing this and stop blaming people's computers thanks

[Innula Zenovka]

Its just residents here, not Lindens, so if you want LL to address your problem,  you'll need to go to https://jira.secondlife.com/secure/Dashboard.jspa and fill out a bug report.   

You will see that it asks for details of your computer and operating system.   These you can find by opening your viewer (no need to log in) and going to Help>About SL.    "A bran spanking new desktop ... all updated graphics and such" doesn't really give anyone much to work with.    It would also help to know what the error message actually was, and whether it was a message from the viewer complaining about the card or a message from your card or  from the operating system saying that the card or driver was crashing.

If you do submit a bug report (or even if you don't) please add the details of your computer, operating system and drivers to your post here (use the edit button).

For what it's worth, SL has been having a lot of problems over the last day or so, apparently because of a hardware breakdown, but that's affecting everyone, regardless of their graphics card or anything else.     What you describe doesn't sound to me like the driver issues we had a couple of years ago -- with those, either you couldn't log in at all or, if you did, you crashed within seconds.      

I'm wondering if you didn't run into someone using a viewer crasher, which I did in a sandbox a couple of months ago.   My computer's fps went through the floor and then the viewer crashed and I got a message from my Nvidia graphics driver saying the driver had crashed but had recovered.    If that's what happened, it's a specific griefing exploit that I know LL is aware of and trying to fix.   I won't go into details but it involves someone going to quite some trouble to bring about the circumstances that will cause this to happen to everyone's viewers in draw distance.

[Abaddon Mortmagus]

Hello, I am the one with the issue, long time SL Resident, first time poster.

 

These are my laptop's specs:

 

Asus Series G73JWIntel Core i7 720QM 1.6-2.8 GHzIntel HM55 Express ChipsetNVidia GeForce GTX 460M 1.5 GB8 GB RAM DDR3-1066500GB 5400rpm/7200rpm (Seagate Momentus 7200.4/ST9500420AS) (no RAID)Atheros AR9285 802.11n Wireless LAN Adapter

 

I have been trying to find information about what to do concerning this situation, the computer was a very generous donation from a dear friend, seeing ho my previous computer was on the brink of disposal, it came with the newest drivers, so I downloaded a viewer and started to crash almost immediately afterwards, among the descriptions I can give you are extreme avatar deformation, graphic glitches and constant freezes, I would sometimes get an error message such as "The NVIDIA OpenGL Driver detected a problem with he display driver and is unable to continue, the application must close" then I'd get different Error Codes, such as 3, 4, 7 and 8.

 

I was also adviced to try older drivers, as they seemed to be the solution to many other residents who experienced this same issue, such as the 260.99 driver, I have tested 260.99, 280.19, 306.23, 306.97 and 310.90 to no avail (A Clean Install every time), I've also tried different viewers such as SL Viewer, SL Shinning Developer Viewer, Phoenix, Cool VL, Firestorm and Exodus and I keep getting the same results.

 

Now, I'm not very tech savvy here,  but I've also encountered people who have said they are running the latest NVidia Drivers on the exact same computer I have and running Firestorm, Niran's and Exodus, is there something I am doing wrong? What solution could I use? Thank you for your attention.

[Innula Zenovka]

Ahh..  there have, it seems, been sporadic reports of this bug re-appearing, but it's been very hard to reproduce.   See Whirly Fizzle's comment in JIRA SH-2276 (the original jira for this issue) dated 10 November 2012.

As well as filing a bug report, giving the details Whirly mentions in her post,  I would certainly try doing a completely clean re-install of the latest NVidia driver, dowloaded from NVidia's website.   Don't rely on downloads from Microsoft or any other third party.   Download the drivers direct from NVidia.  

And don't rely on the NVidia version of a clean install -- do it manually, using something like CC-Cleaner and Driver Sweeper, as I describe here.  

The reason for this is that the NVidia clean reinstall can leave corrupted files behind.   I was put on to this by the people who maintain my PC for me -- and it really can make all the difference.

 ETA: See the comment right at the end of the jira thread, by Kitsune Shan:

 

---

For some people, setting a new profile in the nvidia panel for SL and changing the default settings for power as performance instead of balanced fix this problem.

For others you have to tweak or disable the TDR from Windows.

The problem with this error is that isnt so easy to reproduce. Sometimes you can play for hours or days and others times you cant play more than 5 minutes.

[Abaddon Mortmagus]

Yes indeed,  clean install is what has been attempted, but couldn't hurt to attempt it one more time, thank you kindly for your input.

[Abaddon Mortmagus]

Well, did a clean reinstallation of the latest NVidia Driver, and I still have the same issues, graphic glitches, avatar malformation and crashed in less than 2 minutes of being in world

[Innula Zenovka]

I'd certainly suggest filing a bug report in the jira, as suggested by Whirly.   My experience is that now they do receive quite prompt attention from the technical Lindens.

Additionally, have you tried the tweaks to the Nvidia control panel Kitsune suggests?  The alternative, tinkering with (or disabling) the TDR from Windows, seems a radical (and somewhat scary) solution, to say the least.

The problem is, as I understand it, that everyone knew perfectly well what was causing the problem originally -- the viewer was using a deprecated OpenGL function that Nvidia no longer supported for their more recent cards.   The viewer was rewritten so as not to use it, and that fixed that.   But the same symptoms seem to be appearing for a few unfortunate people, even though the cause must now be different.

[leliel Mirihi]

---

Innula Zenovka wrote:

The problem is, as I understand it, that everyone knew perfectly well what was causing the problem originally -- the viewer was using a deprecated OpenGL function that Nvidia no longer supported for their more recent cards.   The viewer was rewritten so as not to use it, and that fixed that.   But the same symptoms seem to be appearing for a few unfortunate people, even though the cause must now be different.

