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The Lindens Tinkered with the Viewer Again

Prokofy Neva

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Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva

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So just as Fantasy Faire opens, the premiere event of SL in my view, and when I am finally done with all the chores associated with my store, and I'm exploring and taking photos more, the Lindens release a new viewer update.

And it took me four "clear caches" and relogs and various adjustments before I could see the world again, although not as well as before. I couldn't even get out of a building because I couldn't even see it.

The Lindens no doubt believe they are bringing joy and wonder when they tinker with the viewer but each time they produce one of these exoticisms, I wonder why they never work on the more mundane annoyances -- like how so often, you can't make a landmark when you land somewhere, and have to walk around in circles until you can (the system still thinks you are on the previous sim); or how you can't paste a name into group search, it will show "0" results -- you have to "just know" to type one or two letters only; or how only the owner can see how many prims each person has put out (on the regular SL viewer -- I think Firestorm doesn't have that problem).

So I already know what to do when I get a message that a new patch (as the kids in games used to call them) has dropped -- with a message that the settings have been forcibly moved to  "recommended settings":  I have to undo them.

Counterintuitively, with "Advanced Lighting," the world is very blurry and just never rezzes in sharply. So you have to uncheck "Advanced Lighting" but first, have to struggle to uncheck "Ambient Occlusion" because you can't uncheck it once you uncheck "Advanced Lighting". "Atmospheric shaders is best to leave on, I find, but that may go, too."

Why "Advanced Lightning" doesn't bring in more shadows and light and therefore a sharper image is a mystery to me, but there it is, out it goes. Then of course draw has to go down to 208 or less because otherwise you can't move.

And no, I don't have a very old computer that is "ready for Kindergarden" (i.e. 5 or even 7 years old) as some Lindens used to say. I have a computer than is less than 2 years old, has already been repaired once and is a "blazing turbo gaming computer" my son bought with some coupon he had which -- as we all know by now -- is actually guaranteed NOT to play the Not-a--Game Second Life very well. I don't need any turbo game computer and my son hasn't played games in years and years, either, although he does media work so he thinks it's a good computer. Of course, on the forums. you'll learn that it's not, and then a discussion embarks on your graphics card. You are told to buy a new one and insert it into the shell of your not-great Best Buy computer -- which, BTW,. leads to the fan burning out unless you ALSO buy a new, more powerful fan, and before you know it, you might as well just buy a more expensive computer. But not everyone wants to get out of Best Buy, or even their fabulously geeky New Egg online shopping experience, for over $2000; $1200 would be nice, if not less.

There's the further glitch of Radeon's driver now being outdated so AVG and other services that include driver update notices tell you to update your drivers, like people on the forums do, believing it to be a cure-all. But if you do that, you may have found that SL stops working completely and constantly crashes, so then you roll back and make do.

Yes, I realize no one else who posts on the forums has had this experience or is having it now, but for those silent majority out there, I suggest you uncheck Advanced Lighting. Advanced for who? Not me, and maybe not you.

Despite these problems, I still snap photos for my own and others' enjoyment possibly. I'm not a poser or a post-processor; these are just thumb-nails to get you to go take your own much better pictures. The first two were taken today after the new viewer download; the second two were taken last night. So it seems to me it isn't as crisp but eventually it may settle.

 

Mar 2022_303.jpg

Mar 2022_300.jpg

Mar 2022_278.jpg

Mar 2022_273.jpg

Edited by Prokofy Neva
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Theresa Tennyson

Theresa Tennyson

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3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Counterintuitively, with "Advanced Lighting," the world is very blurry and just never rezzes in sharply.

Is "Depth of Field" checked when "Advanced Lighting" is turned on? If so, uncheck it. It simulates the effect you'll see using a camera lens but depends heavily on where your viewpoint is focused.

Edited by Theresa Tennyson
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Innula Zenovka

Innula Zenovka

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6 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

So just as Fantasy Faire opens, the premiere event of SL in my view, and when I am finally done with all the chores associated with my store, and I'm exploring and taking photos more, the Lindens release a new viewer update.

Which version is this, Prok?   I ask because both the Default release, 6.5.4.570575, and the release candidate "Performance Improvements - 6.6.0.570163" (which I use) seem to have concentrated on various bug fixes rather than graphics tweaks.   I can't say I've noticed any particular graphics issues with the RC viewer on either my PC or my laptop, both of which were in the entry-level gaming category when I bought them and are now, several years later, starting to show their age.

