Astra Viewer 1.6.0.2 Download Review

I haven’t kept up with the Astra Viewer nor do I know much about it. I did a review of the viewer in March of this year. (OpenSim Astra Viewer Review). I saw in my net reading that Astra Viewer has mesh render ability. Hmmmm. Maybe it is worth an update.

If you don’t know, the viewer is targeted at Aurora-Sim and OpenSim. It is said to work with Second Life too. I haven’t tried it in SL.

Astra Viewer

Yellow Arrow Points to Mesh Object

Finding It

A quick search of my blog reveals the download link, oops it’s broken. So, I back off the URL to the just the web site… Oh! It gone too. Dang. A Google search for the viewer download takes me into the Google Code repositories and shows a number of Astra Viewer download sites… ummm well… some of those are AstroViewer.

It took some time to chase down the download. I found Aurora-Sim/Astra Viewer in the GIT Hub. You can eventually find Astra Viewer 1.6.0.2 Download. There are zip, tar, and exe download versions. I got the exe version and installed it over the top of my existing install.

Experience

I click to launch it and I get a series of errors about missing files.

  • MSCVP100.dll
  • MSCRV100.dll

You can find these files in C:\Program Files\SecondLifeViewer2. Copy them to C:\Program Files\AstraViewer. Once there my Astra Viewer copy ran.

When the viewer opens it is pointed to the NOVA world, grid, whatever. The viewer has a grid manager. It comes with these grids setup:

  • NOVA – an Aurora-Sim, which is a fork from OpenSim.
  • AnSky Grid – …I’m clueless
  • Local Host – This is for those running Aurora-Sim or OpenSim on their home computer.
  • OSGrid – Yay! My home away from Second Life
  • Second Life (ADITI) – The Second Life Beta or preview grid
  • Second Life (AGNI) – The main Second Life grid

When you change grids it takes a few second for the splash screen to change. I never did see the OSGrid splash screen come up. But, the login worked.

Once I got logged in I went over to my in-world office where I have mesh objects. They render! Yay!

I can’t find any mesh upload feature.

Interface

Most of the user interface is V1 style (SL Viewer 1.23). Like most third party viewers the user interface has lots of additional features.

The viewer comes with 5 skins.

Features

The viewer has shadows.

Enhanced Avatar Physics is included. You can bounce your breasts.

Some features did not work in OSGrid. I was going to update the terrain textures in one of my regions. I don’t know if it is my settings or the viewer not communicating with OSGrid. Whatever the case, it could make the change.

It appears all the build tools are included. The build panel looks very much like Imprudence’s.

There are a number of features I’m skipping because they are common to all third party viewers. Radar, yadda, yadda…

Performance

I got 50 to 65 FPS with my Duel Core2 and GTS 8800, which I think is pretty awesome. On average I get 35 FPS.

Summary

The viewer works well and it renders mesh. I’ll still be using Kirsten or SLV3 for most of my work in OSGrid as they have mesh upload with I need. For meetings and visiting I may start using Astra Viewer.

8 thoughts on “Astra Viewer 1.6.0.2 Download Review

  1. Pingback: OpenSim Astra Viewer Review

  2. Thank you for the review of our viewer.

    I’m working on adding mesh upload and moap to it as we speak and I’ve corrected the problem with regards to the visual c++ runtimes in the installation package that is available on github.

    If you’ve any more questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

    Regards

    Cobra El Diablo
    Aurora Development Team

  3. If I had known about the dll errors on install and pressing ignore so my previous version 1.5.10. I logged into Reticulation on OSGrid and the meshes there were loading ridiculously slow.

  4. 5 skins ?? Newest Version 1.6.2.6 has only 2. Dark and Default. Tried to copy silver files from old version and also from other viewers (IMP, phoenix, Emergence,etc) and get an error message. Something about a crash loop. Would love to keep using this viewer but need the silver skin for my tired old eyes. Any thoughts?

    • I suggest you look at Singularity Viewer. Siana Gearz is working on both viewers. You could also contact Siana to see whats up with Astra. If I remember correctly, Singularity is SL sibbling for Astra.

  5. I so like this viewer and I enjoy using it, i would like it more if you can get the multi attach objects so I could wear mutliple masks and alphas.
    Thanks for this viewer, i was looking for something like this.

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