LL to Mac Users: Drop Dead

[Pamela Galli]

So far Singularity is still usable for me -- it is the only viewer that functions at all now, although  I had problems with the newest version and had to go back to the previous one. 

 

But it looks like Firestorm is done developing for OS X, and LL has evidently given up as well.

 

http://blog.nalates.net/2014/02/17/firestorm-viewer-news-2014-7/

[Alwin Alcott]

after reading the story i can't see where LL tells to drop dead, only that the Mac contains code that is bugging SL. So it's not LL telling you to drop dead, but Apple makes a mess of it.

Repairing it will cost a lot of time and people who are able to to that, and that knowledge is hard to get. 

It's always been a very strong brand standing for it's qualilty, but the price always been that not all other programs are compatible. This is going on now too... call Apple.... not LL

[Orca Flotta]

Considering the market share Apple themselves have given up on desktop computing. They actively decided to become a supplier of gadgets rather than a producer of IT equipment. It shows. On the desktop there will soon be more Linux users than MacOS. For every iPad or iPhone a iMac or iBook loses its wings. :smileyindifferent:

[Theresa Tennyson]

MacOS has a significant weakness - Windows and Linux machines can update their video drivers separately  but Macs have them written into the OS. The older the version of OSX, the older the version of the drivers and as OpenGL evolves the graphics system will fall behind.

I'm willing to bet that you're using a Mac with ATI video and a pre-Mavericks version of OSX and you're seeing problems with rigged meshes. It should be fixed by updating to Mavericks; if that's not an option for some reason you'll have to turn off either hardware skinning or atmospheric shaders.

[Wooja]

If I was Ebbe I would immediately discontinue support for minority platforms. The cost-benefit equation makes it less than worthwhile when already limited resources could be better allocated to improving the principal (less than satisfactory) Windows implementation.

Wooja . . . killLinuxviewerstooyes

[Orca Flotta]

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Wooja wrote:

If I was Ebbe I would immediately discontinue support for minority platforms. The cost-benefit equation makes it less than worthwhile when already limited resources could be better allocated to improving the principal (less than satisfactory) Windows implementation.

Wooja . . . killLinuxviewerstooyes

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Yeah, Wooja, let LL dabble in Windows stuff. They are doing  a bad enough job with their viewers as it is already. But there's the fatal tendency, particularly true for US based users, to use Mac stuff, so they can't totally ignore those. As for Linux, no panic, the Linux community can take care of viewers themselves. At least I have never seen any resident on Linux using the LL viewer.

Ugh, thinking about it, why doesn't LL stop viewer development at all? Theres were hardly able to stick up to the TPVs in 2007 already, and with the miscarriage of V2 and later they didn't show anything but being out of touch with the user base.

[Wooja]

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Orca Flotta wrote:

 

Ugh, thinking about it, why doesn't LL stop viewer development at all?

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If I was Ebbe I would close down all third party viewers and insist that everybody used the official LL viewer, and build advertising into it, with reductions in exposure available for premium users.

Wooja . . . betthatsnotwhathesgoingtodo

 

[Storm Clarence]

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Orca Flotta wrote:

Considering the market share Apple themselves have given up on desktop computing. They actively decided to become a supplier of gadgets

rather than a producer of IT equipment

. It shows. On the desktop there will soon be more Linux users than MacOS. For every iPad or iPhone a iMac or iBook loses its wings. :smileyindifferent:

---

 

Apple was never, ever a producer of IT equipment.  Never. 

 

[Storm Clarence]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

MacOS has a significant weakness - Windows and Linux machines can update their video drivers separately 

but Macs have them written into the OS.

---

 

Not really.  They are written in the kernel.  And so are linux drivers (LKM's.)

 

ETA And I have no idea how windows implements. 

[Pamela Galli]

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

I'm willing to bet that you're using a Mac with ATI video and a pre-Mavericks version of OSX and you're seeing problems with rigged meshes. It should be fixed by updating to Mavericks; if that's not an option for some reason you'll have to turn off either hardware skinning or atmospheric shaders.

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As I say, for now the next to last version of Singularity is working fine for me. 