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Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva

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3 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Which version is this, Prok?   I ask because both the Default release, 6.5.4.570575, and the release candidate "Performance Improvements - 6.6.0.570163" (which I use) seem to have concentrated on various bug fixes rather than graphics tweaks.   I can't say I've noticed any particular graphics issues with the RC viewer on either my PC or my laptop, both of which were in the entry-level gaming category when I bought them and are now, several years later, starting to show their age.

Second Life Release 6.6.0.570163 (64bit)

 

Release Notes

Performance Improvements

We are happy to announce a viewer that has performance tweaks. We focused on reducing image decoding time, less frame stalls, and initial font rendering time. As a result the viewer should feel more responsive. We can’t give specific timing improvements you will see due to the dynamic nature of content.

Please feel free to try it out and let us know of specific problems by filing a Jira.

  • We’ve made changes to vsync handling and added the ability to switch it OFF/ON in Preferences > Graphics > Advanced Settings.

etc

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Lindal Kidd

Lindal Kidd

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Just downloaded and installed the latest main release (update from 6.5.1 to 6.5.4). The only problem I noticed was that a lot of my objects at my Home location had suddenly gone invisible, and a teleport to another region and back fixed that. This is a problem I've had at apparently random locations and times for years, and it's not viewer-related; I see it on Firestorm too.

I've never had any of the problems Prok describes with my Shaders, and this is across four or five different computers, both high-powered desktop and low-powered laptops, with several generations and brands of graphics cards.

Prok, I don't know what to suggest. If it's not the viewer and not the computer, it's got to be something in your internet connection, which you could fix by changing your ISP, or moving. Or possibly it's just that LL has it in for you and is making and downloading a special Prokofy Neva Version of the viewer to you alone.

It could happen. Some people just can't resist poking the bear.

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Qie Niangao

Qie Niangao

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12 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Counterintuitively, with "Advanced Lighting," the world is very blurry and just never rezzes in sharply. So you have to uncheck "Advanced Lighting" but first, have to struggle to uncheck "Ambient Occlusion" because you can't uncheck it once you uncheck "Advanced Lighting". "Atmospheric shaders is best to leave on, I find, but that may go, too."

Why "Advanced Lightning" doesn't bring in more shadows and light and therefore a sharper image is a mystery to me, but there it is, out it goes. Then of course draw has to go down to 208 or less because otherwise you can't move.

As Solar says, 6.6.0.570163 isn't the mainline Linden viewer, rather it's the release candidate to which one is automatically updated when testing any earlier version of that Performance Improvements project. It's the one I use (mostly an alt) on the Fantasy Faire regions and haven't seen any problems, but of course I'm just one data point.

The indentation of the Advanced Graphics Preferences options kinda shows why deselecting Advanced Lighting pre-empts any setting of Ambient Occlusion (or Depth of Field or Shadows) because without advanced lighting, none of those can work (just as without Atmospheric Shaders, there's no Advanced Lighting, regardless of what any of those greyed-out checkboxes may indicate.

There is no way I'd use Second Life without full Shadows enabled, which used to be a significant performance hit for me though I kept it on anyway. Since I updated hardware, I never notice rendering lag at all with any viewer, but texture downloading is painful regardless of all settings and across all viewers, especially on regions like Fantasy Faire with many avatars and a huge number of large textures. There appears to be something fundamentally, architecturally broken with how textures are downloaded from the CDN, and all the little tweaks to cache, etc, continue to have negligible effect.

Anyway, that's how I experience "very blurry": if I start rezzing-in with a deep draw distance, start ever so slowly filling cache with all those textures, and get impatient enough to set draw distance back down to 96m, then regardless of any other settings suddenly everything will rez-in sharp.

Everyone's mileage may vary, but it's rare hardware today that exhibits noticeable lag with Advanced Lighting alone. Not using Advanced Lighting means giving up a lot of visual cues in the environment, including all Materials effects and projected lighting. It's really missing a lot, especially in sophisticated builds as in Fantasy Faire.

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Jenna Huntsman

Jenna Huntsman

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Gonna throw in my 2 cents on this one:

7 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Second Life Release 6.6.0.570163 (64bit)

As others have said, this isn't a release build, it's a beta. So expect problems, if you know what is causing it / have a hunch, file a JIRA.

13 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

And it took me four "clear caches" and relogs and various adjustments before I could see the world again, although not as well as before. I couldn't even get out of a building because I couldn't even see it.

