Second Life News 2015 Week 09 #2

The Third Party Developers meeting Friday February 27 was a short meeting, about 25 minutes. It was almost over in 16.

A Garden Full of Magic

A Garden Full of Magic by Carthalis Rossini, on Flickr

Viewers

It looks like the Project Tools Update Viewer version 3.7.25.298862 will update in Week 10. I would guess it will promote up to an RC release.

This version is a feature locked version, meaning the build tools won’t get any more new things until this viewer is out and people are testing it. Once it release and data is collected another round of improvements will be embarked on. Apparently there is a cue of things waiting for this phase to complete so they can be implemented into the process.

Oz says they will make the viewer build process easier for those wanting to compile viewers.

Vir Linden adds that the attachments problems need this build process, more later.

For more details see: Visual Studio 2013 Viewer Builds.

The RC Experience Viewer version 3.8.0.298001 will continue to wait on backend changes to the servers. Oz Linden thinks this version of the viewer is unlikely to change. Only the server side is being worked on to improve it.

The Project Hover Height Viewer version 3.7.25.298129 is being changed per the feedback received from users.

Vir Linden is working to solve some ‘hover’ positioning problems with the legs.

Vir is also working on attachment problems. Oz says they will have an RC Viewer out sometime soon that solve some race conditions. This version will be a test of what they think solves the problem. It will also prove the Lab more test data on the problem.

RC Login Viewer version 3.7.25.298971 – I suspect this might be the next viewer to get promoted.

Project Managed Marketplace Viewer version 3.7.25.298865

Project Oculus Rift Viewer version 3.7.18.295296

Blocked Installs

We are closer to viewers that will not install on 32 or 64 bit Windows XP, Server 2003, and Vista versions without SP2. We may see this in the next Firestorm release.

2015 Planning

The Lab does have a road map laying out what they plan to work on during the next six months or so. Presumably at that point they will be evaluating the plans and seeing what things have priorities.

Now if we just had a copy of the road map…

Stats

Oz is going to provide a new set of Frame Rate by GPU stats. I’m not sure how revealing that will be. So much of the frame rate is dependent on other parts of the computer looking at just the GPU seems a bit unfair.

Havok Update

For now a Havok physics engine update is not on the launch pad. Other improvements have higher priority.

Avatar Icon Memory Fix

You may remember that avatar icons are using up far more memory than needed and not releasing it. That triggers viewers to start texture thrashing (render, go blurry, render, repeat). Work on a fix is in progress. It is thought we are about halfway there.

Group Chat

More changes and testing. Lindens are feeling good about it.

The 15 minute stalls have basically disappeared. But, there are small 2 minute stalls. Plus messages do disappear. That is because one of the changes is that if a message does not get sent within a ‘few’ minutes the servers now drop them.

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