Coverage Period: September 1–30, 2026 Generated: October 2, 2026 Focus: Official platform changes, viewer releases (official & third-party), grid/performance fixes, and key social/community activity
I am a bit behind, again. The A.I. gets me the raw information and then another agent re-writes it to imitate my writing style. Then I read it and and decide ‘no that isn’t how I would say that.’ Eventually I get it posted.
I have my distractions. There are loads of things for me to play with… and work… which always gets in the way. Whatever…
Hobbits are too hi-tech!
September moved the next feature train into public testing without changing the default viewer. 26.3.0.31203661088 stayed the official download. Lua editing, an experimental Linux build, and cross-device direct messages landed as release-candidate and project viewers. The named simulator update Nectarine reached a release-candidate channel, then stalled on a UDP encoding bug.
I keep seeing images from Second Life® that look better than mine… well, technically they are better. Better resolution, crispness, and contrast. So, I decided it was time to review my graphics settings computer and viewer-wise.
Now there is no single “best” Second Life® graphics setting. A quiet home, a detailed PBR region, a shopping event, and a machinima set impose very different loads on a viewer. Old or new hardware can carry different loads. There is the matter of Personal Taste, which determines what you want to see. There is no ‘right’ setting. Try for the best visible quality and acceptable frame rate and stable texture loading that YOU enjoy.
I am an NVIDIA user/fan. So, most of my images and writing are NVIDIA related. But similar settings apply to all video cards. You just have to figure out which of the settings I refer to are in your graphics control panel by a similar name. A.I. can help.
For NVIDIA users and actually others, most of the picture-quality decisions belong in the Firestorm Viewer itself. The NVIDIA Control Panel should make sure Firestorm uses the discrete GPU and avoids unwanted driver overrides. Current Firestorm builds also differ from many older guides: the central controls are now in Preferences → Graphics → General, with additional tabs for Hardware Settings, Rendering, and Depth of Field.
NVIDIA Control Panel – Sept 2026
As of 9/22/2026, the NVIDIA graphics driver is version 32.0.16.1714 (617.14). You can check your version in the viewer’s Help->About… panel.
Short version: Use a per-program NVIDIA profile, keep filtering quality high, and let Firestorm control antialiasing. In Firestorm, use the General tab for shadows, ambient occlusion, screen-space reflections, mirrors, draw distance, avatar limits, and LOD. Save separate presets for everyday use, photography, and crowded events rather than treating an all-maxed setting as a permanent default.
I have my everyday settings tweaked mainly for quality. For flying I change to more performance-oriented but I increase Draw Distance to 512m. For panoramic views I have a total max on quality. These are all saved as presets.
And another month goes by… There is quit a bit happening in SL. I’m not that into it, but Linux support seems to be coming back. Several items are taking longer than anticipated… normal for software development. There are changes that will likely effect you.
Second Life Policy Makers
Official SL Platform Updates
August 3: Simulator release 2026-08-03.30838755483 deployed. It fixed region connection failures at login, teleport, and region crossing, and resolved a long-running region-handoff problem around Blake Sea and other water sims (Canny server#2666). The same fix reopened server#1899: after an unclean disconnect (for example a viewer crash), reconnection to a recently visited region can fail intermittently.
August 3: Linden Lab reversed the April Mainland plan and confirmed that Gaeta 1 will remain open. Relocated holders may stay where they moved or request help returning; mid-relocation cases are handled individually. Zindra expansion regions also stay. Near-term Mainland work listed in the same post includes open-water homesteads for sailing and repairs to legacy baked region edges that cause crossing problems.
August 12 / effective August 17: Automated Marketplace maintenance began. Products unlist if the merchant has not logged in for one year and that product has had no sale in one year. Entire stores disable if the merchant has not logged in for two years and the store has had no sale in one year. Nothing is deleted; merchants can reactivate listings by logging in and updating them.
Late August: User Group notes placed the next named simulator update, Nectarine, as the expected vehicle for a new game-control UDP message and for limited region-crossing work (Pepper Linden) via the Snack RC channel. SLua/Luau work continued in public repos (integers, shared GC planning, script recompile caveat for testers). Official Linux viewer packaging and download-page work is tied to the 26.4 Lua Editor train rather than a separate ship date.
August 25–26: SLS Main and RC channels were restarted without a new simulator deployment.
Another month… You likely noticed I’ve been writing more, more blog posts. And I have some Second Life projects under way. All of them involve using AI to create or explore how to do things I haven’t done before.
The majority of this report is an AI collection of what has been reported in various places this month.
Computer Update via Nanites
Official SL Platform Updates
July 10: Simulator release 2026-07-10.29110850825 deployed. Key fixes included ad-hoc chat session failures, P2P chat initialization timeouts, mesh upload charging issues for Premium Plus residents after region crossings, perpetually cloudy avatars after region crossings, incorrect mesh/texture upload fee estimates, and llSetText() corruption with certain UTF-8 strings. Region state-saving reliability and several crash modes were also improved.
July 13: Follow-up simulator build 2026-07-10.29122504250 rolled out with additional refinements from the same development cycle.
Mid-July (approx. July 14–15): Hotfix deployed across simhost channels addressing a capabilities-granting bug that could take out entire simhosts. Described as a partial but important mitigation while a fuller fix was prepared.
Late July: Simulator channel work continued toward the “Mango” update (RC channels) and the subsequent “Nectarine” release (targeted late July/August). Lua scripting support remained on a tentative path for a later “O” simulator update (possible late August/September).
Just 3 viewers. More about my curiosity about AYAstorm than a real PSA.
I am surprised how much slower AYAstorm is than Firestorm. I did notice AYAstorm includes OpenSIM support. Maybe that slows it down, but I doubt it. I tried to get AI to give me some idea of how much OS support might slow the render/FPS. That was pretty much a dead end. What little I could get from AI suggests what I already surmised, it is the render pipeline accounting for the difference. But there is no solid evidence that is the case.
Note, this test is not useful for comparison to earlier tests, at least for the Ground Level test. I have changed my front yard. Adding trees and grass and stuff has changed the render cost. The green Room (now orange), Nelsonia, Arapaima, and Warehouse 21 tests should be comparable.
I put some effort into making sure the Graphics settings are the same for all the tests.
This is a busy month with Pride celebrations and SL23B. Lots to see and do.
Official SL Platform Updates
June 8, 2026: Linden Lab announced fee adjustments, including reduced land tier prices for many Private region types (effective June 15), lower minimum L$ purchase fees, changes to LindeX transaction fees, and increased Premium membership subscription fees (effective for new/renewed subs from July 8). These aim to make land more affordable while expanding membership value.
Ongoing: SL23B celebrations (June 18–July 19) highlighted platform aspects through “Meet the Lindens” sessions, including discussions on engineering challenges like performance/rendering, OpenGL-to-modern API transitions, region crossings, WebRTC voice, and upcoming Lua scripting.
SL23B – Funky Monkey Temple
Simulator / Grid Updates
June 12 & 25: Simulator releases with routine maintenance and rolling restarts.
Grid Stability: Multiple rolling restarts. L$ transaction issues around June 25–26 (investigated and fixed). World Map region name display issues in some TPVs addressed.
