Viewers

General Viewer Information

Second Life: Firestorm a Designer’s Problem?

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We still have a debate ongoing in Second Life™ over on SLUniverse in the discussion started by Adeon Writer, Dear Mesh Content Creators: Please stop making your content on Firestorm, continues. I provided my thoughts in Second Life LoD Problems – Is Firestorm to Blame. In that article you’ll see I think designer and consumer ignorance are to blame. I also see plenty of fascist rule makers out proposing their solutions.

I prefer freedom and free market solutions over rules.

SlackGirl - Sue
SlackGirl – Sue by Rehana Seljan, on Flickr

One of the solutions proposed in:

BUG-6243 – Provide an informative warning when creating sculpts or mesh that may render improperly for others.

That places everything on the designer and provides no incentive for the designer to comply. I prefer something to provide information to everyone about what everything is doing to our render efficiency. That is why I filed: 

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Second Life Viewer Update Week #25

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Last week (#25) was the Third Party Developers meeting. We have interesting things to talk about from that meeting. Since I am doing short periods of writing between my Norco inspired naps that news will out in a series of short articles.

*144
=”*144 by Mia Sparks, on Flickr

Viewers

RC Second Life VMM Viewer version 3.7.31.302677 is out. (NMM = Viewer Managed Marketplace) The comment in the release notes says, “This viewer allows Merchants to manage inventory associated with Marketplace Listings from within the viewer. In addition to making management of Marketplace Listings easier, sale of items that Merchants do not have the right to copy will now be supported with Viewer-Managed Marketplace.” 

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Second Life News Week #25

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Servers

This week the main channel got an update and roll. This package ran on the RC channels for 2 weeks. There isn’t much to say about it. The changes are to server logging and how member lists for large groups download.

Beware @ The Conquest
Beware @ The Conquest by Brattilicious, on Flickr

Since there is no new package running in the RC channels, we are unlikely to see the main channel get an update and restart in week 26. Hopefully there will be something new for the RC channels in week 26. 

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Second Life’s Legacy Viewer

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In an odd twist the Lab has made available a legacy Second Life™ viewer for those running obsolete, unsupported operating systems.  That means Windows XP and Mac OS 10.7 and earlier. You may know that current releases of the SL Viewer will not install on these older systems.

Something Old
Something Old by Ermandalee, on Flickr

You can get a copy of this viewer from the Official Alternate Viewers Page. Official name: Second Life Obsolete Platforms Viewer version 3.7.28.300847.

This viewer will NOT update. There will be no updates and while I am not sure about the auto-update feature I suspect it is disabled. 

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Second Life and Oculus Rift

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I and other in Second Life™ are waiting for the retail release of the Oculus Rift. Jo Yardley has an article on the Oculus Rift. Seems she is announcing they have an announcement about a coming announcement… See: Oculus announcement about the Rift Headset, it is coming. It is all about this video:

Release of the Rift headset is still planned for first quarter 2016. The video tells us nothing. All we see is the version of the hardware to be released. Jo has lots of information about the Rift in her article. 

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Second Life’s 32-Bit Viewers

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The Lab and most other viewer authors are building 32-bit programs. We are seeing more people building 64-bit viewers. The Lab has yet to move that direction with their Second Life™ Viewer. The stats coming out of the Lab show that 64-bit versions are way more stable or in plain English; crash less often.

Lifeguard Kwai
Lifeguard Kwai by Bernard Broono, on Flickr

The game PlanetSide 2 is discontinuing support for 32-bit systems. Specifically their new version of the game will only run in a 64-bit operating system. Massively OP mentions it in their article: Planetside 2 Discontinues Support For 32-Bit Client. The game managers realize some people will be locked out of the game. From there stats it is ‘a very few people.’ Management presumably feels keeping up with technology is worth the cost of losing a small number of users. 

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