performance I think we should, collectively, be somewhat embarassed.

[Ansariel Hiller]

1 hour ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

Yes.

Time to ditch Collada then...

[Aishagain]

5 hours ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

7 hours ago, Ansariel Hiller said:

Does that make it automatically bad?

Yes.

No.  Just because it is old does most certainly NOT make it bad, or in any way unusable.  What makes OpenGL unusable in the eyes of Apple is that Apple did not design it.  It is difficult to make Apple users see just how parochial and selfish the Apple Corporation is.

[Coffee Pancake]

11 minutes ago, Aishagain said:

No.  Just because it is old does most certainly NOT make it bad, or in any way unusable.  What makes OpenGL unusable in the eyes of Apple is that Apple did not design it.  It is difficult to make Apple users see just how parochial and selfish the Apple Corporation is.

My voodoo2 card would like a word.

Technology progresses by incremental iteration, the same as everything else. If you don't keep up then suddenly everything new is scary and a lot of work.

OpenGL is unusable as it doesn't support modern hardware design and use cases. It has been superseded. Any current commitments to it are misplaced and present a fundamental limitation going forward. If you were starting a new project today, picking OpenGL would be a mistake.

OpenGL hasn't just been depreciated and abandoned by Apple, that has happened across the board. The only reason Apple get brought up in discussions regarding it is they do not maintain support for legacy systems forever. Other manufacturers will leave the bloat in and just hope that when it does just break on their platform (and it will) no one cares anymore.

[Kathrine Jansma]

1 minute ago, Coffee Pancake said:

OpenGL hasn't just been depreciated and abandoned by Apple, that has happened across the board.

Case in point, look at the abysmally bad OpenGL performance of AMD cards, even on PCs.

AMD stopped supporting OpenGL in their performance tools, the debugging tools, basically everything and moved the bet to Vulcan.

Apple just says "its deprecated, we officially do not care for OpenGL", AMD just lets it wither and die silently.

[arabellajones]

I have been hunting around on the web, and it's hard to see the Apple M1 and M2 as being any more non-Intel than the AMD-Athlon was. back when Second Life was using bleeding-edge tech. My recollection is that the AMD processors had some extra instructions, but you didn't have to use them. They were related to the instruction I did use to replace some very slow interpreted BASIC.

[Gavin Hird]

8 minutes ago, arabellajones said:

I have been hunting around on the web, and it's hard to see the Apple M1 and M2 as being any more non-Intel than the AMD-Athlon was. back when Second Life was using bleeding-edge tech. My recollection is that the AMD processors had some extra instructions, but you didn't have to use them. They were related to the instruction I did use to replace some very slow interpreted BASIC.

First of all Apple Silicon use the ARM instruction set with a few added proprietary instructions to better facilitate Intel memory modes on the processor. These are used by the Rosetta2 translator to translate Intel code into the ARM instruction set on application first run. Thereafter the application runs ARM code. – Which is also what happens when you start up a viewer on a Mac with the Apple Silicon processor.  

AMD is instruction compatible with Intel processors and can in most cases run Intel code unmodified. Apple Silicon cannot execute a single Intel instruction. 

The memory layout is also radically different in that the CPU, GPU and the ML unit share the same memory space and read and write to it simultaneously. This means there is no "transferring" to the GPU from the CPU in the traditional sense. On the M1 Ultra the 64 core GPU can in theory use 64 Gb of memory. Thus the GPU can (in theory) read 800 Gb/s. 

To discuss the M2 processor is premature because Apple has not formally announced it or given any technical details.

[animats]

I've written about the technical issues before. The business problems are harder.

This issue comes up regularly at Creator User Group. Second Life has a very old user base, and many users with old computers. There's great reluctance to cut them off. Especially since some of them are keeping builds alive and still paying tier.

On the content creation front, there's growing agreement, including on the Linden side, that it's getting close to time to add the ability to upload new mesh content in GLTF as well as COLLADA. All the major tools (Blender, Maya, Substance Painter) import and export GLTF now. Unity and Unreal Engine speak GLTF. It's now the industry standard, and it's an open standard. On the workflow front, the idea is that you build and texture your new object in Blender/Maya, you upload it to SL, and all the parts arrive properly connected. The COLLADA uploader, for obscure reasons, can't upload a linkset without randomizing the link order, and while COLLADA is supposed to be able to upload textures, that never seems to work right. Also, when the time comes to move to physically-based rendering, the additional layers (metallic, roughness, subsurface scattering for skin, etc.) can be expressed in GLTF. COLLADA doesn't have slots for them.

This improves workflow for creators. It doesn't do anything for the non-creator user.

[Coffee Pancake]

4 hours ago, animats said:

I've written about the technical issues before. The business problems are harder.

This issue comes up regularly at Creator User Group. Second Life has a very old user base, and many users with old computers. There's great reluctance to cut them off. Especially since some of them are keeping builds alive and still paying tier.

If we don't do something, we're not going to attract a new user base. 

"I'm old and might die soon, SL can die with me #nochanges" is a garbage model to base a business around.

It's not good business to block all platform progression because part of the user base are happily plodding along on computers best left to thrift stores and idiot collectors like me who can't help putting an SSD in everything.

