My old PC died kind of unexpectedly...it was a P4 3 GHZ with XP and 1 gig of RAM.  Went to Fry's and bought a new one...on a budget due to a baby on the way and a new house I just bought...so I didn't buy a high end PC, but bought an HP M7760n Media Center with Vista.  It has a Dual Core E6400 with 2 gigs of RAM...

Yes, it has Vista Premium.

And it renders Vue scenes (Vue 6 Studio beta) 4 or 5 times faster than my old PC...and Vue installed easily.  More stable, too.

But...the opengl display for Vue doesn't work too well.  Due to my budget constraints, I bought a PC with integrate graphics..."Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950."  It doesn't recognize the card, so it switches over to a default software emulation of Opengl...which doesn't work well at all.  NOT switching to this emulation leads to a black rectangle on my screen, and a non-responsive real-time preview...

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Sweetcement

Oh man, I'd return the PC.
or buy a graphics card for it, hopefully it's not a notebook

goodluck

go with Nvidia!

Yes, swap the system or get a video card.  OpenGl Hardware acceleration is not supported for onboard graphics chips. 

Get an Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS or GT with 256 mem as a minimum.  Shoud be about $120 to 130.  NewEgg has some sales going on, or back to Fry's.

Get a GS, the GT is probably not worth the extra bucks!  good luck.

Oh yeah, make sure you get atleast a 7600 or higher number.

Yes, i'd recommend you get a popular recent GeForce card. My P-4 on an Intel D915GAG  motherboard, (2GB) with the onboard Intel display chipset, had totally repeatable OGL crashes with Vue 6i. Last week i installed a BFG GeForce 7950 GT OC 256 and the crashes are gone.

Funny how some people insist that any problem involving Vue is due to e-on software bugs and will never admit it might possibly be their system. Good that you recognize the source of this issue.

As mentioned above, my new one is a fairly expensive display card that's really overkill for Vue 6i (which doesn't use display card 3D GPU/pipeline capabilities at all). All you get with a fancy display card in Vue is faster viewports, not faster renders. But i'm big on MS-Flight Simulator and adventure games.

Anyway, you might also see what you can find on eBay.
If you check out the merchant's history carefully and be sure to specify that you'll only buy a product in new condition (which you can legally register with the manufacturer), you should find some excellent prices and be safe. Haven't been on eBay lately, but have both bought and sold there in he past and never a problem. No doubt they have a forum or such were there is good advice on safe shopping.

Yes JC is correct, many do not read the specs for video cards when they buy and then have difficulties.  And, if that isn't enough Vue must support the card you buy.

Each card is rated for a specific power supply output, i.e. 300 or 350 watts, and is either 1.2, 1.5, or 2.0 OpenGl compatible.  You should also check the Bus version 1.5, 3.0 etc. and the Bus voltage 3 volts, 1.8, etc to make sure your new card is compoletely compatible with your mobo and power supply. 

Another difficulty you may encounter is using the Windows Model Graphic drivers which are often only 1.2 OpenGl compatible.  Sometimes they work sometime they do not.  YOu should use the drivers that came with the Video Card, and do not be tempted to upgrade the drivers, work with what came on the CD to make sure thing will work and then install updated drivers.  That way if they do not work you will know what will.

If you are not sure then go to the manufacturers web sites and get the specs.

Excellent detailed points keenart - learned a lot from your post.

One thing i noticed on my 2 year old Intel D915GAG that you might watch out for:

Intel located the 16x PCI Express connector (which i must use) directly under the power supply conditioning / motherboard chipset and microprocessor sections of the mobo - the parts most sensitive to heat. Modern display cards put out a lot of heat and many (like my new BDG GeForce 7950 GT OC 256) dump that heat directly into your case, rather than venting it out through their adapter brackets.

In my mid-tower case the heat from the display card rises only a couple of inches before dumping into the processor fan - which then distributes it to this vunerable area. Intel warns against supplying air to the processor fan that's over 38 degrees C.

I had to add an extra fan with my display card and at times things do get hot. My Intel P-4 model will slow down to avoid overheating, but does not have additional protection against overheating, if that slow down is not enough (more expensive P-4s have a 2nd level of heat damage prevention).

