To prevent major lags with Nvidia, go into Nvidia control panel, and in SpaceEngine's profile set Threaded optimization to off.

Try revert back the driver to the version 14.4. Alternatively, copy the dll file from the 14.4 driver into SpaceEngine/system/ folder. You can get it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/nx6371iuyxvk3ug/atioglxx.dll

First, try the solution in in the previous paragraph. If this didn't help, open config/user.cfg and change this parameter value to false, so that it looks like this:

EnableMipmapsWarp false // use mipmapping for warp effects rendering

If crashes on enabling the Oculus Rift mode or the Fish Eye mode still remains, change these two parameters to false as well:

EnableMipmapsGUI false // use mipmapping for GUI FBO
EnableMipmapsFrame false // use mipmapping for scene FBO

Open config/main.cfg and change this parameter to 13:

PlanetHeightmapFormat 13 // format of the terrain heightmap textures: 13 - R32F, 16 - RGBA32F

If this didn't help, open config/user.cfg and change this parameter to true:

PlanetVSFetching true // planet mesh rendering mode

Note what this mode is experimental it may glitch, collision detection is also work wrong in this mode.
Also, read Fixing common issues #3.

Open config/main.cfg and set this parameter to false:

LoaderShadersAsync false // load shaders in asynchronous mode

Also, read Fixing common issues #3.

Install the latest driver for Intel HD (08 January 2015 or later).

These are the most frequent errors found in SE. You will get a popup window with one of these following messages:

NOTE: in this SE version (0.972) the error message itself is bugged It looks like (null) 2.1 (null).

- "You have old OpenGL version (2.1.1). Update your graphics card driver or install compatible hardware"

- "You have old GLSL version (1.2). Update your graphics card driver or install compatible hardware"

- "Critical extensions missing: GL_ARB_vertex_program GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object"

- "Error loading surface generator shaders. Press YES to run program with procedural planets disabled. Press NO to exit"

Download and install latest drivers for your video card. If you still get this message, it could be that you have an incompatible video card (see next paragraph).

But you still can try and run SpaceEngine by disabling checking of critical errors at startup. Open main.cfg and change value of this parameter to 'true':

IgnoreCriticalCheck true // ignore checking of OpenGL version and critical extensions supporting

NOTE: I can give no guaranties that SpaceEngine will be stable and work correctly if you do make this change.

If you have an "Error loading surface generator shaders" error and press Yes, SpaceEngine can run, but it will not be able to render procedural planetary landscapes.

After updating or rollback of the drivers, you must delete the cache folder in the SpaceEngine directory.

Most of the forum posts I receive are from users that report an inability to start SpaceEngine, This is because those users have inbuilt Intel graphics card, or some old GeForce 5700 series, or not a proper "gaming" laptop. There is no way but to update your hardware system. There are no plans to make a second version of the engine for weaker systems with simplified graphics, CPU texture generation, etc. It would be like coding another engine from scratch. Once again, I would remind everyone that the minimum system requirements can be found on the Home page, but I will mention it here as well:

CPU 2.0 GHz
RAM 2 GB
Video GeForce 8600, Radeon HD 2600
VRAM 512 MB

I stress the special role played by videocard onboard memory (VRAM). 512 MB is the absolute minimum. The engine uses a large amount of data that must be in video memory (textures, meshes, vbo, etc). If your system meets the recommended requirements, the engine will work, because its development is made for this hardware:

CPU 3.0 GHz
RAM 4 GB
Video GeForce 9800 GTX, ATI Mobility HD 5730
VRAM 1024 MB

If you have a Intel HD graphics card, it is better to disable asynchronous loading in the main.cfg as well:

LoaderMode 2 // loader mode: 0 = immediate, 1 = interleaved, 2 = asynchronous

If you're running SE on a laptop with dual graphics, make sure SE runs on NVidia or ATI chip instead of Intel HD. You may see it in the beginning of "SpaceEngine/system/se.log" file. If it says:

Vendor: Intel
Renderer: Intel® HD Graphics 4000

then you should open Nvidia Control Panel or ATI Catalyst and force SpaceEngine.exe run on NVidia/ATI graphics card. If you do not found SpaceEngine profile there, create a new one.

If you get missing landscape blocks, blurry or blinking textures, random spikes sticking out of surface, check out these recommendations here:

a) If you have a laptop with hybrid graphics, read item #3.

b) Make sure that you make a "clean" installation of SE. If you install a new version overwriting the old one, you may get many bugs and glitches. If you get some glitches after the patch is installed, remove the folder called cache from SpaceEngine's directory.

If you have frequent crashes on planets, or get an "OUT OF MEMORY" message on screen, or "Unexpected deleting of child node" in the log file, try taking these steps first:

- Close any other programs that can consume the video memory (games, video players, graphics editors, etc.). SpaceEngine is not a small flash type game, video memory is the most important resource for it. It may help to disable the Windows Aero theme too, as it consumes a lot of video memory.
- Disable "3D water" in Graphics settings (Ctrl-F4)
- Reduce "Landscape LOD" to -2 in Graphics settings (Ctrl+F4)
- Set up the amount of video memory in the main.cfg file:

VideoMemorySize 2048 // video card onboard memory (VRAM) in megabytes

The value must not be less than 1024, but not more than the total amount of physical video memory plus amount of RAM. For example, if you have a graphics card with 1024 MB of video memory, and more than 2 GB of RAM, you can increase VideoMemorySize to 2048.

