Dolphin Viewers 1 & 2 have new versions out, actually they were out on the 12th and I’m lagging. The Dolphin Viewer 2 (DV2) is based on SLV2.5 code. No new features for it, yet. The Dolphin Viewer 1.5 (DV1) has four new features, which are described on the Dolphin blog. See: Dolphin Viewer
This week Lance announced that the Dolphin Viewers for Linux will be built on openSUSE 11.2… openSUSE announced they were releasing 11.3… so… I’m not sure what Lance is saying. I know some people prefer to be a version behind because the problems and work-arounds are known. So, I can suppose…
Install
Download and install of DV2 are simple. I’m lossing interest in series 1 viewers, so I did not download it. I installed over the top of my previous Dolphin 2. It remembered the cache and viewer settings from the previous install.
Experience
Dolphin 2 is pretty much an SL2.5 viewer for now. In my cottage with High Graphics Settings and with Light & Shadows + Ambient Occlusion on, I get about 31 FPS. With Sun/Moon shadows I slow down to about 15 to 22 FPS, which is pretty nice. TP’ing to Celtic Myst (Region Name: MILKY WAY, Celtic is in the NW quadrant) I get 5 or 6 FPS while things download. Celtic is a complex region with a gazillion small prims/sculpties in the jewelry shop and a ton of textures in the landscaping and alchemy shop. Even after things finished downloading I stayed around 4 to 9 FPS, with Sun/Moon shadows.
Turning off Sun/Moon I climb up to 15 FPS in Celtic Myst. It is just a complex region.
Nothing much has changed in Dolphin, from a user perspective, since my first look. You can see the details of that look here: Dolphin Viewer 2.4.0.13926.
“This week Lance announced that the Dolphin Viewers for Linux will be built on openSUSE 11.2… openSUSE announced they were releasing 11.3… so… I’m not sure what Lance is saying. ”
Let me elaborate…
openSUSE 11.4 is going to be released this spring. 11.3 has been around for quite some time.
Their policy is that support for version X ends when the version “x+3” comes out… so that means that openSUSE 11.1 is dead now. That, in turn, means that I can’t use that version for building anymore, and therefor can’t guarantee that Dolphin Viewer for linux works on openSUSE 11.1.