It should never take more than one clear cache operation to repair / rebuild the cache. If anything, that would indicate a network or server-side issue (Server side is unlikely as it would affect most of us, as can be seen when AWS throws a fit and we can't log in or regions go down unexpectedly). Bear in mind that network doesn't just mean from your home to AWS, it also means the connection between your computer and the access point (If you're on WiFi, you'll likely see more issues, especially with low-grade access points, as SL hammers the connection with lots of requests of various types).

13 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Counterintuitively, with "Advanced Lighting," the world is very blurry and just never rezzes in sharply. So you have to uncheck "Advanced Lighting" but first, have to struggle to uncheck "Ambient Occlusion" because you can't uncheck it once you uncheck "Advanced Lighting". "Atmospheric shaders is best to leave on, I find, but that may go, too."

Assuming no other issues, ALM doesn't do a whole lot to blur an image, but it's more perceptual - when ALM is disabled, everything is hit with a fairly intense ambient light, meaning that you can pick out every little detail where objects join, details on textures, etc.

When ALM is enabled, a proper lighting pipeline is used and so surfaces that are poorly lit will "blend" together to your eye. A great example of this is with Ambient Occlusion - look at a tree. With Ambient occlusion disabled, you can see exactly where the joint is between the ground and the trunk. With it enabled, the joint has a shadow cast on it which causes it to blend into the background more. It hasn't been 'blurred', it's just been lit differently.

(p.s. as a side note, enabling DoF but adjusting the settings to create a very subtle blur effect helps a lot when looking at assets further away from camera, as it avoids harsh super harsh edges around items. Here's an example: https://imgur.com/a/Jkqdg5q )

13 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

(monologue about computer)

You should probably post the specs, if nothing else, to eliminate the computer being the cause. As you go on later to mention that your GPU driver is out of date and cannot be updated, that raises red flags.

13 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There's the further glitch of Radeon's driver now being outdated so AVG and other services that include driver update notices tell you to update your drivers, like people on the forums do, believing it to be a cure-all. But if you do that, you may have found that SL stops working completely and constantly crashes, so then you roll back and make do.

Just as a note: if AVG is the one doing the updating, then that is likely what causes the crashing issue. Always update your graphics driver manually, using software downloaded from the manufacturer's website.

(Also, sidenote, this includes Windows Update, which for months (up until fairly recently) was distributing a broken AMD graphics driver, however the AMD site had issued a patch mere days later)

13 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

(Screenshots)

The screenshots you have on display here aren't in the same place or with the same lighting, so it's impossible to do an A/B comparison on the images to determine if the image is unexpectedly blurry. Beyond some partially loaded textures in the last image, all looks normal to me.

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Codex Alpha

Codex Alpha

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Wow, well I chose a good day to experiment with ALM and materials huh... gees. 8 hours of WTF.

Hanging out in a premium sandbox, high noon, and I'm wondering why is everything so drab? Is my video card destroyed? LOL

Edited by entity0x
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Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva

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13 hours ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

Gonna throw in my 2 cents on this one:

As others have said, this isn't a release build, it's a beta. So expect problems, if you know what is causing it / have a hunch, file a JIRA.

It should never take more than one clear cache operation to repair / rebuild the cache. If anything, that would indicate a network or server-side issue (Server side is unlikely as it would affect most of us, as can be seen when AWS throws a fit and we can't log in or regions go down unexpectedly). Bear in mind that network doesn't just mean from your home to AWS, it also means the connection between your computer and the access point (If you're on WiFi, you'll likely see more issues, especially with low-grade access points, as SL hammers the connection with lots of requests of various types).

Assuming no other issues, ALM doesn't do a whole lot to blur an image, but it's more perceptual - when ALM is disabled, everything is hit with a fairly intense ambient light, meaning that you can pick out every little detail where objects join, details on textures, etc.

When ALM is enabled, a proper lighting pipeline is used and so surfaces that are poorly lit will "blend" together to your eye. A great example of this is with Ambient Occlusion - look at a tree. With Ambient occlusion disabled, you can see exactly where the joint is between the ground and the trunk. With it enabled, the joint has a shadow cast on it which causes it to blend into the background more. It hasn't been 'blurred', it's just been lit differently.

(p.s. as a side note, enabling DoF but adjusting the settings to create a very subtle blur effect helps a lot when looking at assets further away from camera, as it avoids harsh super harsh edges around items. Here's an example: https://imgur.com/a/Jkqdg5q )

You should probably post the specs, if nothing else, to eliminate the computer being the cause. As you go on later to mention that your GPU driver is out of date and cannot be updated, that raises red flags.