Moving to a new render platform is going to be a multi year project and during that time some drop off in older machines is to be expected. Part of the problem LL have had is an unwillingness to commit to open ended and big projects in general. If it can't show shiny and "growth" in its first iteration then it's not worth doing is the kind of development strategy that gets features half baked and abandoned for years (360 snaps, profile updates, etc etc), or half baked and pushed out the door to universal disapproval and months of languished tinkering (eep).

SL is often a users primary entertainment outlet, it shouldn't be a stretch to expect people to update their gear every now and again - just like they would with any other primary hobby.

4 hours ago, animats said:

On the content creation front, there's growing agreement, including on the Linden side, that it's getting close to time to add the ability to upload new mesh content in GLTF as well as COLLADA. All the major tools (Blender, Maya, Substance Painter) import and export GLTF now. Unity and Unreal Engine speak GLTF. It's now the industry standard, and it's an open standard. On the workflow front, the idea is that you build and texture your new object in Blender/Maya, you upload it to SL, and all the parts arrive properly connected. The COLLADA uploader, for obscure reasons, can't upload a linkset without randomizing the link order, and while COLLADA is supposed to be able to upload textures, that never seems to work right. Also, when the time comes to move to physically-based rendering, the additional layers (metallic, roughness, subsurface scattering for skin, etc.) can be expressed in GLTF. COLLADA doesn't have slots for them.

This improves workflow for creators. It doesn't do anything for the non-creator user.

All of this ^

[Lyssa Greymoon]

7 hours ago, Aishagain said:

No.  Just because it is old does most certainly NOT make it bad, or in any way unusable.  What makes OpenGL unusable in the eyes of Apple is that Apple did not design it.  It is difficult to make Apple users see just how parochial and selfish the Apple Corporation is.

Please Winsplain Apple to me.

OpenGL is a dead end, on all platforms. It’s five years behind the other APIs and the only thing it’s going to do is fall further behind.

[Suzanna Soyinka]

1 hour ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

Please Winsplain Apple to me.

OpenGL is a dead end, on all platforms. It’s five years behind the other APIs and the only thing it’s going to do is fall further behind.

Just as a point, no one is saying OpenGL is the most optimal rendering architecture, but its what we have, and it has far more capabilities than SecondLife has even bothered to try to tap.

Which is my point. The argument about whether Apple or Intel market approaches are better/superior is immaterial. What we have is whats here and even that isn't being used to it's potentials.

[Monty Linden]

4 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

"I'm old and might die soon, SL can die with me #nochanges" is a garbage model to base a business around.

Hey!  That's our internal motto!

[Suzanna Soyinka]

1 hour ago, Monty Linden said:

Hey!  That's our internal motto!

LOL plz no.

[Ansariel Hiller]

15 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

My voodoo2 card would like a word.

Nice you mention the Voodoo cards that were basically the break-through of OpenGL (aside they also had their own Glide API) with the release of glQuake back then... 😊

15 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

OpenGL is unusable as it doesn't support modern hardware design and use cases. It has been superseded. Any current commitments to it are misplaced and present a fundamental limitation going forward. If you were starting a new project today, picking OpenGL would be a mistake.

OpenGL hasn't just been depreciated and abandoned by Apple, that has happened across the board. The only reason Apple get brought up in discussions regarding it is they do not maintain support for legacy systems forever. Other manufacturers will leave the bloat in and just hope that when it does just break on their platform (and it will) no one cares anymore.

Shame you can't do a 1-on-1 transition from the OpenGL implementation in the current viewer to Vulkan, only to show those "Vulkan makes SL faster fetishists" that a simple switch to Vulkan does absolutely nothing. And by the time you refactored the whole viewer to use current OpenGL techniques, you will notice the "OpenGL is just bad" argument is pretty much bollocks. 😋

15 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

OpenGL hasn't just been depreciated and abandoned by Apple, that has happened across the board.

It's called "deprecated"...

15 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

The only reason Apple get brought up in discussions regarding it is they do not maintain support for legacy systems forever. Other manufacturers will leave the bloat in and just hope that when it does just break on their platform (and it will) no one cares anymore.

It's called "backwards compatibility" - something that makes greedy Apple managers shudder and sweat from fear, meaning they can't squeeze more money out of their "cultist" users by artificially breaking stuff, calling it "innovation" and making them pay for the same thing over and over again.

15 hours ago, Kathrine Jansma said:

Case in point, look at the abysmally bad OpenGL performance of AMD cards, even on PCs.

OpenGL performance has ever been bad on AMD/ATI cards, long before they developed Mantle.

7 hours ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

OpenGL is a dead end, on all platforms. It’s five years behind the other APIs and the only thing it’s going to do is fall further behind.

What's the threshold for "being on a dead end"? Just curious, since the latest Metal API update was almost 3 years ago - might be on a dead end very soon, too! And better not check, when the last Collada update was.

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Ansariel Hiller

[Gavin Hird]

3 hours ago, Ansariel Hiller said:

... since the latest Metal API update was almost 3 years ago - might be on a dead end very soon, too!

