Flickering screen - Firestorm Viewer - Mac

[kylieannwilliams]

Hello! I am running Firestorm 6.6.8 (68380) (64bit / SSE2) on my iMac. These are the specs:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10500 CPU @ 3.10GHz (3100 MHz)
Memory: 8192 MB
Concurrency: 12
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.16.0 Darwin 22.5.0 Darwin Kernel Version 22.5.0: Mon Apr 24 20:51:50 PDT 2023; root:xnu-8796.121.2~5/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon Pro 5300 OpenGL Engine
Graphics Card Memory: 3988 MB

The viewer runs very smooth with little to no lag, but I have an occasional flickering/flash of the screen in the viewer. Any ideas on how I can fix this and why this is happening? 

Thank you in advance!!

[Spiffy Voxel]

It would be helpful to know what graphic settings you're using in Firestorm, and what resolution you're running at. From the information you posted above, I'm guessing you have a newer iMac than mine. For comparison, I'm posting my system information from Firestorm below. I have 48GB of main memory in my machine versus your 8GB, and your CPU and GPU are newer of course. One thing I turned off was HiDPI support, as the quality difference isn't that huge for me and didn't justify the drop in FPS.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7600 CPU @ 3.50GHz (3500 MHz)
Memory: 49152 MB
Concurrency: 4
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.16.0 Darwin 22.5.0 Darwin Kernel Version 22.5.0: Mon Apr 24 20:51:50 PDT 2023; root:xnu-8796.121.2~5/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon Pro 575 OpenGL Engine
Graphics Card Memory: 4007 MB

This is a 2017 iMac 27-inch running at default screen resolution, and I have Advanced Lighting Mode and most advanced graphics features turned on except for shadows most of the time.

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

1. Does the screen flickering only occur when using SL?

2. Does the whole screen flicker, or only in certain smaller areas?

3. Describe the flickering. Are there any discoloured graphical glitches (called "artifacts") on the screen?

4. Are your graphics card drivers currently up to date?

5. Has the flickering only started occuring since a recent graphics card driver update? Try reinstalling the driver, or perhaps an earlier version of it.

6. Check monitor cables and connections.

7. What type of monitor screen do you use? How old is the monitor screen?

Edited June 8, 2023 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[kylieannwilliams]

11 hours ago, Spiffy Voxel said:

It would be helpful to know what graphic settings you're using in Firestorm, and what resolution you're running at. From the information you posted above, I'm guessing you have a newer iMac than mine. For comparison, I'm posting my system information from Firestorm below. I have 48GB of main memory in my machine versus your 8GB, and your CPU and GPU are newer of course. One thing I turned off was HiDPI support, as the quality difference isn't that huge for me and didn't justify the drop in FPS.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7600 CPU @ 3.50GHz (3500 MHz)
Memory: 49152 MB
Concurrency: 4
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.16.0 Darwin 22.5.0 Darwin Kernel Version 22.5.0: Mon Apr 24 20:51:50 PDT 2023; root:xnu-8796.121.2~5/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon Pro 575 OpenGL Engine
Graphics Card Memory: 4007 MB

This is a 2017 iMac 27-inch running at default screen resolution, and I have Advanced Lighting Mode and most advanced graphics features turned on except for shadows most of the time.

Hello! Where do I find that?

[kylieannwilliams]

10 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

1. Does the screen flickering only occur when using SL?

2. Does the whole screen flicker, or only in certain smaller areas?

3. Describe the flickering. Are there any discoloured graphical glitches (called "artifacts") on the screen?

4. Are your graphics card drivers currently up to date?

5. Has the flickering only started occuring since a recent graphics card driver update? Try reinstalling the driver, or perhaps an earlier version of it.

6. Check monitor cables and connections.

7. What type of monitor screen do you use? How old is the monitor screen?

1.) Only occurs when using SL

2.) Looks to be the whole screen that flashs/flickers

3.) It flashes/flickers like it cuts the screen out very quickly to black, then right back to my SL screen. Very fast.

4.) I believe so, yes. Where would I check this?

5.) Not that I am aware of. I noticed it since installing Firestorm on my mac. 

6.) Nothing is out of place from what I could tell. 