Just as a note: if AVG is the one doing the updating, then that is likely what causes the crashing issue. Always update your graphics driver manually, using software downloaded from the manufacturer's website.

(Also, sidenote, this includes Windows Update, which for months (up until fairly recently) was distributing a broken AMD graphics driver, however the AMD site had issued a patch mere days later)

The screenshots you have on display here aren't in the same place or with the same lighting, so it's impossible to do an A/B comparison on the images to determine if the image is unexpectedly blurry. Beyond some partially loaded textures in the last image, all looks normal to me.

No, it's not my computer, my connection, my IP. It's their software. I've been over this for 18 years.

You shouldn't have to TP in and out several times to make the viewer work and show up builds in the world. That people accept that is part of the masochism of SL.

It's not true that you can "pick out every little detail". If it did THAT, even if it made movement slower, I'd accept it. BUT IT DOES NOT. ALS definitely makes scenes MORE BLURRY. Which is why I keep it turned off, and resent when it is forcibly turned on again because the Lindens have issued a new patch.

Since I don't have checked off that I accept betas or tests or whatever, only the cleared final downloads, I wonder how it came to be that I got a beta. *But it doesn't matter*. The fact is *the world is blurry with ALS* and it simply then all has to be unchecked. End of story. 

Look, this isn't my first rodeo. I don't let AVG do the updating. I go to the company's site once *alerted* by AVG and get it directly there, checking all the dates, etc. And it made SL worse and made it crashed, as others have noticed, and had to be rolled back. The end.

It's not about Windows Update. I'm past that.

It's never, never, EVER about "packet loss" or "wi-fi" or "the time it takes to get to my computer" because if THAT were true, then it would ALWAYS be poorly visible. But it goes for weeks with good visibility and performance -- then a new patch comes, and whoops, it deteriorates and degrades and takes weeks to improve -- often not until another patch.

The screenshots are "good enough". But you can see how the ones taken at dawn at Mythridge Spire are simply crisper. And BTW for that first shot, I had to stand on the scene more than 15 minutes, and keep clicking on various parts of the scene over and over to make them come into focus, right clicking and going into edit or just clicking (the regular viewer doesn't have "more more more" like Firestorm).

What I would urge you and other technical specialists who learned a lot of material by rote and accept it unchallenged: be real scientists. Accept new data. Accept that there are real complaints in the real field that show something does not work as you imagine or as "it should" or "on your machine". ALS is blurry, full stop. It's counterintuitive -- yet that's what it is. I could go and waste time posting dozens of pictures of the same scene with or without and it would be obvious. Why should I spend the time? People who are constantly trying to work in world know they have to turn it OFF.

Edited by Prokofy Neva
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Prokofy Neva

Prokofy Neva

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19 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Just downloaded and installed the latest main release (update from 6.5.1 to 6.5.4). The only problem I noticed was that a lot of my objects at my Home location had suddenly gone invisible, and a teleport to another region and back fixed that. This is a problem I've had at apparently random locations and times for years, and it's not viewer-related; I see it on Firestorm too.

I've never had any of the problems Prok describes with my Shaders, and this is across four or five different computers, both high-powered desktop and low-powered laptops, with several generations and brands of graphics cards.

Prok, I don't know what to suggest. If it's not the viewer and not the computer, it's got to be something in your internet connection, which you could fix by changing your ISP, or moving. Or possibly it's just that LL has it in for you and is making and downloading a special Prokofy Neva Version of the viewer to you alone.

It could happen. Some people just can't resist poking the bear.

No, no, no and no again. I have the same Internet connection I've had for years. I've had both Verizon and Spectrum and I've been in the same building in the same location, even if different apartments, for more than 35 years. I've had SL for nearly 18 years. And as I noted: sometimes it works and there aren't these problems -- sometimes for weeks on end -- then whooops, they start again with a new download like yesterday. It is not on my side if some of the time it works fine -- then you can't write it off to "packet loss" or "wi-fi" or "your connection" or whatever else you wish to say instead of putting the responsibility back on LL. If they had to run a business *inside* the world; if they had to constantly build things and try to get scripts working *inside* the world, instead of on some empty beta server or their empty Linden office sim or in fact not even inworld -- they would get it.

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Jenna Huntsman

Jenna Huntsman

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34 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

No, it's not my computer, my connection, my IP. It's their software. I've been over this for 18 years.

It absolutely can be - you need to provide the specs of your PC (as SL sees them, through the Help > About (viewername) ). It's entirely possible that it IS a software issue, but limited to your hardware setup. It's impossible to diagnose without actually knowing how to reproduce. Again, the fact you're unable to update the GPU driver raises questions about the hardware setup you have. Let's rule that out - but you need to tell us what you're working with.

