Graphic card recognition - Second Life

I found the post regarding the Virtual 3D acceleration. Did the steps, but without success. Then, installed d3d on the guest machine and copied the dlls to system accordingly. That, did not solved the problem either.

The file dx3sprites simply crashes, with the typical windows message (crash, could not find the reason bla bla, please inform MS)

Could you please specify what steps do we have to go ahead with, starting from a clean install? (e.g. d3d installation or not). Thanks for the support.

hey hextor,

1) do you have the vmware tools installed?

2) do you have the directx runtime installed in the guest?
- it is available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0A9B6820-BFBB-4799-9908-D418CDEAC197&displaylang=en

3) goto the properties for c:\windows\system32\d3d8thk.dll
- the ms dll is 8KB and the version information lists microsoft as the copyright holder
- is the dll the microsoft one? if it is, then window file protection prevented the installation of our dll. you can do the following to allow our dll to be installed
- delete C:\windows\system32\dllcache\d3d8thk.dll
- delete C:\windows\system32\d3d8thk.dll
- now copy our d3d8thk.dll into c:\windows\system32.
- try it out.

for our next release we will have an installer that automates this.

also, could you go to the configuration page for the livepc and click the show generated vmx button. post the text from the text box and i'll review it to make sure the settings are correct.

regards,
-tj

The machine is a fresh XP install.

a) Ok, I did not had VMWare tools installed. Just figured out how to. (Hint: Burn the windows.iso file to a CD and run it inside the virtualPC.) It is installed now and running as an icon on the tray.

b) I had D3x installed. But nevertheless I reinstalled it after having VMWare tools there to be sure

c) I copied the dlls again into windows/system. Now I noticed something. When I copy the file, it prompts me for a replacement of the 8k file. I click ok and it apparently copies it. However, after a couple seconds the old 8k archive is there again. This happens also if I delete the archive prior to copying the file. After a couple of seconds it will show up again!

Now I am at a loss regarding what to do there. Thanks!

It sounds like Windows File Protection is preventing the installation of our DLL. Here's the workaround:

1. Delete C:\windows\system32\dllcache\d3d8thk.dll.
2. Delete C:\windows\system32\d3d8thk.dll.
3. Now copy our d3d8thk.dll into c:\windows\system32.

Let me know if this works for you.

-John

Thanks John, in the meantime I reinitiated Windows in "Safe mode" (run msconfig and turn on the flag -SAFEMODE). On next restart it will show up in safe mode. Then I was able to copy/replace the file. Turn off SAFEMODE and reboot again. Now the file is there. Just to be sure I deleted it from the dll cache as well.

Hi TJ,

Thanks for the help. Now it seems everything is configured properly except than when trying to execute the sprites program I get an error message: missing MSVCP71.dll

The VMX file is attached here below. Thanks!

-------
bios440.filename = "c:/documents and settings/username/local settings/application data/moka5 usb/engine/bios.440.rom"
checkpoint.vmState = "vm.vmss"
config.version = "8"
displayname = "WindowsXP"
ethernet0.addresstype = "generated"
ethernet0.connectiontype = "nat"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:47:61:a7"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
ethernet0.present = "true"
floppy0.filename = "A:"
floppy0.present = "true"
floppy0.startconnected = "false"
guestinfo._vars = "host-resolution-x=1024&host-resolution-y=768"
guestinfo._vars_ts = "57540127000000-2640-28917"
guestos = "other26xlinux"
gui.fullScreenAtPowerOn = "FALSE"
ide0:0.devicetype = "disk"
ide0:0.disksize = "20000"
ide0:0.filename = "system.vmdk"
ide0:0.present = "true"
ide0:0.redo = ""
ide0:0.should_persist = "false"
ide0:0.startconnected = "true"
ide0:1.devicetype = "disk"
ide0:1.disksize = "10000"
ide0:1.filename = "local.vmdk"
ide0:1.present = "true"
ide0:1.redo = ""
ide0:1.should_persist = "true"
ide0:1.startconnected = "true"
ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"
ide1:0.devicetype = "cdrom-raw"
ide1:0.disksize = "2048"
ide1:0.filename = "auto detect"
ide1:0.present = "true"
ide1:0.should_persist = "true"
ide1:0.startconnected = "true"
logo = "file://"
mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"
memsize = "256"
memsize.min = "128"
scsi0.present = "true"
scsi0.virtualdev = "buslogic"
scsi0:0.devicetype = "disk"
scsi0:0.disksize = "10"
scsi0:0.filename = "sharedmem.vmdk"
scsi0:0.present = "true"
scsi0:0.redo = ""
scsi0:0.should_persist = "true"
scsi0:0.startconnected = "true"
sound.present = "true"
sound.startconnected = "true"
sound.virtualdev = "es1371"
tools.remindInstall = "FALSE"
tools.syncTime = "true"
usb.autoConnect.device0 = "path:1/1/0 autoclean:1"
usb.generic.autoconnect = "true"
usb.present = "true"
uuid.action = "keep"
uuid.bios = "56 4d e7 4d 96 08 9a 0f-99 4b 21 bb 3b 47 61 a7"
uuid.location = "56 4d e7 4d 96 08 9a 0f-99 4b 21 bb 3b 47 61 a7"
virtualHW.version = "3"
vm_engine.vmplayer = "true"

msvcp71.dll is the Microsoft C Runtime library. It is installed by many applications and Windows updates (e.g. Windows Update "Microsoft .NET Framework version 1.1" installs it), however if you have a completely fresh Windows installation you may not have this file. You can either copy it from an existing Windows machine or download it off the internet (there are many links to download on Google).

In the near future, we will have an actual installer that will handle everything so you won't need to do all these steps manually ;-).

-John

Hi there. Thanks for the answers to the help requests. Much appreciated.

I copied the file to the system32 directory. But still it is not working. Now the sprites program only crashes, with the typical message "Do you want to tell MS about bla bla"

I am using a dual core laptop computer with a Intel GMA. Could that be the problem?

Is there anything else you can thing one might try out?

Are you sure you have the shared memory enabled? Press Ctrl-F8 in the LivePC Engine and scroll all the way to the bottom. Make sure that "Enable shared memory implementation" is checked.

The Dual Core and Intel GMA shouldn't be a problem.

We will be releasing an update to the LivePC Engine and graphics driver sometime this week, which may work better for you. It uses a more robust technique for the 3D video acceleration.

-John

FYI, regarding (a), you don't need to burn a cd with the vmware tools .iso.
You can just point the cdrom device to the iso file on your host.:
From the LivePC Configuration page, set the type of the cdrom device (e.g. IDE 1:0) to cdrom-image and enter the iso location in the Path textbox. The next time the LivePC is started, it will use the specified .iso file as a cdrom in the cd drive.

Hi, i just tried to use live pc and it works fine, but i still cannot play this game second life inside livepc...i did the test of dx9 points, works fine i tryed even to put more shared memory to SVGA, ut it keeps saying the same error.

"Your video card appears to be GDI Generic, wich is not supported...bla..bla requires a video card with 32mb, as wel multitexture support...bla ba....ati 8500 or better or geforce 2or better"

Is there anyway of making this work?
Tnx.

Livepc is a great tool...

Second Life appears to use OpenGL, which is not currently supported by our graphics acceleration. Only DirectX is accelerated in the current version. (We may implement OpenGL acceleration at some point in the future.)

-John