Imprudence Experimental Viewer 2011.4.2 Review

Imprudence has release a new version of their viewer, version 2011.04.02. They are still calling this an experimental version. I’m not sure that makes any difference at this point. This version has the ubiquitous bug fixes and some NEW FEATURES.

Download & Install

I noticed the announcement about an hour after it was posted. Trying to download the 35mb file was a problem. I was getting about 100k/sec download. I canceled and retried, still painfully slow. I got a copy of the SL Beta viewer (25mb) in about 5 seconds. So, it’s not my network. Slowly it improved, but not much. By the time you are reading this the rush should be over and you’ll have a faster download.

The install remains the same as previous versions. You have the option to associate SLURL’s with Imprudence.

Experience

The viewer opened and ran well without clearing the cache or settings, which is kinda nice.

In my cottage I get 37 to 43 FPS. I miss the favorites bar. I’m getting used to it in other viewers. TP’ing over to Celtic Myst I got 38 to 41 FPS once things had rezzed. I used the viewer for 2 or 3 hours and had no problems. I didn’t see any memory creep. So, I think it is stable.

Features

Imprudence does not yet have the SLV’s MOAP (Media On A Prim). They have added a step toward MOAP. I’m unclear on exactly what the difference is. The feature they have added handles a web page on a prim. When zoomed in on the prim the web page is interactive. Preferences->Audio & Video->Media Helper Widget.

Media Filter has been added and improved. Media Filter is about controlling what sites you allow your viewer to connect with. This comes from the RedZone scandal a couple of weeks back. Most viewers that have added it have added it in a very disruptive manner. The result is, I suspect, most people simply turn it off, making it a useless security feature.

Along with the feature the media URL’s for parcels have been revealed. They cannot be hidden as previously, if I understand correctly. I like this because I open the stream in a player outside the viewer, so I can listen to the stream after I leave the area.

M4V videos can now be played in the viewer.

Login boxes have changed to the newer SL style single box.

The GPU tables have been updated. This should help people with newer video cards.

Unrezzed avatars will now appear as better clouds… or at least the viewer can more efficiently render them.

As one of the comments points out, this viewer is becoming a highbred series 1 and 2 viewer.

Update: When you change clothes in Imprudence the change will not register in series 2 viewers. So, there is still some serious differences between Imprudence and series 2 viewers. If your are not switching back and forth between viewers, like I do, it won’t be a problem.

Summary

If you are new to the community and Imprudence, this viewer is one of best viewers for building, building as in hooking prims together.

 

4 thoughts on “Imprudence Experimental Viewer 2011.4.2 Review

  1. When is true SLV MOAP equivalency coming. I love Imprudence but not having this is a deal breaker. Especially with MOAP now in opensim releases.

    • I doubt you will see MOAP in Imprudence. Kokua will be the replacement for Imprudence and it will have MOAP. When we will see a new release of Kokua no one knows.

      There is so much changing so fast that some third party developers are waiting for the Lab to complete some features before trying to implement them. I’ve written about the problems developers would have keeping up with new Linden features. Unfortunately that prediction seems to be accurate. The result is there is no viewer that has all the features a power user wants. SLV and Kirsten’s lack the top notch building tools. Phoenix and Imprudence have great building tools but lack mesh and many other new features. Firestorm and Kokua are early beta… alpha… versions and incomplete. The same is true with Dolphin and Singularity.

      Things are very chaotic and it will be months before we see things start to stabilize and third party viewers catch up and pass the Lab’s viewer.

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