Would using the Linden viewer be better for less lag vs Firestorm?

[blissfulbreeze]

I have always hated the UI for the Linden Viewer. I am used to and love Firestorm's UI. However, I am doing/researching different steps to help lower my lag.

Is it worth it to try to get used to the Linden viewer or it doesn't really make a difference in lag etc?

[sandi Mexicola]

I always get better performance with the Linden viewer thank with Firestorm, but I like Firestorm much better despite that.  

 

[Sid Nagy]

4 hours ago, blissfulbreeze said:

I have always hated the UI for the Linden Viewer. I am used to and love Firestorm's UI. However, I am doing/researching different steps to help lower my lag.

Is it worth it to try to get used to the Linden viewer or it doesn't really make a difference in lag etc?

The engine of all viewers is basically the same one. The look and feel is different and Firestorm has a few extra's like the build in AO.
Lag is mainly causes by how you personally use SL.
How far is your drawing distance set in your browser? What level of graphical detail do you use in your browser?  What is going on in the regions that you visit, how many people are there, how many scripts are running, how much is build within your drawing distance?
And then there is the Internet, how are you connected? Speed, directly with a cable or by WIFI?

I never use Firestorm, but I use Catznip and the LL browser. Catznip sometimes has a better performance, mainly because it uses a bigger cache than the LL one does.
I guess, it is all about trial and error to find out which viewer performs best for you.
 

Edited November 13, 2022 by Sid Nagy

[blissfulbreeze]

1 hour ago, Sid Nagy said:

The engine of all viewers is basically the same one. The look and feel is different and Firestorm has a few extra's like the build in AO.
Lag is mainly causes by how you personally use SL.
How far is your drawing distance set in your browser? What level of graphical detail do you use in your browser?  What is going on in the regions that you visit, how many people are there, how many scripts are running, how much is build within your drawing distance?
And then there is the Internet, how are you connected? Speed, directly with a cable or by WIFI?

I never use Firestorm, but I use Catznip and the LL browser. Catznip sometimes has a better performance, mainly because it uses a bigger cache than the LL one does.
I guess, it is all about trial and error to find out which viewer performs best for you.
 

Hi, I made a thread in this section regarding a laptop that I found and is seeking thoughts on it.  It says what I use SL for, what settings I use, etc. Am on my phone now so can't type it all out again. 

[Sid Nagy]

I don't know enough of the used parts in that laptop to give you any solid advise on that.

[Jaylinbridges]

On 11/12/2022 at 10:11 PM, blissfulbreeze said:

Is it worth it to try to get used to the Linden viewer or it doesn't really make a difference in lag etc?

No, nothing is worth getting used to the Linden viewer.  It lacks so many basic and essential useful features that you find in the TPV's, that I can't imagine living with such a feature damaged viewer.   Sure it may have less lag on weaker systems.  People liked the simplicity of the early Model T Ford's too.  Hand crank the engine and run back an turn down the hand choke before the engine died.  Starters and batteries added too much weight, ol Henry said, and I'd have to raise the price.

 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Jaylinbridges
Model T Ford was the first, built in 1908 to 1927

[blissfulbreeze]

54 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

No, nothing is worth getting used to the Linden viewer.  It lacks so many basic and essential useful features that you find in the TPV's, that I can't imagine living with such a feature damaged viewer.   Sure it may have less lag on weaker systems.  People liked the simplicity of the early Model A Ford's too.  Hand crank the engine and run back an turn down the hand choke before the engine died.  Starter's added too much weight, ol Henry said, and I'd have to raise the price.

 

Yeah, I really hate the Linden viewer, but was going to suck it up and try it more if it was worth saving on lag. I'll have to test it. *Cringes*

[blissfulbreeze]

On 11/13/2022 at 4:33 PM, Sid Nagy said:

I don't know enough of the used parts in that laptop to give you any solid advise on that.

No worries, I was just explaining that I did go into detail on another post.

[Katherine Heartsong]

58 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

No, nothing is worth getting used to the Linden viewer.  It lacks so many basic and essential useful features that you find in the TPV's, that I can't imagine living with such a feature damaged viewer.   Sure it may have less lag on weaker systems.  People liked the simplicity of the early Model A Ford's too.  Hand crank the engine and run back an turn down the hand choke before the engine died.  Starter's added too much weight, ol Henry said, and I'd have to raise the price.

A harsh indictment, that, and for me there is nothing that would make me give up the custom AO feature in Firestorm.

[Andred Darwin]

I would say, give it a try, the worst thing that could happen is you just uninstall it (maybe remember why you "hate" it like you mentioned above).

Firestorm (based on info from another tread) is the most used and preferred viewer (There is a reason for that... many use and appreciate the shortcuts and accessibility, also all the extra features/UI ).

