Second Life Third-Party Dev News 2017 w04

The Third-Party Developers meeting was last Friday. The video is here: Second Life: Third Party Viewer meeting (27January 2017). 54 minutes.

Sweet Dreams Are Made

Sweet Dreams Are Made

Following is my summary of the video.

There are 2 project viewers in Lab’s pipeline. They are not yet published as RC viewers. Soon. 

The 64-bit Alex Ivy is mostly going well. There is no recent update because a few functional changes are needed. One is Havok for Mac. The binary code has been acquired for Mac from Havok. Havok is built with Apple’s recent XCode-8, which means the Lab is having to build other parts of viewer with XCode-8.

Some old bad programming that has circular dependencies is getting replaced.

These are considered blockers. We won’t see an update to the Project Viewer until they are resolved.

In the 64-bit viewer they are updating components for CEF & LLCF, which is being replaced the latest Open Source project: Dullahan. Dullahan is a simple wrapper for CEF.

The Lab is replacing the components that do the viewer update check, download, and install. The new code will detect if it downloads 64-bit and you are on 32-bit, the new updated will recognize the problem and load the correct viewer. The new code will also detect HD2000/HD3000 video chips and load a viewer that works with them.

The console, that extra Window at startup, will be turned off in the next version release. There is a Debug setting: ShowConsoleWindow. Unfortunately in the current version it does not disable the console.

More testers would help. The small number of 64-bit users gives meaningless data but, the stats received show low crash rates. Consider using the 64-bit viewer. There are various reports of it being faster and less crashy.

One Linden spending time in SL with a Mac viewer doubled her performance by switching to new 64-bit viewer.

8% of SL users on 32-bit. So, 32-bit viewers will be around for awhile.

The Lab hasn’t done much on Linux. They have built some libraries. The Linden plan is to try and make Linux building easier.

The Lab will attempt to change the distribution/build system for the Linux viewer using standard Linux style for Debian. The Lab will build as much of the Linux version as they can. When a problem is hit, community open source developers will hopefully then find a fix/solution. Lab and developers will hopefully iterate to a solution. Linux is going to be dependent on open source people.

If all this works, Linux build will be easier.

Lab would like to have an active Linux build.

The 360 Viewer is on hold. Work will resume when the 64-bit viewer goes RC. No body is guessing when that may be.

Maintenance RC will promote to the next default/main viewer soon. The 2 viewer versions in pipeline is a version with render only fixes and a second with all the other fixes.

On the subject of the Linden Viewer’s volume setting for parcel music… it was brought up in this last meeting. The Lindens are considering making the change.

Voice chat is being a problem. For many the voice channel is breaking up and/or disconnecting. You can try toggling voice on and off. But,you may have to go to Voice Island, turn off voice, relog, turn on voice. – Oz Linden thinks it is a Vivox problem. Has meeting w/Vivox next week.

Some are thinking a voice disconnect is most likely to happen about 4 to 5 PM SLT. Voice breaks up or drops the connection. For some this a totally random problem and not everyone in a region will have the same problem. Only some will experience the problem, others in same room may split into different voice channels.

Lab doesn’t have good data or ways to track the voice problems. The next ‘voice’ viewer update will add tracking code.

Lab needs info on when problem happens, which you can provide. All the info should go into a single JIRA. So, search for it and add your info. There is no point in reporting a problem that requires the Lindens check logs on a Friday evening (SLT). By the time they get to work Monday the logs will have been over written.

Also, Group Chat is closing, lagging, and slow opening.

The idea of server-side opt out from a group chat is being considered. There is no agreed-on way for it to work. Snooze… cancel… sticky… there is no decision.

An idea has been put forward to change the way environment maps work: Storm-2146Allow toggling the Environment Map on objects separately from the actual environment reflection. If you want to see a good proposal write up check this JIRA request. It looks like this is going ahead.

Email

Email is not really working, primary because people give bogus email addresses at signup. So, ISP’s see SL as a bogus email spammer and block the SL source address. The Lindens are changing the system so people have to verify their email at sign up. If your email is not verified, the Lab will soon not be sending email to unverified addresses.

Everyone should verify their email. In your Dashboard, Email Settings. Look for the Verify button.

In not distant future the Lab will stop sending to unverified email. They will be advertising the change.

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