Dolphin Viewer is out in a new version. This one adopts the new code from Linden Lab, version 2.5.1.  Some changes have been made and they are listed on the Dolphin web site: Dolphin Viewer 2.5.3.14965 – good bye web profiles! I’ll mention the ones I find interesting… or troubling, here.

Profiles

The avatar profiles have been changed back to SLV1 and early SLV2 style profile. For now the non-web-profiles still work. We can expect them to continue working until the Lab decided to turn off the series 1 viewer and move on. Still it is only a matter of time until they disappear and it becomes web-profiles or nothing.

& Install

The download size is small, 24mb. Install is simple. I did not need to clear caches or settings. There was no need to reboot the computer after installing.

Experience

The splash screen never loads…

In my cottage I get 27 to 30 FPS with Lighting & Shadows plus Ambient Occlusion enabled. TP’ing over to Celtic Myst, a complex region, my FPS comes down to 17 FPS (8800 GTS w/Duel Core2).

Media Filter – This viewer has a filter similar to Phoenix’s filter. The filter is used to block viewer’s media access to web sites. RedZone used that access to capture user names and IP addresses. If you haven’t heard, they keep a list of user passwords their system was figuring out.

You can enable or disable the feature in Me->Preferences->Sound & Media. Enabling the feature allows you to decide whether to allow the viewer to connect to the media stream. You get a dialog asking to; Allow, Deny, Blacklist, or Whitelist. You get this notice every time you cross into an area that has a different audio or video stream. This very quickly becomes extremely annoying. I expect the user interface on this feature to change quickly, otherwise all but the most paranoid people will turn it off.

The Black and White Lists can be accessed via Me->My Media Filters.

Also the audio streams are now revealed in the parcel information. Click the ‘I’ in the region ‘URL’ in the top menu area. When the ‘Place Profile’ opens click About Land, then select Sound. URL’s that used to be starred out are now readable.

There are other ways to block RedZone type things than by using the Media Filter. See: RedZone Privacy Issues Develop – Review

Preferences – Each time you close the Preference panel your video resets and the viewer display goes black for a few seconds (15 to 30), or at least it does on my 8800 GTS. I expect this will get changed in the future as it is just annoying when one is changing a non-video related setting.

After about an hour and half I begin to have problems with the viewer. The viewer display started going black and the viewer non-responsive. A relog seemed to clear the problem. I’ve had lots of problems with the SLV2.5.1 viewers (Development viewers). So, I’m not surprised that there are a few stability problems with any viewer based on 2.5.1 code.

Memory use by the viewer seems to increase over time, usually suggesting a memory leak. Twenty minutes after the restart I was having problems again.

A computer reboot seems to clear things up.

Summary

The Dolphin Viewer 2.5 is one of only two series TPV’s out right now, not counting the Firestorm Viewer, which is a pre-alpha/beta release. If you are used to the SLV2 interface this is a good choice for an alternate viewer.

This is basically a series 2 viewer interface with older style profiles and some enhancements.

I’m not sure about the viewer’s stability right now. I think all the viewers using 2.5 code are shaky. I see lots of people changing viewers looking for a stable one. I’m not sure there is one right now.