Vista Ready?

[nielm]

On the placeshifter 3D crash, some debugging suggests that 3D accelleration uses openGL features that are not available on some modern GFX cards, or not with vista... (specifically, pbuffers)... So the current choice is:

Disable Aero and placeshifter's 3D mode, reboot. (works for me)
or Install XP (I wish I could)

[m4tth3wv]

Originally Posted by nielm

Disable Aero and placeshifter's 3D mode, reboot. (works for me)

This didn't work for me. If anyone can confirm it does for Intel Q965/Q963 Express ChipSet Family and Vista Business, I'll do more troubleshooting.

No SageTV on Vista blows.

[etrigan63]

I am currently running SageTV PlaceShifter on Vista Ultimate X64. My workstation (QuadFX + HD2900XT) shows Placeshifter fine with 3D acceleration turned on. Make sure you have Java JRE6 (latest version) installed which is Aero compatible. The 3D acceleration allows it to run without disabling Aero.

Oddly enough I cannot get SageTV Client to work with ATI drivers. I get the window frame filled with black. Nvidia boards/drivers work just fine.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by etrigan63

The [placeshifter's] 3D acceleration allows it to run without disabling Aero.

only if your gfx cqrd is compatible with Java's 3D extensions, mine, and several others in this thread are not.

[Trepidati0n]

Bump for great justice. I tried turning off aero and everything worked. However, I do not consider that a valid solution. I would not have a problem though if Sage & Company wished to engage in some one on one debug to solve this problem for the Intel chipset users. But until this is solved, I cannot justify spending anymore money on Sage products. Makes me sad.

[m4tth3wv]

Originally Posted by Trepidati0n

Bump for great justice. I tried turning off aero and everything worked. However, I do not consider that a valid solution. I would not have a problem though if Sage & Company wished to engage in some one on one debug to solve this problem for the Intel chipset users. But until this is solved, I cannot justify spending anymore money on Sage products. Makes me sad.

I don't agree with your statement making the assumption that Sage isnt trying. Sage isn't alone with Vista woe's. Just do a search on Google for those that went back to XP. I just did for issues with performance and stability among others.

The golden rule of Microsoft is wait til the Service Pack. That is something that I find unacceptable.

For issue Sage can fix reasonably, they do. Sage supports cross platforms, while MS expects you to use Windows only. This is the reason why I chose Sage over others.

In sum, cut them some slack. I wouldn't even be "saddened" if they said, Vista blows and it will be supported when Microsoft releases a decent product and opens up aspects of their OS so vendors have a reasonable ability to understand what they keep changing.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by Trepidati0n

Bump for great justice. I tried turning off aero and everything worked. However, I do not consider that a valid solution.

Neither do I. But its all we have while 3d accelleration does not work, and I don't know who to blame for the 'Auto-disable aero if it thinks it is icompatible with a running application, but something not working properly leading to the running app failing...'

I did some debugging on my system, it turns out the 3d accelleration problem is that a certain basic OpenGL feature (pbuffers) is being reported as not being supported by the graphics card...

On the same PC, with the same Placeshifter SW version, 3d accelleration with pbuffers works fine in Linux. If I could be bothered to install XP on this same machine, I would expect that placeshifter would work fine there as well.

So blame a combination of MS, ATI and Intel for releasing a crappy OS with crappy drivers.


(I have attached a cross-platfom java OpenGL pbuffer test app if anyone feels like experimenting... Extract into placeshifter directory, preserving paths, go into placeshufter/jogl_test and double-click the batch file... You should either get a teapot on a spinning cube, or an error msg)

[dadams]

FYI...I got mine working. I had to unplug my external monitor from my laptop, then Placeshifter worked fine. Yay.

[mothbhai]

I am having the same issue - black screen for video on my Sony TZ laptop with Intel Graphics and Vista Business.

Without 3D acceleration on, in settings, Placeshifter starts up fine, and all functions work, except playing video. With 3d on, it crashes within 2 seconds of window opening.

I do want to mention that video worked the first time I installed Placeshifter, and ran the video. I was able to watch a video for a long time. However, from the second time onwards, I've been getting the black screen.

Any reason why it should have worked the first time?

I dont want to turn off Aero every time just to make Placeshifter work, so will wait for a fix from Sage.

[etrigan63]

Actually as of Catalyst 7.7 SageTV Client works perfectly on my Vusta workstation. And with 7.8, the T200 drivers install correctly. Sage is working like a champ now on my Vista rig.

[nielm]

I now have placeshifter running properly in Vista, with 3d accelleration enabled which means it runs fine in Aero...

