Yes, another post about computers able to handle Second Life...

[blissfulbreeze]

Hi ! I am looking to buy a laptop so that I can be more mobile. I found this one. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-17-3-laptop-intel-core-i5-8gb-memory-256gb-ssd/6499742.p?skuId=6499742

What I do in SL the most:

Exploring (I keep my draw distance at 32-72 most of the time)

Taking pictures ( I have no need for ultra graphics or ADL mode), just like to take basic ones with some post process editing.

Playing table games (Greedy, Skippo, etc)

I usually have most people as a jelly doll (complexity under 20k) and I just render them individually if I want to.

Yes, my settings are very low, because of lag that I get. This could be due to being in wifi (I will be able to hard connect with a laptop--it's upstairs).

So, with running SL with low settings, would this laptop meet my needs? Thank so much in advance for any advice, tips, etc. 😃

 

**If this laptop is not sufficient, can I add something to it to make it better for SL?

Edited November 13, 2022 by blissfulbreeze
add in

[Andred Darwin]

My 2 cents... if your main goal is to use for SL, stay away from that laptop... even delete the bookmark, browser history if you can!  

The video card on that laptop would work great for videos, general browsing, office, etc...  but for SL (or any current 3D game), it will be a nightmare (slow and Intel drivers... I have a similar handheld mini computer ), not to count, you will think the laptop wants to fly due to fan noise and heat while lagging in SL ( punt intended, its not playing SL, its "lagging" SL).

For a laptop (a brand new one, today), you would need one with a built in video card with at least (or close ) to the Nvidia XX60 mobile (2060, 3060 or better).... here is a video comparing the 3050 TI which is commonly available in new laptops which they call  a "gaming" laptop... basically what I'm saying, you may want to stay away from any XX50 or XX50ti (even though the mobile 3050 TI current generation might be able to run SL).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2FkgeTZpzY

I think you would need to bump up (unfortunately, quite a bit ) your budget to get a laptop (a brand new one) that would allow you to actually play SL... one with a configuration similar to the one at the link below: 

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GF65-Thin-10UE-047-i7-10750H/dp/B08BZQ9499

Please notice I mentioned "similar" configuration... (I don't own and never had any MSI brand laptops, etc...)... HP Victus 16 also has the option to configure the laptop before you buy it.... 8GB ram is ok, but 16GB is better.... video card being at least Nvidia XX60 (2060, 3060) would handle SL ok even being a mobile version.... keep an eye on reviews, info about overheating, RMA (people that actually had to return the laptop), etc... (warranty, and the ability to return if you want should probably be something for you to keep in mind as well.... )

I know it would cost more, but you will enjoy it a lot more, not only with SL... ( SL will be a completely different experience compared to the one you mentioned, and in most places with all the bells and whistles...)

Another 1 cent... if using desktop is an option for you (keeping SL as the main goal)... go for it.. way cheaper for the same configuration, you may have the option to upgrade a specific part when you need, not as easy to break, way less to worry about overheating.... even better if you can use a physical network cable for your internet connection ( computer to router...). You may also keep in mind, a desktop version of the same mobile video card, generally performs better and lasts a lot longer... ( look for information comparing the 3060 desktop vs 3060 mobile...  )

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by Andred Darwin

[sandi Mexicola]

2 hours ago, Andred Darwin said:

Another 1 cent... if using desktop is an option for you (keeping SL as the main goal)... go for it.. way cheaper for the same configuration, you may have the option to upgrade a specific part when you need, not as easy to break, way less to worry about overheating

straight up.  👍

[Lyssa Greymoon]

Your requirements are extremely modest, yes it will handle them. If you decide to to much more than Skippo with friends, it’s probably going to let you down.

[Henri Beauchamp]

On 11/13/2022 at 6:51 AM, blissfulbreeze said:

I have no need for ultra graphics or ADL mode

I suppose you mean ALM (advanced lighting model, AKA deferred rendering).