I use the official viewer almost all the time while in SL and I like it very much, I have nothing against using Firestorm or Black Dragon (they are all great!).

What I like about the official viewer it feels "clean and simple" to me compared to others, I like the default "skin" colors, seems like, less to worry about, I really appreciate simple and easy, specially when it does what I need, also I don't mind clicking an extra dropdown for a feature I rarely use, I don't experience any "major" issues using it, I don't remember when was the last time I had a failed teleport other than, when the grid was under maintenance, or a known issue was going on... same with the inventory and "white cloud" issues some are experiencing now... ( Probably good to point out...  I believe my internet connection is fast enough with low latency connecting to SL servers (no Wifi)... I don't add many attachments to the avatar I use, at most, there will be like 30 scripts running, under 24000 rendering cost.... my inventory is quite small (compared to what I hear) with just a little under 50k items (way too much for me... ), only a few "old backup folders"  with more than, lets say 50 items at the same folder... I don't keep what I don't need at the inventory, I'm not a "prim/mesh hoarder" , and I "clean it up" quite often....  I'm sure those things help a lot with keeping crashes at a low rate along with that perception of lag, failed teleports... no matter what viewer you are using).

From a FPS standpoint, I also have no complaints, the official viewer works great with my setup, more or less the same, depending on the region compared to other viewers ( specially after the performance improvement!).

The only drawback on the official viewer for me, is the default LOD factor set to 1.125, that makes that "first" login, first impression after loading just ... well... let's say... "disappointing"... I do change it to 4.0 using debug settings (RenderVolumeLODFactor), and stays that way most of the time specially while visiting other regions, and back to 2.0 while creating/uploading something... 2.0 is the default in Firestorm, which is the most used viewer.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Andred Darwin

[Nalates Urriah]

The Linden Viewer is the Lab's idea of what is best for new users.

The Linden Viewer is generally the cutting edge viewer getting Lab implemented new features first. So from time to time I play with it.

Speed-wise... there isn't enough difference to be a big thing.

I also don't see enough difference in the UI parts commonly used to be a problem when switching back and forth. Now that the SL Viewer has search in the Preferences panel, I don't have any problem switching between the viewers.

What I do have a problem with is missing all the extras that Firestorm has added. The 'Inventory Favorites' and Environment controls are way handy in FS.

While I do have a problem moving between FS and Black Dragon the Poser in BD is way NICE. So BD is often my choice for photos.

[Nick0678]

12 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

The Linden Viewer is generally the cutting edge viewer getting Lab implemented new features first.

Note: If someone is on Linux, the latest official SL client is version 5.0.9.329906 which was made 6 years ago and shouldn't be used.

[Nalates Urriah]

2 hours ago, Nick0678 said:

Note: If someone is on Linux, the latest official SL client is version 5.0.9.329906 which was made 6 years ago and shouldn't be used.

Yeah. While Oz was still here they decided to stop developing for Linux. The idea is they would add whatever third-parties contributed. Not sure that has gone well.

[PheebyKatz]

2 hours ago, Nick0678 said:

Note: If someone is on Linux, the latest official SL client is version 5.0.9.329906 which was made 6 years ago and shouldn't be used.

If they had a 64-bit, current, Linux version of the official viewer I would definitely own it, just to have it. Simply installing it could (possibly) fix the one thing I can never get to work on Firestorm... voice.

We have occasional poetry and short fiction readings live on voice (just because the parcel audio route for live audio isn't the most ideal for it), and it would be nice to be able to do more than simply attend to provide moral support and enjoy seeing so many sociopathic loners gathered sociably in one place. It would be nice to hear the reading, too.

[Nick0678]

8 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Yeah. While Oz was still here they decided to stop developing for Linux. The idea is they would add whatever third-parties contributed. Not sure that has gone well.

Nods.. yet new residents have no clue what is an Oz, what are the code changes, forums or any other SL history nonsense and they don't need to know.

They registered and are now forwarded to download some ancient nonsense incompatible with the game that only experienced users know its crap.

The least LL could do is stop being so amateur and lazy and put a note on the website saying

[Coffee Pancake]

The Linux client project stalled due to the increasing burden maintaining it for an objectively tiny (yet vocal) user base. The issue isn't the viewer code itself, it's the library dependencies. The Linux SL client doesn't use system libs like everything else, it ships with it's own versions.

Oz Linden wanted the community to get the Linux client to compile "stand alone" so it used standard system libraries with a goal of creating standard debian packages (etc etc).

This went nowhere as it's technically impossible. A good example would be texture decoding, this depends on OpenJPEG, which as shipped doesn't work 100% with SL's textures, so while a viewer can be made that uses a system installed version "off the shelf", the result is broken garbage.

