PBR WOW!

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'm not a scripter . . . but if I understand what @Qie Niangao says above correctly (and maybe I don't!), the inversion of the Y axis is also going to have ramifications for script handlers for texture maps.

I read one of the threads linked earlier about script changes (where Jenna Huntsman gave guidance). It was yucky (and I'm a scripter), but the person they were helping was doing scaling etc. too.

[Evil Littlepaws]

Why did I read this subject as Pabst Blue Ribbon?

[Omegaslayer]

On 12/9/2023 at 9:38 PM, Quartz Mole said:

We Moles have been testing the various PBR viewers for some months now (well, we had to, to build Winter Wonderland, of course, but that wasn't the only reason).   

We use a variety of machines of all  shapes and sizes -- I'm still running a GeForce GTX 660 GPU ! -- and I don't think any of us have experienced particular performance issues with the more recent builds.   At least Windows users haven't.   I know the Mac users were having difficulties not so long ago, but I think those have now been ameliorated, if not completely fixed.

i'm a mac user and no they haven't been fixed, unfortunately when firestorm is forced onto pbr entirely i won't be able to log on, i have a very good second hand macbook pro, i can't afford a high end pc because rl funds just won't allow for that, pbr is unusable on macs and i prefer a mac because of digital drawing. 

[SandorWren]

Caitlin isn't updating her FS until she has too. It might end up being a nasty experience, and I can't help her with MAC issues.

Why is a MAC better for digital drawing? I have Windows PC's, and a Huion drawing tablet. It all works fine.

Edited June 22 by Bagnu

[Omegaslayer]

5 minutes ago, Bagnu said:

Caitlin isn't updating her FS until she has too. It might end up being a nasty experience, and i can't help her with MAC issues.

Why is a MAC better for digital drawing? I have Windows PC's, and a Huion drawing tablet. It all works fine.

unfortunately i can't afford a high end pc irl, we aren't all able to get out hands on that type of money, i can't even afford a middle tier pc right now, as much as i would adore a pc for gaming. And macs tend to be a graphic designers choice of computer, it has various reasons it's good, just as pc is excellent for gaming. But it is tiring when people expect you to be able to afford windows pc's and to some of us it is simply impossible. Also my mac was second hand before you say there expensive, i got a good deal.

Edited June 22 by Omegaslayer

[Modulated]

49 minutes ago, Bagnu said:

Caitlin isn't updating her FS until she has too. It might end up being a nasty experience, and I can't help her with MAC issues.

Why is a MAC better for digital drawing? I have Windows PC's, and a Huion drawing tablet. It all works fine.

It's probably the screens, they are very high dpi/ppi, quality displays usually.

Edited June 22 by Modulated

[Quartz Mole]

1 hour ago, Omegaslayer said:

i'm a mac user and no they haven't been fixed, unfortunately when firestorm is forced onto pbr entirely i won't be able to log on, i have a very good second hand macbook pro, i can't afford a high end pc because rl funds just won't allow for that, pbr is unusable on macs and i prefer a mac because of digital drawing. 

I don't use a Mac, but I know the Moles who do were very pleased a couple of weeks ago with the  Second Life Test 7.1.8.9393328004 viewer, which incorporates a Mac OpenGL buffer fix, and my impression from what the engineers were saying about it was that they'd finally understood to root cause of a lot of Mac performance issues and fixed them.   I don't know if that buffer fix has yet been adopted in the main release viewer yet.

From what I vaguely remember of what's been discussed at our internal meetings with Engineering, the Mac issues seemed to be resolved some months ago,and then they all came back because a bug fix for something different broke the workaround, but now the underlying problem is said to be resolved.   

I've not heard the Mac-using Moles complaining about performance issues since then,  and they're generally pretty vocal on the topic.

Edited June 22 by Quartz Mole

[Madelaine McMasters]

7 minutes ago, Quartz Mole said:

I've not heard the Mac-using Moles complaining about performance issues since then,  and they're generally pretty vocal on the topic.

...makes her special guacamole to place in the fridges of all the Mac using moles while they're sleeping.

I love chipotle. Coughing and wheezing count as "vocal", right?

[Omegaslayer]

29 minutes ago, Quartz Mole said:

I don't use a Mac, but I know the Moles who do were very pleased a couple of weeks ago with the  Second Life Test 7.1.8.9393328004 viewer, which incorporates a Mac OpenGL buffer fix, and my impression from what the engineers were saying about it was that they'd finally understood to root cause of a lot of Mac performance issues and fixed them.   I don't know if that buffer fix has yet been adopted in the main release viewer yet.

From what I vaguely remember of what's been discussed at our internal meetings with Engineering, the Mac issues seemed to be resolved some months ago,and then they all came back because a bug fix for something different broke the workaround, but now the underlying problem is said to be resolved.   

