Second Life - Intel Engagement

By Jason Powell (Intel) (8 posts) on October 3, 2006 at 8:27 pm

I'm Jason Powell, have been working for Intel about 6 years as a Microsoft Account Manager and recently took an Analyst job at Intel. I work with smaller Web 2.0 companies to help them grow using Intel technology and support. One of the companies I've been working with in the last 4 months is Linden Labs. I've visited them in person several times to understand their Solution and what they need to grow. It has been a blast, educating Intel about the possibilities of Second Life, it reminds me of when my first software professors would explain about the basics of software, that it is a tool to create anything on the computer, and that it is only limited by our individual imagination. Several don't believe until I show them Second Life in person or give examples of the variety of ways major companies are using Second Life.

I've developed a pretty good relationship with Linden Labs by supporting them at a few Shows/Events (at Siggraph 2006 and Emerce Day in The Netherlands last month). I believe in their product and believed I could help them grow. I developed a plan/strategy to support them with the lastest Intel Server Technology as well as getting them aligned with Intel's future Roadmaps, so end users wouldn't have any issues when experiencing Second Life. Got a small team together to support the strategy, Silicon Mechanics was very helpful, as well as few Intel Sales and Marketing folks. Recently Linden CTO announced a move back to Intel Servers. Most part is due to performance and low power of the CPU and part is the relationship established in growing Second Life.

The majority of the content within Second Life is created by the users, there are games you can play within Second Life, concerts to attend, test driving cars, reviewing art, designing clothes, the only limit is your imagination. You can also develop your own business and make Linden dollars, these dollars can be converted with Pay Pal into US dollars.

"Built on Intel, experienced on Intel, it's better that way" this is the messaging we jointly developed with Linden Labs.

Thanks,

Jason Powell

Categories: Graphics, Social Media & Virtual Worlds

Comments (51)

By Bruce P on May 9th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
It's nice to see someone at Intel seeing the potential of Second Life. Unfortunately, Second Life clearly does not see the potential of Intel as their client does not work with Intel video chipsets. It would be nice if someone could convince them that there are a large number of notebook users with Intel video that cannot change their video that are potential users of their system. If they wish to be known for more than merely a gaming environment, they will need to support more than merely gaming systems.

By Maria on May 13th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I ran into this same issue. I really hope that both Intel and Second Life can find ways to make their products more compatible with each other.

By Angelo on May 15th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Yep, I second the above comments, only to add that I emailed Linden Labs after switching to a laptop with an intel chipset and asked if they have any plans to start supporting intel graphics, and the answer was "sorry we only support ati and nvidia. I as asked again by email if this will change in the future and got the same answer. Very short sighted if you ask me.

By EricT on May 21st, 2007 at 3:36 am
I wholeheartedly agree. My Vista machine came with an onboard Intel 82945G graphics chipset, Directx 10 and native OpenGL support and yet I can't use Second Life. It would be great if Intel could be supported, even if the resolution and/or screen size of the viewer had to be reduced.

With good wishes,
ericT

By nick humphrey on September 21st, 2007 at 5:27 pm
i would also like to test out second life, but my acer travelmate 6292 (running windows vista) has an intel graphics card.

By Ravenwolf Foxtrack on September 26th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
I had bought a Gateway M series recently and hoped to use it for programs and games such as second life while I was out of town working and away from my desktop. I Was highly disapointed though to find that Secondlife and a number of games and other programs did not want to run on the laptop. Main reason other than that the OS was Vista, was because the onbord graphics chipset was an intel brand and that the graphics were not supported and would cause crashing on load up.

By Vladimir Staykov on October 15th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
I run Second Life on notebook with Intel chipset 945GM and Windows XP.
The quality is not as good as on my nVidia 8800GT card on the PC but is bearable. The only thing that bugs me is that the LINUX version of Second Life does not run at all on the same Intel chipset.

By Kristy on October 18th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
I have the same problem...how is Second Life all into the Intel..but wont support it? Isent that sort of an insult to Intel? Lol. They better fix it, they would have so much more success with SL.