It is not a bug. Current version have not yet completed spaceships rendering system - they cannot be rendered if there is no stars or planets in the renderlist. Just imagine that ship becomes invisible in interstellar flight

It is not a bug. Our Solar system planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and its satellites) have no procedural textures, only real ones with limited level-of-detail. You can download addons with high resolution textures to increase level of detail of real planets.

If you experience a crash when trying to open the Display menu, open config/main.cfg and change the Maximized parameter value to true, so that it looks like this:

Maximized true // start with a maximized window

If you're using a very high display resolution and have problems selecting things with the cursor, or your screenshots are being output at a lower resolution than you're using, try the following:

1) Open Windows Control Panel, navigate to Display, and set the DPI scaling to "Smaller - 100% (default)" - it should look like this.

2) If you want to adjust the DPI scaling, click on "Set custom text size (DPI)" in the sidebar and change its value to suit your preference.

- Star mode "points" and "sprites" looks the same. This is right! This switch changes the rendering technology, not the visual appearance.
- Ships do not render in interstellar space
- Star catalog has many errors in star classification, so there are many "giant dwarfs" and "dwarf giants"
- Many real binary stars rendered as single, and many single rendered as binary - SE simply have incomplete catalog of binary stars
- Comet nucleus star-sprite will shine through planets [example].
- Galaxy/nebula sprites will rotate when seen from certain angles
- Skybox edges are visible when near the center of galaxy
- Auroras, comet tails and rings can be rendered in front of ships/moons sometimes
- Lens flares are distorted by gravitational lensing (black holes and ship warp drive effect)
- Text editor for Wiki descriptions is not working - it is not implemented yet
- Solar system moons don't have extremely accurate orbits (requires implementation of custom orbit models, e.g. VSOP-87)
- Sunspot distribution is not always realistic
- Ocean tag not yet implemented in planet editor
- Rounding errors (e.g. 30° in catalog rounds to 29°59'59.99" displayed on HUD)
- "Normal" autoexposure mode is unfinished
- Bloom effects from the bottom of the screen are replicated at the top of the screen in anaglyph mode
- Many HIP and HD stars do not appear in the search menu

- Inaccurate tidal heating calculations, makes some moons too hot (e.g. asteroid Dactyl)
- Crash when entering the Display menu for users with single-monitor setups
- Does not work in Windows XP
- Menu button sound doesn't work
- Lens flare color in Normal or Super diffraction spike mode is inaccurate when close to a star
- Changing "modes" between simulation and orbital when piloting ships can cause glitches
- Few issues with asynchronous loading (stars don't always generate properly, especially when flying to new galaxies)
- Flashing landscape LOD on a planet when Wiki for it is displayed
- GUI response issues with some users (interface items glitchy or not respond easily)
- GUI toolbars may completely disappear when pressing pin button while half-hidden
- Flickering flare color in close binary systems [example]
- Auto-exposure does not react when a sun is blocked while diffraction spikes are set to normal or super
- "Eclipse bug" on distant planets (weird dark shimmering on outer planet caused by inner planet crossing the sun or two suns eclipsing)
- Cloud cyclones have cut edges sometimes
- Level horizon command (End key) doesn't work properly on oblate objects
- Problems when releasing Left + Right click
- Lines or junctures are visible on planetary surface
- Switching to fullscreen doesn't work sometimes
- Weird behavior of movement keys in tracking mode (T) and after releasing it
- Automatic reference object setting with spacecraft doesn't always choose the best object (for example, when near dwarf moons or debris asteroids close to a planet you are trying to orbit)
- 3D water fog sometimes starts above the water surface
- Problems with the skybox export interface, and with the planetarium after using it, for some users
- Music player will unpause when SE window is minimized and restored, or when entering and exiting the main menu
- If a galaxy model is selected, the camera is not following any object, and the program is in Edit Mode, closing and restarting the program will cause the WASDRF movement keys to behave incorrectly until the camera is set to follow an object
- Visual atmosphere heights are inconsistently and unrealistically generated
- Physical atmosphere properties are inconsistently and unrealistically generated, and are not tied to the visual models
- Cyclones are not generated in the southern hemispheres of gas giants
- Shimmering bloom splotch when very close to the surface of a planet [example]
- Lighting errors in system browser when viewing from outside the system
- "Opacity spot" in the subsolar region of atmospheres
- Strange behavior of fish eye and cube map views when near planets (only when a planetary object is in the neg_z face)
- Only one planetary nebula model is used per galaxy
- Camera will be set to 90° FOV when returning from fisheye or cubemap view sometimes
- If spacecraft .sss Length is very different from its .cfg length, there may be rendering glitches
- Eclipse shadows on atmosphere not occluded by planet [example]