Vista HELP!

[29id]

Help! I've been using lightwave for awhile (8 years) started on an ALPHA machine I bought which included a version of LW Alpha 5.5. Those were the days... I can figure most problems out but no this one. I've finally given up and lookin for help.

I'm running a custom machine... 6GB Ram, 8600 and 7900 Cards, Vista64 Ultimate & WinXP, AMD Athlon X2, Abit 32SLI Motherboard, (2) Viewsonic 22 inch FP monitors, and latest version of LW 9.5 for 64. No MODS to Vista.

Everything works great on the XP side. The only reason I have an XP partition is because I need it for LW.

My problem... LONG LONG wait times in anything I do in LW (under Vista). I tried turning Aero off, which was no help. Takes a minute or longer to move the viewpoint in a blank scene.

Is there something in the bios I need to change? Are the video card the issue? I have the latest drivers for everything on my computer. I'm reading posts of how Vista is working great. I have no problems with any of my other programs on my computer.

Anyone have an idea what the issue could be? I would love to stop rebooting my computer every time I want use LW. HELP!

[safetyman]

Sounds like it could be the video card. Not sure why you have 2 different ones (on the same box??). You said you had the latest drivers for your vid cards? I would check to make sure that you have the ones for Vista and not XP. If you boot into Vista and you're running XP vid drivers, there could be a problem there.

[29id]

I've installed the latest nvidia drivers for vista. I'm not running on XP drivers, not sure if that would even be possible? I have other programs which are graphic based and they work fine under Vista.

I have 2 video cards running 3 monitors. The 8600 x 2 and the 7900 x 1. It works great. I tried running LW with the 7900 disabled... not success.

It's weird... everything about Vista has been great from the start for me. The only program that I have a problem with on Vista is Lightwave. Since I had the old HD from XP, when I did my upgrade, the non-vista switch to XP wasn't a problem... but not it is starting to become annoying: dual booting. So, I figured I would post here.

[guardonduty]

What problems are you having in LW-VISTA version?

I don't think you are the only one having issues. I too my self purhase a new Dell machine XPS 420, 4 gigs, ATI Radeon HD 3650, 640 gig, etc. I was configuring the machine connected to an old 17" CRT monitor and for some reason some of the control icons in LW were not showing up(read this thread (http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88487)). I tried everything while connected to this 17" CRT and discovered that if I increased the resolution to some ridiculous size all the icons appeared in LW. Hmmm, so I thought maybe I should connect the NEW PC to the 20" Flat Screen it came with and voila it worked for most of the icons and symbols. Some control button still don't show up..see attachment. Still trying to figure that one out.

[ctuller]

My Guess it that Vista is having probelms with the two cards(with different buses) and/or drivers.
You can test this by Physically removing one of the cards (the 7900) and see if you get different results.

[RollerJesus]

I had to turn Aero on to get LW to run properly, grnted I only use 1 video card, but an otherwise similar setup.

[29id]

Up until recently, I was only using 1 GFX card. As for the monitors, I don't believe that is the problem, I have brand new Viewsonic 22 flat monitors. When I start LW everything works... I just take a minute or longer between button clicks or actions.

Lets say I want to change the view perspective. I click on the upper right buttons... as soon as I do this... my mouse disappears and I get a LONG lag. After about a minute, the perspective changes, and I'm ready to do my next mouse click in LW! Yea! I can create a ball in, "LESS THAN AN HOUR!!!"

I would figure that my Graphics Card, since it's pretty new, would work. Being that it's an 8600 and 7900. We aren't talking a video card from 1998.

Is there a version of nvidia drivers that I need to use? I have the latest.

Is there something I need to turn off?

Arr... this is really frustrating, especially when I can fire up a Max or Maya with no problem after installing them on my machine as a test. I even installed AVID ADR. and that works... and that's saying something!

Is there someone from Newtek that can help me with this issue?

Thanks to everyone for helping!

[MicroMouse]

Did you have a problem when only using the 1 GFX card?

[danielkaiser]

I to have a dual video card sys. GForce 7900/7600 running Vista Ultimate x64 and have had very few problems.

[29id]

I'm one of these people who tries everything... as far as one card, 2 cards, etc. Exact same set up on the XP partition (actually it's a sep drive) and everything runs fine.

Now, I'm running the monitors at the highest res. I did try to lower the res on the monitors to see what would happen.... a faction of improvement.

This also happens with the 32bit version installed under Vista.

After I made my last post, I rechecked that everything was updated again. There was one bios flash release, which I updated to.

Is there something in the bios that I need to change?

I really sucks because I end up not doing things in LW because it's such a pain to shut down all my programs and boot into XP. I guess there some program out there that I could run both a once, but I haven't investigated that route or care to.

Like I stated previously, it is just frustrating because everything else has worked fine for me under Vista. No problems. Except LW.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

[29id]

I opened the resources and was watching what happened when I did something in LW. Blank scene, moving perspective view... tweaked both processors 100% for the entire 33 seconds LW took to do the move.

[guardonduty]

You can Run XP from inside Vista with Virtual PC 2007 (http://lifehacker.com/software/windows/geek-to-live--run-windows-xp-inside-vista-with-virtual-pc-238071.php). Much easier than switching back and forth.

[29id]

Honestly, I really don't want to do that. But thanks for the suggestion. I knew there were programs out there that did this. I just don't want to sorta "patch" this problem.

I guess it is just hard for me to understand why every other program works on my system... except LW.

I'll end up doing what I do now... use another program for my 3D. I don't want to, because I like using LW. But the fact still remains that I don't have a functioning LW running on my system. I guess I will have to wait for LW 10, buy a new computer, or just throw in the towel.

Does anyone have a test I can do or some sort of information or data I can spit out of Vista or LW that might help solve this problem?

You can Run XP from inside Vista with Virtual PC 2007 (http://lifehacker.com/software/windows/geek-to-live--run-windows-xp-inside-vista-with-virtual-pc-238071.php). Much easier than switching back and forth.

[ctuller]

Does anyone have a test I can do or some sort of information or data I can spit out of Vista or LW that might help solve this problem?

Try running with a debugger and capture the crash: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2545211/WinDBG-A-to-Z?query2=windbg%20auto%20download%20symbol

Try running with procmon, capture a log:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

Run a mem test to make sure your RAM is ok or try with different ram, or less ram (add one stick at a time). (Vista manages memory different from XP)

This is a machine specific issue as many other people are running fine on Vista and Vista64, and besides vid drivers, vid cards, and OGL I can't imagine what might be causing the problem.

[29id]

So, it was the video card after all. I actually had to disable the card from the System Panel to get the actual results.

It's interesting, because I actually removed the card at one point while I was still working on a solution to the problem. The drivers or something must have still be active when I tested with the card removed.

So, I guess my next question would be: Since I'm running 3 monitors, why would three monitors run under XP but not under Vista. I'm sure there is a technical reason. Maybe, someone from Newtek would be interested in looking into this issue.

I'm just happy I got LW working on my Vista 64.

Thanks to everyone for all the help! :thumbsup:

[Andrew March]

If you're graphics cards aren't the same chipset and don't have the same ram you'll run into all sorts of issues, not obvious at first.

[genesis1]

Just worth a try, if its not already set, crank up power saving options to 100% to get Vista at full speed, and turn off anything you don't realy need running. My system is not as fancy, Quadcore vista 32bit nvidia q6600. However cranking up power saving boosted my speed, as did adding multithreading on renders.