The point of all this is:
1.It's a lot better if your mobo has the PCI Express connectors near the opposite edge of the mobo from the processor area.

1. Display cards that vent their heat outside the case are cool in more ways than one.

2. You can learn a lot by reading the microprocessor manufacture's technical spec sheets online.

I'm designing my next system at this time and expect to get a heatpipe type Zalman cpu cooler:
http://www.zalmanusa.com/ , even though my new Intel Core2 -Duo won't have the extreme heat proplems of a P4.

Funny how some people insist that any problem involving Vue is due to e-on software bugs and will never admit it might possibly be their system. Good that you recognize the source of this issue.

How sad that you still don't accept the memory issue even though **e-on have admitted to at least 2 memory leaks that they have found so far in the final release version.

**You were wrong, get over it and move on!

You should leave your disappointment and frustrations with Vue out of this discussion.

Whether Vue admits there is a memory leak is not important and does not mean that it is caused by bad programming.  It could easily be something else generic in nature, such as a changed dll they now have to deal with. What is important is the bugs get fixed.

Although you are entitled to your option, and you may have forgotten, so are the rest of us.

I have spent my whole life dealing with people concerning software and a few with your attitude.  But the fact always remains that a few will always be affected, by software and hardware incompatibility,  The rest of the 100, 000 or so users do not have the issues that you have with VUE.

Just as you post, “Injustice will be avenged!” You my friend are doing VUE a terrible injustice!!! And the rest of us will pay with delayed software and higher costs because of your continued vendetta.

A Forum is a community where people come together to solve and resolve issues, not a Soap Box Opera for the disenchanted!!

Read the thread properly keenart, your friend jc started the response with his little dig at "not just me"
And if you bothered to look at other forums there are more peeps having problems than aren't in actual fact.

FACT: I had a Vue6Inf that worked as a pre-release on my crappy system as you people like to put it

FACT: I now have a Vue6Inf as a final rellease that doesn't work on my system!

You do the math!   I just want a product that worked like the pre-release did before and doesn't now!

No injustice to Vue just facts, and incidentally if you were to ask the good peeps over at e-on they will tell you how I also PRAISED the software previously.

And you're right, a forum should be where we can discuss and solve issues, but when someone tells you your pc isn't up to it when it was with the pre-release is a bit silly and condescending don't ya think!!

So, in your Computer World, Software and Hardware have no relationship? Therefore, your Software runs in its own Virtual World, and the Hardware runs in its own Virtual Environment?

Then that would mean that if you Run Vue on your Hardware, it would have to happen by Immaculate Conception?

Interesting theory!!  

jc didn't start anything, you picked it up.  And if you were truely the gentleman you are trying to make yourself out to be, you would forget your frustration, and help solve the problem related to this thread.  Instead of trying to beat a dead horse, who cannot get up and go. 

This is my last post on this matter, because I am a gentleman, and I can see you are going to take this to the extreme, until you get satisfaction from VUE.

keenart: I didn't say that, anyway I'll pm you because I don't want to get into bad feeling either believe it or not!

I am too old to get mad at anyone.  You might be interested in this URL;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak 

Why is everyone getting so upset over a problem with memory leak and resouce issues that is a vue problem and has been confirmed by e-on tech and is in the process of fixing in a patch that might be out next week.

Some still want to drag this on as maybe a hardware problem when it is not was not and is being fixed and confirmed as a softwre problem in vue.   

This problem fixer was saying to drop and move on I can understand his comment and if others have been folling the thread about it they would understand why he said it.   Getting  the facts before getting upset with anyone is best. :)

the fixer didnt mean  any harm at all , just facts. :)

Iloco: Thanx for the support, appreciated. I wasn't aware that a fix could be ready as early as next week, that is indeed good news!

keenart: Interesting article you have pointed to, thank you very much, I especially like the example of the elevator which essentially uses a PLC programme [Programmable Logic Controller] as it's "memory leak" , something I am very used to as part of my "proper" job!