Be aware that LL is currently planning to remove the forward rendering mode (i.e. ”ALM off” mode) in the future PBR viewer (which alpha release already got it removed), and although I am fighting this bad move, it would make such a computer totally helpless at rendering at acceptable frame rates (above 15 fps) even the simplest scenes with the shortest draw distances and lowest graphics settings and with just a few avatars on screen.

For a new buy (and should I fail to convince LL to keep the forward rendering mode in their future viewers), you should really avoid any computer with integrated graphics (Intel iGPU, such as Iris for this model, or even AMD APUs), but buy one with a discrete NVIDIA GPU (even a mobile GTX 1060 will do); also avoid AMD GPUs because their OpenGL performances are sub-par.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[Jackson Redstar]

no computer can "handle" SL no matter how much you spend. A desk top is the best bet because of cooling - assuming the tower has good ventalation and is kept clean and a dedicated nvidia card  1000+ will do well enough - though the 3000+ cards do seem to do well in empty or mostly empty sims, start adding in people in the area and it can be a toss up how well fps will hold up. Stay away from intergrated graphics for SL. Unlike gaming the more you spend on hardware the better game performance will be, not so much in SL. you might spend 700 on a new graphics card and see a slight improvement in performance, if any at all

Edited November 14, 2022 by Jackson Redstar

[Henri Beauchamp]

11 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

no computer can ”handle” SL no matter how much you spend. A desk top is the best bet because of cooling - assuming the tower has good ventalation and is kept clean and a dedicated nvidia card  1000+ will do well enough - though the 3000+ cards do seem to do well in empty or mostly empty sims, start adding in people in the area and it can be a toss up how well fps will hold up. Stay away from intergrated graphics for SL. Unlike gaming the more you spend on hardware the better game performance will be, not so much in SL. you might spend 700 on a new graphics card and see a slight improvement in performance, if any at all

I got a GTX1070Ti and it got strictly no issue with SL graphics, unless I switch on shadows (at which point, the fps rate might fall below 60 in various scenarios, which I would find unacceptable). And I'm using my viewer (the Cool VL Viewer, of course) with graphics settings maxed out, and with the draw distance set to 256m (in land sims with neighbouring sims) or 512m (in islands, or while sailing or flying).

But I also got a good CPU (9700K locked @ 5.0GHz on all cores), and this is why my system works fine with SL, since as long as you got good enough a GPU, the bottleneck of the mono-threaded renderer found in the viewer is actually at the CPU level !

It you change your graphics card for something super-powerful (and a RTX 3060 would fall in that category, for SL), without changing your CPU, then you indeed will see little to no difference in fps rates (though, in my case, I would likely have better rates with shadows on).

A balanced system is the key: do not put an over-sized GPU in a system with an old CPU, and vice versa.

[Jackson Redstar]

4 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

(at which point, the fps rate might fall below 60 in various scenarios, which I would find unacceptable).

actually, I usualy have the frame limiter set to about 34 fps. anything around 30 is perfectly smooth. unless of course you are shooting video at 60fps...but shoot at 30 fps and most the events i video are from 12-30 fps (sometimes 12 is not even possible) but for general everyday SL , limiting fps to 30 is perfectly fine, and also there really isnt any need for the GPU to run at 90-100% all the time

[Henri Beauchamp]

41 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

I usualy have the frame limiter set to about 34 fps. anything around 30 is perfectly smooth

The ”good rate”  is equal or above your monitor refresh rate. Mine is a 60Hz VSync monitor, and anything above 60fps is good and smooth.

However, you must also account for frame rate drops, which happen a lot when you move around, since while rezzing new objects and decoding textures, the CPU load increases a lot (the tasks linked to rezzing and texture decoding also take some time to perform during each viewer renderer ”frame” loop, so even if they are partly threaded, there is still a longer time needed to render a frame in the viewer when rezzing is in progress).

Edited November 14, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[blissfulbreeze]

12 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

I suppose you mean ALM (advanced lighting model, AKA deferred rendering).

