Dolphin Viewer 2.5.6.15005 Review

Second Life

Dancing at Neveriven

A new version of the Dolphin 2 Viewer is out. The released planned for this slot was to be a 2.6 version. But, things change. Bug fixes, features, and the load of changes coming out of the Lab seems to have pushed this release out the door. It may be several weeks before we see the next release. There is lots to upgrade going into 2.6. The Development viewers are coming out in 2.7 versions.

 

Download & Install

File size is 24mb. The install is straight forward. Nothing special. Dolphin Viewer 2 Download

Experience

I’m finding that if I play on Facebook I have to reboot the computer before several TPV’s will work right. They go into super slo-mo if I don’t. Some SLV’s have the same problem. Mouse clicks and window focus actions take 5 to 10 seconds to respond. I had to reboot to get this version to respond quickly. And again I had been in Backyard Monsters. This could be a horrible blindside if the Lab attracts a load of Facebook gamers and they all get a bad taste for SL because the Facebook games drive SL Viewers into Slo-mo..

Whatever, a reboot and Dolphin is acting normally. In my cottage I get 33 FPS and over on Celtic Myst I get 19 FPS.

Changes and Fixes

The Media Filter is a feature that has been disruptively annoying. In Dolphin that has changed. I think it is still marginally annoying but the disruption factor has been lowered considerably. The feature is now usable. So, if you have concerns about RedZone traps and other media tracking then this viewer is for you.

The way Media Filter accepts URL’s and Domains has been changed. So, your white and black lists will be a bit different. One can enter complete URL’s and Domains.

The big improvement is pop ups have been moved to the Toasts style pop ups, much less annoying. If you ignore them they time out and disappear like any other toast. Way better than the notice appearing in the middle of your screen and sitting there until you click it. I expect to see other TPV’s adopt this style of Media Filter pop up.

Summary

I used the viewer to go dancing. It worked well in high lag places like Dance Island. It was really nice in low lag places like Niveriven Castle. I had some problems catching the ok to animate pop ups, but that is me not being used to viewer and expecting them to pop elsewhere.

The next release may have the new Enhanced Avatar Physics. There is lots of stuff on the verge of release. So, we should see lots of changes in viewers.

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