Second Life and Virtual Worlds
General Viewer Information
Oz Linden updates the Thrid Party Viewer (TPV) List every so often. A recent update shows the current Phoenix Viewer at the top of the list. That means it had the fewest crashes during the reporting period. \o/
Phoenix is still a Series 1 viewer and lacks mesh and other Viewer 2 features. But, Phoenix remains a popular viewer. It has many features not found in the SL Viewer 1.23, which while not a TPV is the most stable viewer currently in use.
Congratulations Firestorm-Phoenix Team!
Rand Linden posts a blog article about how to use the new privacy feature in Viewer 2.8.1 and newer.
See the article here: Hiding avatars and restricting avatar sounds
The change is a new land control. If you don’t own land, you can’t do much with the feature. Understanding it will help you understand the differences between what you see rendered on your screen and what the mini-map tells you.
A new version of the Dolphin Viewer2 is out. The viewer is based on SLV 2.5 version code. There are a number of fixes and a couple of new features. Version are available for Apple, Linux, and Windows.
Download file size is about 24mb. Download Dolphin Viewer.
The only option in the install is which folder to install to. The install apparently wipes out the previous viewer settings. It seems to have kept my color settings.
The install also takes over the Windows setting controlling which viewer is used for SLURL’s. I need to update my article on how to reset Windows to use the viewer you prefer for SLURL’s. See: Emerald Viewer vs SLURL (Emerald… that gives away the age of the article.)
It seems a number of people are no longer able to open SLViewer version 2.7.4 and newer. The problem apparently started in June 2011. So, what is the problem and what is the fix?
Some change in the Second Life render pipeline’s shader code has created a problem between the nVidia driver and the OpenGL drivers used by Linden Lab in the viewer. It appears the nVidia GeForce GTX 460 card with any driver newer than 260.99 has a problem. If the graphics level is set at the default or on High or Ultra, the viewer crashes on login.
The problem does not exist in the nVidia driver 260.99 WHQL and presumably earlier drivers.
Updated 8/15: See TIMOTHY LOTTES‘ article NVIDIA FXAA.
One of the impressive things about the Phoenix-Firestorm (PH/FS) team is the documentation they are creating for their viewers. From what I see being asked in the PH/FS group and SL Forum I suspect many PH/FS users are unaware of the documentation to be found in the team’s PH/FS Wiki.
I suspect one of the most over looked yet useful articles in the PH/FS Wiki is the Migration Guide. The article is short, by my thinking, just 750 words. It does link to a YouTube video: V1’ify Your Firestorm Experience! The video runs about 12 minutes.
[youtube 3y4PH0rczJQ]
The underlying theme in the Migration Guide is to tweak the Version 2 viewer Interface to be more like the Version 1 Viewer Interface. Having this flexibility built into Firestorm allows for a more pleasant migration experience.
Some weeks ago I was astounded when I saw some people wearing 800 to 900 scripts. Since then I have been watching my script weight. I even went to the Market Place and got a scale, so I could weight myself. That feature is built into some viewers. But, I use some viewers that do not have that feature. Here are some interesting things I learned.
Once I started weighing scripts (with a free scale) I learned that some of my jewelry was a bigger problem than my hair. Literally some of the jewelry’s sizing and coloring scripts number in the hundreds. I knew hair typically has hundreds of scripts. But, jewelry?
Also, some of the hair I thought I had cleaned scripts out of, still had a load of scripts. With my script scale, I realized that and went to work cleaning them out.
Animation Overriders (AO) HUD’s have scripts. Several viewers now have built-in AO, so a HUD is not needed. Switching from viewer to viewer during the day and installing 1 or 2 new viewers, or at least new versions, per week it is easier to use a HUD based AO. I love my sexy runway walk and I’m not giving it up. With my nails, hair, AO, and other necessary HUD’s my script count is 8 with 272kb of memory used. Not bad.