By Pedro Cunnha on October 21st, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Why? I mean Why it does not work with intel. It is impossible for me to change de video card, I'm using a Laptop. Is there any alternative, new driver, emulator, whatever? I have check sencond life compability hardware and found out that only Intel chipsets less than a 945GM are not compatible.

By Bob on October 24th, 2007 at 3:33 am
Same here, I am an avid SL fan, but my new PC I travel with has an Intel chipset that no matter how I try will not run successfully in SL. What a huge disappointment. I am ready to throw this Lenovo in the trash. Why can't Intel help SL fix the issues to support Intel chipsets? If SL cannot find the value in supporting it, then Intel should for the support of all it's users.

By Vladimir Staykov on October 25th, 2007 at 12:29 am
Bob in order to run SL on Intel 945 and above you need to have sufficient RAM. I noticed that SL uses 1gig and above of RAM depending of the settings (Draw distance etc) i suggest you to upgrade to 2gig since you gonna use share memory with this chipset. Next you have to set up your video memory in the BIOS
Use Max DVMT option if you have it, this will allocate 224MB for the graphic card. Now SL should run with default settings on this configuration. My CPU is Intel(R) Celeron(R) M CPU 440 @ 1.86GHz this is really low end machine and SL is running.

By Vladimir Staykov on October 25th, 2007 at 12:38 am
And one more thing guys... downgrade to Windows XP... and wait to see whats gonna happen with Vista SP1.

By Clive Smith on November 8th, 2007 at 5:50 am
I have a new HP Pavillion DV 2530ea laptop with Intel X3100 graphics. It runs most games and other stuff really well. This chipset is being used in new Mac laptops. Surely SL / Intel can get this chipset going together. Currently it wont work. Im using Vista 64 bit but have tried XP with no luck.

By Gael Holmes (Intel) on November 8th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
So I'm trying to load SL on a brand new HP Dual Core system that has 2GB memory and the Intel GL965 Graphics card. This card uses 358 MB memory (so it supercedes the above requirements) and I still can't get this system to load SL. Any other Ideas?

By Troy Baker on November 8th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
I just purchased a Dell Inspiron 1520 with the Centrino Duo and the Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset with 2 gigs. It also has Vista running as the OS. I haven't had any success getting sl to run on the machine. Does anyone know if I downgrade to XP will SL run with my current CPU and Chipset?

By Melanie on November 10th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
To answer your question about the Dell Inspiron 1520 it does not seem to matter if you downgrade to XP as I can get it to run for about 3 minutes and then it crashes. I have not found a fix for it. I am hoping that someone else might have an answer on what we can do because I really would like to play SL. If anyone has any suggestion that would be great.

By Clive Smith on November 11th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I found an SL thread and joined in but with little luck :

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2975

By jerry on November 13th, 2007 at 11:26 am
I have a Intel 82945G Express Chipset and in Second life System Requirement it's says its compatible with 945 chipset. I updated the driver just today and still its crashes. I get an error code ialmrnt5 and the screen and my computer goes to windows 95 with a blurry image without even restarting the PC. I have XP and I don't understand what the problem is.

By Clive Smith on November 13th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
I managed to get SL working on my X3100 chipset by using XP pro 64 bit. The graphics drivers worked! This tells me that its a driver problem. Unfortunately, I cant get sound working in XP 64 bit so its not a workable solution overall. Im using a HP Pavillion DV2530ea laptop, Core Duo 1.5Ghz, 2GB Ram.

To summarise my findings with X3100 chipset: Using Vista 32/64 bit, not working attall. Using XP 32 bit, works but hangs after few seconds. Using XP 64 bit, works very well. I used the latest drivers in each case. From these tests, It seems Intel can make or break SL with their drivers.

By Howard E. Miller on November 19th, 2007 at 5:55 am
I have one Acer laptop with Vista and the 945 chipset, and one Gateway with Vista and the 965 chipset.

SL runs fine on the Acer, but crashes on the Gateway. So candidates for being the culprit are:
Intel's 965 chipset
OpenGL
Second Life

I don't think it's SL, but they are in the best position to pinpoint the problem. I downloaded their source code, but it'll take me a year to figure it out in my spare (hah!) time.

I don't think it's OpenGL, although this is probably where the crash occurs.

This leaves the Intel 965 chipset. So, what's the difference between the 965 chipset and the 945 chipset?