I've not heard the Mac-using Moles complaining about performance issues since then,  and they're generally pretty vocal on the topic.

i will give the official viewer another go and try and get onto the test viewer, but for the moment i have been running into bugs <3, it's nice to see the moles understand, i get tired of windows users bashing macs so thankyou

 

Edited June 22 by Omegaslayer

[Omegaslayer]

1 hour ago, Modulated said:

It's probably the screens, they are very high dpi/ppi, quality displays usually.

i do love mac screens, the one on my macbook is lovely for digital drawing

[Ayashe Ninetails]

2 hours ago, Bagnu said:

Why is a MAC better for digital drawing? I have Windows PC's, and a Huion drawing tablet. It all works fine.

This was always THE hotly debated topic in design school (and beyond). I personally never saw a difference while classmates and instructors argued about it forever. I've used both a Mac and a PC side by side both in college and at my old design job (some commercial printers had a preference, so I did file prep in both) and I never ever once spotted a difference.

I'd say there's much more of a difference in the music/audio production/sound design fields as you get professional DAW software packages (Logic Pro) that don't even have PC versions (though, you still get the Mac vs. PC arguments in the audio industry). And if you're a gamer, you want a PC (or console) as so many games just never get released to MacOS.

I have no idea how SL performs on Mac vs. PC, though. I imagine Macs run it well as they do tend to be fairly powerful in general. I've been a PC gal since Day 1, though, because I game too much and I'm way too used to working with/buying PC hardware to switch for no good reason (Logic Pro is cool, but there are lots of other software options).

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I'd say there's much more of a difference in the music/audio production/sound design fields as you get professional DAW software packages (Logic Pro) that don't even have PC versions (though, you still get the Mac vs. PC arguments in the audio industry).

Example: On a Windows PC, you only have ONE "audio interface driver" for connecting hardware to your DAW software.  On a Mac, you can have more than one.  This means you have to use a Mac if you need more than 1 audio hardware interface that connect via USB (to connect microphones, instruments, etc.).  (You can have as many MIDI devices as you want.)  This is merely because of how the drivers were written for Windows, and aren't really a hardware limitation.

[Omegaslayer]

1 hour ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

This was always THE hotly debated topic in design school (and beyond). I personally never saw a difference while classmates and instructors argued about it forever. I've used both a Mac and a PC side by side both in college and at my old design job (some commercial printers had a preference, so I did file prep in both) and I never ever once spotted a difference.

I'd say there's much more of a difference in the music/audio production/sound design fields as you get professional DAW software packages (Logic Pro) that don't even have PC versions (though, you still get the Mac vs. PC arguments in the audio industry). And if you're a gamer, you want a PC (or console) as so many games just never get released to MacOS.

I have no idea how SL performs on Mac vs. PC, though. I imagine Macs run it well as they do tend to be fairly powerful in general. I've been a PC gal since Day 1, though, because I game too much and I'm way too used to working with/buying PC hardware to switch for no good reason (Logic Pro is cool, but there are lots of other software options).

i ignore it these days the bashing, both have there pros and cons, we all have personal preference and opinions and no ones are wrong or right ❤️

[AmeliaJ08]

1 hour ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

This was always THE hotly debated topic in design school (and beyond). I personally never saw a difference while classmates and instructors argued about it forever. I've used both a Mac and a PC side by side both in college and at my old design job (some commercial printers had a preference, so I did file prep in both) and I never ever once spotted a difference.

I'd say there's much more of a difference in the music/audio production/sound design fields as you get professional DAW software packages (Logic Pro) that don't even have PC versions (though, you still get the Mac vs. PC arguments in the audio industry). And if you're a gamer, you want a PC (or console) as so many games just never get released to MacOS.

I have no idea how SL performs on Mac vs. PC, though. I imagine Macs run it well as they do tend to be fairly powerful in general. I've been a PC gal since Day 1, though, because I game too much and I'm way too used to working with/buying PC hardware to switch for no good reason (Logic Pro is cool, but there are lots of other software options).

Apple do tend to (always have) include nice screens with pretty much all their computers. That's about it, you can of course have a nice screen with a PC (or PC laptop) but I guess people don't really like to do their research. You can be reasonably/entirely sure an Apple computer will come with a nice display regardless of price point.

Macs do not run SL well though, it's all emulated these days (since Apple now use ARM CPUs and SL is not written for ARM, MacOS also does not technically support the graphics API that SL uses any more and what is left is an old version) but even back when it wasn't they weren't particularly powerful in terms of included GPUs etc. Just not the platform for SL right now, maybe if there is ever a native ARM (Apple Silicon) viewer for MacOS that might be a different story.

Edited June 22 by AmeliaJ08

[Ayashe Ninetails]

5 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Apple do tend to (always have) include nice screens with pretty much all their computers. That's about it, you can of course have a nice screen with a PC (or PC laptop) but I guess people don't really like to do their research. You can be reasonably/entirely sure an Apple computer will come with a nice display regardless of price point.