37 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

It's never, never, EVER about "packet loss" or "wi-fi" or "the time it takes to get to my computer" because if THAT were true, then it would ALWAYS be poorly visible. But it goes for weeks with good visibility and performance -- then a new patch comes, and whoops, it deteriorates and degrades and takes weeks to improve -- often not until another patch.es of

Aside from it can be. Sure, you may have lived in the same building for x many years, with the same ISP for however long, but that doesn't mean that the actual route your traffic takes is to a given destination is the same every time. In fact, it's normal for this to change on a daily basis, depending on outages of networks along the route, load balancing, etc. If a provider between you and the server has a bad piece of software which assigns an extremely poor route or a nonfunctional one, then it's possible you wouldn't even be able to log in at all. That's not LL's problem, nor is it yours, it's an issue with the ISP. There's lots of times where sites like YouTube get knocked offline due to this kind of problem.

(As an aside, you should also post some information about your connection from the Statistics Bar, accessed through Advanced > Performance Tools > Statistics Bar - that, among other things, gives statistics on your connection between yourself and the region (and by extension, the CDN)).

46 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

The screenshots are "good enough".

Aside from some unloaded textures in the last image, the sharpness looks fine. An unloaded texture appears blurry (due to mipmapping), but the actual edges of objects look perfectly sharp with the correct contrast. Textures not loading can be caused by many things, including server issues, network issues, and issues with your PC itself.

So, if there is an issue I'm not seeing, then providing an A/B comparison where you can highlight the exact differences makes it a lot easier to figure out the problem.

50 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Accept new data.

What data? You need to supply the data (as mentioned above) in order to create a reproducible issue, at which point it can be fixed.

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Coffee Pancake

Coffee Pancake

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21 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

The only problem I noticed was that a lot of my objects at my Home location had suddenly gone invisible, and a teleport to another region and back fixed that. This is a problem I've had at apparently random locations and times for years, and it's not viewer-related; I see it on Firestorm too.

Catznip have been getting more reports of that too .. either the region isn't sending all the required data for your start location during logging in, or (waaaay more likely) it's sending it too quickly and the viewer is busy contemplating its navel and misses it. 99% sure this our old friend packet loss.

We've not been able to reproduce it so have been unable to pick it apart. Happened to me a few times, randomly, TP away and back fixes .. so does just relogging. But unless we can make it happen on demand nothing doing :(

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Arielle Popstar

Arielle Popstar

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1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

No, no, no and no again. I have the same Internet connection I've had for years. I've had both Verizon and Spectrum and I've been in the same building in the same location, even if different apartments, for more than 35 years. I've had SL for nearly 18 years. And as I noted: sometimes it works and there aren't these problems -- sometimes for weeks on end -- then whooops, they start again with a new download like yesterday. It is not on my side if some of the time it works fine -- then you can't write it off to "packet loss" or "wi-fi" or "your connection" or whatever else you wish to say instead of putting the responsibility back on LL. If they had to run a business *inside* the world; if they had to constantly build things and try to get scripts working *inside* the world, instead of on some empty beta server or their empty Linden office sim or in fact not even inworld -- they would get it.

I updated my Sl Viewer and had no issue even when I logged into my old place on Hite and actually found it faster loading than it used to be. Clothing changes too are loading faster then during the months I rented there. I am however seeing a fluctuating ping sim that is regularly changing between 100ms to 150ms and sometimes spiking up to 200ms with no change in my view. Might want to check out what is causing that as it can negatively impact general performance.

Other then that Jenna's suggestion about checking the routing to see if there is an issue along the route path to S/L is a good suggestion. I had a period a few years ago where for 6 months S/L was practically unusable for me because of a bad on route network router. It only affected my connection to S/L and was fine to the different Opensim grids I have accounts on because they went a different path.

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Coffee Pancake

Coffee Pancake

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1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

No, no, no and no again. I have the same Internet connection I've had for years.

You have the same in home setup you have had for years. What happens between your house and the internet, in the EM vicinity of your house, is very much subject to change, faults, duckups, weathering, magic and so on.

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

they start again with a new download like yesterday.

Software and networking problems are plagued by there being more than one problem and coincidence. It's sadly more likely to be the universe conspiring against you than "that thing, that's the thing that did the thing".

If it was "that thing 100% is the thing that broke the thing", it would be uniformly broken for everyone. It's not .. 

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