By clive smith on November 19th, 2007 at 10:56 am
From what Ive discovered, most of the problems that affect SL on Intel chipsets are due to Intel drivers, not the hardware. It may work or break depending what version driver you use. SL use OpenGL so there is something going on with that in the driver.

By hammer19481 on November 21st, 2007 at 10:19 am
Maybe the best question I could ask is 'Who's working on this specific problem?' And 'How can I help?'

By Clive Smith on November 22nd, 2007 at 8:17 pm
I dont think anyone is working in the problem. Im a techie but Im not for Inte/SL. Unless they work together, nothing will move. They are the only people in a position to know what SL needs regarding OpenGl and what the Intel drivers lack.

By Clive Smith on November 22nd, 2007 at 8:46 pm
As a further though to the problem : my best guess is that SL are using specific hooks into Nvidia/ATI OpenGl drivers to gain some advantage in performance or visual appearance. The Intel drivers dont have the hooks and so at some point, a crash occurs. It would require work from either or both sides to rectify, unless someone in the public can untangle the SL code and fix.

By Howard Miller on November 23rd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
What you're saying sounds reasonable. I have an Acer notebook that has the 945 chipset. Second Life works fine on it. So I'm thinking there's a difference in the hardware between 945 and 965 that stymies SL's graphics interface.

By hammer19481 on November 26th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Apparently the crash occurs when the GL_ARB_OCCLUSION function is called in OpenGL

By karyuuvultee on November 26th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
I have an Acer with the 965 chipset and SL crashes just after precaching. I'm really running out of options for ways that I can solve this. I've tried the newest drivers, reinstalling the latest version of SL, messing with vista's "compatibility" options, installing supposed "cross compatible" drivers (bull), combing the SL and Intel sites for anything helpful, and I've read/contributed to a whole mess of these distressed customers pages. I plan to try partitioning my laptop as soon as I can get a hold of my XP disks, but until then I'm going to mess with whatever I can.

Good Luck all, hope to see you in SL soon.

By hammer19481 on November 27th, 2007 at 6:12 am
My SL is working with the 965 chipset and Windows Vista now. I found a change I could make to the setups for SL that resolved the problem. I found the information at http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/isn/Community/en-US/forum.....hread.aspx

The title of the message was 'Help on the GM965--Slow death in SL'.

If you have trouble finding it, try Googling "disable Object Occlusion to this file".

By Clive Smith on November 28th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I tried the occlusion mod on my laptop (HP Pavillion DV2530EA Vista 64 bit 2GB. X3100 graphics) it now runs !!!!!! Thank you so much for posting the info

By hammer19481 on November 29th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Next ... can anyone find a FAQ that explains the settings in this file? No telling what it might be possible to f... errr, tweak.

By the way, this tweak also works for the CSI OpenRez version of this viewer.

By mustangy gontineac on December 1st, 2007 at 12:14 pm
İhave dell insprion 6400 e1505 with intel 945gm video adapters its not working with vista when runing secondlife some help me please.

By ElFlaco Falta on December 3rd, 2007 at 5:15 am
Great to see some serious consideration of this issue Jason.

After playing SL for many months and setting up a Live Music Group (SL Buskers), I upgraded by HP Laptop to a 6710b with Intel 965 Express Chipset and have NOT been able to play SL since due to system crashes. I have tried all suggested Intrl Graphics Media settings and SL Preference settings with no luck.

If anyone has a real solution, I would be most grateful.

By ElFlaco Falta on December 3rd, 2007 at 5:41 am
Hooray - well done Jason - after my last posting, I thought I would try the latest suggestion which works a treat:))

Here is the "hack":

Find the "user_settings" folder under your Second Life folder that is under AppData or Applications Data. (It may be different whether you have XP or Vista. Also on one of my systems this file is under .../Roaming/Second Life/user_settings/ ) Note also you will have a folder with your Avatar's name. Don't change the settings.xml file in that folder - change the one in the user_settings folder.

Find this folder on your system: \Users\myname\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\user_settings\settings.xml. You will have to manually add the command to disable Object Occlusion to this file. The lines to add are:

Save the setting.xml file and then try to connect to Second Life.
For more information on this hack - see the forum posting and blog that are included in this posting.