7.) iMac:

  Display Type: Built-In Retina LCD

  Resolution: Retina 5K (5120 x 2880)

  Framebuffer Depth: 30-Bit Color (ARGB2101010)

  Main Display: Yes

  Mirror: Off

  Online: Yes

  Automatically Adjust Brightness: Yes

  Connection Type: Internal

[Spiffy Voxel]

11 hours ago, kylieannwilliams said:

Hello! Where do I find that?

Avatar > Preferences, click on Graphics and you'll see your settings there.

Since Second Life can be very graphically intensive, those flashes and flickers could be signs that the graphics card is getting overloaded. Try taking the graphic settings in Firestorm down a bit by moving the slider on the Graphics tab in Preferences to the left. You might also want to give your iMac a clean to remove any dust build-up around the vents at the back and bottom. If the graphics card gets too hot for too long it can break down, requiring a trip to your nearest Apple Store or authorised repair shop. (This happened to me back in 2016 with my old 2011 iMac.)

[kylieannwilliams]

On 6/9/2023 at 5:02 AM, Spiffy Voxel said:

Avatar > Preferences, click on Graphics and you'll see your settings there.

Since Second Life can be very graphically intensive, those flashes and flickers could be signs that the graphics card is getting overloaded. Try taking the graphic settings in Firestorm down a bit by moving the slider on the Graphics tab in Preferences to the left. You might also want to give your iMac a clean to remove any dust build-up around the vents at the back and bottom. If the graphics card gets too hot for too long it can break down, requiring a trip to your nearest Apple Store or authorised repair shop. (This happened to me back in 2016 with my old 2011 iMac.)

Hmm I'm looking at Graphics in Preferences and am not seeing the settings like what you posted. 

[Rowan Amore]

https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/preferences_graphics_tab

[Lord Junibalya]

Just to say I am experiencing exactly the same phenomenon - and only in Firestorm. My Mac is a 2021 M1Max MacBook Pro with 32gb of memory. The flickering only began to happen recently and I have not upped my settings at all. Also, I am not experiencing it on my elderly Intel Mac mini desktop, which is about to be replaced by an M2 Mac Studio with M2 Ultra – 24‑core CPU, 76‑core GPU, 32‑core Neural Engine and 128gb of unified memory. If that flickers, it might not just be about settings but some kind of Apple Silicon compatibility issue?

[Spiffy Voxel]

59 minutes ago, Lord Junibalya said:

Just to say I am experiencing exactly the same phenomenon - and only in Firestorm. My Mac is a 2021 M1Max MacBook Pro with 32gb of memory. The flickering only began to happen recently and I have not upped my settings at all. Also, I am not experiencing it on my elderly Intel Mac mini desktop, which is about to be replaced by an M2 Mac Studio with M2 Ultra – 24‑core CPU, 76‑core GPU, 32‑core Neural Engine and 128gb of unified memory. If that flickers, it might not just be about settings but some kind of Apple Silicon compatibility issue?

I'm not sure what the current status of the official Second Life viewer is with regard to Apple Silicon, whether it's a Universal build or runs under Rosetta 2 emulation. I suspect it's the latter for Firestorm and the other Mac-support third-party viewers. It might be worth filing a bug report with the Firestorm developers, particularly if it's not happening in the official viewer.

[SLIM Barrowstone]

this happens when a friend of mine gets online https://gyazo.com/50a0aff34c4764bf55087a7c4c61a837

[Mikeexie]

I have the same issue with the Mac and Firestorm 6.6.17.  When running Firestorm in a window, from time to time, the window starts flickering like crazy, almost like a strobe, rendering it unusuable and I have to log off.  It is only the Firestorm window and not the whole screen. I am using a MacBook Pro, with M1 Max, 64GB memory, with OS Montery v12.2.  I have  tried dialling down the graphic settings between low to medium, (It defaults betwen medium and high), with draw distance set to 96 and Advanced Lighting is off, but makes no difference.  Changing the graphics settings don't seem to make much difference and it occurs/occured with prior Firestorm versions and the current Firestorm version.  It's not something that occurs all the time, but it's a fairly frequent intermittent problem.  The only suspicion I have is that it occurs when more of the memory is being used by other apps.  For example, I find that it is less frequent with fewer browser tabs open, or with apps such as Excel, PPT, Word open, GIMP, etc. open at the same time.  Closing browser tabs and other apps sometimes seems to reduce the severity of the problem, although even with other apps open, it never requires the full 64GB of ram.