Today Lee posted on the Kirsten Viewer blog. The post is an update on the current effort to get Lee funding so that he can afford to work on the viewer and support Dawny. He discusses the goals for and results of the funding.
[youtube fZ811O1hlx4]
Lee is looking for funding to reach the point it can cover a year of development. For one with obligations that is understandable. Basically he is saying, hire me for a year or I need to get a job that will. That covers his comfort zone.
Hamlet Au at new World Notes posted an article on saving the Kirsten Viewer. From information coming from Dawny and Lee the problem is a change in their income from health issues. Hamlet put together that if the money comes from developing the viewer, development could continue. Duh! Why didn’t I think of that.
See: Kirstens’ Viewer Development Could Continue – If Kirstens’ 8500 Users Donated $6 Each!
Composite of DieselDemon & Migasun Images - Flickr
I’m not buying the $6 per year average. Hamlet basis his number on the 8,500 downloads of the Kirsten S21(9) viewer. That is a recent development. The typical download is 2,000± per version. I think it more likely that there are 1,500 or so devoted fans of the viewer.
The recent increase in downloads is likely due to the fact that until just recently, Kirsten’s was the only mesh capable viewer, other than the Lab’s. Capable not just in the sense that it can render mesh, it also uploads mesh. AFAIK, it is the only TPV that can upload.
KirstenLee announced that due to health issues within the RL family, development on the Kirsten Viewer will stop.
You can read the announcement here: Sad Farewell
Image by: migasun of Flickr
The end of the Kirsten Viewer is a great disappoint for many of us. The Kirsten Viewer has been the cutting edge viewer. It built on Linden Lab technology. It has better renders and dynamic shadows than the Lab’s viewers. That cutting edge is gone.
The Third Party Viewer (TPV) List is ordered on crash rates. To day the list was updated and Kirsten’s Viewer is the top TPV. The Lab’s 1.23 version viewer is still the most stable viewer. But, it is a very obsolete viewer. Kirsten’s is the cutting edge viewer. That its crash rate is less than the SLV 2.7 viewers is impressive.
TPV List w/Kirsten's Viewer in First
Congratulations!
A couple of days ago KirstenLee released a new version of the S21 Kirsten Viewer (KV). I’m just getting around to installing and testing it.
The file size for download is about 32mb. I’m late downloading so the download cue is empty and the download is quick.
The install is the typical KV install. It removes the previous S21 install and then installs the new version. In some version updates the uninstall has not worked all that well. I start out trusting it will do everything correctly. I save the install file so that I can uninstall, wipe the folders and reinstall if necessary.
After several hours of use the install without a manual file cleaning seems to work.
New release, Kirstens S21 2.8.0 (8) Jul 10 2011, with new stuff is out. This viewer is based on Linden Lab’s viewer code 2.8. The Snowstorm Development viewer has just gone 2.8.0 this week. This viewer will give us a glimpse into new features coming to SL.
Oops - Attachments
File download size is about 32 mb. The install is typical Kirsten. The previous RC3 is uninstalled. Settings, logs and other stuff are saved, except for your graphics settings which are changed to the defaults for your graphics card.
There are some reports of problems from the settings file. So, if you run into problems, delete the settings.xml from C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\Kirstens S21\user_settings. The viewer will generate a new file on the next startup. See: S20 Cache & Settings Manual Clearing Howto.
Also, there are some inventory features that are a bit laggy as some of the new stuff in inventory is not yet supported by the server side. That should correct as the features get rolled out to the main grid. Part of the problem is your inventory is connecting to the SL Market Place and that can cause an initial delay.
INSTALL UPDATE 7/11: The normal uninstall/install doesn’t work well. It is better to do a clean install of S21 for this version. See the comments for where KirstenLee noticed that my install was not right.
RC2 was out 6/9. RC3 fixes some of the problems with RC2. One change is this version of S21 is very stable. No crashes after hours of use. There is no typical announcement on KirstenLee’s blog. But, the new download link for the RC is on the home page.
There are some ‘camera’ issues that show up when one is trying to select objects for editing or for camera zooms. I’ve seen problems for some time in most series 2 viewers. But, this is far worse. A click to select something often selects the object behind it. Other times selecting an object launches the camera to some odd new position. Research is on going to see whasup with that.
I’m seeing some odd results on FPS (Frames per Second) rates. In my cottage or places with few avatars I get good FPS. In places with lots of avatars I drag down to 9 to 12 FPS. Even in a shopping mall with lots of textures but few avatars, I see good FPS, typically 15 to 25 FPS.
Some are seeing good FPS even when there are large numbers of avatars around. I may need to mess with my settings.
KirstenLee Viewer Install
This morning I see KirstenLee has a new release candidate out. This one is based on Linden Lab 2.7.3 code. So, this viewer is on the very edge of the latest viewer code. The full version number is 2.7.3.8. The viewer remains Anaglyph 3D capable and it now works with my 8800 GTS card. My first impressions review follows.
One of the KLV users with an nVidia 460 card on driver 275.33 is experiencing crash on start. So, it is a good idea to keep your previous RC1 install package. I’m on an nVidia 8800 with driver 270.61 (per Windows driver ID 8.17.12.7061). Watching Group chat I see others are having crash problems. The crashing seems to depend on the nVidia driver version. Some have gone back to version 266.38 and say they get 3x better FPS. This very much looks to be an nVidia and OpenGL issue.