Be aware that LL is currently planning to remove the forward rendering mode (i.e. ”ALM off” mode) in the future PBR viewer (which alpha release already got it removed), and although I am fighting this bad move, it would make such a computer totally helpless at rendering at acceptable frame rates (above 15 fps) even the simplest scenes with the shortest draw distances and lowest graphics settings and with just a few avatars on screen.

For a new buy (and should I fail to convince LL to keep the forward rendering mode in their future viewers), you should really avoid any computer with integrated graphics (Intel iGPU, such as Iris for this model, or even AMD APUs), but buy one with a discrete NVIDIA GPU (even a mobile GTX 1060 will do); also avoid AMD GPUs because their OpenGL performances are sub-par.

Yes LOL.. I meant ALM, I was pecking on my phone and it probably auto-corrected. Are you saying that the default will be ALM mode and no way to get out of it? Oof. May have to say RIP to my SL then and find another virtual world.

Thanks for the tips on the graphics, I am not techie. I do know that NVIDIA is the best and the version has to be paid attention to as well. Welp, if SL forces ALM then I may not even buy a laptop. I was going to buy to be more mobile when on SL. Sighs.

Thanks!

[blissfulbreeze]

On 11/13/2022 at 6:02 PM, Andred Darwin said:

My 2 cents... if your main goal is to use for SL, stay away from that laptop... even delete the bookmark, browser history if you can!  

The video card on that laptop would work great for videos, general browsing, office, etc...  but for SL (or any current 3D game), it will be a nightmare (slow and Intel drivers... I have a similar handheld mini computer ), not to count, you will think the laptop wants to fly due to fan noise and heat while lagging in SL ( punt intended, its not playing SL, its "lagging" SL).

For a laptop (a brand new one, today), you would need one with a built in video card with at least (or close ) to the Nvidia XX60 mobile (2060, 3060 or better).... here is a video comparing the 3050 TI which is commonly available in new laptops which they call  a "gaming" laptop... basically what I'm saying, you may want to stay away from any XX50 or XX50ti (even though the mobile 3050 TI current generation might be able to run SL).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2FkgeTZpzY

I think you would need to bump up (unfortunately, quite a bit ) your budget to get a laptop (a brand new one) that would allow you to actually play SL... one with a configuration similar to the one at the link below: 

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GF65-Thin-10UE-047-i7-10750H/dp/B08BZQ9499

Please notice I mentioned "similar" configuration... (I don't own and never had any MSI brand laptops, etc...)... HP Victus 16 also has the option to configure the laptop before you buy it.... 8GB ram is ok, but 16GB is better.... video card being at least Nvidia XX60 (2060, 3060) would handle SL ok even being a mobile version.... keep an eye on reviews, info about overheating, RMA (people that actually had to return the laptop), etc... (warranty, and the ability to return if you want should probably be something for you to keep in mind as well.... )

I know it would cost more, but you will enjoy it a lot more, not only with SL... ( SL will be a completely different experience compared to the one you mentioned, and in most places with all the bells and whistles...)

Another 1 cent... if using desktop is an option for you (keeping SL as the main goal)... go for it.. way cheaper for the same configuration, you may have the option to upgrade a specific part when you need, not as easy to break, way less to worry about overheating.... even better if you can use a physical network cable for your internet connection ( computer to router...). You may also keep in mind, a desktop version of the same mobile video card, generally performs better and lasts a lot longer... ( look for information comparing the 3060 desktop vs 3060 mobile...  )

 

Thanks so much for you indepth input. Lots to chew on. I appreciate it!

[Henri Beauchamp]

9 hours ago, blissfulbreeze said:

Welp, if SL forces ALM then I may not even buy a laptop. I was going to buy to be more mobile when on SL. Sighs.

Exactly my fear and what is likely to happen if LL removes forward rendering, making entry level laptops unusable (or miserable) at rendering SL.

Hey, LL, I told you so !

I do really hope @Vir Linden and others Lindens involved in the viewer development will read this !

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

making entry level laptops unusable (or miserable) at rendering SL.

But..but..SL should run on Chromebooks, Cellphones, and Raspberry Pi!!1!!

