I picked up a nVidia 8800GTX at launch and much to my dismay Second Life would refuse to launch.  Instead it would only show a small dialog box with an error indicating that it didn’t like the video driver.  So I’ve waited patiently for a driver update from nVidia, but still nothing.  At some point while scouring the web for more information about this problem I saw a message that indicated that all 32-bit OpenGL apps were failing under Windows XP x64 on the 8800 series boards.  So this morning I decided to see if I could find a work-around for the problem.  I dug around a bit and it appeared that the part of the video driver that supports 32-bit OpenGL apps was simply not copied correctly by the video driver installer.

I managed to get Second Life running under Windows XP Pro x64 using the 96.89 drivers… here’s what I did:
- I copied Drivers\XP64\nvogl32.dl_ from my evga install cd to a temporary directory
- I opened a command window (Start->Run->”cmd”)
- I changed directory to the temporary directory where I copied nvogl32.dl_
- I ran: expand nvogl32.dl_ nvogl32.dll
- I copied nvogl32.dll from the temporary directory to C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64

I hope this helps out some other early-adopters.

A word of caution: manipulating files in your Windows directory can be dangerous for the health of your system.  If you make a mistake you can render your computer unbootable or worse.  Please be careful and only attempt this work-around if you’re very proficient at this sort of task.  Our support staff won’t be able assist you if you damage your system.

Cheers,
Lawrence

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