Firestorm

Firestorm Viewer Update 5.1.7.55786

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This version released after my Second Life News was written. I had been expecting a release for weeks and decided they were waiting on Animesh to promote from Project to Release Candidate. But, with a couple of problems being found in Animesh on the server side, that release is delayed. So… surprise we have Firestorm.

The previous update was in late January 2018.

Firestorm Viewer Testing July 2018

The new release announcement is here. Detailed coverage by Inara is here. She works with the FS Team and uses their testing versions. So, she sees the viewer for a considerable time before I do. So, the detailed review I’ll leave up to her.

I’ll get into what interests me. I am coming from version 5.0.11, the previous release. This morning I retested the viewer performance of 5.0.11. Doing my usual tests;

Porch w/Sun-Shadow-Projector @ 256m DD – 52 FPS
Skybox Green Room 1500m Elv – 120± FPS
Neisonia Safe Hub w/33 Avatars – 22± FPS

The Firestorm website recommends a basic install for this version. If you have problems then do a clean install. This version, 64-bit SL, is 111MB download, the largest FS viewer I’ve seen. An OpenSim version and 32-bit versions are also available.

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Second Life News 2018 w28

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Holiday is over. Lindens are mostly back to work and the no-change-window is open. Things are updating again.

Servers

The main channel stays on version #18.06.14.516450. However, regions in the main channel are getting restarts. My home region in the main channel restarted Tuesday morning.

# ♥536
# ♥536

Blue Steel and Magnum will get a Wednesday update to version #18.07.03.517389.

  • Additional Internal tweaks
  • Animesh Support

Le Tigre will roll to version #18.06.22.516968. This is an updated Animesh version.

I thought the Le Tigre version would be the Animesh code with the updates from the current main channel version. I wasn’t too sure sure about that… Fortunately Simon Linden explained it at the Server-Scripting UG.

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There is a Firestorm Release Coming…

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At some point in time there will be a new release of the Firestorm Viewer. It is over due by about 3 months. The team’s stated goal is a release every 3rd month. In practice it is working out to about one every 6 months.

There are some significant changes coming to viewers. You likely know about EEP, which will likely eventually replace the enhanced Windlight features in Firestorm. The team will likely figure out to have both EEP and Enhanced FS Windlight working together. Then in a later release remove the FS Windlight. The point being to allow those relying on FS Windlight to change over to EEP. But… I’m guessing.

" And It’s shaken me to stone "
” And It’s shaken me to stone “

Animesh is coming. The server side of that is figured out and looks to release in July. Its on the main grid in the RC channels. So, we’ll likely see it go to the main channels in week #27. BUT… the viewer side is a bit behind the server and likely to only appear as an RC viewer, project viewer now, toward the end of July.

For the Firestorm team this means they don’t have a final version of the viewer code to be working with. They are still likely having to deal with changing Animesh code that changes how Animesh renders.

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Second Life News 2018 w26

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We’ve reached the midpoint of the year… and I forgot to hit the publish button… until now.

The main channel is getting an update to #18.06.14.516450. This update has Internal Fixes and Logging Improvements… so likely more data collection things.

Long Term Memory
Long Term Memory

Blue Steel, Le Tigre, and Magnum will get an update to #18.06.22.516968. This update is preparation for the release of Animesh. Specifically said to be;

Some land owners are noticing their regions restarting twice when the updates roll out. See BUG-134297 – Issue with region restarting then restarting again with version change.

Seems one restarts lands the region on a new host and a second restart updates the simulator version it is running.

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Second Life News 2018 w24

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Servers

We have a Deploys post this week. It says there is no roll to the main channel this week.

Deciding...
Deciding…

The RC channels Blue Steel, Le Tigre, and Magnum will al roll to version #18.06.06.516064.

The changes are similar to an earlier version of the package;

  • Additional work to support localized Abuse Report categories
  • Shaved a few nanoseconds off a check for each object update, as part of ongoing performance improvements
  • Stopped logging a trivial message
  • Additional Internal fixes

We’ve seen the RC channels ‘un-roll’ the next day a couple of times. So, we can hope this one sticks.

There is work on vehicle region crossing problems. A recent change antidotally seems to have made fast crossings better and slow crossings worse. No quantitative data to evaluate on…

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