[Lyssa Greymoon]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

But..but..SL should run on Chromebooks, Cellphones, and Raspberry Pi!!1!!

Nooooo. SL big game, need big game computer, try run Skippo make lights go dim. 

[Andred Darwin]

4 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

Exactly my fear and what is likely to happen if LL removes forward rendering, making entry level laptops unusable (or miserable) at rendering SL.

Hey, LL, I told you so !

I do really hope @Vir Linden and others Lindens involved in the viewer development will read this !

Entry level laptops, for SL or any other current 3D game purposes are already unusable or miserable (always have been actually... ), won't change anything,  those machines have its pros, but... gaming is not one of those (maybe will never be...), anyone thinking on getting one of those mainly for SL purposes, much better of saving the money and keep an eye open for good deals.... anyone running SL at 5, 10, 15 FPS for sure like the game a lot (has to... cause it's horrible)... at 60 fps with ALM they will like it even more, I believe, if they never experienced....they don't know what a difference it is, and probably think its not worth even though they really like SL... , and options are available today to achieve that performance sometimes for half of the price of an "entry level" brand new and shiny laptop.... its a whole new SL experience! 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Andred Darwin

[Henri Beauchamp]

4 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

But..but..SL should run on Chromebooks, Cellphones, and Raspberry Pi!!1!!

The Cool VL Viewer can indeed run on a Pi 4B or RockPro64, for example... And yes, that's thanks to the forward rendering mode. 😜

Running it on Chromebooks would likely be doable, after the necessary changes to adapt the Linux code and port it to Android...

1 hour ago, Andred Darwin said:

Entry level laptops, for SL or any other current 3D game purposes are already unusable or miserable (always have been actually... ), won't change anything

They can run SL, even if painfully. But what would change, should LL pursue in their suicidal way of removing the forward renderer, is that they won't be able to run it at all any more (or so slow, or in such a degraded way, that nobody would stand running SL on them).

Add to this the current issues you get faced with to upgrade or buy a new computer (computer parts prices, financial constraints on your budget due to the inflation), and you can see how bad a timing it is to raise the hardware entry level to SL...

Also, the future of SL depends whether a true client (with full 3D renderer) will be ported to mobile platforms or not... Anything that makes the viewer unable to run on modest hardware makes this goal more difficult to attain or right out impossible...

Thing is, the ”effort” to just keep (freeze) the forward renderer as it is while still developing ALM for PBR and more, is close to zero, like I demonstrated already with the Cool VL Viewer v1.28, when I kept the WL renderer along the EE one (because EEP got pushed too soon to release status, and was so much slower, until, at last, the performances viewer fixed the broken EE renderer, months later; WL was a life savior for slow hardware then).

Edited November 15, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[Andred Darwin]

1 hour ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

They can run SL, even if painfully. But what would change, should LL pursue in their suicidal way of removing the forward renderer, is that they won't able to run it at all any more (or so slow, or in such a degraded way, that nobody would stand running SL on them).

Respectfully, I believe this argument it's the same or equivalent to the "thought" many had when SL introduced mesh support ("This will be the end of SL!!"), even though at that time many of the decisions taken by SL were somewhat disappointing, SL was in decline, many people just left, performance was already low, etc.. , people (we) adapt, I don't believe people playing SL on an "entry level" machine (machines that cannot handle a 3D game) is that "poor" (like you said in other thread), to an extent, its their choice, and more about their perception of worth, budget, sometimes even knowledge, which is alright!

I think today, the SL dev team (in fact the whole SL team), deserve a lot more credit specially after the new owners took over, even your "Cool Viewer" would not be as fast if it wasn't for them... (I'm not discrediting at all the contributions and great work done on TPV's, but it's a huge difference of performance today, vs 6 or 7 months ago, better late than ever!), and based on the exchange you had with Dave, they are not only aware but believe they will be able to bridge the gap even for low performance machines, which means at least match what it is today ... ( still horrible using those machines, and not the focus at all in the gaming, metaverse industry as of now). 

