No roll to the main channel this week. I didn’t expect any rolls as it is a short week with Monday being an American holiday.
the very bored
The RC channels did get a new package. Surprising. This is another boring Internal Simulator Fixes package.
Calab Linden seems to have permanently taken over making the Deploy announcements. He is making the forum and wiki posts. They seem to be turning into boiler plate announcements. He might as well abbreviate the reporting in the forum to Yes or No.
We can assume Internal means there is no user apparent change to the server. The change will have something to do with issues that affect operation in ways only important to Lindens. So, may be a variable name changes to better describe its function, a change makes package roll out more efficient, communication between a backend service improved… all things that say little to the user. But, these are still of interest to the geek crowd.
The lack of new features or improved existing features suggests most of the work is happening on larger projects or the viewer. We know there were changes to the inventory processes and Experience Tools going on. We haven’t heard that they have ended. Also, a VIVOX update was expected. We just aren’t getting information about those things.
If you have never been shopping at Bare Rose, you have missed out on a classic shopping experience of Second Life™. I think everyone should go at least once.
Bare Rose Oct 2014 – Something for Everyone
Ciaran Laval has an article up on Bare Rose turning 10. That is old in SL years. (6 SL Days = 1 RL day – 4 hour days in SL) Something like 60 years… well… that is one way to look at it.
Intel has released its 6th Generation iCore processor. You can read all the Intel® hype here: Our Best Processor Ever. I just cover the interesting stuff for Second Life™ users .
New 6th Gen iCore CPU
They say this CPU “…brings an immersive computing experience that will forever change our relationship with technology.” That sounds like Virtual Reality (VR).
Second Life™ is getting a new tool to hopefully induce people to reduce avatar generated lag; the Avatar Complexity Rating. I’ve written about it before and I am trying to play with the Project Quick Graphics Viewer version 3.8.4.304761, which adds avatar complexity settings and notices.
Complexity KB Value
The notice that appears in the upper right of the screen just after login tells you your avatar complexity number. I suggested that it be colored, green good and red bad, just as the Show Avatar Render Complexity Information (ARC) display does.
They note the other factors that can cause avatars to be rendered a Jelly Babies;
total attachment surface area
total attachment byte size
You can change the values of these settings in Debug Settings. See:
RenderAvatarMaxNonImposters – The maximum number of avatars closest to your camera who may be fully rendered. Avatars beyond those will be rendered as ‘imposters’, which means that the rendering will be a little simpler and they will be updated less frequently. Increasing this value can cost you in performance if you’re in a crowd. This does not cause them to render as Jelly Babies.
RenderAvatarMaxComplexity – Any avatars over this complexity will be drawn as solid color outlines. Changing this value directly may cause problems; use the slider in the advanced graphics preferences floater.
RenderAutoMuteSurfaceAreaLimit –The limit for the total surface area of attachments before switching to solid color rendering. The default (10 million square meters) is intended to protect against deliberate abuse and should rarely be encountered.
RenderAutoMuteByteLimit – The limit for the total number of bytes of attachments before switching to solid color rendering. The default (10 million bytes) is intended to protect against deliberate abuse and should rarely be encountered.
As you may have guessed, the last two are mostly to stop some griefing issues. But, those settings can be used to improve viewer performance.
Changing RenderAvatarMaxComplexity in the Debug Settings doesn’t seem to be a problem. Whether I change it in the Preferences panel as the Lindens recommend or in Debug Settings the change is reflected in the other. But, getting to the Preferences setting is much easier. Whether changing the setting there affects other settings not affected by using the Debug Setting, I have no information. It is a possibility, but I have not seen anything that leads me to think that happens. But, this is a Project Viewer and it will change.
Second Life’s Strawberry Singh posted Juggling Raccoons. She mentions Mutresse having raccoons at the The Arcade Gacha. An endless event running but now with Raccoons. You can teleport to the Arcade using this SLURL or search in the World Map using The Arcade.
Second Life™ users know Apple lags in providing gaming support for SL type OpenGL games. But, that may change. The news in the The Telegraph is Apple TV is going into the gaming market. See: Apple TV.
Just Keep Swimming
Whether or not this will cause Apple to provide better gaming support for computers, is still a question. But, I think, any attention shift toward gaming by Apple has to improve the odds for an improvement.
Apple is adding more processing power to their game machine, built into their Apple TV box, to handle complex graphics. That sounds like acknowledgement that VR is coming, at least I hope so.
The new box will directly compete with PlayStation and Xbox.