[Orca Flotta]

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Storm Clarence wrote:

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

MacOS has a significant weakness - Windows and Linux machines can update their video drivers separately 

but Macs have them written into the OS.

---

 

Not really.  They are written in the kernel.  And so are linux drivers (LKM's.)

 

ETA And I have no idea how windows implements. 

---

Not entirely true. I am on Linux and use non-free Nvidia driver for my gpu. Of course I guess there's also some implemented graphics drivers in the kernel but those are low level 2D drivers for office stuffz. And then, if you are totally hardcore and politically correct, you can use the open source alternate Nouveau drivers but they won't stack up to the original Nvidia ones.

As for windows: download the driver, install it and be done with. Similar to Linux, really. And almost as easy.

[Pamela Galli]

From what I have read, LL started working on a Cocoa version of the viewer some time ago, and when it turned out a mess, abandoned it.

 

[Orca Flotta]

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Storm Clarence wrote:

Apple was never, ever a producer of IT equipment.  Never. 

---

But but but ... father of a friend of mine had his whole company running on Apple. Back  in the day there wasn't much to chose from for the professional. And the IBM ppl were too arrgogant for his taste so he went with Apple. Well, nowadays it's easy to integrate all the stuff yourself so you just buy any computer system you want.

 

 

[Storm Clarence]

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Orca Flotta wrote:

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Storm Clarence wrote:

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Theresa Tennyson wrote:

MacOS has a significant weakness - Windows and Linux machines can update their video drivers separately 

but Macs have them written into the OS.

---

 

Not really.  They are written in the kernel.  And so are linux drivers (LKM's.)

 

ETA And I have no idea how windows implements. 

---

Not entirely true. I am on Linux and use non-free Nvidia driver for my gpu. Of course I guess there's also some implemented graphics drivers in the kernel but those are low level 2D drivers for office stuffz.

And then, if you are totally hardcore and politically correct, you can use the open source alternate Nouveau drivers but they won't stack up to the original Nvidia ones.

As for windows: download the driver, install it and be done with. Similar to Linux, really. And almost as easy.

---

/facepalms

ALL drivers are written for the kernel. Whether they be implemented as LKM's or not.  They are not implemented in the OS.  That's all. 

 

[Wooja]

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Orca Flotta wrote:

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Storm Clarence wrote:

Apple was never, ever a producer of IT equipment.  Never. 

---

But but but ... father of a friend of mine had his whole company running on Apple. Back  in the day there wasn't much to chose from for the professional. And the IBM ppl were too arrgogant for his taste so he went with Apple. Well, nowadays it's easy to integrate all the stuff yourself so you just buy any computer system you want.

 

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I gave up on Apple as a business solution when one of their salesman assured me that while PCs offered double entry accounting, they offered triple entry!

Wooja . . . believethisisntafoursomesjoke

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

From what I have read, LL started working on a Cocoa version of the viewer some time ago, and when it turned out a mess, abandoned it.

 

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The release version of the LL viewer has used Cocoa since around September, as does the de facto current release of Firestorm (4.5.1 Beta).

[ObviousAltIsObvious]

OS X really does have installable device drivers like other operating systems. you don't see many third party driver downloads only because third party video cards have been rare. there are still a few Mac cards made by EVGA etc., and they do have OS X drivers available.

[arton Rotaru]

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Orca Flotta wrote:

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Yeah, Wooja, let LL dabble in Windows stuff. They are doing  a bad enough job with their viewers as it is already. But there's the fatal tendency, particularly true for US based users, to use Mac stuff, so they can't totally ignore those. As for Linux, no panic, the Linux community can take care of viewers themselves. At least I have never seen any resident on Linux using the LL viewer.

Ugh, thinking about it, why doesn't LL stop viewer development at all? Theres were hardly able to stick up to the TPVs in 2007 already, and with the miscarriage of V2 and later they didn't show anything but being out of touch with the user base.

---

I don't want to turn this into another viewer war. However, I find it kind of funny calling LL viewers terrible and TPV so incredibly awesome, when they are all basically the same. None of the TPV's are written from scratch. They are all LL viewers.