My 2 cents, PBR, ALM and all of that will boost SL perception and will be great, will have its opportunities to improve, specially at the beginning but things are moving way faster than it used to be (which is great for anyone that likes to play SL... ), align those current improvements with (hopefully, as possible) making "land maintenance cost" more affordable, we may see a completely different SL economy in 2023, 2024, and many more years to come! Would not be nice if a full region monthly cost was around $140, along with the effects on tiers, ... in summary, see SL with a reasonable performance, looking good and affordable... some of it and almost everything else is already in place... that may actually move the needle for SL meaningfully, not a computer that can't render 3D games or metaverse as we see today... 

The world economy is not helping right now, but we've seen that before... at one point will get better again.... 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Andred Darwin

[Henri Beauchamp]

44 minutes ago, Andred Darwin said:

Respectfully, I believe this argument it's the same or equivalent to the ”thought” many had when SL introduced mesh support .../...

You are totally missing the point... It's not about holding back progress, but just about keeping something which exists and allows people to enjoy SL when then won't be able to enjoy it any more if removed !!!

First, I always have been an eager early adopter, and since you mention meshes, may I remind you that I backported mesh to the Cool VL Viewer only a few weeks after LL released their own mesh viewer, when some people said it was an impossible task...

Here, it is not even such a hard thing to do: it's just keeping code and shaders as they exist along the new ones, just like I did for the WL+EE renderer (and in the latter case, things where much more complex, not because of the renderers, but because I had to implement real time translation between WL and EE day/sky/water settings so that both types would render fine in both renderers: no such issue here).

44 minutes ago, Andred Darwin said:

based on the exchange you had with Dave, they are not only aware but believe they will be able to bridge the gap even for low performance machines

And so far, Dave failed to deliver, based on what you can already experience today in the first alpha release of the PBR viewer.

I would love to be proven wrong, but I'm afraid I won't...

Edited November 15, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[Flea Yatsenko]

Is ALM with all these performance improvements really slower than the forward based renderer from a year ago? If they get rid of the forward renderer and they improve ALM so that it's faster, even on lower end hardware, what's the problem? Most importantly, can't they just disable spec and normal in the deferred renderer to help with performance on low end machines? I'm assuming ALM's performance on lower end hardware comes from the fact that it has to render custom normal and spec while the old forward renderer doesn't. Which means deferred and forward rendering performance isn't directly comparable until we can look at it on equal footing. I.E. deferred with no shadows, no custom normals and specs, etc. I'd think deferred could handle the unoptimized content in SL better than a forward renderer.

Just my humble opinion but I think deferred with the ability to disable more graphical features to bring it inline with forward rendering would be faster in SL's case. I know deferred and forward performance is a hot topic in game dev, but right now comparing ALM to forward isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison since ALM supports more graphical features.

[Andred Darwin]

1 hour ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

You are totally missing the point... It's not about holding back progress, but just about keeping something which exists and allows people to enjoy SL when then won't be able to enjoy it any more if removed !!!

I believe it's their choice, if worth to them, they can make arrangements... the world changes... not only SL (I would love to be able to use the old Motorola Startac my father had, I really like that phone, but guess what, I can't anymore )... In fact, I think its great that SL is changing and for the better!

Also, please take it easy, I'm not saying you are against changes... everyone who knows and see your work appreciates you.... you, more than many, made and make great contributions ( You also don't let anyone forget what you do or did ).

It's not about myself or anyone ( including you ) being right or wrong, or even be proven wrong or right, or missing the point.... (who cares?)

It's up to the new owners/stakeholders/SL management, they will have to live with the results of their company... the only point of adding our 2 cents to this forum, is to just share our thoughts or point of view from what we are... users ( I'm not even sure they will actually even read it )... so don't take it personally or offensive.. and also don't expect as a user, to be exactly what you want it be!

To your last sentence, it's a first alpha release... same happened with the performance improvement viewer in its alpha release (huge difference from alpha to current release), It's nice that they did released it!

