the video card drivers did not install properly, are out of date, or are for unsupported hardware.

[itba]

I've been on second life for two days on my laptop.  On the third day, it wouldn't load the game. the error message said "the video card drivers did not install properly, are out of date, or are for unsupported hardware. "

I have ATI Radeon 3200 graphics driver & there is no updated version.  What can i do?

 

[Rolig Loon]

From http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Clean_Install:

If you are receiving an error when starting the Second Life viewer that says your graphics card is unsupported or your graphics drivers are out of date and you know that your card meets the system requirements, than this procedure will most often correct the problem.

Usually this message appears when you have upgraded from a previous version of Windows, or when a Windows Update conflicts with an installed graphics driver. It can also mean that Windows Update has installed a graphics driver for you that does not have full support for SecondLife or that your graphics driver is not Windows certified.

1. Download the latest graphics driver from the chipset manufacturer (ATI, Nvidia, or Intel) not the maker of your graphics card or computer. Save the file where you can easily find it, but do not install it yet.
2. Run Windows Update and make sure your system is fully patched.
3. (Optional) You may download Driver Sweeper or a similar utility to remove all traces of your old driver.
4. Reboot your computer and enter Safe Mode by pressing F8 at the Windows logo screen.
5. Uninstall your old video driver. You can either use Driver Sweeper or Control Panel->System->Hardware->Device Manager (steps will vary: this applies to Windows XP) and then opening "Display Adapters" and right-click and choose "Uninstall."
6. Reboot your computer.
7. If Windows displays a message that it found new hardware, do not let it automatically install drivers. Instead, run the installation program that you downloaded in step 1.
8. Reboot your computer

You should now have a clean version of your video driver.

You should also be aware that there is a long history of ATI cards not working well with SL.  See, for example, https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SH-2412 , which describes a design flaw in ATI cards that results in inefficient memory use in the GPU and significant lag for SL users.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I just Google that graphics adapter:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Radeon-HD-3200.9591.0.html

The adapter is an onboard graphics chipset specially designed for notebooks/laptops.  The review does not say that the chipset is intregrated into the CPU like Intel HD on chip adapters but it does have the graphics switching feature that the Intel HD adapters have.  Looking at the performance of the adapter it's pretty much on par with the GMA 945 chipsets that barely run SL (in some case simply won't run SL at all).......it's low end (very low end).  If you would list your specs it would help a great deal.  Depending on the computer you may have a discrete card (or the ability to add one).  No one can tell from the very little information you provided.

 

The reason I'm asking is that this is the fourth of fifth thread of users not being able to log into SL and each one of the posters were using on board/on chip graphics with auto-switching........this is in the last couple weeks that I noticed this increase of threads.  Intel and AMD both are tauting this new switching capability for laptops as the second invention of the wheel for battery saving in laptops..............I'm not sure that is quite what it's cracked up to be (I'm saying this because I've searched to see if there is a way to disable the auto-switching so that you can trouble shoot which with graphics device may have a problem with you get situations like this............I've found nothing and that indicates that it can't be done.  That is not good for the consumer).

 

One of the things I did read about updating drivers for your adapter is that there is a very specific way to do it.  First the motherboard drivers have to be updated, then the graphics..........as far as I can tell, if you don't do it that way you create more problems for you video (even to the point of having to restore you computer back to factory defaults and starting over.   I could be wrong..........I actually hope I am.  But it makes me suspicious of this new battery saving feature manufacturers are going with.  I'm just not convinced it's ready for prim time..........and it's the consumers that will suffer as the technology improves. 

 

[Irene Muni]

The thread continues here: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Technical/ATI-Radeon-HD-3200-graphics-card-won-t-start-on-win-xp-how-can-i/qaq-p/1704243