Obviously you haven't followed the LL viewer development at all, if you say that they can't catch up with TPV's from 2007.

That might be true for some time in the past, but nowadays, TPV's are having a hard time to keep up with the pace of the LL's viewer development. And yes, this IS viewer development. It's not just playing around with the GUI, or adding some more or less useful features to it. It's LL who are improving the core features of the software. A lot of this goes along closely with server development.

Maybe you want to have them giving up on server development as well, and let the community doing this, too?

Oh wait, isn't there Opensim? LOL

[Damis Zimmer]

The main killer for performance on macs comes from the compatibility layer. SL uses the compatibility layer which in OS X, has not been updated since 2009 when Snow Leopard (10.6) was released. Apple wants to move people onto the core implementation becaise it's supposidly better from a developer standpoint

https://developer.apple.com/opengl/ (you can see the video on migrating here)

However this has created problems for 3D applications using the compatibility profile, essentially Second Life is stuck using this until something is done to change it. And this creates severe performance draw backs which are probably compounded by the poor 3D driver support from Apple in general. However certain features really kill mac performance such as Advanced Lighting Model. If you pull up About Secondlife under help, You'll see the OpenGL version listed as 2.1, this is because the compatibility profile primarily uses this, along with some other extensions from 3.x. 

To give an idea of the performance differential, I have a GTX 670 which under Windows, manages approximately 30-60fps in most areas on ultra, depending on various factors of course, under OS X this falls to anywhere from 12fps-25fps, I often have to use SecondLife with Advanced Lighting Model off, and most other settings on high or lower, as opposed to Ultra.

The perfomrance issues on the OS X veiwer really are at this point dire, and something needs doing about it quickly, this problem has been around since Lion and it's only been getting worse as time goes on. Mavericks can use OGL 4.1 which isn't the newest, but it's a lot better than what is currently in use under SL.

[Nalates Urriah]

LL did not give up on Cocoa. But, they certainly have not found a work-around.

Apple is insisting that Cocoa be used. Developers are holding back because of the problems in Cocoa. It is sort of a standoff between developers and Apple. It seems Apple is busy with mobile and ignoring desktop.

Firestorm lost their Apple person. LL has their Apple knowledable people working on other things.

You might try tweeting Ebbe.

[Nalates Urriah]

Singularity and Cool VL Viewer are doing a good job of keeping up with the SL Viewer.

Firestorm choose to create an 'improved' user interface. I think that has made it difficult for them to keep up. Jessica thinks they will pass LL this year. We'll see...

Henri did some type of separation with UI and core code in Cool VL Viewer and has been making it obvious he can keep up.

Other viewers like Dolphin are held back by the limited time the author has to spend on updaing the viewer.

Kokua viewer just updated and now is pretty much up to date with LL.

But, all the viewer dev's are held back by changes to the servers. Until the viewer code side of the changes is released TPV dev's have no idea what they may have to change in their viewer's code. The Secret development of the Chat Hub destroyed Firestorm's schedule. This has to make the dev's leary of getting too far out in front of LL.

LL is releasing a new veiewer about every 2 weeks. Firestorm about every 2 months and plans one every 3 months.

I think LL is moving at a pretty fast pace.

[arton Rotaru]

Yeah indeed. However that wasn't really my point, if they can keep up or not. I just can't stand those who say that LL should give up on viewer development because their viewers are total crap, and TVP are super awesome, when they are all using the same source code, and all the major development is done by the Lab. :matte-motes-big-grin:

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Almost all TPVs do indeed use 99% of LL's code... with two notable exceptions: Radegast and Lumyia (the latter is only for Android). Radegast started as a text-based viewer for SL using libopenmetaverse (which was independently developed at the beginning and had absolutely none of LL's code) and has been adding more and more 3D features (to the extent that on most platforms it can effectively be used as a 3D viewer). They (allegedly) use their own rendering engine and stay away from LL's. Of course, it means that scenes render slightly differently, but, as time has passed, they tend to look more and more like LL's own code, which is definitely an outstanding achievement — and proof that, as a TPV developer, you really don't need to stick to LL's code, unless you really want to (which is what most TPV developers want).