Viewers

General Viewer Information

Dolphin Viewer Release Review

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A new release of the Dolphin 3 Viewer is out: 3.3.3 (23731). This one seems to be mostly small bug fixes. The announcement on the release lists these:

  • The avatar offset reset button in the status panel is now properly hidden in mouse look.
  • A new setting in Preferences -> Dolphin Viewer 3 -> UI that controls what the Dolphin does when a scripted object sends you several menu popups at the same time.
  • A new reset button in the extended build options floater, which resets the pivot offset options so that the coordinate origin is back in the center of the object again. My wife is happy about this one.
  • A fix for how fading music in and out behaves when you teleport within the same parcel.
  • A fix for the bug that prohibits the mouse cursor from switching back to the normal arrow shape when hovering over certain UI elements.

Download and Experience

All seems very typical and nothing out of the ordinary.

I find the viewer gives me about the same performance as the Linden Lab® Development Viewer, 10 to 15 FPS in my Core2 Quad w/ASUS GTX560Ti.

The Viewer’s Fast Timers show it is spending 62ms rendering a frame. My CPU cores are run about 25% and the 560 about 15 to 45% load. There are almost no page faults. So, I don’t see a hardware bottle neck. Viewers using the latest Linden Lab® code are just slow. Finding a fix is like questing for the BIG ‘O’.

Dolphin Viewer 3 – 3.3.1.23706

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Dolphin has another release out. Lance says this one come quickly after the 27000 version because 27000 was a rush release to get a working Merchant Outbox out. This release includes features and fixes from the planned 27000 release that were skipped to get out Merchant Outbox.

Mesh Upload

This version has the Kokua Mesh Uploader. I have yet to try Kokua’s and Dolphin’s uploaders. I don’t know if they have the ability to create the convex hull when asked to create the physics layer. In Linden Viewers the task is handled by a feature in the Havok physics engine, a proprietary package. On my next trip to ADITI I may try out Dolphin’s and see.

I tend to make my own physics layers to minimize Land Impact. So, whether it does or doesn’t have the ability to do convex hulls isn’t an issue for me.

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Dolphin Viewer 3.3.0 (23700) Released

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Lance describes this release of Dolphin 3 Viewer an important release and I agree. This release has a working Merchant’s Outbox. This version works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Previously even on Windows the Outbox was shaky.

One added feature in Dolphin 3 is the length of the Merchant Outbox’s time out, which has been extended, doubled. This should reduce problems encountered when the Market Place (MP) is running slow.

Image by: purpleslog - Flickr

RLV users will appreciate that the control for RLV Height Offset has been changed to make it easier to use.

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Second Life Dev Viewer 3.3.2 (252228)

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The link to the latest build of the Development and Integration viewers seem to be wacky. Whatever is going on with them the Dev Viewer link, the Snowstorm Viewer page leads to a new 252228 build today.

If you don’t know about the Dev and Integration viewers, all you really need to know is: the viewers are from the testing pipeline. We expect them to have problems because they have not been completely tested. One resorts to using them only if the main and/or Beta viewers fail to run well on your machine. Of course testers run the Dev or Integration viewers to help with testing the viewers… or because of some kind of insanity.

Speed

With Sun/Moon shadows I get between 5 FPS in malls to 22 FPS in …residential… areas.

Memory

This version has its memory leaks. After may shopping spree memory use had grown to 1.2 mb and was still climbing.

Crash

The last couple of versions have been crashing on exit. This version does too.