The Interesting Viewer by LL Much Faster!

[NealCrz]

Just tried this and so far its a serious improvement for me and Im very grateful to LL for doing this.

Was able to race at top speed and visit very high lag sims and people were not gray for 20 mins.   Everyone rezzed for me quicly.  On a MAC.  The video explains why this is so much faster.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/Speedy-Delivery-Introducing-the-Project-Interesting-Viewer/ba-p/2328615

Thank you so much LL.

 

[Sassy Romano]

Everything that should have been done from the very beginning.

I hope it works better than SSA because for me, i'm still unimpressed the performance reduction that I get, plus instead of Project Interesting, how about Project Please Can We Have Mesh Clothes That Deform Yet?

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Everything that should have been done from the very beginning.

I hope it works better than SSA because for me, i'm still unimpressed the performance reduction that I get, plus instead of Project Interesting, how about Project Please Can We Have Mesh Clothes That Deform Yet?

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I just tried it on my Mac. Advanced lighting can't be enabled.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Everything that should have been done from the very beginning.

I hope it works better than SSA because for me, i'm still unimpressed the performance reduction that I get, plus instead of Project Interesting, how about Project Please Can We Have Mesh Clothes That Deform Yet?

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I just tried it on my Mac. Advanced lighting can't be enabled.

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Oops.

I suppose a pre-windlight viewer would be faster...

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Everything that should have been done from the very beginning.

I hope it works better than SSA because for me, i'm still unimpressed the performance reduction that I get, plus instead of Project Interesting, how about Project Please Can We Have Mesh Clothes That Deform Yet?

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I just tried it on my Mac. Advanced lighting can't be enabled.

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Oops.

I suppose a pre-windlight viewer would be faster...

 

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I spent a few minutes with it again. I can't enable anything past "Basic Shaders". When I configure Firestorm about the same way, the "Interesting" viewer does produce slightly higher frame rates. It's not an exhaustive comparison, but with Advanced Lighting unavailable, I've no interesting in "Interesting".

[Perrie Juran]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Everything that should have been done from the very beginning.

I hope it works better than SSA because for me, i'm still unimpressed the performance reduction that I get, plus instead of Project Interesting, how about Project Please Can We Have Mesh Clothes That Deform Yet?

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I just tried it on my Mac. Advanced lighting can't be enabled.

---

Oops.

I suppose a pre-windlight viewer would be faster...

 

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I spent a few minutes with it again. I can't enable anything past "Basic Shaders". When I configure Firestorm about the same way, the "Interesting" viewer does produce slightly higher frame rates. It's not an exhaustive comparison, but with Advanced Lighting unavailable, I've no interesting in "Interesting".

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I don't believe I saw anything in the video that said we would get faster frame rates. 

Only that what (supposedly) is important would give the appearance of loading faster because it would load FIRST.

Just like with SSA people assumed the goal was faster rezzing.  The goal was to eliminate Bake Fail, not faster rezzing.

Is there really anything that LL has done recently that has resulted in faster frame rates?  Anything that really helped Client side in optimizing rendering, that has helped us get better performance Client side?

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

In the past, Firestorm has given me slightly higher frame rates than SLV. This time it's the other way round. It's too difficult to keep track of all the settings, which probably account for the difference. I wasn't expecting a change in frame rates and what I'm seeing is probably due to settings differences.

I did actually expect the "Interesting" viewer to work, which it does not. If I try to enable anything above "Basic Shaders", the boxes will check, but nothing happens. If I close "Preference" and re-open, the boxes are unchecked. This too could result in faster framerates, as I've no idea what level of rendering the viewer is actually doing. Pussycat's observation may be correct. This viewer seems faster on my Mac because it can't get beyond basic rendering.

The "Interesting" viewer does load close and big things first. It takes 5-10 seconds from log-in for the terrain map to load in Firestorm, that happens instantly in Interesting.

The last I heard, SL still only supports an old version of OpenGL, but then I was unaware of multi-core support, so what do I know? I've no idea whether there'd be an improvement from supporting a newer version, but one can hope.

[Perrie Juran]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

In the past, Firestorm has given me slightly higher frame rates than SLV. This time it's the other way round. It's too difficult to keep track of all the settings, which probably account for the difference. I wasn't expecting a change in frame rates and what I'm seeing is probably due to settings differences.

I did actually expect the "Interesting" viewer to work, which it does not. If I try to enable anything above "Basic Shaders", the boxes will check, but nothing happens. If I close "Preference" and re-open, the boxes are unchecked. This too could result in faster framerates, as I've no idea what level of rendering the viewer is actually doing. Pussycat's observation may be correct. This viewer seems faster on my Mac because it can't get beyond basic rendering.

