SLV2, 3, 4, 5, 6. & 7 Series

The Linden made series of viewers

Groups Editing Update II

by

Baker Linden gave us another update on how he is coming along with fixing group editing. There is hope but there are some issues to be solved too.

Baker said, “I’m in the middle of debugging the server code.

For announcements, I’m pushing legacy viewer support to the back burner.  The new group data format is similar enough that some things should show up in the group list (I haven’t tested that yet), but not everything  [will show up] ([i.e.,] currently group roles, and potentially other pieces of information).

 I could also be lying to myself about that as well; it may be totally incompatible — I’ll have to wait and find out when I get to the viewer side of this. This is why I’m pulling it off the list — if it works, fantastic; if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t.

I think it’s not worth the time spent to support legacy viewers; I’d rather ship the fix, allow TPV to support the new format and allow people to actually use this feature. It’s just a matter of reformatting the data, but that extra work means more time spent on it and not delivering the feature.

 I doubt it’s going to be that big of an issue.”

Remember. He is new.

Read more

Second Life Viewer Change

by

Hypergrid Business has an article by Maria Korolov titled: Linden Lab cuts viewer link to OpenSim. This is about a rather subtle change in the Lab’s viewer that creates a not so subtle result.

Error Message from Version: Second Life 3.4.1 (262681)

To use the viewer on a grid other than the Linden grids a small change is made in the desktop icon used to start the viewer. If you right click on the icon and select Properties, you will see a field labeled: Target. It is in the Shortcut tab. The instructions there tell the computer how to start Second Life™.

Knowledgeable computer users will recognize the text as a command line instruction. If you open a command line window you can type in or paste in the text you find there as a command and Windows will start and run the viewer.

Read more

New #SL Project Viewer

by

Oz Linden has put up a link to a new HTTP Project Viewer. You can find it in the SL Wiki on the Second Life Alternate Viewers page.

Part of the Shining Project is improved client/server communication using HTTP. Redoing the HTTP coding in the viewer and servers is the project. The stated goal is:

The start of a unified approach to HTTP-based communications between the viewer and grid services with a goal of achieving reliability, consistency and a better overall experience on the grid.

This project viewer has some of the changes the Lindens think will improve things. They are looking for bugs, gathering data, and asking for feedback. The project viewer will allow people to help out.

Oz says:

…if you have had problems when you enable the use of HTTP, we would very much appreciate your giving this a try.  We know that it does not yet solve all the problems, but we think that it solves some and provides the first steps needed for solving some more in the future.

If you are one of the people that have had problems with things rezzing slowly, inventory failing to load then this is something that may help you or, at least, get the Lab the data they need to fix the problem.

Read more

#SL Viewer Updates Week 30

by

We have new updates to Linden Lab’s viewers. I haven’t had much time to play with them. I’ve only been on a couple of hours in the last few days because of RL work. But, I do have them installed and running.

Slow Rez in 3.4.1

Second Life 3.4.0 (262596) Jul 26 2012 – Second Life Development

I’ve seen some odd behavior in this viewer. I had problems installing it. Files like static_data.db2 failed to update giving an error: can’t write to file. I think there were 3 of them, all dot DB2 files. But, the viewer seems to work.

I have noticed that some mesh avatars and mesh objects disappear as LoD levels change. Oskar Linden wears an avatar (or outfit) that blinks in and out as you move away from it.

I am getting more FPS from this version which is nice. With L&S, Ambient Occlusion, and Sun/Moon enabled I’m staying in the 20’s tending to be around 28 FPS in my house.

Read more

#SL Viewer Problems

by

If you haven’t run into viewer problems, you must be new. A couple of problems have come up recently. Readers have asked or sent me IM’s on them. So, I’ll mention them because they seem to be biting some people. Also, because when I started experimenting I started running into problems.

Second Life Viewer 3.3.3

In most day-to-day use you are not going to run into these problems. But, it is depressing when you do.

Groups

You probably already know large groups, over 5,000, can be a problem and over 10k are a problem. They can be slow to load and nearly, if not completely, impossible to edit and work with.

One of the problems that seems a bit worse is opening a large group can lock up the viewer for over a minute and reportedly in some cases 3 or 4 minutes. I saw my viewer locked up while opening the Phoenix/Firestorm Support group, the largest group of which I’m a member.

See VWR-29124– Severe performance issues on 3.3.2 (258114) Release and 3.3.3 (259197) Beta in “Add scroll list item.” Thanks to Stephan Gaudio for pointing it out.

You’ll notice we currently are past those versions. But, I’ve run into the problem with 3.3.3 (260300) Jun 21 2012.

Baker Linden has been working on the problem for a couple of weeks with some help from other Lindens. But the previous article on Chnages Coming to SL shows there is lots going on. So, I suppose some of of the changes, like fixing groups, are shooting at moving targets.

Read more

Interestingly Odd

by

I started up the latest Pathfinding viewer: Second Life 3.3.3 (260669) Jun 26 2012 18:41:51 (Project Viewer – Pathfinding). In it I found this:

 

OSGrid? Is this a grid manager? Click to Enlarge

OSGrid? Are we going to get a grid manager in the Linden Viewer? Is this a slip leaving some testing code got in this version?

We can speculate endlessly.