End of Second Life 32-Bit Viewer Support

[Ardy Lay]

I'd tell you what I use now but it would sound like bragging.

[Spiffy Voxel]

On 5/25/2023 at 6:52 AM, Love Zhaoying said:

I use one "critical" 16-Bit program in my job. It won't run on anything newer than than Windows Server 2003.  I believe the program is from 1997 (I started the job in 1998).  When I started, our focus was updating some programs to 32-Bit versions. What year is it? 😹

As a former Windows sysadmin, I feel your pain. The backwards compatibility is great, up to a point, then becomes a mixture of comedy and tragedy.

[Spiffy Voxel]

I'm curious as to why the Lab picked macOS High Sierra as the new cut-off point. That version still supported 32-bit Mac apps; Catalina (which came out two years later) ended that, so I'm guessing it's not 64-bit requirement on the Mac side, perhaps more a case of the supported Mac hardware and/or available system extensions?

Given that Mac support will change again at some point anyway in the future — OpenGL has been deprecated by Apple on macOS, so moves are afoot to support the Metal architecture on Mac — I'm just happy that I can still use Second Life on my 2017 iMac. (Currently on latest Firestorm, though I can also recommend Catznip (hi @Coffee Pancake!) and the latest project version of Alchemy Viewer if you're a Mac user looking for alternatives.)

[Henri Beauchamp]

26 minutes ago, Spiffy Voxel said:

I'm curious as to why the Lab picked macOS High Sierra as the new cut-off point.

Xcode 14 limitation: LL just picked the oldest OS version still supported by the newest build tools.

[Spiffy Voxel]

1 hour ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

Xcode 14 limitation: LL just picked the oldest OS version still supported by the newest build tools.

Ahh, yes that makes sense. Thanks.

[gwynchisholm]

Kinda makes me want to bust out the old core2quad and install 32 bit windows 10 to see how the last 32 bit viewer versions hold up 

[Jabadahut50]

On 5/25/2023 at 2:12 AM, Love Zhaoying said:

Have you considered upgrading to a TI-99/4A?

This made me think of my TI-86, and now I'm wondering if the newer CX CAS's have gotten powerful enough that one could hack Linux and SL onto it XD.

[Jabadahut50]

Just had a thought today. If we are getting rid of 32 bit viewer support and switching exclusively to 64 bit. Is LL going to go back in and solve tech debt based around 32 bit limitations and do the same with the servers? Are we going to get better rendering and building capabilities above 4000 m? Are we going to get 64 bit LSL variables? Somehow I doubt it, but it'd be great if they did.

[Crim Mip]

It's about time. The bar is going to be raised even higher when they switch from OpenGL to Vulcan in the next year. Also about time. No offense to those with potatoes for computers, but those with hardware made in the last five years would like to see the benefits of that in SL.