Edited November 15, 2022 by Andred Darwin

[blissfulbreeze]

On 11/14/2022 at 5:59 AM, Henri Beauchamp said:

I suppose you mean ALM (advanced lighting model, AKA deferred rendering).

Be aware that LL is currently planning to remove the forward rendering mode (i.e. ”ALM off” mode) in the future PBR viewer (which alpha release already got it removed), and although I am fighting this bad move, it would make such a computer totally helpless at rendering at acceptable frame rates (above 15 fps) even the simplest scenes with the shortest draw distances and lowest graphics settings and with just a few avatars on screen.

For a new buy (and should I fail to convince LL to keep the forward rendering mode in their future viewers), you should really avoid any computer with integrated graphics (Intel iGPU, such as Iris for this model, or even AMD APUs), but buy one with a discrete NVIDIA GPU (even a mobile GTX 1060 will do); also avoid AMD GPUs because their OpenGL performances are sub-par.

I am not able to find info on when this Linden  PBR viewer will come out? Also, do you know if Firestorm plans to follow suit?

[blissfulbreeze]

On 11/15/2022 at 11:09 AM, Andred Darwin said:

I believe it's their choice, if worth to them, they can make arrangements... the world changes... not only SL (I would love to be able to use the old Motorola Startac my father had, I really like that phone, but guess what, I can't anymore )... In fact, I think its great that SL is changing and for the better!

Also, please take it easy, I'm not saying you are against changes... everyone who knows and see your work appreciates you.... you, more than many, made and make great contributions ( You also don't let anyone forget what you do or did ).

It's not about myself or anyone ( including you ) being right or wrong, or even be proven wrong or right, or missing the point.... (who cares?)

It's up to the new owners/stakeholders/SL management, they will have to live with the results of their company... the only point of adding our 2 cents to this forum, is to just share our thoughts or point of view from what we are... users ( I'm not even sure they will actually even read it )... so don't take it personally or offensive.. and also don't expect as a user, to be exactly what you want it be!

To your last sentence, it's a first alpha release... same happened with the performance improvement viewer in its alpha release (huge difference from alpha to current release), It's nice that they did released it!

Here is the thing though, a huge percentage of SL users are aged 40+ and do not use/have gaming computers or computers that can handle ALM all the time. So, yeah SL is getting with the times but their market is not interested if it causes issues with being on SL.
 

SL is not trendy in gaming, it's considered old. However, many people love it the way that it is, with the option of keeping ALM off. They're going to shoot themselves in the foot again, just like with Sansar. They were hoping SL users will cross over and also bring in new ones, never happened. With not having the option of ALM off in any available viewer for SL will kill SL.

Edited November 17, 2022 by blissfulbreeze

[Henri Beauchamp]

58 minutes ago, blissfulbreeze said:

I am not able to find info on when this Linden  PBR viewer will come out?

The current version can be found by following the link for the project viewer GLTF PBR Materials found on the Alternate Viewers page. Note that this first alpha release lacks occlusions, so it is slower than what it should be: to do a fair comparison with LL's current release viewer, you must disable occlusions in the latter. But as you will see, the PBR viewer is in no way faster than the release viewer in ALM mode, and certainly not able to match the latter with ALM off on ”weak” GPUs...

 

58 minutes ago, blissfulbreeze said:

Also, do you know if Firestorm plans to follow suit?

I do not see Firestorm not strictly following what LL is doing in this respect, but I am not involved in Firestorm development.

[Andred Darwin]

9 hours ago, blissfulbreeze said:

Here is the thing though, a huge percentage of SL users are aged 40+ and do not use/have gaming computers or computers that can handle ALM all the time. So, yeah SL is getting with the times but their market is not interested if it causes issues with being on SL.
 

SL is not trendy in gaming, it's considered old. However, many people love it the way that it is, with the option of keeping ALM off. They're going to shoot themselves in the foot again, just like with Sansar. They were hoping SL users will cross over and also bring in new ones, never happened. With not having the option of ALM off in any available viewer for SL will kill SL.

Do you really believe it will "kill" SL? 

