I’ve installed Vista with the “new” ATI drivers that support OpenGL. The process has been less “fun” than I’d like thus far, and I don’t yet have my favorite games working. Here are a few of the little problems I’ve encountered
- Vista doesn’t include support for file system backups made with Windows XP/2000. You have to download an optional piece of software to add this support. For a moment, as I looked at the “this file type is not recognized” error message when I tried to access my backups, I was a wee bit worried
- I’m still experiencing problems with having my computer recover properly from Standby mode. After upgrading to the latest BIOS for my ASUS M2R32, at least I was able to restart from standby. Unfortunately, my display is horribly corrupted after such a restart, suggesting there is something not-quite-right with the Jan 29/V7.1 ATI Vista drivers
- The embedded ADI sound card on my motherboard didn’t work initially, and the drivers from my Asus install CD simply failed to install. I downloaded beta drivers from Asus that seem to be working now
- Once I got audio working, I discovered that perhaps I was premature in assuming that it wasn’t working to begin with. Something is different with the supported audio output from the SoundMax- to get adequate volume, I had to disconnect the digital connector and use analog wiring
Once I figured out the basics, I started installing/testing my games
- EverQuest 2 works! I was able to successfully log in and wander around a bit; I have sound and working graphics, so it’s looking good
- EverQuest didn’t work initially- it failed while it was trying to patch Launchpad, then again when it tried to patch the game itself. I ultimately “corrected” this by taking/forcing ownership with full rights on the EverQuest directories (I.E.: I right-clicked the Sony directory, selected Security tab, Advanced, then selected the Owner tab, made myself the owner of the directories, then back to Permissions to grant myself full rights)
- I *suspect* that I may have caused this problem myself. I installed EQ2, then over-wrote the directories from my backup thinking this would reduce the amount of updating necessary. I believe that all this did was change the directory/file permissions…and when I finally got EQ2 to launch, it went out and did a full (2+ hour @ 3 Mbps) update anyway.
- EQ2Map Updater does not work 🙁 At least not on my machine
- Second Life does not work; it installs, but crashes at the main login / status screen. Apparently, NVidia card owners are working fine with Vista + Second Life, but ATI cards are causing the Second Life client to crash. Presumably something wrong with ATI’s OpenGL implementation- not surprising, really, since the first release ever of OpenGL support from ATI was in the most recent (January 29th) driver set- no beta, straight to release- smart move, ATI.
- Vanguard works without a hitch- but I applied the same ownership changes to the Vanguard directories that I did for the EQ2 directories. See also the note above re: I’m likely at fault for the permissions problem
Im wondering did you ever resolve the issue with ATI crashing on the login screen with secondlife? or do you think we will have to wait for ATI to update their driver once again?
Greetings, Jonh 🙂
No, I still don’t have Second Life working. The latest ATI drivers supposedly have “full” OpenGL support. Apparently a lot of people, not just ATI users, are having problems with Vista. From what I understand, the problem is now back in Linden Lab’s court. The last word from them on the topic (dated Feb 9) was that they would look at Vista compatibility after they release the new “first look” client to production. Some folks are saying that it works with ATI cards, but I haven’t tried it myself yet.
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Has anyone been able to play second life with vista and ati video cards. I have the ATI mobility Radeon Xpress 200 and have been having problems.
Greetings, Pazy!
Second Life has been working fine for me since ATI released the Catalyst version 7.3 drivers back in March (they are up to Catalyst version 7.7 now). From what I’ve heard, in general folks running Vista have been doing fine since the Catalyst 7.3 release. I have an ATI Radeon X1950XTX and am running the 64 bit version of Vista.
You might have some problems, however, with the Radeon Xpress 200- that’s a somewhat older video chipset in a laptop if I’m not mistaken. I’m not sure if that will support the necessary video features that Second Life requires.
I just bought a new Sony Viao with Vista. I tried playing Second Life and it didn’t work. Could you please tell me how to get it working.
Tara, I can’t answer your question with certainty because I’m not terribly familiar with the Sony Vaio line of computers. The mostly likely cause of difficulty for a laptop: Second Life requires a 3D video accellerator, and is mostly successful with new model ATI or NVidia cards. You may want to check out the Second Life system requirements for more details: scroll down to the bottom for their comments regarding supported and unsupported video cards.