Do you use Advanced Lighting in SL? a little poll!

[Jules Catlyn]

Hello all!

I am doing a little poll to see who uses the Advanced Lighting Model in SL. The poll only has one question and if it gives a clear picture, i will gladly share the results with the group and other creators.

Link to the poll
https://bit.ly/45fgGsJ

Thanks in advance!

[Fionalein]

Clearly missing the "sometimes" answer. The results will not be very representative that way.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

10 minutes ago, Jules Catlyn said:

Hello all!

I am doing a little poll to see who uses the Advanced Lighting Model in SL. The poll only has one question and if it gives a clear picture, i will gladly share the results with the group and other creators.

Link to the poll
https://bit.ly/45fgGsJ

Thanks in advance!

It's a good question, given that it seems as though ALM is going to cease to be optional once PBR comes in.

But I agree with Fiona: it's complicated. I use it when I can without impacting on poorly  on FPS (which, if you have shadows turned off, it doesn't hit too badly, in fairness). But I'll often have turned it off, and forget to put it back on.

It really does, however, make an enormous difference in how things look.

[Jules Catlyn]

10 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

Clearly missing the "sometimes" answer. The results will not be very representative that way.

Sometimes would essentially be a no in my book. But thats my personal opinion.

[Hathoria]

It has a tendency to cause my computer to crash, or rather the viewer to crash not the whole computer, I don't care though I want that picture and so I just take pictures with it till the whole thing shuts down. My alt on the other hand typically doesn't because he usually is having some conversation with someone and doesn't want that to get interrupted by the viewer shutting down,

[Rolig Loon]

Mine's always on.  I see no significant change in FPS with or without it.

[Rowan Amore]

With my old laptop, only when I was taking pictures.  With the new one, it's on all the time and there's no discernible difference in performance.  I still turn shadows on only for pictures.

[steeljane42]

Always since the very first few days in SL. Performance impact without shadows enabled is minimal for any modern hardware, and not so modern either. It was fine for ancient (by now) stuff like overlocked i5 2500k (this microarchitecture will be 13 years old in January) and GTX 770 (also over a decade old by now), and that wasn't the "top gaming PC hardware" back then either.

SL doesn't look all that great compared to actual games, but materials (that can only be seen with ALM enabled) always made it quite a lot better. Upcoming PBR will be another step, and while, of course, it still won't look like some games, it's a step into the right direction. Having non optional ALM on is a nice thing as well in my opinion. It doesn't happen all that often these days, but every now and then I still get a message saying how some part of my clothing looks "pitch black". You can tell right away they don't have ALM enabled that way.

And it'll be quite a revelation for those who have ALM turned off, but still insist on pushing "those sliders that do nothing at all" on their mesh bodies and heads. Ever seen those people who look like they were bathing in oil last week, or sometimes not even oil, but liquid metal? Yeah, those.

To add: I think more people would have them on even 10 years ago if default graphics preset of "ultra" didnt' enable shadows along with it. Given how badly optimized and (mostly) single-threaded viewer is those shadows really do hurt performance even on decent machines. So perhaps people did try it once, saw their viewer got slower, and pushed the preset slider back not realizing they can enable ALM on, but keep shadows off.

Edited August 18, 2023 by steeljane42

[Gabriele Graves]

Always on for me.  Turning it off doesn't give me any benefits in performance.

Firestorm 6.6.14 (69596) Aug  1 2023 12:15:03 (64bit / SSE2) (Firestorm-Releasex64)
Release Notes

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz (4000 MHz)
Memory: 32033 MB (Used: 494 MB)
Concurrency: 8
OS Version: Linux 5.15.0-78-generic #85-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 7 15:25:09 UTC 2023 x86_64
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 12288 MB

  

  

Edited August 19, 2023 by Gabriele Graves

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Rolig Loon said:

Mine's always on.  I see no significant change in FPS with or without it.

I do, but only when my graphics card is already under stress because of the number of avatars nearby.

I think that many people don't realize that you can have ALM without also enabling shadows and ambient occlusion. I may be wrong, but I suspect that the graphics pre-sets in most viewers link them, so when you go to "High" or "Ultra," they're all enabled at the same time.

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, steeljane42 said:

And it'll be quite a revelation for those who have ALM turned off, but still insist on pushing "those sliders that do nothing at all" on their mesh bodies and heads. Ever seen those people who look like they were bathing in oil last week, or sometimes not even oil, but liquid metal? Yeah, those.

Oh is that what's going on. I thought it was some new trend -- sweaty head, or something.

[Rolig Loon]

16 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I think that many people don't realize that you can have ALM without also enabling shadows and ambient occlusion.

True, but I've had shadows on for years now. I'm so used to it that SL would look really dumb and flat if I ever turned it off. And really, my FPS rarely drops below about 60 and it's usually much higher.

[Ceka Cianci]

Always for me.. I have things on ultra all the time..

[Solar Legion]

DoF gets toggled on and off as i deem fit. DD gets pumped up higher depending on situation.

This is on a GTX 980 TI, 32 GB RAM, Ryzen 7 2700X. OS: Linux (Manjaro, Kernel 6.4 series, Liquorix variant).

Runs well enough for my liking in most situations.

Edited August 19, 2023 by Solar Legion
Wrong model GPU

[Obic Malaprop]

Almost always on for me.

[Perrie Juran]

As others have mentioned, "Sometimes" needed included in that poll which is the case for me also.

[Jaylinbridges]

1 hour ago, Rolig Loon said:

true, but I've had shadows on for years now. I'm so used to it that SL would look really dumb and flat if I ever turned it off. And really, my FPS rarely drops below about 60 and it's usually much higher.