-- Atalanta Intel (in World)

By Gael Holmes (Intel) on December 3rd, 2007 at 12:53 pm
The two lines that you need to add are:

(They did not get pasted into the previous comment.)
See Blog Posting: http://softwareblogs.intel.com/2007/11/29/there-is-a-hack-fo.....5-chipset/

--Atalanta Intel

By Gael Holmes (Intel) on December 3rd, 2007 at 12:54 pm
And they aren't showing up in my response either. Odd... Well click on the link to the blog that has all the info (in my previous comment)

By hammer19481 on December 4th, 2007 at 8:44 am
I'm still looking for a comprehensive explanation of the settings that can be found in the settings.xml file. Surely 'God Mode' is just a tweak away.

By hammer19481 on December 5th, 2007 at 9:37 am
The reason it's not showing is that the HTML sees the lines as a comment. Look at the source for this page.

By bandy bracken on December 7th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Have tried this hack, as well as various 'fixes' for dual-core machines and nothing seems to work. Have a brand new HP Compaq 6910p Dual-Core with the mobile 965 express chipset .. and it looks as if my second-life is ending

By bandy bracken on December 7th, 2007 at 11:23 am
oh yes ... running XP professional

By Clive Smith on December 7th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Your Compaq 6910p will either have ATI Mobility Radeon X2300 or Intel X3100 graphics chipset. My HP Pavilion DV2530EA has Intel x3100 and works with the occlusion hack. Im running Vista 64 bit, the OS makes all the diference to the driver version!

By koko on December 10th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
i dont know :)

By David Pye on December 15th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Work with your new found partners to make your flagship integrated graphics chips work in SL. There's hundreds of users out here, who've bought X3100 equipped laptops and they can't use SL.

It can't be that hard can it?

By hammer19481 on December 17th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Technically, the chips work with SL. It's the drivers that need tweaking.

By Charles West on December 19th, 2007 at 3:48 am
It seems this 1 year old toshiba laptop with the intel 945gm has a limited opengl. I am attempting to run Hexagon2.2 3d modeling program from Daz3d and this is a common complaint with the intel chipsets. I am running xp-media edition and can't seem to find the settings to get the program to run. Any tweaks that might help?

By Brad O. on December 19th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
When I try the occlusion hack I can't seem to find any settings.xml file in my entire secondlife folder!!!!! Anybody know why?

By Howard E. Miller on December 21st, 2007 at 9:33 am
AppData is a hidden folder. You should be able to get there by typing the entire path into the address box on the Windows Explorer. It's also possible to make these type of folders visible. You can find instructions for doing this at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/lear.....files.mspx

This URL is for XP, but will work for Vista as well.

By Play - Style on January 14th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Intel® Software Network Blogs » Second Life - Intel EngagementWhen I try the occlusion hack I can't seem to find any settings.xml file in my entire secondlife folder!!!!! Anybody know why? ... softwareblogs.intel.com/2006/10/03/second-life-intel-engagement/ - 43k -

By Jared Peterson on February 3rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I can get to AppData/Roaming/Second Life/user_settings

However, once I get there, there are NO files in the folder, so I can't even do this. Any suggestions?

By GS on March 27th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Brad O: It's not in the Second Life folder itself - instead you need to go to My Computer, then Documents and Settings... find the folder for your Windows account, then look under Applications Data (a hidden folder). You should see a Second Life folder in there, completely separate to the one the game is installed in.

By Aki on May 1st, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I fould Second Life work with my x3100 on windows xp pro without any troubles..
Performance is not the best (its bad actually, fps around 10 and with several complex models even below 1...)
But better then nothing. :)

By Stephen on May 17th, 2008 at 12:09 am
I see the Intel 945 works chipset erratically in Windows. Is there any evidence that it works with Linux (Ubuntu) or am I going to have to break down and spend the $50 for an Nvidia 7000 series?

thanks.

Intel® Software Network

Second Life - Intel Engagement

By Jason Powell (Intel) (8 posts) on October 3, 2006 at 8:27 pm

Categories: Graphics, Social Media & Virtual Worlds

Comments (51)

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