There were several (non-Sage) problems that needed fixing:

1) Placeshifter uses OpenGL for 3d accelleration, and a certain OGL feature (pbuffers) was not supported.

to confirm this, run placeshifter from the command line with:

java -cp MiniClient.jar;jogl.jar;gluegen-rt.jar -Dsun.java2d.opengl=true   sage.miniclient.MiniClient

enable 3d accellation, connect and see the exception in the logging:

Thu 6/14 0:07:16.366 Error w/ GFX Thread: javax.media.opengl.GLException: pbuffers unsupported

2) My laptop OEM (Asus) only supplies an ancient ATI vista driver version that does not have full OGL support

3) ATI's generic driver package does not install on laptop cards, saying that the OEM needs to supply supported drivers. (apparantly this is common practive with laptop cards)


The workaround is to use a tool to modify the generic driver package to let it know that it supports my laptop's Radeon Mobility... and after installing that, 3d acelleration works beatifully, and Aero and Placeshifter now are happy together...

This tool is available here for AMD/ATI cards

http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool/

This is also possible for Nvidia cards with a manual process to replace one of the files in the install package. See: these instructions

[Sarge]

Originally Posted by Trepidati0n

Sniff..not for me. Got my wife a Dell E1505 lappy..no joy. I really don't want to buy a client license after I just bought a PS license.

Have you gotten Placeshifter up and running on your Vista Dell? That's what model my laptop is too.

[realguy]

Just got my placeshifter up and working on a dell 640m. The drivers on Dell's website are out of date. Even using the driver update tool in vista will not work. I went to intel's website, downloaded the new drivers. It will not update if you follow their directions because it says this driver has not been validated for your system, so you have to go through, unzip the driver, and then manually update the driver. Once the system has been restarted, placeshifter works perfectly.

[Trepidati0n]

Originally Posted by Sarge

Have you gotten Placeshifter up and running on your Vista Dell? That's what model my laptop is too.

Good news...it works
Bad new...sorta

My current steps were

1a. Download Driver from Intel HERE. Make sure to get the zip
1b. Unzip it somewhere...don't care where
2. Go to your driver section (control panel --> device manager)
3. Go to the 945GM video driver and RIGHT CLICK on it
4. Pick update driver and path to the directory
5. Let it update

As mentioned above you can't just install it because it isn't signed.

Fireup PS and turn of 3D acceleration. Launch the program. When you try to watch/play a video it will want to turn of aero. That is fine with me. When you kill PS, it should turn aero back on.

Considering I had NOTHING before...this is a big step in the right direction. Thanks to realguy for informing us of the new driver. Heck, I may get thanked by my wife properly tonight because of this.

[Khristopher]

Originally Posted by realguy

Just got my placeshifter up and working on a dell 640m. The drivers on Dell's website are out of date. Even using the driver update tool in vista will not work. I went to intel's website, downloaded the new drivers. It will not update if you follow their directions because it says this driver has not been validated for your system, so you have to go through, unzip the driver, and then manually update the driver. Once the system has been restarted, placeshifter works perfectly.

This is exactly what I had to do for my partner's laptop as well! Thanks for the post!!

[snipeman]

I have a Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad X61s - it has the Intel 965 express chipset in it. I'm running Vista Business.

I am unable to use the 3D option in Placeshifter.

I read though this thread and downloaded the Intel Sept 2007 drivers for my video chipset via the manual ZIP and installed them with no problems.

I have Aero enabled and 32bit color - when I run Placeshifter with 3D off it works fine, but not when I turn it on. I get the usual 2 seconds of screen then it pops back to the Placeshifter connection screen.

Is there anything else I can try to do? Should I even expect 3D to work?

[joh3004]

I'm running placeshifter on a thinkpad z61t, and i have the same exact problem. But I can't figure out how to turn off 3D acceleration. Anybody know?

[carlgar]

Click settings in the PS servers manager. Then select the general tab and uncheck the "Enable 3D acceleration" box.

[joh3004]

thanks! works now.

[Yooper]

I am running the 6.2.10 version of Placeshifter on my laptop - running Vista.

I use it remotely to view my cable video in the hotel and airports when I travel.

I have 3D acceleration turned off - it will not work if turned on.

A couple of issues:

1. Vista changes to none Aero mode when I select and view a channel. This works OK. However, if I minimize the viewing window and then restore it the video does not come back - just the audio.
2. When I change channels, the laptop screen flickers twice - as if it is changing back to Aero and then turns it off again.
3. When there is a pause in the network streaming there is a reasonable chance that I will lose the streaming connection. If the pause is long enough, the screen will flicker - Aero turning back on? - and then the connection is lost.

I have not tried turning off Aero - that is my next step.

The switching of Aero on and off seems to cause a problem.