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Best viewer available?


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I'm asking all of you for your opinions here.

I've used a variety of viewers in my time using Second Life,

but ever since Mesh has become popular and the viewers have been trying to adapt,

I'm noticing little things that just irk the crap out of me.

 

Firestorm is what I currently use.

And I love to buy Mesh hair but .. sometimes it shows up, sometimes it actually requires a client restart.

Others, the hair will literally just be floating in the air!

 

But anyways, (got off topic there lol),

as far as reliability, the ability to view mesh, user-friendly customization and overall attractiveness in appearance,

what is YOUR favorite viewer?

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For me, Niran's Viewer is the best. Higher frame rates than other viewers, gorgeous graphics and really flexible graphics options. He uses a series of graphics drop down options to fine tune your viewer as seen in the first image rather than the somewhat crude Low, Mid, High and Ultra sliders which are removed. May be a bit complex for beginners to SL but works great for me. Unfortunately, there is a ATI pink bug fix missing from the latest versions (not the main bug which doesn't affect me, but one affecting some clothing layers) but will be fixed in the next release. Mesh works fine. Doesn't matter what viewer I use, occasionally I have to relog to see mesh.

The latest few LL viewers, which I do use too, force me to disable VBO for some inexplicable reason (causes a drop of over 30 FPS) but no such issues with Niran's.

Niran

Niran

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They're all the best.  What do you prefer?  (^_^)

I ran Niran's for about a month but with a less-than-stellar frame rate and the more recent updates would crash.  I'll re-try it this weekend to see if anything has improved. (^_^)

I ran Catznip in the past.  Off and on, this  has been the highest FPS client I used. (^_^)

I'm currently using LL's client... Which is odd for me.  But, my reasoning is simple.  At this time, on my computer, the LL release client has the lowest crash rate and highest FPS. (^_^)

That all said, I rarely run a client for more than a week.  "Best" is a matter of personal preference and everyone prefers something different.  (^_^)y

 

 

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My votes are for Catznip and Niran's, too, with honourable mentions for Marine's RLV and Dolphin.

Catnip is very well-worth exploring; at first sight, it seems simply to be the Official Viewer with RLVa, but it's got a host of very well-thought-out tweaks -- many of them unique to Catznip -- that make it far more user-friendly and enjoyable.   It has, for example, by far the sanest implementation of outfits of any viewer I've seen.

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The best viewer is simply the one running best on your specific hardware and connection type. But much more it depends on how you use it! That's why you hear so many contrary opinions about all the viewers.

That said the best for me right now is Phoenix 1691. Shows mesh quite fine and gives me the Phoenix GUI that I grew so accustomed to. No crashes and ok-ish fps is a given with any Phoenix I ever used.

I was on Firestorm 27000 for about a week or so. Loved it for the tweakable FUI and Phoenix-ish appearance ... BUT I just can't get my head wrapped around the weird logic of the V2/3 communication stuff. Group notices and IMs showing as a small symbol in the upper right hand corner ... what were they thinking? Lately I have to wait for hours for reply by other users who are clearly shown as online. Sometimes I don't receive anything at all. Most of the time they tell me they just missed my message becase they didn't see it. I guess that's a showstopper. Communication is 99% of what we do in SL; everybody knows that but LL.

Most other viewers I tried were either too V2-ish or didn't deliver all the goodies I get from Phoenix and FS. I guess Phoenix is still the most feature rich viewer ever. Features I don't wanna miss anymore.

So my vote goes to the Bird.

 

 

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I'm with Nyll on this one; Niran's viewer is the only one I can swear by.

The entire Viewer is geared towards graphical quality and he's always tweaking the UI to occupy the least real estate on the screen as possible.  Of course, NV requires a heftier machine to run the way it's meant to, and (as Nyll said above) with all of the UI customizability there's a plethora of settings one needs to go through to get it "just right".

li010.png

 Again, being geared towards graphical-quality for photography and machinima, NV needs a heftier machine to get the most out of it.  But that being said, if your GPU and Quad are up to the task, I'd recommend at least giving it a try.

The above is taken with my 'standard' settings, which never change: shadows, DoF, AA, SSAO, UW distortion, full reflections.  In a relatively empty sim (like this was at the time) FPS hovers around 22-25.  In a safehub with 10-15 avies, FPS drops to around 12-14.

Just a sidenote about Niran...he's fast.  The updates are neither few nor far-between, and he's always wringing the bugs out as people report them. 

Everyone's needs from a viewer are different, and so I'd suggest you try as many as time will allow, and make your own decision.  Just try to remember: it's your SL, no one else's.

Cheers! 

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I had been using Exodus Viewer and I think that is still an excellent viewer. However, they have not had updates recently due to some real life distractions and I have switched to Dolphin. I am enjoying using Dolphin as it functions almost exactly like the default LL viewer, but adds some features I really like such as Area Search and Client side AO. One of the the things I actually like most about the LL viewer is the login screen, being able to look at the events or destination guide and swap out locations. It's not much, but I love the look and functionality.