The continuing work by FS and others to keep a functioning Linux client has been nothing short of heroic ... still, there will be a time when the only fully function SL client on Linux is the Windows client with Wine.

5 hours ago, Nick0678 said:

Nods.. yet new residents have no clue what is an Oz, what are the code changes, forums or any other SL history nonsense and they don't need to know.

They registered and are now forwarded to download some ancient nonsense incompatible with the game that only experienced users know its crap.

The least LL could do is stop being so amateur and lazy and put a note on the website saying

It might be prudent for LL to get some instructions on how to do that published.

Linux users come with the supposition that they're all techno wizards who can solve their own problems which absolutely isn't always the case.

[Brightstar7777]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

The Linux client project stalled ... The issue isn't the viewer code itself, it's the library dependencies...

Oz Linden wanted the community to get the Linux client to compile "stand alone" so it used standard system libraries with a goal of creating standard debian packages (etc etc).

This went nowhere as it's technically impossible. A good example would be texture decoding, this depends on OpenJPEG, which as shipped doesn't work 100% with SL's textures, so while a viewer can be made that uses a system installed version "off the shelf", the result is broken garbage.

Linux-based gaming is hard to universalize. Steam for Linux is a good example- they say point blank that "Currently, Steam for Linux is only supported on the most recent version of Ubuntu LTS..." and yet Ubuntu reportedly only has about 33% of the Linux 'market share.' 

Issues with OpenJPEG's JPEG2000 standard in 2022 are a source of consternation. Maybe they'll get it down by 2042?

At the very least, it seems like a cautionary tale that all open standards should include open source reference implementations that are feature complete and work so that they are well-founded and widely-adopted.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Brightstar7777

[Nick0678]

4 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

The Linux client project stalled due to...

That's all nice for sl fans to read in the forums..

..and also totally useless for any new resident who registered right now, knows nothing of SL and is forwarded to download officially broken software.

 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Nick0678 said:

That's all nice for sl fans to read in the forums..

..and also totally useless for any new resident who registered right now, knows nothing of SL and is forwarded to download officially broken software.

 

As I said .. that page should detail how to run the Windows client with wine (which does work, flawlessly).

[JeromFranzic]

9 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

As I said .. that page should detail how to run the Windows client with wine (which does work, flawlessly).

Yeah, it does work but it's better to use one of the viewers which run natively in Linux. The best IMO are Firestorm and Cool VL. The others are Kokua and Alchemy AgileAkita.

Cool VL is updated frequently, on the weekends. It also has a beta branch in addition to stable releases.

Alchemy hasn't been updated since last summer and Kokua is in the same situation for Linux.

FS got its last update in September. That one does tend to work really well with Debian based distros as it's compiled in Debian but it works just as well anywhere else (Arch, fedora, Slackware etc).

The standard SL viewer limits texture memory to 512 MB. The other viewers can use as much as is available with a given GPU's RAM.

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, JeromFranzic said:

Alchemy hasn't been updated since last summer and Kokua is in the same situation for Linux.

Alchemy's updates are published on their discord channel.

[Modulated]

5 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Alchemy's updates are published on their discord channel.

And you don't discord, you can check https://git.alchemyviewer.org/alchemy/alchemy-next/-/packages

[Quistess Alpha]

29 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

wine (which does work, flawlessly).

I'm too lazy to test it, but my limited experience trying it (months ago) with catznip was that "dullahan" broke and none of the web functionality worked. I'd call that "Perfectly usable" for most people, but not "flawless".

- -

On another note, Cool VL Viewer provides a fancy build script using sources (for the outdated libraries and I believe some free alternatives for the non-free ones) automatically fetched from his site. Has anyone tried using it to compile a different viewer flavor? I tried compiling Cool VL as a baseline, but my (8gb ram no gfx card) potato computer cooked half way through. . .

Edited November 22, 2022 by Quistess Alpha

[Coffee Pancake]

Just now, Quistess Alpha said:

I'm too lazy to test it, but my limited experience trying it (months ago) with catznip was that "dullahan" broke and none of the web functionality worked. I'd call that "Perfectly usable" for most people, but not "flawless".

I will admit to having not tested that recently, it did totally work. .. Linux is allergic to my main and routinely throws hissy fits *shakes fist at nvidia*

[Nick0678]

4 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

I'm too lazy to test it, but my limited experience trying it (months ago) with catznip was that "dullahan" broke and none of the web functionality worked. I'd call that "Perfectly usable" for most people, but not "flawless".

Nods i got BD and LL on wine for some debugging. web won't work.. and depending on packages installed might get some cute error messages.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Nick0678