---

Since you brought it up I'd like to point out that the TDR error is the most generic error message ever invented. It can literally be caused by anything, including but not limited to, the application, the OS, the graphics driver, some other program, you hardware, the quality of your power, the weather, the phase of the moon, the aliment of the stars, etc.

All the error means is that the OS hasn't heard from the driver in X amount of time so it automatically restarted it. 

[Klaxon Morgwain]

Just to add to the clamour, I've started seeing this OpenGL problem in the last 2 weeks or so.  Same arror message as has been posted.  It appears with both Firestorm and the SL viewer.  This does NOT happen in other graphics intensive apps (Flight Sim, Minecraft).  Hardware and driver have not changed.  

If my card were failing then the other apps would exhibit the "bug" as well.

I have tried to no avail the TDR registry diddle,  creating a custome profe for SL in the NVidia control panel.  

I have not yet tried to downgrade the driver.  In theory this shouldn't be the problem as the Lindens have supposedly rid SL of old OpenGL calls, and also as the problem has only recently appeared.

That seems to leave really only one thing that may have changed .. SL itself.

 

[Marchela Diglione]

Hello my language is Spanish, use translator.
I have the same problem from today July 11, 2013. sl to enter, I get a message from Nvidia and OpenGL, not understanding anything, is in English, my card is NVIDIA GeForce 7050 PV nForce 630a Nvidia, and my avatar looks into squares of all colors, and the landscape gets all black and then in multiple colors and lightning, a disaster.
Try Nirans, Catznip, Sl, etc etc and all alike. Anyone can bring something good to resolve this? I'd be very grateful.

[Bryce Kidd]

---

Abaddon Mortmagus wrote:

"The NVIDIA OpenGL Driver detected a problem with he display driver and is unable to continue, the application must close" then I'd get different Error Codes, such as 3, 4, 7 and 8.

---

As the error code is changing and as this is a rare problem in the grand scheme of things then this is very likely to be a fault in chips of the laptop, most likely due to it overheating.

Dropping your graphics settings, especially draw distance and turning off shadows will lessen the amount of work your graphics chip does and that in turns could increase the time before the "faulty" chip overheats.

If you have warranty on the PC then this might also be worthwhile chasing up.

[Bonnii Hendes]

I'm also now expecting this issue and my Alienware Gaming Desktop is fairly new, I've laughed it off like I read other's did too , because my computer is new..but the issue is starting to happen more frequent and this form is the only information I've seen. Does anyone have any solution for this issue? I really can't phantom my brand new computer can not handle sl so it has to be something witth Secondlife? Now I do use Firestorm so I wonder does that have anything to do? I'm just looking for some answer's because my diver and everything is up-to-date. Here are my specs as well.

Also I'm working with Nvidia GeForce GTX 645

[Rose Munson]

I would just like to bump this thread

 

I have this Opengl bug or whatever it may be, it slowly started last year and did a clean install of the latest last 2 drivers. It still happening. I tried all the tweaks of altering the Power Performance that does not work.

 

It's makes using Second Life a totally miserable affair. I did post another thread about it but its all the same answser. Someone is at fault somewhere.

[heavenlei Lexenstar]

I also have this issue, along with artefacts not rendering.  I've had it for awhile...since 2012.  I have an Asus G73JW series and it worked like a charm for the first year and a half...2011 and part of 2012.  Luckily I have a pc, so I've just been using it for SL, but now i've moved to a smaller place for the summer, and would like to be able to use my laptop.

I just spent $135 bucks getting my system restored along with the Tech guy trying to fix the issue.  He played with the settings, increased the TDR, installed old card drivers from before I started getting the issue.  I can't say how much of my own time I have spent trying to fix this issue.  

I have an Asus G73JW

Grid: Second Life

Built with MSVC version 1600

CPU: Intel® Core i7 CPU Q 740 @ 1.73GHz (1729.05 MHz)
Memory: 8117 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 460M/PCI/SSE2
Windows Graphics Driver Version: 8.17.0012.5912
OpenGL Version: 4.0.0

Viewer SSE Version: SSE2
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.21.1 OpenSSL/1.0.0g zlib/1.2.5 c-ares/1.7.1
J2C Decoder Version: OpenJPEG: 1.5.2
Audio Driver Version: (none)
Qt Webkit Version: 4.7.1 (version number hard-coded)

 

I finally submitted a bug issue, but i"m not holding my breath.

 

This is what I see when I"m logged in...it doesn't matter the viewer.  And it's not a hardware issue.  It only happens in SL and all the windows in SL look fine.  It's just the graphics.

 

 

 

 

[Data]

Still getting this error. Newest viewer, newest NVIDIA drivers, GTX 650, Windows 8.1, 16G RAM, 3.4GHz i5. Avatars (mostly) and other objects becoming jagged spiked messes, and the dreaded timeout error after a random time from a few minutes to a couple days.

[Data]

New video card GTX 750 ti. Didn't crash in an hour online tonight, which isn't unheard of so it doesn't mean my crashing problem is resolved, but it is promising. My avatar did do this three times, though:

[Nisa Maverick]

May I ask a question on the crashing issue with OpenGL Driver issue. Is your Nvidia Card Overclocked?

 

I had this issue for quite some time crashing very randomnly  with the TDR and could not find an answer anywhere. I was in contact with nvidia support giving logs and doing all the tests they recommended and still no joy. It was only when it was accelerated to a higher Tech person that they asked me to take take my card settings down to the recommended specifications, as my card was definately overclocked Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti.

Since doing this I have not crashed once since April - 6 months ago, and I keep up todate with latest drivers.

I used EVGA Precision X to do this. The Nvidia specifications for all cards can be found on their web site.

Using TechPower GPUz to look at the cards settings.