 

Dolphin is updated regularly and the developer is quite responsive. It's worth a look.

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The photos I've viewed from users that use Niran's Viewer are amazing.

Maybe it's just me, and I admit, all I know how to do are run viewers on basic settings

so I can see how well it fares with my CPU, but every time I try to change my preferences on Niran

the entire client just crashes.

 

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and assume that's not normal.

Also it is extremely laggy so far.  =[  Maybe my CPU just isn't up to the task of running this viewer.  -sigh-

Suppose I'll have to keep trying viewers until I find what works for me, FPS-wise and graphics-wise.

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On my machine an old Pheonix version works the best of the viewers I have on my machine.  It's pre-mesh though. 

In second place an old V2 viewer (LL), also pre-mesh.

In third place, an up to date V3(LL), although I have to have one of the graphics settings turned off or all the prims go pink (Firestorm have already released a fix for what appears to be the same bug).

In fourth place a fairly up to date version of Firestorm. 

I had an older version of Firestorm (had mesh but was several releases out of date) that was stable and reasonably fast on my computer, but unfortunately upgraded to that "pink bug" version, and then got the version with the patch for the pink bug thing. Both these viewers run really, really bad on my machine, to the point of being unusable.  I wish I had taken note of what version I had before because it seemed to run just fine on my computer but the last few I've tried have been really awful for me.

The version of V3 I had before the one I have now was just as bad as the Firestorm versions that are giving me grief, but I recently updated my V3 and even though it seems to have the "pink bug" it's definately better than the one I had earlier.

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For technical support .. phoenix/firestorm beats LL defintevly ^_^ (*sends hugs to the support people for those viewers*)

But to answer the question here ... the best viewer is the one that runs best and while I have not tested them all, it is currently Firestorm for me. The newest has a nice UI too so I am happy. However when testing viewers and installing them one can run into problems easily since often two viewers does not like to exist side by side on the same computer and will make the SL experience all crashy and awful without any visible reason.

Clean installs and clearing the cache when changing viewers helps too and prevents other problems that people might run into (however clearing cache is not advised as a solution for everyday viewer problems)

So it all comes down to the viewer one likes best ^_^

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Knowl Paine wrote:

For security, and technical support reasons, the Official Linden Lab Viewer, is the best Viewer.

While on the first point,"security," I'd agree that there is a slight edge in favor of this.

On the second point. "technical support," I seriously have to ask, are you kidding me?

Or are you referring to the fact that if you want (the almost non-existent) technical support from LL you need to be using the official viewer?

 

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Baloo Uriza wrote:

Right now, Singularity seems to be the most drama-free mesh-capable viewer going that has the advanced features most long-time users expect.
 For everyone else, there's Viewer 3.

I'm sorry, but when you can help me solve why I only get FIVE FRAMES PER SECOND with V3, compared to the FORTY FRAMES PER SECOND I get with a Viewer that you have on several occasions tried to start dramas about, then you MIGHT be able to include me in "everyone else."

And if Singularity has the "advanced features most long term users expect," why are not most long term users using it? 

(No disrespect meant here about or toward Singularity.  I fully support that a person should use what works best for them, "Your World, Your Choice Of Viewers.")

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Perrie Juran wrote:

I'm sorry, but when you can help me solve why I only get FIVE FRAMES PER SECOND with V3, compared to the FORTY FRAMES PER SECOND I get with a Viewer that you have on several occasions tried to start dramas about, then you MIGHT be able to include me in "everyone else."

Driver issue?  Using Windows with Aero enabled?  Statsbox showing inflated numbers to get the userbase to STFU?  Those seem to be the usual suspects.


Perrie Juran wrote:

And if Singularity has the "advanced features most long term users expect," why are not most long term users using it? 

Sheeple factor.

 

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Jean Horten wrote:

If it only had multiwearables...

Why?  You can't have 'em in any viewer anyway, since it interferes with the common experience.  Disembodied parts and accessories flying around because you're using something that only people using the same viewer can render right isn't a good thing.

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It wasn't easy to say it.

Is the saying, "grasping for straws" appropriate?

My reason is found in that LL only offers Viewer support for the LL Viewer. I'm not saying that they are good at it.

My opinion on the security benefit is also limited, the reasoning is in that LL will safegaurd it's own systems first. Should a significant problem arise, plugs will be pulled.

 

I would use a 3rd party Viewer. :smileyhappy:

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Baloo Uriza wrote:


Jean Horten wrote:

If it only had multiwearables...

Why?  You can't have 'em in any viewer anyway, since it interferes with the common experience.  Disembodied parts and accessories flying around because you're using something that only people using the same viewer can render right isn't a good thing.

You really are living in the past. 

The Official Viewer 3 has multi-wearables and multi-attachments.

 

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