Which viewer should I take ?

[EllieSueKaru]

I am always searching for a high-end viewer that can handle my laptop. I am a Mac user and had a windows laptop but that didn't end wel (i threw it on the ground, long story). I am currently using an old Firestorm viewer that supports mesh and shadows because the main viewer and some other viewers make it crash except this one. I am using this for a several hours right now and there is NO PROBLEM at all ! It runs smooth sometimes a little bit of lag but thats fine. But I am searching for a high-end viewer that can help me with better looking shadows, more functions for the camera such as making the angle wider or going into a sort of macro modus and play with light and shadows. If someone could help me with finding this high-end viewer that would run smooth on my mac please respond asap ! It would help a lot :)

 

MacBook Pro

13-inch, medio 2012

Processor  2,9 GHz Intel Core i7

RAM  8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics  Intel HD Graphics 4000 512 MB

Software  Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63)

 

 

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

The latest available viewer and thus 'highend' supporting all new features in SL for mac OS is this one: http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/

But on the other hands your machine is not really strong. Especially the graphic card. And so handling all visual perks in secondlife might become hard for you. (Especially shadows, sice they are very heavy in the renderpipeline)

Thus viewers based on older technology (auch as the old Firestorm version you are currently using) are defenitally better for supporting older and / or slower hardware.

And this also might be the cause why some viewers keep crashing on you, because you need to adjust the settings to your lower graphic specs, and disbale all functions (SSAO, Depth of field, possibly even disable shadows) to run smoothly and crash / lag free.

[EllieSueKaru]

Thank you ! 

Well yeah i know it's low and it sucks but i think ill keep it with this old firestorm viewer then

Thanks alot xx

[Madeline Blackbart]

unfortunatly soon you may have to update your version of firestorm to allow for server side baking. What you can do is switch to something more modern. You might wanna try singularity or cool vl which are somewhat better for older/lowend systems. These I believe are being updated witht he new server side baking when it comes out as well.

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

You're welcome. =)

But Madeline has a point here too. Secondlife is changing to server side baking soon.

And thirdparty viewers will need to update at that point.

But as i said even with the newer viewers you can still try to run SL, but you most likely will need to lower your graphic settings, and find values that makes it run stable without crashing with your machine.


So no reason to give up : )

[EllieSueKaru]

I just tried the singularity viewer and i cant enable my shadows or even DOF ... I stay with the old firestorm viewer then -.-

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

arr man  
yeah you're mashine is a bit outdated. 

Im am sure you'll find some solutions. 

PS: i don't know on what status your drivers are. Possibly you could try to update those, to get a bit more compatiblity out of them. 

And there are also often thirdparty drivers which allow ocerclocking or adding missing functionalities to older graphic cards.
(use of those at own risk) but i did that for my older laptop for a long time  that i have apart from my computer. To make it able to run certain games and other stuff.

But that is something you for that will need to dig through the internet, in oder to see what driver or software wise enhancements you could possibly pull up for your card. 

Just a suggestion =)