Second Life Viewer 2.1.1 Review

Second Life Viewer

Second Life 2.2.0

Yesterday I tried using the Second Life Viewer. I had to down load a new version, which shows on the download page as Second Life 2.1.1 (208043). It has been around for a little while, I’m just seeing it now. I usually use the Development Viewer. Today I see the Release notes in the Wiki being updated for Development (Beta) Viewer 2.2.0, the one I normally use. See: Release Notes/Second Life Beta Viewer/2.2.0

If you think it odd that I look at the Release Notes for Development Viewer 2.2.0 for the new Main Viewer 2.1.1 then consider. The bugs fixed in 2.2.0 are still alive and well in 2.1.1…

The bugs you can expect to find in 2.1.1 are;

  • Crash when enabling Lighting and Shadows
  • Embedded browser takes a LONG time to load
  • UDP texture loading is slower in 2.x viewers than 1.23.5
  • 2.0.2 with http textures loads textures slower than 1.23.5
  • Wrong texture size and discard level: width: 512 Height: 512 images
  • Blurry image in profile never resolves – texture queue problem?
  • Viewer crashes on login in Japanese locale
  • The viewer is not successfully caching object geometry data (makes it slower)
  • Coalesced objects do not show the proper icon in inventory
  • Deferred Rendering – shiny objects look like a projection instead of a reflection
  • Can wear a link even if base object is in trash, if link is in a folder being worn
    • This is a problem with the new Outfits. Rather than have to have a copy of an item, which won’t work with no copy items, SLV2 uses ‘links’, a pointer, rather than a copy.
  • Renamed ‘no-copy’ item disappears from Edit Outfit list
  • Item does not accept name change unless Enter is hit
  • Projectors don’t work well when pointing toward the sun
  • Decoding textures get stuck in REQ status – texture hangs causing repeated downloads requests
  • ESC will not de-focus the sidebar
  • Edit Landmark: Unable to input multi-line text in the My Notes field
  • Start location field cleared on login
  • Avatar goes naked for a second when changing outfits or teleporting
  • Nothing happens if you choose ‘Invite to Group’ from avatar’s 3D context menu
  • Sidebar is not opened correctly if Appearance SP is undocked
  • Selection beam does not show on Viewer 2.0, even though “Show selection beam” is selected
  • Can’t teleport multiple friends (like you could in 1.23)

There are 167 bug fixes in 2.2.0, which means there are 167 known bugs in 2.1.1, at least. But, these and more have been fixed and are now being tested in the Beta Viewer.

I guess it could be the 512×512 size images used with clothes that could add to the avatar rendering problems we are seeing. Ideally clothes makers use smaller images.

Anti-Aliasing is broken. It remains broken in 2.2.0 also. Whatever is causing the problem, it seems to be resisting efforts to fix it. So, no fix for a bit.

There are a number of viewers now available from Linden Lab.

  • Main: Second Life 2.1.1
  • Beta: Second Life Development Viewer 2.2.0 (daily or more updates)
  • Proj: Second Life Display Names Project Viewer
  • Legacy: Second Life 1.23.5

These are all available from the Second Life Download page.

There is a skin by Hitomi Tiponi available for the SLV2 viewer, Starlight. Its purpose is to make SLV2 easier to use. It certainly helps in many ways. A section of SLUniverse’s forum is devoted to Second Life XML & Skinning.

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