If you have not looked at the Third Party Viewer (TPV) list in some time, you might be surprised to know the viewers are now listed in the order of Crash Rate. The viewer with the lowest crashes first. Of course to be rated, the viewer must report crashes.
Surprisingly the viewer that crashes the least is the SLV 1.23, which is the oldest usable Linden Lab viewer available. This is probably predictable as the viewer uses all the old and well tested technology. Few, if any, of the new features are included in the 1.23 viewer.
Also the ranking does not take into account performance. That is performance in the sense of rez speed or inventory load time both things the new series 2 viewers do better. Nor are the number of features considered. Things like built in AO and Speed Rez that reduce server lag are not considered.
In July 2010 Phillip Linden (Phillip Rosedale – CEO Linden Lab) announced that the Burning Man celebration in SL would be handled by a resident run group rather than Linden Lab. Ok. Now 6 months later I get news that I can visit Burn 2. A friends LM sent to Deep Hole and I didn’t believe that was the main Burn 2 location. So, I chase down a Landmark to get me there, which is not the easiest of tasks, thanks to the broken search in series 2 viewers. You can find it in Destinations… grumble gumble… But, my friend’s link was the right one.
The Burn 2: Burnal Equinox ends at 10 PM March 27, 2011.
Burn 2: Burnal Equinox
This is not the SL Burn event you are used to. It was a frustrating trip for me. Part of that frustration was caused by me. Using the Firestorm Preview #2 (a pre-alpha version viewer) was probably not a good idea… taking pictures was a nightmare. That takes 15 to 60 seconds and drives the viewer into ‘Not Responding.’ Also I cannot fly in the region (not a viewer issue, fly is off in the region). Grrrr. But it isn’t that bad because the area is small and doesn’t take that long to walk through. The FS Preview #2 gave me lots of problems.
Some new things are moving forward in the viewer. Here are a few I think interesting.
Windlight Settings for Estates – We sort of have this in OpenSim where it is called Lightshare. The idea is that an estate owner can set the Windlight settings for their estate. When a resident comes to the region, the viewer’s Windlight settings change to the estate’s settings. This means no more note cards about how to change your Windlight settings for best effect.
I noticed the other day a special note card in a purchase I made (demo skin). In Kirstens S21 viewer it had a new icon. The card was a set of Windlight settings. When I clicked on it my Windlight setting were changed. Pretty nifty.
The change coming to the SLV is the addition of controls for the estate manager to use to set the region’s default Windlight settings.
Changes have been made in how abandoned land on the main land is handled. I’m not into buying SL land so, I’m not sure exactly how it has been working. However in the Simulator User Group the Lindens were discussing changes to the system. (link)
When tier is not paid land goes into an abandoned status. For three days the land is in a BUY BACK grace status. The owner can buy the land back for L$0 cost. The precise timing is a bit fuzzy. As I understand once the computer systems mark the land abandoned, the counter starts. No one knows exactly when the counter starts, or at least they didn’t say. As best I can tell there is no way for a resident to predict when someone will abandon land, unless the owner tells them. Even then I suspect there is no way to know when the computer will update the land’s status.
Today a new release of the Firestorm Viewer Preview is out. This viewer is alpha, or even pre-alpha, software. So, only attempt using it if you want to experiment and help the Firestorm Development Team. The download link is available through the Firestorm-Phoenix Preview Group. The announcements have warnings one should read, so I’ll not providing a link to the download. If you want the viewer, join the group. If you want to know some things about the viewer and then decide, read on.
Download & Install Firestorm Viewer
The download size is about 26mb. You are warned to uninstall the previous Firestorm Viewer be installing. The Firestorm Viewer uninstall program with the previous version does a good job of removing the install. The cache and cache folder are removed, the program files and folder are removed with the option to preserve any files you may have added, and the skins are removed. You have an option to save (default) your chat logs or remove those too.
I did not have to manually remove any files. The uninstall and new install gave me a working viewer.
Once removed, I installed the new Preview 2 Viewer. I tried running it but got 1.4 FPS on the initial startup. Ugh. Reboot time. After the reboot I get 40 to 67 FPS in my cottage with the default settings from the install. So, do a reboot after you install.
The install changes the default handler for SLURL’s changing it to Firestorm Preview. So, clicking an SLURL in your browser, if you haven’t customized your browser, will call Firestorm. If you want to change your registry to change your default viewer see: Emerald Viewer vs SLURL. Otherwise, just reinstall your favorite viewer. The last viewer installed generally becomes the default handler for SLURL’s
If you have read my other reviews, you’ll know I’m not a big fan of the media filter because it is so annoying to use. The result is most people are just going to turn it off, at least I do. Only the paranoid people will put up with the pesky popups.
Dolphin Viewer 2 now has what I think is an important change in how one can use the media filter. Now just domain names can be used in white listing and black listing sites rather then complete URL’s. This should make use of the filter much less annoying. One can now white list “.shoutcast.com” and all the various URL’s based on shoutcast.com will be white listed. You will stop getting pop ups on any parcel using shoutcast.com. Be warned: that leading dot is important. Without the leading dot the entry shoutcast.com will match badguyshoutcast.com and igotushoutcast.com. Be careful how you enter list entries.
