Dolphin Viewer 1.5.40 Review Continued

Install

This install was like a first time install as I had previously removed Dolphin Viewer because of problems I had. The viewer worked well on initial start up. Since the viewer now uses its own settings file all my settings were the defaults. That included the cache location using the SL default location. I changed the cache location before logging on and restarted the viewer.

Experience

Once logged in I went through setting my preferences, external web browser, my chat color, stack IM’s vertically, hide tp progress, build tool decimals (4), close chat on return, and uncheck arrow keys always move avatar… boring stuff. 

Display Names

On the Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Chat/IM there are options for highlighting posts with your name and nicknames. There is a chat setting for local chat and separate one for IM’s.

Plus there is a setting to use legacy names in your chat logs.

The setting to use only Legacy Names, Display Names (legacy and display), and only the newer Display Name are there. This combination of choices seems to be the way TPV’s are going to handle Display Names.

Speed Rezzing

This is off by default.  I think it should be on by default as it is a nice lag reducer, small effect, but nice. But, I don’t build viewers so I may be missing something.

If you don’t know… Speed Rezzers come in two flavors, good and bad. Built into the viewer speed rezzers improve the client and server performance, the good type. The other style uses HUD/Script speed rezzers, the bad. They both do the same thing. It is when they do it that is the problem. HUD rezzers cannot do anything until they load and run. This causes the server’s effort at getting you textures to be thrown away and restarts the process, essentially causing some number of textures to download twice. When built into the viewer a rezzer can run before anything downloads, so the initial draw distance request is modified and the server sends textures for the much smaller draw distance.

Attachment Points

Like Phoenix this viewer supports the legacy Secondary Attachment Points initially implemented by Emerald.  However, by default it is turned off and uses the newer series 2 attachment points, which one should be changing over to.

Inventory

Dolphin Viewer downloads inventory in background starting automatically after logon. I like that. Opening inventory and writing for it to download before you can find the clothes you want is a waste of my time. So, this is nice.

Summary

I have only gotten to use the viewer for a little bit. However, my impression is good. It is fast running 35 to 45 FPS most of the time on my Duel Core2 w/8800 GTS. The region rez in a Magnum RC region seemed slow. However, rez in a production version region it was pretty fast. This might be a perception thing with the Speed Rez kicking in. The Magnum region was large open spaces so the rezzer would slowdown the appearance of distant objects. In the production server I was in a friend’s (deann.dufaux) store (Park Place Home Decor = SLURL – Myst Style furniture) where the Speed Rez would have improved rez time.

The previous problems I had are not present, where all my viewers suddenly had problems. While I suspect those previous problems were more due to MY computer than the Dolphin Viewer, it is NICE that it just works and they all play nice.

PS: The D’ni Refugees (Uruites from Myst Online) are having a Winter Myst Market Sale Dec 17-19. Visit the aerial stores at Loring Park Place (= SLURL) for Myst style stuff and things made by Refugees.

On the ground, look around in the Home Decor store and you will find a section of the store devoted to dresses by Kerryth Tarantal. If you remember the fractal castle in Burning Life… same artist.

5 thoughts on “Dolphin Viewer 1.5.40 Review Continued

  1. a few little followups to this and the previous article…

    “It has even come up a couple of times in the LL and TPV circles.” … of course it has, being an officially registered third party viewer.

    “Since the viewer now uses its own settings file” … dolphin always used its own MAIN settings file, just the crashlogger settings and the “settings per account” files were shared with other viewers… the “settings_per_acount” file still is, actually.

    and a little question… how the eff are you getting 35fps with a geforce 8, i’m happy to get 15 out of a geforce9 0.o is a gts8800 actually faster than a GT9500?

    • 35 FPS… I used the default graphics setting HIGH… no other tweaks in Dolphin. Once things are loaded and rez’d it was flying. I had tp’d to a store that has apparently shut down. I was probably in the middle of a 2k sqm parcel that was empty. But there was stuff around it. But in the store in Loring Park I was still getting high FPS. Driver: 8.17.12.6099 or in downloadese… 260.99.

      The 9 series is typically faster than the 8’s. While I haven’t over clocked it, I did at one point go through and build a game profile for SL. When I start turning on stuff in KirstenLee’s I typically run 5-6 FPS with lights, projectors, and shadows. In some versions I got 10 to 12, but not lately and S20(44) is having some sort of problem on my machine.

      I believe it is really a matter of what the viewer is optimized for in the compile. I’m certainly not doing anything magical.

  2. Please, note that the Cool Vl Viewer (from which Dolphin is directly derivated, using the Cool VL Viewer code base and just adding a few more patches), was the *first* TPV v1/SG viewer ever to implement multiple attachments, alpha and tattoo wearables support, and inventory item links support (which are all backports I did from viewer 2, my code having since reused by other TPV viewers): your comments say Emerald did it first and this is untrue !

    • I apologize. It is often unclear who did what when in viewers without reading all the commits, which is just too tedious for me. So, it was where I saw it first additional attachments, but that is not a valid excuse. Thanks for the correction.

      I see your ongoing contributions to viewer code in various places. Thanks for your contributions.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *