Firestorm Viewer Mesh Beta

The Firestorm/Phoenix Team is releasing a mesh capable viewer. However, the Internet connection to their site is having problems. A main trunk line was cut by some kind of construction. It should be repaired sometime Thursday. So, if you have trouble getting to the site, don’t freak.

Information about the Firestorm Mesh Viewer 3.0.1.22525 is on the blog site, if you can get to it. I find the site a little slow, but working. The download came down without a problem.

Problems

Jessica tells us that under normal circumstances they would not be releasing a viewer with this many problems. But, the demand for a mesh version of the viewer is so high, they decided to release it bugs and all. There are some serious bugs. Read the bug list in the wiki. Hot LL JIRA Issues Of The Day. These are serious problems as in Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) serious. So, read the list before you decide to install it.

Installing

This install must install to an empty folder. DO NOT install it over your existing Firestorm installation. If you want to use the same folder, uninstall the previous Firestorm and manually check that the folder is empty or gone before installing the Mesh Beta. The default install uses a unique folder name. So, if you use the default it should not be a problem.

If you want to use the previous release of Firestorm, give this new install its own cache. This means changing the cache location before you login. Start the viewer, open Preferences and go to the Network & Cache. Use SET to change or create a new cache folder. When you create a new folder you will NOT see the new name in the Cache Location field. Once you restart the viewer the folder name in the field will change.

WARNING: Jessica is telling us there are numerous changes between the previous version and this version that make the cache incompatible. So, avoid allowing the previous Firestorm and this Firestorm to use the same cache.

This viewer creates a new settings file. So, you won’t have to worry about the previous version’s settings conflicting with this one.

Quick Look

I’ll wait for a later release of this viewer before writing a review. I will say that looking through the Preference settings I found several new features.  This will definitely be a power user’s viewer. The Firestorm/Phoenix Team is doing a nice job on this viewer.

Remember to read the bug list before you download and install the viewer. Once you read it, you may have second thoughts, I did.

While it is a mesh capable viewer, there is not a lot of mesh on the grid yet. So, you won’t be missing much of you choose to wait for the final release of the Firestorm Mesh Viewer.

 

5 thoughts on “Firestorm Viewer Mesh Beta

  1. ok I hate white text on a dark background, I tried to change the skin 4 times now and the same skin loads, whats up with that?

  2. When I start the log in process I can get as far as my avatar being in-world; others can see it, but the new viewer promptly crashes for me, back to my desktop. I have uninstalled ALL other viewers and I have installed the FIrestorm Mesh to its default install directories (I haven’t altered anything). Is this a known bug? Any information on what I can do on my end to fix it? It is not my computer. I am having this issue on three seperate computers (1 with Windows Vista, 2 with WIndows 7) (1 PC, 2 notebooks) and have tried the two notebooks with 4 different ISPs. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

    • Look through Second Life Clean Install to see if you missed anything when doing a clean install.

      Then look through the Firestorm/Phoenix Wiki troubleshooting pages. The page I link to gives you all the FS/PH support options. Firestorm has crash on start problems, but they seem to have fixes for the problems. Finding the right fix is the challenge.

      Most crash problems are video related. Turn the graphics settings to LOW and be sure you have the latest video driver. Later you can turn the graphics settings up one step at a time to find the problem.

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