Second Life

Things about SL

#SL Open Source Viewer News Week 8

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Some interesting news is out regarding the SL Viewers. We’ve seen the ATI-AMD users run into the Pink Prim problems and many nVidia users have run into Video Memory problems. The recent update to the nVidia drivers seems to have increased the crash rate. It is not only the SL Viewers, 3rd party and the Lab’s, that are having problems with OpenGL. Other games are having problems too, but that is all unclear and poorly defined. However, we do know there are some problems in Second Life.

Open Source Group

Oz Linden is back from vacation so things in viewer development are moving again… or may be more accurately the communication about viewer development is flowing again.

Development Viewer

I got my last update to the Development Viewer Feb. 6th. As I write this there have been no new releases of the Dev Viewer. It is still on 3-3-0-248913. Oz says, “…[Dev Viewer] gets built whenever anything is pushed into it, but there hasn’t been anything for a bit over a week now. There are many things queued up, but because there are some bugs in the current beta that we want to fix before confusing things further, everything is on hold.”

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#SL Viewer Shock Wave

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I saw today that Linden Lab has announced revisions to their Third Party Viewer policy. The Firestorm/Phoenix tema has already posted a reaction. They are also planning to discuss the changes at their next Phoenix Hour, planned for Feb. 28 at 2 PM SLT/PST.

I think Jessica phrases their take on the meaning of the changes in a pessimistic take. However, she may well be right. It is hard to know. You can read her take on the changes on the Firestorm/Phoenix blog. See: New additions to the Third Party Viewer Policy.

You can see the policy change announcement here: Third Party Viewer Policy Changes.

These changes, if intended as Jessica takes them, will be explosive. I see the changes impacting Firestorm and other viewer negatively. Exodus and Nirans viewers may become ineligible to connect to the grid. If so, I’m sure this will create a massive amount of blow back.

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#SL Direct Delivery 1 Step Closer

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Inventory Receive Section

Yesterday a new Second Life Blog post appeared on the next phase of Direct Delivery. See: Received Items Beta Launch. This post words things so it sounds as if these are two different projects. May be I just read it that way. Whatever the case, the two are dependent on each other and will be released at the same time.

How To Test

If you want to help with testing and experiment with the feature see the SL Wiki: Received Items Beta Testing.

The testing is done on the Preview/Beta Grid, ADITI. Instructions for logging into the ADITI grid are in the wiki article.

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nVidia Update and Goodies

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I’ve been using NVIDIA driver version 285.62 for quite awhile. I needed to update a clients machine and noticed a new update was out for my machine, 295.73. So, I got it and updated my computer.

The install has dramatically changed. Along with the drivers and Control Panel comes 3 add-ons for Photoshop; DXT Compression, Normal Maps, and Scripts.

Photoshop Plug-in

DXT Compression

This is a Photoshop plug-in that allows Photoshop to open and save Direct Draw Surface (.dds) files. Simply said these are files used with DirectX to provide efficient textures, They are not much use for Second Life users, which uses OpenGL.

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#SL Server-Scripting News Week 8

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None of the packages running in the release channels passed testing, so no packages were rolled to the main grid today. Also, in an oversight, blending the main trunk and release channels last week was missed. So, we will probably see the same packages running on the release channels with a few more fixes and blending with the main trunk running on the release channels next.

However, selected regions were restarted Tuesday. There are some problem regions that get a weekly restart whether there is a roll out or not. We will see the release channels restarting tomorrow as new software is rolled to them.

Map Tiles

Apparently there is a problem with some regions not generating Map Tiles for the World Map. SVC-7629 – Map tile generator not working.

llGetParcelMaxPrims(llGetPos(), TRUE)

There was some discussion about the fix for this function, SCR-121 – Entire sim (65,536sq.m.) owned by group, llGetParcelMaxPrims(llGetPos(), TRUE) Returning odd number. It still returns the parcel prim count times the region multiplier, but caps at 15,000 (or less if a Homestead/void). TehKellz says, ‘which is the behavior it had for any non-entire-region parcel.’

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#SecondLife Directions

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It is hard to know what anyone is thinking when they don’t tell you. One tries to figure it out by watching actions and pondering statements made. In the case of Linden Lab, we have lots of people analyzing what is known about the Lab. Recently we have seen the Alpha release of Pathfinding and the acquisition of Little TextPeople. So, speculation swirls around those new items.

Crystal Ball Speculation

When Hamlet at New World Notes posted on the acquisition of Little TextPeople Rod Humble,  Linden Lab CEO, commented:

Hey Hamlet. Just by way of clarification this team is working on product 3. 

I first started to talking to them December (although I have known them personally for longer). 

When we chatted about IF/Adventure a few months ago it was in relation to product 2, which is also still in production, not this product 🙂 

Hopefully things will become less opaque in the near future but yes this team is working on a separate product (one of several we have in development). 

Sorry for the cloak & dagger stuff, shouldnt last to much longer. 

Posted by: Rodvik Linden | Friday, February 17, 2012 at 08:32 PM

Hamlet follows up with some speculation based on the comment in: Rod Humble Drops Hints About Linden’s New Projects. Hamlet’s speculation is rational and suggests some directions the Lab may have taken.

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