I downloaded a copy today. Installed it, no problem. I did the remove and then install process, which is annoying. But, enough people have problems when they install over the last install, it is probably a good idea.
*125 by Mia Sparks, on Flickr
It is hard for me to remember when I made my last settings back up. But, the ‘restore’ settings seems to have missed a few settings. I reset those few manually and made a new backup of the settings.
When starting out I get good frame rates, 40-50 FPS in my home. In the previous version I did good to get 20-30.
Using my SpaceNavigator (SN) is much nicer. I did need to tweak my settings. But, overall it is much better and smoother, at least starting out.
After 45 minutes or so memory use is up and the viewer goes a bit jerky. The SN stalls and jerks. As time passes more memory is used and performance is worse. Teleport to a new region and memory use drops and performance comes back… at least my first hour or two shows this pattern. I did get a black screen but the viewer recovered.
While I like the viewer and think it is better than the previous version, I’m not wowed…
See Inara’s blog for the changes in this version.
Biggest anooying thing in FS is that the maunal custom correct cloud color is not setup. Same with my rear camera angle i have set it more correct and a bit lower. But FS don’t save it.
So every time you need to jump in the xml files and change the parameters. if i forgot to backup the clouds.xl again. Oh and red clouds are the most terrible choice FS could make, why not nice whit/grey clouds. look much beter and less devils.
Oh good! I thought it was just me. While I enjoy some of the new features, the freezing, black screens, etc like you explained have caused me to go back to an older version of FS. As a venue/sim owner, I am very conscious of feedback on lag and try my best to balance aesthetics with a smooth running sim. Although both before and after this new version, the simulator runs between the occasional 0.998 and 1.000 and the FPS is 45.0 with an occasional 44.9.
Of course, every once in a while one gets a complaint from someone saying the sim is too laggy…for their 8 year old pc or if there are too many system-hogging avatars. But since 4.7.1-45325 was released, we began receiving complaints. Finally, one of our artists noticed that FS was taking up a minimum of 25% more of his pc resources. Since then, we all have seen this and are recommending people switch back if they are having issues.
While I like Firestorm, I have been unhappy with the latest release. A lot went into this release. My understanding is the team was having to fix lots of the Lab’s stuff for use with FS. They were feeling pressured to get a release out. The rush may be showing. I’m not in the team so I don’t have any insight as to whether the Lab or the FS peeps are the problem. I just know I’ve not been overly happy with the SL Viewer either. Both seem to have lots of problems and mini freezes and black screens.
However, I ran my SL Viewer 3.7.30 (302599) last night for 4 hours without any serious problems. That is something I haven’t been able to do for the last 4 or 5 releases.
I have been using the Black Dragon (BD) viewer more. It has little problems, they are annoying, but I haven’t crashed or frozen. There are some things I just can’t do with BD. There is an Add/Wear problem that has caused me to change to another viewer a couple times when changing clothes to get alpha layers on.
Singularity and Cool VL are sounding better. I just can’t deal with a V1 interface.