And what are your system specs?  Do you operate this way in clubs with 50 avatars?  This whole survey is flawed by only asking forum members.  We are mostly graphics nerds with modern systems and photographers who obsess about making pretty pictures.   Hardly the typical SL resident here - not even close.

It's like the old survey of how many have telephones installed in their homes, by doing a telephone survey.

 

Edited August 19, 2023 by Jaylinbridges

[Rolig Loon]

7 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

And what are your system specs?

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8600K CPU @ 3.60GHz (3600 MHz)
Memory: 16333 MB
Concurrency: 6
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19045.3324)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 8192 MB

10 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

We are mostly graphics nerds with modern systems and photographers who obsess about making pretty pictures.

Not me.

Edited August 19, 2023 by Rolig Loon

[JeromFranzic]

1 hour ago, Solar Legion said:

DoF gets toggled on and off as i deem fit. DD gets pumped up higher depending on situation.

This is on a GTX 970 TI, 32 GB RAM, Ryzen 7 2700X. OS: Linux (Manjaro, Kernel 6.4 series, Liquorix variant).

Runs well enough for my liking in most situations.

Interesting... I'll have to try these settings, thanks. On a laptop with a 8th Gen Intel i7, GTX 1050*, 32 GB RAM. I run SL in Linux** and Windows 11... mostly Linux. I typically run on 128 DD. I have shadows and ALM on most of the time, unless I'm at a club moshing with pixels, or playing a fast action in world game. 

* AFAIK 4 GB of VRAM for the GTX 1050 is only on laptop versions, interesting. 
** Running SL in Ubuntu Studio, and recently in Debian Stable (bookworm). Runs best for me in Ubuntu due to the software libraries available compared to Debian, and easier access to latest proprietary Nvidia driver from Ubuntu repos. Saves me time from having to build the driver directly from Nvidia.

Edited August 19, 2023 by JeromFranzic
added blurbs about my ALM/shadow usage

[Jules Catlyn]

21 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

This whole survey is flawed by only asking forum members.

This survey has been placed in a few places. Some inworld groups, Facebook etc. You will be surprised to know that after posting this on here, the percentage of people not having Advanced Lighting enabled, increased.

 

[Jaylinbridges]

5 minutes ago, Jules Catlyn said:

This survey has been placed in a few places. Some inworld groups, Facebook etc. You will be surprised to know that after posting this on here, the percentage of people not having Advanced Lighting enabled, increased.

That's because I voted No 14 times

 

[Jaylinbridges]

24 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8600K CPU @ 3.60GHz (3600 MHz)
Memory: 16333 MB
Concurrency: 6
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19045.3324)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 8192 MB

That's a nice mid level gaming system and should be fine even for PBR.   The NVIDIA GTX 1070 is hard to find new, but plenty of cheap used ones.   But for the large number of residents running a 5 yr old laptop with integrated graphics and an 8GB system and on a 2.2 Ghz CPU,  they will be turning ALM off if they are in places with many avatars.  I can tell who has the weaker systems by how many times they crash in an hour at our club.  They will need to buy a new computer, or find a solitary hobby in their skybox, once ALM is forced and PBR is the standard.

 

[Persephone Emerald]

Sometimes and Partially.

[Solar Legion]

1 hour ago, JeromFranzic said:

Interesting... I'll have to try these settings, thanks. On a laptop with a 8th Gen Intel i7, GTX 1050*, 32 GB RAM. I run SL in Linux** and Windows 11... mostly Linux. I typically run on 128 DD. I have shadows and ALM on most of the time, unless I'm at a club moshing with pixels, or playing a fast action in world game. 

* AFAIK 4 GB of VRAM for the GTX 1050 is only on laptop versions, interesting. 
** Running SL in Ubuntu Studio, and recently in Debian Stable (bookworm). Runs best for me in Ubuntu due to the software libraries available compared to Debian, and easier access to latest proprietary Nvidia driver from Ubuntu repos. Saves me time from having to build the driver directly from Nvidia.

Had to correct my initial post ... The GTX 980 TI I've got is about 6GB of VRAM. Mind, I'm running SL (Firestorm) while having Discord, Telegram, Brave Browser, Easy Effects, JamesDSP and Audacious also open (on different workspaces mind). Brave often has several tabs open ... Point is though that I rarely have too many issues. Then again I also don't wander much nor play any in SL 'games' much either.

Slowest it gets is when at one of my favorite clubs and people pop in/out. Thus far anyway.

Mind this same rig also handles running SteamVR itself as well as SteamVR/VRChat, broadcasting over my in home network to a Quest 2 using ALVR. Yes, I've had lockups - bad enough to require a force shut down via main button (five second hold or so).

But uh ... yeah.

[Qie Niangao]

Well, the PBR viewer is so dramatically different that having ALM always on is far from the most significant change. There are also efficiency improvements, still getting development attention. (Linden water, for example, is going to render much faster, with some simplification of appearance—but the project viewer still has actual bugs in how stuff gets drawn in the water.) I really like the results so far, but it's starkly different, so I expect much fussing ahead—partially because I remember when Windlight was introduced and many predicted it surely would be the end of SL, and how when EEP was introduced it would surely be the end of SL for daring to make any perceptible change from Windlight.

Anyway, yeah, I always have ALM on and almost always shadows. But I run with a short, 96m draw distance usually, and a low cap on avatar complexity (never over 100K) and very few non-imposters (usually 4). I'd turn off rendering avatars altogether before I'd disable ALM.