If you are following this blog you know KirstenLee is updating her viewer faster than I can keep up with. She has also written about what a hassle it is working with some of the new 2.0 viewer code. I have no doubt the Modular people working on Emerald have several challenges adapting all their features to the new 2.0 style viewer.

I’m not plugged into Modular’s developers’ channel so things seem pretty quite to me. I have great hopes for Modular’s next release of Emerald.

The versions of the Emerald Viewer prior to 1632 were giving me problems. The latest version, 1632 – with 219,000+ downloads) is better but has some problems still. Enough so that I and some friends have been using other viewers. I get CPU spikes to 100% and drastic frame rate drop offs, 1 to 2 frames per second. I’m doing good if I can for 2 hours without having to relog or crash. I have texture load problems. I use my custom version of the Fast Rez Tool and still some things are just not downloading. Forget taking the viewer over to OpenSim grids. Way more stuff refuses to download.

Emerald Performance Tip

So, not having a new viewer to play with I went looking to see what others were saying on the forum. I found a jewel. The post thread is: Nvidia Threaded Optimization

What they are doing is turning off Threaded Optimization. This is for those with nVidia cards. The reports are people get high FPS and less CPU usage. Few crashes and no apparent need to relog. Windows users running XP, Vista and Win7 are seeing speed ups.

How To

Right click the desktop background and select NVIDIA Control Panel. In the left panel at the top is the Item 3D Settings, click it. In the right panel is a tabbed window, select Program Settings.

In Program Settings there are Add, Remove, and Restore buttons. Use ‘Add’ to add Emerald to the selections. Well, look to see if it is there. Probability is that isn’t.

My copy of Emerald is in C:\Program Files\GreenLife Emerald Viewer

If you only more recently started using Emerald your folder name may be different. In which case it is likely to be: C:\Program Files\Emerald Viewer\

Look through the settings and find Thread Optimization. Set it to OFF. Then click apply. You can exit out.

If you find you need to restore this setting, follow these steps and set the value to Auto or On. For many of us the default value is Auto, which is probably the better choice.

I’ve tried this and not seen any big increase in FPS. Others say they have. I use an EVGA w/nVidia 8800 chip.

Results

I still see low FPS 30 to 40 minutes in. One can flip open the render stats using Ctrl-Shift-9 and see what is using up all the time. Mine is usually in the Render Pool with Simple and FullBright using up most of the time. (nVidia 8800)

I think I get slightly better FPS overall. Nothing dramatic for me.

Another Tip

Some people are just a ball of gas… provided it’s not a dietary or personality disorder try putting on a new baldie. That can fix the problem.

Often going in and out of appearance will do the trick. If that fails, try a baldie change. If that fails… read on.

Generally prolonged appearance as a ghost or gas bag, as some call it, is caused by a texture not downloading. So, rebake is stuck (Ctrl-Alt-R). Try changing all you clothes, including the baldie. As a last resort change your skin. Somewhere in the process your AV should snap out of it.

This is a common problem on OSGrid, not so much on SL.