Viewers

General Viewer Information

Catznip Beta 12.1.1 vs Firestorm 5.1.7

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I just noticed a post from a couple of months back on the difference between Catznip Viewer and Firestorm Viewer. Alyona Su provides a good comparison based on her experience. She switched and is now using Catznip as her primary viewer. Not my experience.

Catznip vs Firestorm September 2018 – FS on timer: 00:01:23 @ DD 256m

Those switching to Catznip experience it being faster and less crashy than Firestorm. Remember. Viewers are very sensitive to the computer they run on. What is crashy on one machine may not be on another. Viewer speed in FPS and render time is also sensitive to your hardware and connection. So, Catznip may crash more and be slower on your hardware. But, try it and know. Hopefully the chance is you’ll have good results. If not, well no one will make you use it.

The release of Catznip I last used was Catznip R12 – Dec 31 2017 12:50:12 (64bit) (Catznip Release). Visiting the Catznip website you’ll find R12.0 is still the main release, Catznip R12 – Dec 31 2017 12:50:12 (64bit) (Catznip Release). OR version 12.0.6.180160035. No update since then.

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Second Life News 2018 w/37

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Servers

The main channel’s version remains #18.08.24.519036. No roll this week.

Tralala's Diner
Tralala’s Diner

Seems there was a glitch last week. So, this week the RC channels are getting the real version #18.09.04.519319.

To quote from the Deploys thread, “NOTE: The expected version wasn’t updated last Wednesday. The correct version is scheduled to be deployed this week 9/12 (18.09.04.519319).”

In the Server-Scripting UG Simon Linden said, “… there isn’t much server news this week.   Our update to the main channel today (9/11) was canceled when we found a minor issue with the version on the RC servers.   Those will get updated tomorrow.   I don’t think there’s anything visible in those changes.”

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Second Life News 2018 w/36

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Monday was a US holiday, Labor Day. So, scheduled things are off this week. As of 9:45 AM this morning and 3:45 PM this afternoon there is no Deploys thread post in the forum. However, my mainland home region did restart this morning.

Sea Life
Sea Life

There probably was no roll and this was just a 2-week restart for performance’s sake.

RL pulled me away today and I missed the Server-Scripting UG meeting… 🙁 

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Second Life ACI is SO Screwed…

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This week has seen discussion on the ARC/ACI values and how broken they are. See the SL Forum thread: Rigged mesh LoD bug. I knew ARC/ACI weren’t all that accurate. But, I thought they were reasonable comparisons. I still believe once up on a time they were. But, in light of this new information I can’t prove that.

ARC = Avatar Render Cost
ACI = Avatar Complexity Index

Comparing ACI in LL, FS, and BD viewers

The purpose of ACI is to influence users and designers to buy and create more efficient mesh content. Something along the lines of Consumer Reports, but free and in your face.

A couple of things have happened that has not only changed ACI’s usefulness but distorted it and pushed us away from its goal. Possibly even making it counterproductive

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Second Life News 2018 w/#35

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Servers

Yesterday I couldn’t make the user group meeting, RL lunch meeting. So, I’m relying on Inara’s coverage and the Deploys thread for what came out in that meeting.

Searching for Light in the darkness
Searching for Light in the darkness

There was no roll planned for the main channel. My main channel home region did not get a restart. It continues to run version #18.08.10.518612.

AFAIK, the RC channels did restart all updating to version #18.08.24.519036. This is some backend change needed to get the new land auction system working.

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Second Life News from Third-Party Dev UG 2018 w#34

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By meeting time, the Voice RC viewer had promoted to the main viewer, 5.1.8.518593. They have already found one new bug. Still, voice should be better on this version.

The RC version of the Animesh was waiting for a merge with voice, but, in the meeting, Kyle Linden told us it had passed Q&A and should be up on the Alternate Viewers page by the time you read this.

Let me tell you the story ♫♫
Let me tell you the story ♫♫

So, you may see some frozen characters scooting around the grid, which is what you see when you do not have an Animesh viewer and look at Animesh.

The Love Me Render RC viewer needs to update with voice. We’ll likely see that this week, 35.

Next week another Maintenance RC viewer w/bug fixes should pop up on the page.

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