Second Life and Virtual Worlds
General Viewer Information
As much as I use different viewers, I miss lots of the problems. Lance Corrimal, the Dolphin Viewer person, pointed out some of the problems in SL Viewer 3.x. There are a couple of gotcha’s. Speed SL Viewer 3 and viewers based on version 3.x code are slow. I’ve been using the SL Development Viewer … Read more
There is a new version of the Dolphin Viewer 3 out. It is version 3.0.5.20427. There are few fixes. One notable is the change to a separate cache. Most third party viewers (TPV) now use their own cache.
The RLV enable switch in preferences has been renamed.
Whispering is now mentioned in the chat Tool Tip…
The Linux builds have been fixed to work with older Linux versions.
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!
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.
Both Firestorm and Dolphin have released fixes for some problems in their recent releases. See Firestorm Mesh Beta – optional update – the update is for estate managers and those using the Metaharper skin. A performance fix is included for those that find FPS dropping when they have several chat groups open. Dolphin Viewer 3 has … Read more
There is a known problem with login going around. It is not the only login problem. However, the Firestorm-Phoenix team and Lance of Dolphin Viewer fame have provided suggestions for those using their viewers and described the problem. There are possible fixes, if your login problem is from the Viewer 3 Bug in mesh capable viewers, that’s my name for it…
A possible fix is to login with a pre-mesh capable viewer. Once your in, you can logoff and come back with a Viewer 3 version. This problem affects all viewers using SLViewer 3 code, which is all of the new Third Party Viewers with mesh render ability. I think the problem started to appear with version 2.8.something. Any viewer prior to 2.8 should be able to clear the problem.
Another suggested fix is to change your DNS service. When making a change most switch over to the Google public DNS. You can Google for instructions on how to do that on your system. A trick they do not tell you when changing your DNS service is to ping the services you are currently using and the Google services. Place the service with the fastest ping as your preferred first choice. Make the slower of Google or your current DNS the second choice. To make your system more robust use 3 or 4 DNS addresses.
Another third party viewer (TPV) releases a mesh capable viewer. Dolphin 3 Viewer is the latest. See the announcement on the Dolphin Viewer blog.
The article lists the features now in Dolphin Viewer 3. Some are features that have been in the SLViewer 2 and 3 for a time. Some are Dolphin features not in the SLViewer. The current combination of features makes Dolphin Viewer 3 one of more feature rich power-user viewers.
I’ve seen a number of people complaining about not being able to login. This is a problem thought to be in the Linden Lab code for version 3 viewers, basically mesh capable viewers. Once one runs into the problem it seems to be very difficult to get around it and get logged in. This problem is not Dolphin Viewer problem. It is an SL problem.
Lance provides a work around for the problem. He suggests logging in with a non-mesh viewer. Once logged in, you can log out and come back with mesh enabled viewer. Why this works probably has something to do with the mesh up load enablement flags, but that is a guess on my part.
The Dolphin Viewer 3 will render mesh. It will not allow you to upload mesh. Uploading requires a special set of calculations handled by the Havok Physics Engine. A TPV developer must purchase a license from Havok to use the same software the Lab licensed from Havok and uses.