lightweight viewer

[Orca Flotta]

Your espert opinion is needed!

Let me tell you my problem first:

For 99.99% of the time I'm using a desktop computer to log into SL but for travels I of course use a laptop. Recently my "good" Asus lappy died on me and now all I have on disposal for mobile use would be my husbands outdated 1st gen dual core lappy with onle 1 GB of RAM and Intel integrated graphics, on which he runs Ubuntu now and refuses to ever go back to Windows. He won't even compromise on a dual boot system.

Back in 2007, when I started SL I was running windows on this machine and the Intel graphics were kinda good enough to show the pre-windlight world.

So here's my problem:

I'm looking for a real lightweight (fast) viewer that

- doesn't need many system resources

- runs under Linux

Is that still possible or don't I have any chance to play SL without a dedicated GPU?

Thank you

 

 

[ROB34466IIIa]

I used to have SL running on an Intel GMA 945, but that was on Windows XP and about a year ago.

Problem is that these chips had no hardware for T&L and would only render polygons.

You could try a text-based only viewer , but I don' t know if you want that.

You could try a version 1.23 viewer, but they are becoming obsolute fast and I don' t know if can be run with Linux on that specific system of yours.

 

I did have mesh-viewers running on an Asus, but that would be the 1201 which had an integrated NVidia ION GPU.

[Orca Flotta]

Yeah, my Asus is a bit older now as well, was running some sort of ATI card but died recently anyway.

I don't really dare using just any V1 viewers. Aren't they all windlight enabled by now? And that would downright killl our little travel machine. It's not much more powerful than any of those stupid netbooks, and so far I guess nobody was able to run any viewer satisfactory on a netbook.

And let's not forget, I need that dream viewer of mine to run under Linux!!!

 

 

 

 

[ROB34466IIIa]

well.. as long as the linux system has OpenGL properly configured and can for instance run 3dgears , I' d say you re good to go ....

[161488303349]

cool vl viewer made by henri beauchamp

is oldskool codebase but does mesh and stuff as well

http://sldev.free.fr/

eta: he is a guru on linux and devs his viewer on that. windows as well. but linux is his main thing

[Orca Flotta]

Thanks 16. I thought Henri wasn't active anymore but will check out his stuff. GREAT, just great!!!

 

 

[michikade]

It IS possible to run SL on a netbook with an integrated graphics card... but the ridiculously low FPS rate makes it choppy and hard to use.  

I have an older Compaq Mini 110c with an integrated Intel GMA 950 chipset and can run SL ok - but only in low-population sims (or skyboxes).  I have Win7 / Ubuntu 12.04 dualboot and can run SL on either, even with Viewer 2 or 3 (not that I would suggest doing that - running a lightweight 3rd party viewer produces better results, and I've tried pretty much all of them except Henri's).

IF you run Windows on a netbook, I definitely suggest running your viewer through GameBooster 3 - it will shut off all your unnecessary background programs and just run the viewer.  I've noticed about a 2x-4x FPS boost while doing this - still slow but I can render mesh and not crash, so that's a plus.  However, if I go into any area with a lot of people I kill the mesh rendering just to make sure I don't freeze up.

I've yet to find a decent solution for Ubuntu.  I've tried most viewers and still average around 2-3FPS (although the official viewer averages at around 1.5-2FPS, so a third party viewer is better).  I haven't tried Henri's viewer yet, that's next on the list (I'm on my Win7 boot as we speak, not inworld but I was a few minutes ago). 

I've spent FAR too much time messing with getting SL to run on a netbook, largely because I'm in a similar situation as you - my other computer crashed and I'm not really in a position to replace it at the moment, so my netbook is pretty much my only option right now.