Let's say it has been one of those offers you can't refuse. I wanted to upgrade my home notebook since a long time.
This Acer 5920G is very fast, but maybe the price is so low because it has an unique graphic card, not used in any other Acer model. It's an Ati Radeon HD3470, which is not suitable for graphics or games. Oh well, I told myself: "I write music, who cares?".
MOTU Symphonic Orchestra: Crash
At home I still use my beloved MOTU Symphonic Orchestra. It has been the first virtual instrument I ever purchased, and I still think it's great value for money. Guess what? I installed it and it kept crashing. I tried to install the most updated drivers, patched whatever could be patched, rebooted until the end of the days. No change.
I kept getting crashes in the OpenGL library (dll). I know nothing about dlls, and asked for help at work. Max likes to play the greek oracle's part: "Looks like Blender", he said. Then a bullet list of things to do: open the MOTU folder, add a text file, rename it atioglxx.dll, try again.
Well, it worked. I did that and MOTU started working. Because this recipe looked like a mystery, and I like mysteries, I asked why. Besides, he wanted me to ask why, not to say "thank you".
So I did and this is the reason why the trick works: placing a file with that name inside the program folder, it overrides the real OpenGL library. But because it's a text file, the software is not able to use it and falls back to software emulation.
Looks like a similar problem happens with Blender, the open source animation software, and this solution may work for many other applications and graphic cards that are not fully supported.
Susanna is VFX Wizard's executive officer. She holds a MS degree in Communications Science, is a published author, has a music academy diploma and a specialist certificate in film scoring. Her music has been distributed internationally. She is at ease with any keyboard: qwerty or midi. She's also the one ensuring projects are done on time and within the budget - that's why in the studio she's affectionately known as Severus Snape's long lost sister.