Hello! May I have some assistance in picking a good Viewer? What do YOU use?

[Laoise Rumsford]

For years, I have used Firestorm. However it went to: "Holy Crap! Great viewer!" to, "Ugh, I hate you."

 

Now, I have pulled several scans on my computer, and no bugs come up. The computer is from possibly 2004 or 2006, but she runs well regardless of an occasional lag in opening or closing a program. I have Service Pack 3, I believe I have all updates from my OS ((Windows XP)) and the video card works beautifully and hasn't given me any trouble unless someone in-world is being a dick and crashes everyone's video card.

 

I have recently removed Firestorm, and have been searching for a replacement viewer. I installed Second Life Project Sunshine and while it works fine, it still rubs me the wrong way and I am eager to try to find another viewer, but I do not wish to drive my poor friends mad with the log-in, log-out that will come with testing viewers out as they are installed.

What viewer would y'all suggest for a computer such as mine?

[Innula Zenovka]

Since Project Sunshine works on your PC, it seems that most things would run on it.

To my mind, thenk properly to advise you we need to know what you're looking for in a viewer, what it is that caused you to revise your opinion of Firestorm, and what rubs you the wrong way about the Official Viewer. 

[Nalates Urriah]

There are a good number of viewers we can use. The Third Party Viewer Directory lists them in the order of most stable to least stable. Other than personal preference that is about the only basis I can think of for deciding on a viewer.

The SL Viewers tends to lead the pack on basic infrastructure updates. TPV's tend to follow closely behind.

I think it would be hard to definitively say which TPV leads on innovation and new features. I think it is between Firestorm (V1-V3 UI), Cool VL (V1 UI), and Singularity (V1 UI). Often those that get upset with FS switch to Singularity... it that says anything.

Black Dragon (ModV3) has lots of changes and usually an unique user  interface, which some people love. I avoid it because the UI changes too fast for me to keep up with. I was always having to search for things.

Kokua (V3 UI) replaces Imprudence, which once was my favorite viewer. But, for a time the viewer seemed to fall behind. It seems to be keeping up now. It is popular in OpenSim grids.

I mostly run a current RC SL Viewer version and the 64 bit FS when I want to play with RLV features or visit OpenSim.. 

CtrlAltStudio's viewer is basically the FS viewer with an Oculus support package.

At this time the FS Viewer is the most popular viewer out there. as you probably know. Something like 2/3's of all users run FS. Something like 25+% user the SL Viewer. The other 10+/-% of users are spread across the rest of the TPV's.

You can install various viewers and have them all work. Most now use separate files and caches. So, there isn't much chance for conflict. The installs are not that big but caches can hit 3-4gb pretty easily. So, you may w3ant to install more than one viewer until you decide on a new favorite.

[Laoise Rumsford]

Thank you for the reply!

I have not heard of these three viewers you speak of. It could be because I overlook them, or it could be a lack of interest. I'll check these out later-on tonight. I have tried Singularity however, and it is - for me - buggy as all hell. I adore FS and I hate the fact that I had to switch out, and I don't know why it became suddenly so... difficult to use.

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"Since Project Sunshine works on your PC, it seems that most things would run on it.

To my mind, thenk properly to advise you we need to know what you're looking for in a viewer, what it is that caused you to revise your opinion of Firestorm, and what rubs you the wrong way about the Official Viewer."

 

I honestly have no idea what happened. It's almost like as if this computer suddenly up and one day said, "NOPE. DON'T LIKE IT. STOP USING IT." It still loads up and lets me log-in, but it moves incredibly slow and constantly freezes up which brings me to the point of overstress and not wanting to be online anymore. What rubs me the wrong way about the official viewer is just the fact that I've been spoiled by Firestorm having used it for years. 

[Innula Zenovka]

You might want to give Singularity a try.   It's got a similar look and feel to the old Phoenix but, under the hood, it's a much better and up-to-date viewer.   It's a very fast and efficient viewer, and thus less demanding on older machines than is Firestorm.    Certainly worth giving it a spin.

 

[Orca Flotta]

It's almost like as if this computer suddenly up and one day said, "NOPE. DON'T LIKE IT. STOP USING IT." It still loads up and lets me log-in, but it moves incredibly slow and constantly freezes up.

---

 

Mhm, zacly. Could it be hardware problems maybe? I mean your brave computer is a real grandpa now, an old fighter with probably more battlescars than you can count. 2006 you say? That's jurassic park age, even older than stone age.

Here's what I'd do:

1) take it apart, blow it out with compressed air and brush with a very soft brush. Then format your HD and reinstall XP. Sometimes a little freshener like that helps wonders.

Oh, XP's lifecycle is over, M$ stopped the support, so it'll soon be a virus party. And since your old machine probably can't handle any newer OSes please read my 2nd suggestion ...

2) you had time since 2006 to save up on a new computer, so do it now. Purchase all new hardware. Computers are much cheaper nowadays so you get even much more and better stuff for the same amount of money. Also this would give you the chance to use your old machine as a Linux testbed and/or a home server. Cool eh?

[Nova Convair]

Singularity runs fine for me. (besides the crappy V1 interface - but thats the reason all this weird people use it )
The Singularity 64 bit Windows version runs ultra slow on my system. just crap.
The Singularity 64 bit Linux version runs fine on my Linux system. Fast and stable.

Firestorm 64 bit runs fine, but Firestorm is old and slow - even the brand new versios are old atm - and I dont care for the ton of features, so i only test that from time to time.

Best performance has the LL viewer but you can't build with that (good enough for a noob maybe but no serious building) and has no features.

Kokua and Catznip are close to the LL viewer and fast.

My main viewer atm is a Kokua.

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oh, one thing. All the viewers come with different settings. So if you install a few and say this one is faster - nope - it's not that easy. If you have performance troubles you need to adapt the settings to your obsolete hardware and software platform.

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Laoise Rumsford wrote:

I adore FS and I hate the fact that I had to switch out, and I don't know why it became suddenly so... difficult to use.

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My question is, if you adore FS so, why remove it without trying to figure out what has gone wrong with it all of a sudden?  FS has a great support team which could help you figure out why it's not working as it should be... you just need to join the group and ask for help.

If you would let us know what the specific symptoms are that started happening and a bit of info about your system, someone here may be able to help you as well.  I mean, if you don't like the official viewer simply because it's not FS, then why not try to get FS to work instead of switching to something you will find less satisfactory, just because it's not FS?

If you decide to reinstall FS, I suggest you wipe your settings and cache, as instructed on this page... link.  That alone may help with it's usability... if not, then join the support group (link) and see if they can help.

...Dres