Second Life and Virtual Worlds
General Viewer Information
This week we got some new viewers and updates to existing ones.
SL Main/Default Viewer: 3.7.26.299635 – Appeared: 3/06 – Adds the Avatar Hover Height Slider.
RC Maintenance Viewer version 3.7.27.300636 – Appeared: 4/8 – Long list of fixes – This viewer got an update from its previous 3.7.27.300323. It has performance fixes that make using it very nice to use.
Agent Inventory System version 3 is about new back end programming that improves the inventory system. Listening to Firestorm Team members and other third party developers there have been big problems with the system. It has been enabled on SL servers for some time now. Form where I am I can’t tell if it is problematic code made by the Lab or integration problems because of third party developer code.
Marine explains there were other problems too. So, they have had legitimate reasons for avoiding HTTPInventory.
Either way, the result has been a problem and third party viewers have lagged implementing the update. Now that the Lab is disabling the older UDP protocol for inventory things have to change.
Niran has a new release out. Black Dragon Viewer – Update 2.4.2.1. This viewer fixes 3 annoying problems. A crash from a texture error, broken Volumetric Lighting direction control, and a Sound Preference not working.
April 3rd a new RC Viewer made its way to the Beta Viewers page. Some will see this viewer replacing their current viewer, if they have Willing to update to release candidates… enabled.
This one is named: RC HeatWave Viewer version 3.7.27.300424. This is a maintenance release with 77 fixes. Normally I would use a short code to place the list in an accordion, but that feature of the web site isn’t working today as I run plug-in free. So, the long list can be found in the release notes.
We seldom get stats on how many are using which viewer. But, there is a post over on Gaming World about the Imprudence Viewer and they include the most stats I’ve seen in a long time. Or so I thought. This page just popped up in my reader, but it is dated 2/23/2015… and the data seems to be much older.
See: Gaming World Imprudence Viewer. (read on before you click) If you are clicking to the page, WARNING: be careful where you click. The page is full of ads and most clicks will speed you to someone’s ad site.
A new version of RC Maintenance Viewer version 3.7.27.300323 is out as of 3/31. I am running it. I have had had little time with it. I can’t tell if it is a problem or if the Second Life™ servers were just lagging. Whichever it was, rendering was painfully slow. Every time I moved or turned my head FPS would drop to 5 or 6.
Yesterday 3/30, RC Tools Update Viewer version 3.7.27.300242 appeared. This version is about the build tools related to Visual Studio 2013, Xcode 6.1 compilers used to build the viewer.