The "Interesting" viewer does load close and big things first. It takes 5-10 seconds from log-in for the terrain map to load in Firestorm, that happens instantly in Interesting.

The last I heard, SL still only supports an old version of OpenGL, but then I was unaware of multi-core support, so what do I know? I've no idea whether there'd be an improvement from supporting a newer version, but one can hope.

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My choice of Viewer now is based primarily on GUI and not performance.  It would take a significant difference in performance to get me to switch.

And as you acknowledge there can be so many variables doing side by side comparison for things like Frame rate can be difficult. 

My main point however was there is nothing that said the new viewer would run faster.  Only that what they feel is important would load first.  There is a huge difference between those things.

[Cerise Sorbet]

It does bring faster frame rates with it, but not so much in the relatively static situations people tend to use when trying to benchmark things. It is going to be a quality of (second) life kind of thing, wherer the world eventually feels bigger because it's more pleasant to go out there.

The viewer uses object-object occlusion to decide what to render. If there is a solid wall between the camera and some trees, the viewer can skip rendering those trees. This only works if the viewer knows the wall is there, and these changes are about telling the viewer about that wall sooner. With the old setup, the viewer would waste time rendering those trees until the wall rezzed, making the wall take even longer to rez. Substitute blinged-out avatars in the next room or giant rows of vendor textures in a mall and we can see where this is going.

That in turn means that the initial arrgh when teleporting to a new place not yet in cache can be shorter, and the viewer can spend less time uselessly grinding when walking/flying/riding around a region.

So, while this change isn't really taking a stab at peak frame rates, it will allow the viewer to approach those peaks more often.

 

[NealCrz]

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Cerise Sorbet wrote:

It does bring faster frame rates with it, but not so much in the relatively static situations people tend to use when trying to benchmark things. It is going to be a quality of (second) life kind of thing, wherer the world eventually feels bigger because it's more pleasant to go out there.

The viewer uses object-object occlusion to decide what to render. If there is a solid wall between the camera and some trees, the viewer can skip rendering those trees. This only works if the viewer knows the wall is there, and these changes are about telling the viewer about that wall sooner. With the old setup, the viewer would waste time rendering those trees until the wall rezzed, making the wall take even longer to rez. Substitute blinged-out avatars in the next room or giant rows of vendor textures in a mall and we can see where this is going.

That in turn means that the initial arrgh when teleporting to a new place not yet in cache can be shorter, and the viewer can spend less time uselessly grinding when walking/flying/riding around a region.

So, while this change isn't really taking a stab at peak frame rates, it will allow the viewer to approach those peaks more often.

 

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Well said. Aside from the details of this box or that, I find it more relaxing to use. Instead of going to a new store and stand there for 5 minutes waiting for the boards to rez while something across the room is rezzed fine, even though Im not  over there yet, I see what i want to see when Im there.   If it remains stable then its fun to use.

[Baloo Uriza]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

 

Is there really anything that LL has done recently that has resulted in faster frame rates?  Anything that really helped Client side in optimizing rendering, that has helped us get better performance Client side?

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The only thing that can optimize rendering, and this is true in any 3D experience, is for content creators to use the smallest practical textures and the fewest verticies/polygons possible to get the job done.  Framerate is 100% on us, the residents, to be kind to each other.

[Hiro Fluffy]

Firestorm has been doing this for years.

I don't understand why this wasn't a "day one" feature.

[Baloo Uriza]

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Hiro Fluffy wrote:

Firestorm has been doing this for years.

I don't understand why this wasn't a "day one" feature.

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Not many people who have actually been paying attention trust the Emerald/Phoenix/Firestorm/Whatever-they-call-themselves-to-ditch-their-bad-reputation-this-week developers, and haven't for years.  That said, good to see there's finally an implementation from a trustworthy codebase.

[Hiro Fluffy]

Another thing that helps is to support the API the video card was designed to use.

All consumer video cards are highly optimized for DirectX but for some reason LL only supports OpenGL, which means the entire rendering engine of Second Life is coded to use a rendering API that is thrown in as a gimme for compatability reasons on every consumer GPU.

Switching to DirectX would give SL an immediate performance boost measurable in thousands of percent.

[Hiro Fluffy]

I think it's funny that LL is calling this a brand new feature that deserves an entire video dedicated to it, as if no one had thought of it before, ever.

It's kind of like when Apple came out with the iPad as if no one had ever manufactured a tablet PC before.

