Viewers

General Viewer Information

#SL OpenGL Fixes

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In this week’s mesh meeting the topic of viewer fixes being stuck in the development pipeline came up. For some time we have been dealing with viewer issues from OpenGL.

Runitai Linden said this in the Mesh Meeting:

The GL compatibility pass that hasn’t shipped yet is still in QA — it’s a very large change and there are still several regressions that need addressing before it ships.

In regard to fixes not making it to the main viewer:

It’s really a side effect of having a rapid release cycle — not every release can contain all the bugs that have been fixed because integrating them takes time — we have to pick which ones go in first.

Some of the remaining problems with the fixes are performance related, taking the Mac side to 5 to 10 FPS on good hardware. Until that problem is found and fixed it holds the process up for those related fixes.

For those with serious OpenGL issues, try the Shining Fixes branch of viewer development. SL Shining Viewer Download – build 3.2.1-244115 today.

Also, the SL Development Viewer (build 3.2.1-244112) has a number of fixes in it.

Be warned these viewer will have other problems and probably new bugs and returning old ones. Its part of the development cycle.

Troubleshoot Your #SL Connection

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Troubleshoot Your Second Life Connection

I made this post to avoid typing this information into the SL Forum a gazillion times. I was answering this type of question for the third time today. (Last updated April 2023)

There are a number of reasons one cannot log in or stay logged into Second Life. One of the more significant reasons is a poor connection. You may have a good Internet connection and a bad connection to SL. A poor connection can be caused by multiple problems in different locations. In this article, I try to give you some troubleshooting tips to help find where the problem is and who can fix it.

The problem may be in your computer, router, modem, ISP’s hardware, backbone hardware, Linden Lab’s hardware, or their software. We need to figure out which.

I’m Windows-based. So, this article is Windows oriented. But, all the same problems exist for Mac and Linux users. The Mac and Linux users will have to translate Windows commands. Sorry. I just don’t know them.

Troubleshooting

In the Viewer

If you can log into Second Life, do so. If not, check the grid status to make sure it is not a problem with Second Life. Or look at the concurrent user graph at Etitsup.com. You should see a smoothly curving line. An abrupt drop shows a general problem.

Also, try logging into a different region. Before logging in open Preferences->General->Start Location – Show at Login and enable the option. After closing Preferences, you’ll see a new field by the login button, ‘Start At:’. Try a Linden-owned region like Pooley or Furball. If you still cannot log in skip down to On Your End and SpeedTest.net.

Update: Jan 2018 – SpeedTest.net has changed. They no longer allow you to test to a city or server of your choice. So, for these tests, the site is was useless for our purposes. You’ll have to Google for an Internet speed test on a specific server and hope to find a good one. I’m looking… Found – see: Internet Speed Tests. – Update April 2023 – The Firestorm Viewer Team has information up on testing your connection speed HERE. The article has been updated but while they tell how little the Max Bandwidth setting will affect performance they also left all the advice for what it can affect from days of old. Don’t expect much from tweaking your bandwidth setting.

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Phoenix Hour Summary and Index Week 42

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A new Phoenix Hour meeting was last week. I’ve indexed the video below. You’ll see indexing after the summary.  You can find the video here: Phoenix Hour Oct. 18, 2011.

Summary

There is not much new information this week. I decided to condense it down to quick summary.

Both Firestorm and Phoenix are waiting on Linden Lab fixes to problems in the V3 code. That means we do not know when we will see the next release of either. Last week several adoption blockers were discussed. Most of those are now taken care of, so the next release probably won’t be a beta.

Also, the next release of both viewers will have mesh rendering. Firestorm almost has a working mesh upload. They will also include a right click feature to have the selected texture download from the server. This is for those things that just simply won’t rez.

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Kirsten Reminder

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Kirsten Contribution Panel

In my article Kirsten Viewer Update I covered the effort of people to raise enough money to pay Lee to continue development of the Kirsten Viewer. That effort is under way.

This is a reminder of the need for more money. Remember, you get your money back if the project does not reach its goal.

You can help in world by placing reminders around. I have in-world prims that link to the CrowdFunder site. The image to the left is what they look like. The previous one that was self updating had problems. The new one is just a link to the CrowdFunder site and Kirsten’s Viewer project.

Please help out by contributing or setting one of the sign/links out.

 

 

 

 

SL Viewer 3.1.0 Upload Problems

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This morning I found a number of the mesh creators posting about Collada upload problems. Check this thread: Can’t upload in the new viewer.

Since some experienced mesh creators are having problems and it is more than one, it seems to be a viewer problem.

It seems once a problem LoD version of the model is included, the uploader goes nuts and cannot recover. The grayed out upload and calc buttons never recover. A viewer restart clears the buttons but not the particular LoD version problem.

Charlar Linden has seen the thread and is watching for their JIRA.

Land Impact

This version is the one that changes labeling from Prim Equivalence to Land Impact. It has been so long since I’ve used the main viewer I forget people have been dealing with PE all this time. Hopefully the change to Land Impact and the new Linden post on how it works will help people better understand Collada Model costs.

 

More New SL Viewer News

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Tateru Nino has and article out on the coming new viewer. See: Say goodbye to the side-bar. Rhett Linden talks Second Life UI redesign goals. I got it and took it for a spin. The image here shows the new user interface.

Second Life
New Viewer Interface

You can see the new 3.2.1 Viewer interface, if you are using the Development Viewer. It has a few problems:

Known Issues:

      o The Viewer floater camera views and presets do not work.
      o The Nearby Voice panel does not update to a new call or from
        nearby voice info once opened.
      o Viewer crashes when updating UI size in preferences.
      o The Speak button is activated when dragging and dropping between
        toolbars and/or moving back to the Tool Box.
      o Viewer crash when moving the speak button from one toolbar to
        another when there is an active call request.
      o Teleport history doesn't display visited locations.
      o Viewer crash when double-clicking the mini-map in People > Nearby.
      o Notification and conversation chiclets overlap.
      o WASD controls don't move avatar while the Move floater is in focus.
      o Closing voice controls while a group or p2p call also closes the
        group call/IM window
      o Viewer crash after teleport
      o Hitting back in the 'Create Group' panel or 'Blocked' panel
        requires multiple clicks for action to occur.

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