I have never seen a report from LL showing any statistic you mentioned (age, their market), neither I think I should see one (doesn’t matter to me, I cannot do anything with it other than being "nosy"), I believe you are guessing based on your own experience and people you interact with while playing SL (same with "do not use/have gaming computers that can handle ALM all the time" )… my perception is not the same as yours at all…( neither needs to be, actually, who cares? )… nonetheless… it’s just a guess or perception, may very well be true or not… I’m sure those statistics matter for LL and its management, do you really believe the new owners “bought” SL/Tilia just to sink it? That’s not really what it looks like considering the current improvements and how fast they are being pursued...

Not being "trendy", considered old... to a point, SL never had a chance in the past... expensive, ugly graphics, and extremely low performance even using "beast gaming" machines… that was the norm until recently.

I'm not sure how long you have been in SL, but a region used to cost over $1000 just to start... I bet it was hard to be in the "marketing" department at that time for SL, all you could say is "meet new people" along with quadratic pictures and "laggy" videos while charging a lot of money for it ... I believe price and perception of worth (what it actually offers vs what you pay) has a lot more to do with "not being trendy, considered old" than anything else... unfortunately that first impression did matter for many… and that is really hard to change... (many didn't want it, not even free... some, thankfully, are still here today!)

It's a different time right now, November 2022, the recent updates (also the current work on Reflections/PBR, which looks awesome so far), will reduce the graphics gap by quite a lot (at the very least compared to other "metaverse" options), there is another thread started by Faith Incognito with a video showcasing reflections and a few posts below another video about PBR ( in fact, if you like "cars" in SL, you should really take a look, I thought it was not SL when I saw it first time ) ... I believe SL is finally giving itself a chance to grow meaningfully by "looking good" with "good and acceptable performance" compared to its peers (metaverse)... you don't need a "beast gaming machine" to experience SL with ALM, etc ...  they will have to figure out that balance about price and perception of worth.... but it’s not nearly as expensive as it was … new user experience is also top of mind according to LL.

Marketing will have a lot more to play with and showcase in 2023 (Didn’t they just hired its first CMO, Steven Feuling?)… be that playing cards in SL with friends, be that driving cars that don’t look far behind “Need for Speed”  , be that a club, be that places to explore, be that for players 50+, be that for players 21+… SL is way more interesting… I’m sure it will have a much better chance to at least make people try it ( for many… try it again! ) and actually retain them … (I'm sure they are very well aware, care and want to keep current players enjoying the game, be them 20+, 40+, 50+ in age... ).

Are we somewhat writing off the new project before even seeing what it is or what it will be able do ... kill first, ask after? … “Negative Nancy” posts are all over the forums about turning off ALM, PBR, etc, lol… I would say, if interesting to you, follow its development… Let LL know issues you are noticing while developing or after its done, they are the only ones that can actually do something about it… (it’s just a project anyway…and again, it may surprise you and maybe even add to how “happy” you are about SL today... Mesh adoption was quite similar… Belisseria, Linden Homes revamp also a good example...). A good rule of thumb to keep in mind for feedback is praise in public ( forums, etc), criticize in private (support ticket, direct comms channels, etc).. and during development, its about issues, not opinions... not easy sometimes.

I don’t believe it will “kill” SL at all, completely the other way! I also don’t believe whoever is “happy” with what they use today (which is great) will be “out” of options ... really? ( TPV’s are a great example of it, Phoenix viewer kept the old UI for how long? )... 

Edit: Here is the video shared by Faith Incognito... shows a bit of what the PBR project may achieve... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-L4qTE56sw

 

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Andred Darwin

[MoiraKathleen]

11 hours ago, blissfulbreeze said:

percentage of SL users are aged 40+ and do not use/have gaming computers or computers that can handle ALM all the time

I'm not sure what the age of the user has to do with whether they have a gaming computer or computer that can handle ALM all the time.  I'm well past 40 and have both a gaming PC and a gaming laptop, both of which I purchased specifically for SL after I started spending a lot of time in SL.   I run all the time with ALM on.