 

There probably won't be a Metal API update till OpenGL support is removed from the system. We shall see what is being announced at WWD2022 scheduled for June 6 through 10. 

They may cut it this year or give it another year depending on for how long they want to keep Rosetta2 translation around (which it depends on).

At the previous processor change from PowerPC to Intel, Rosetta (enabling PowerPC code to run on Intel) was only kept for 2 years after the initial announcement. WWDC this year will be the 2 year anniversary for the Apple Silicon announcement. 

Apart from that, your vitriol over anything Apple makes you sound like you think Apple owes you something. I suggest you find yourself another hobby. 😉

[Ansariel Hiller]

56 minutes ago, Gavin Hird said:

There probably won't be a Metal API update till OpenGL support is removed from the system. We shall see what is being announced at WWD2022 scheduled for June 6 through 10. 

They may cut it this year or give it another year depending on for how long they want to keep Rosetta2 translation around (which it depends on).

Sounds to me like it's outdated and needs to be deprecated according to Apple's own logic - and to the logic of some people here in the forum. 😋

56 minutes ago, Gavin Hird said:

Apart from that, your vitriol over anything Apple makes you sound like you think Apple owes you something. I suggest you find yourself another hobby. 😉

My hobby is to teach everyone what an overhyped piece of crap and rip-off Apple is! 😊

[Gavin Hird]

46 minutes ago, Ansariel Hiller said:

Sounds to me like it's outdated and needs to be deprecated according to Apple's own logic - and to the logic of some people here in the forum. 😋

My hobby is to teach everyone what an overhyped piece of crap and rip-off Apple is! 😊

Sounds like you have your hobby cut out in front of you. There are about 1.3 billion active Apple users out there for you to convince. 🤣

[Ansariel Hiller]

1 hour ago, Gavin Hird said:

Sounds like you have your hobby cut out in front of you. There are about 1.3 billion active Apple users out there for you to convince. 🤣

Mixing up users with active devices here, hmmmm? 😛

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Ansariel Hiller said:

My hobby is to teach everyone what an overhyped piece of crap and rip-off Apple is! 😊

How's life as an Android?

[Love Zhaoying]

On 4/3/2022 at 5:03 PM, Suzanna Soyinka said:

I'd like to see this platform last me another 15 years, but I'm starting to think its a waste of money to even upgrade my hardware any more other than for the tax write offs.

I use PC's for 10-15 years and they work fine..

Do you upgrade due to poor, faulty, failing hardware? Poor performance?

[Gavin Hird]

17 minutes ago, Ansariel Hiller said:

Mixing up users with active devices here, hmmmm? 😛

No. There are more devices.

Most Apple customers have an AppleID so they have pretty good control on how many active users there are.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Gavin Hird

[Gavin Hird]

43 minutes ago, Gavin Hird said:

No. There are more devices.

Most Apple customers have an AppleID so they have pretty good control on how many active users there are.

To quote myself, but here lies the incentive to write a viewer using Metal, because – not all, but a rapidly increasing number of Apple customers have devices in their hands or desks with CPU+GPU+memory configurations capable of running a viewer. Mac desktops and laptops, iPhones and iPads all with M1 processors (A14 onwards are essentially the same).

All these users can be addressed with the same renderer and core code. The UI will need different touch-up depending on device. But the market potential is massive. If you diddle around with something else – forget it for that entire customer base.

Edit: In addition every Intel based Mac with current system support is Metal 2 capable.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Gavin Hird

[Ardy Lay]

Would Apple allow a fully functional Second Life Viewer in their App Store?

[Coffee Pancake]

22 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

Would Apple allow a fully functional Second Life Viewer in their App Store?

A full fat client that offers the desktop experience .. unlikely for many reasons. Performance, sign up rules, interactions with the SL economy, etc etc.

However, App Store inclusion is only a small part of the picture. There is a steady progression to bring iPhone OS, iPad OS and Mac OS all under the same umbrella, write your application once and deploy it everywhere, opting out of that entire ecosystem isn't really a viable option.

[arabellajones]

I had such fun exploring the web, and seeing so little clear information about the Apple Silicon. So much just uses that label, and if it is an ARM-type instruction set, the past sales and resales of the ARM tech, they're now talking about an IPO, starts looking even more interesting in a cursed sort of way.

But if you want computing power now, it seems you need to have code that can properly cope with multi-threading, it's not just about OpenGL.I have at least five computers using multi-core ARM chips, and they're just a routine solution, nothing special.

Linden Lab are looking more and more like the dead end.

[Gavin Hird]

58 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

Would Apple allow a fully functional Second Life Viewer in their App Store?

Technically most likely yes, as it already is notarized on macOS 

It would be marked 18+ (17+) because of the content available in SL.  

Signup should not be an issue – it is a free app with free signup. On macOS that certainly have never been an issue, and at least in EU there are very strong regulatory forces in action to break some of the Apple requirements. In Nederland they are fined every week for not allowing signups outside an iOS app. 

It is only when you start to use things like in-app purchase, AppleID signon, possibly iCloud signon for storing say your user prefs or storing passwords to iCloud Keychain or things like that they get more restrictive. 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Gavin Hird