[Baloo Uriza]

I think you're wrongfully attributing the situation here.  Microsoft cripples OpenGL support on Windows specifically to discourage developers from going multiplatform (since DirectX would be just one fewer level of abstraction on that platform).  The GPU's themselves speak OpenGL.  Windows translates OpenGL from programs to DirectX, which then has to translate back to OpenGL to get to the hardware.  Even professional grade GPUs suffer performance loss on Windows compared to other major platforms, all other factors being equal.  Windows is just defective by design on this.

[Baloo Uriza]

I see the situation as a bit more of a PR move for the forum crowd.  Let's face it, most of the folks on the forums don't know jack squat about the technical details, and are afraid to admit it.  SL's just short-circuiting the explaination by drawing 'em a picture.  Can't blame 'em, really.

[Cerise Sorbet]

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Hiro Fluffy wrote:

Firestorm has been doing this for years.

I don't understand why this wasn't a "day one" feature.

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No, it hasn't. The draw distance stepping hack didn't (and couldn't) prioritize stuff from the server once it was expanded, and it did what it did much more slowly.

 

[NealCrz]

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Hiro Fluffy wrote:

Firestorm has been doing this for years.

I don't understand why this wasn't a "day one" feature.

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Ive used up to 5 viewers and switch regularly.  Firestorm is not doing this with any effeciency.  No comparison. I used both Firestorm and the IV several times tonight.

 

[NealCrz]

while it feels faster thre are other issues Im finding that crash it like paying for land. (Crash)

[Cerise Sorbet]

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NealCrz wrote:

while it feels faster thre are other issues Im finding that crash it like paying for land. (Crash)

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They already committed fixes for the buy land crash and a problem with keyboard controls, so next week's build should have them.

 

 

[Coby Foden]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

 

I don't believe I saw anything in the video that said we would get faster frame rates.

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I didn't see anything about it either, but at 2:06 minutes mark in the video I can clearly hear: "Frame rate optimizations" uttered. I guess that means faster frame rates. I hope it does.

 

[Nova Convair]

I can only add a single viewpoint: hi graphics on hi-end computer under win8.1
for other systems there will surely be different observations.

The new LL viewer rezzes noticeable faster because your surrounding rez 1st. While you probably dont see that on your beach the difference is extrem while in closed rooms. (the room rezzes 1st and not the builds kilometers away)

The fps is noticeable higher for me.

Firestorm is ultra slow in fps and rezzing speed compared to the LL viewer. (still acceptable fps though but 50% of LL doesn't qualify for a commendation - same settings of course)

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Coby Foden wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

 

I don't believe I saw anything in the video that said we would get faster frame rates.

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I didn't see anything about it either, but at 2:06 minutes mark in the video I can clearly hear: "

Frame rate optimizations

" uttered. I guess that means faster frame rates. I hope it does.

 

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Went back and listened to it again for a third time. 

The full statement is interesting, "Even more interesting enhancements include memory usage and frame rate optimizations."

I am really hoping the "memory usage optimizations" address the "texture discard due to insufficient memory" problem that has been afflicting many people.

Likewise, I would celebrate better Frame Rates.  I haven't tried it out yet so I may have spoken prematurely. 

The focus of LL has been at least in my opinion so much on new features that other improvements get the appearance of taking a back seat.

Still, there is not an explicit statement that the Viewer will run faster so I caution against false hopes.

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Baloo Uriza wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

 

Is there really anything that LL has done recently that has resulted in faster frame rates?  Anything that really helped Client side in optimizing rendering, that has helped us get better performance Client side?

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The only thing that can optimize rendering, and this is true in any 3D experience, is for content creators to use the smallest practical textures and the fewest verticies/polygons possible to get the job done.  Framerate is 100% on us, the residents, to be kind to each other.

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I agree wholeheartedly that best practices by content creators at any level, whether they be someone just rezzing a prim to display a picture in their home to people who develop complex objects for sale in the Market Place are important.

But I also know that there are things that could be done with the way the Client works.  When the first Mesh viewer was released a change was made in the way Flexis with Alphas were handled that had a negative impact some of us were seeing frame rate drops of 75%.  Sadly the JIRA's are not viewable any more.  Charler Linden told me she'd love to throw a team of engineers at the problem.  There were several proposals on how to fix it and the one LL Dev who did look briefly at the problem said to one proposal, "Yes, that would be a much better way to handle Flexis  but sorry, it ain't gonna happen" with no further explanation and there was never to anyone's knowledge any further action on the issue.