Best Viewer for AMD systems

[keilfur]

Hello I recently got back into SL. I was looking for feedback from AMD system users on what viewer gives them the best performance/least lag/most fps. I have used firestorm, and I find regardless of how I tweak the setting i get a way less smoother performance that when I use alchemy, I know this is not a super high fps game, but for example i will be getting 25-30 on firestorm and 45-50 on Alchemy in the same place. I like the stability of firestorm but I really prefer the smoothest game play possible.

My system:

Ryzen 3600

5700XT

16GB RAM (3600)

I can get much better looking game play and fps on alchemy I am not sure why this is. I heard that this game likes NVIDIA cards more idk. If anyone has a similar system please let me know what you are using, and how your performance is. Thank you very much for any help!

[Lillith Hapmouche]

8 hours ago, Nestorin Core said:

Hi all.

Duplicate of

 

[Lindal Kidd]

If you get different results in the same location with two different viewers, it's not your video card or your system, it's the viewer.

Check all your graphics preferences settings with both viewers.  A small change in, for example, draw distance, or shadow settings, can make a huge difference in fps.

And as far as I know, there's no data on Viewer X being better than Viewer Y for AMD systems, or anything like that...although it's true that different users with different systems find one viewer or another is better for them.

[Nick0678]

20 FPS more by simply changing a viewer is a huge difference, 3-5 is more logical.

Haven't tried latest Alchemy so i can't say something about it (and too lazy during summertime to turn on my Win10 Desktop PC and install it)

Just make sure you use the 64bit Firestorm and Graphics/Shaders/Anti aliasing/LOD etc options are the same for both.

(32bit was slower at least for me regardless if Linux/Windows, ATI/Nvidia, AMD/Intel, although many people think less resources = faster)

[Lillith Hapmouche]

I find both FPS counts quite too low for that system, unless you're running really high settings in both viewers.

So please do share a screenshot of your settings, preferably for Alchemy and Firestorm.

Plus, are you sure that your RAM is running at 3600 MHz? Did you manually set it?

[Lyssa Greymoon]

Alchemy has some CPU optimizations most other viewers don't use because they won't run on older PCs. 

See this thread: 

YMMV. 

There may be some other tweaks to Alchemy's rendering. It didn't seem to behave the same as Firestorm for me. It was also noted the default LOD setting is a little lower in Alchemy, but I don't think going from 1.25 to 2 or 3 is going to make much of a difference on a non-potato computer. 

 

[Nick0678]

They both have different Graphic profiling settings.

You can see that by just comparing "featuretable.txt" so they will definitely behave different even if they were the same viewer.

Left=FS, Right=Alch

 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Nick0678

[Lindal Kidd]

Nick, how do you get these images?  If I look up "featuretable.txt" on my machine, I get a rather incomprehensible text file.

[Nick0678]

13 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Nick, how do you get these images?  If I look up "featuretable.txt" on my machine, I get a rather incomprehensible text file.

Open your browser  go to "www.diffchecker.com/diff"

Go to your Firestorm directory.. Open featuretable.txt... Right click Select All> Copy... Go to browser > Paste on one panel

Go to any other Client directory.. Open featuretable.txt... Right click Select All> Copy... Go to browser > Paste on other panel.

Click Find Difference button. Right Click in Firefox>Take Snapshot>Whole page..

[Lillith Hapmouche]

I think I just failed the eyesight check...

[keilfur]

 

I have tried all the trouble shooting imaginable. Here is a pictures of the setting I am using.

https://imgur.com/a/w0eBPUt

The first picture is with all the SL settings maxed out. The second is the lower more performance setting I use.

I was in a sim with around 25-30 people in a group.

The first setting (Max) I was getting 25-30 which is totally fine, the second (lower) setting I get 60+

These numbers are not obtainable in firestorm for me, the best Performance is Alchemy by far. Black dragon gets second on my system. I have found that yes Alchemy does have a significant performance boost with this type of system.

 

[Nick0678]

1 hour ago, Lillith Hapmouche said:

I think I just failed the eyesight check...

Your eyes are perfect don't worry about it, under normal conditions i can't see it either.

I am on Linux and use Meta/Super key to desktop zoom.

Just click on it if you are curious , then right click open link in new tab and Save Image.

Use a photo viewer to zoom in.. or you can try the long version. Whatever is easier. (Click it twice to expand)

..

 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Nick0678

[Lyssa Greymoon]

I don't see anything in there that would give Alchemy much of an advantage. Am I missing anything?

[Nick0678]

26 minutes ago, keilfur said:

 

I have tried all the trouble shooting imaginable. Here is a pictures of the setting I am using...

 

Your first setting has no shaders activated (and of course advanced lighting etc inactive/faded out) which means its similar more or less to selecting Low Graphics, disabling the basic shaders and enabling Transparent water and Bump lightning. (Doesnt matter if the slider above says Ultra,  things have been manually disabled)

The second one is more or less similar to this.. and it seriously doesn't mater.

In the future you will realise that Graphic Presets are more of a convenient way for the majority to select one and play.

Best thing to do is figure out what works best for you when it comes to graphics and use that.

Edited July 1, 2020 by Nick0678

[Nestorin Core]

Hi all. I don't know if anyone can answer my question, since I use the Firestorm viewer.
I recently changed my computer, I had an NVIDIA graphics card. Step by step, the card got hotter and hotter, until he stopped working.
I bought a new computer, with the following characteristics.
AMD Ryzen 5 24G w/ Radeon Vega, Graphics 3.60 GHz
8GB on RAM
Windows 10 64 bits

Solid Hard Disk Kingstone

Much more powerful! But ... when I login in SecondLife, after half or an hour, I crash.
And, when I try to login with two avatars, impossible. After a minute or two, it throws me into one of the two avatars.
I already tried different drivers for the graphics card, I did a clean installation and reinstalled the viewer and the problem continues.
I have adjusted several options in Preferences - graphics and the problem is the same.
Do any of you have an idea about the problem or the solution?

[Chic Aeon]

7 hours ago, Nestorin Core said:

I have adjusted several options in Preferences - graphics and the problem is the same.
Do any of you have an idea about the problem or the solution?

Well turning down your draw distance might help some. Do you REALLY need to see 376 meters? Try 128 which is half a sim distance.  BUT that being said, the fact that you can stay on half an hour sounds more like a power supply issue.  Have you checked the heat on your card? Have you checked if the power supply is big enough to support your card? Bigger power supply than suggested is helpful :D.   AND of course make sure it is a good model of power supply.

 

I only say this as I have burned up some cards and power supplies over the years in SL before I learned my lessons and found a good tech guy to explain WHY the power supply is so important.  Also if your computer came all in one and you didn't choose the parts, you still need to check the power supply - graphics card connection. I got caught on that big time once; cost me $500 to fix. 

 

SL has traditionally not played well with AMD cards (I had one long ago) but I believe that is not much of a problem any more.  There are probably  a lot of free testing software programs out there. I us Speccy which has worked well for watching the heat issue. Also different graphics cards have different recommended heat parameters so you need to check on that also.  

 

I don't know a lot about hardware but I have had LOTS of experience with the power supply - graphic cards issue. Hence posting.