Yeah, I'd muuuuch rather grab a good screen for a PC than switch over to a Mac. I'd be giving up way too much to do that.

 

7 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Macs do not run SL well though, it's all emulated these days (since Apple now use ARM CPUs and SL is not written for ARM, Apple also do not technically support the graphics API that SL uses any more but can emulate it to some degree with a performance penalty) but even back when it wasn't they weren't particularly powerful in terms of included GPUs etc. Just not the platform for SL right now, maybe if there is ever a native ARM (Apple Silicon) viewer for MacOS that might be a different story.

Well that's unfortunate! It makes sense, though. I honestly never met anyone in SL who was on a Mac that I know of, so I had no idea. I mostly know the custom PC builder/gamer types.

[AmeliaJ08]

30 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Yeah, I'd muuuuch rather grab a good screen for a PC than switch over to a Mac. I'd be giving up way too much to do that.

 

Well that's unfortunate! It makes sense, though. I honestly never met anyone in SL who was on a Mac that I know of, so I had no idea. I mostly know the custom PC builder/gamer types.

I think there's quite a lot, I don't mean to say it doesn't work but for such a powerful platform like Apple now have SL isn't a good showcase of it since it's really not 'supposed' to be running on it, it has to be translated and who knows if MacOS will even continue to include the things it needs to work.

Someone demonstrated it running on a very new M3 Max Macbook Pro with a ton of RAM etc, a really expensive machine. It definitely works but for a laptop that can absolutely smoke just about any professional task asked of it when running native apps it would get killed by even a budget PC gaming laptop in SL:

 

 

[Ayashe Ninetails]

16 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

I think there's quite a lot, I don't mean to say it doesn't work but for such a powerful platform like Apple now have SL isn't a good showcase of it since it's really not 'supposed' to be running on it, it has to be translated and who knows if MacOS will even continue to include the things it needs to work.

Someone demonstrated it running on a very new M3 Max Macbook Pro with a ton of RAM etc, a really expensive machine. It definitely works but for a laptop that can absolutely smoke just about any professional task asked of it when running native apps it would get killed by even a budget PC gaming laptop in SL:

 

 

Yikes, that's bad! I got similar performance on my old HP desktop with a GeForce 6600 GT. Granted, I knew better than to run around on Ultra with shadows on with that thing, but I kept it fairly decent, shadows off, ALM on, and a much higher draw distance. 

I wonder how that laptop performs now with PBR. Definitely would need to turn down some of those settings.

[Omegaslayer]

12 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

I think there's quite a lot, I don't mean to say it doesn't work but for such a powerful platform like Apple now have SL isn't a good showcase of it since it's really not 'supposed' to be running on it, it has to be translated and who knows if MacOS will even continue to include the things it needs to work.

Someone demonstrated it running on a very new M3 Max Macbook Pro with a ton of RAM etc, a really expensive machine. It definitely works but for a laptop that can absolutely smoke just about any professional task asked of it when running native apps it would get killed by even a budget PC gaming laptop in SL:

 

 

linden labs is actually very good at porting second life to mac, firestorm not so much but linden labs actually cares and makes it work well for a mac. As sad above they put a fix in place and from what i can see its worked and worked well, problem is a lot of people look down on it because firestorm has so many pretty additions, but at the end of the day the default viewer has stability on it's side. Firestorm is notoriously unstable, i play on a busy rp sim and i hear even pc users struggle and crash. I will note that since using this macbook pro i have only had sl crash once, and i've had this computer a few years now. As i have said there are always pros and cons, as for the software side i have always found mac will run it stable, it may not be the best performance but the software will stay open even with rubbish fps. 

[Aethelwine]

I don't like alpha glitching I am getting this is an example:

I get same thing in Linden Viewer as Firestorm the only way to get rid of it is to turn transparency for water off.

Cool Viewer doesn't have that problem, but then Cool Viewer doesn't show animated Alphas at all under PBR mode. My Hot tub has no water in it, unless I turn ALM on.

Is this just my graphics card or what?

Edited June 23 by Aethelwine

[Modulated]

16 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

I don't like alpha glitching I am getting this is an example:

I get same thing in Linden Viewer as Firestorm the only way to get rid of it is to turn transparency for water off.

Cool Viewer doesn't have that problem, but then Cool Viewer doesn't show animated Alphas at all under PBR mode. My Hot tub has no water in it, unless I turn ALM on.

Is this just my graphics card or what?

Have you tried leaving transparent water on but screen space reflections off?

[Aethelwine]

1 hour ago, Modulated said:

Have you tried leaving transparent water on but screen space reflections off?

Yes still glitching on both Linden viewer and Firestorm.

Infact I can put to lowest settings and it glitches with transparent water on. The only way to stop it happening is to make the water non-transparent.

I have an RTX 4060 with up to date drivers.

Helpful person in Firestorm support group said it was a Linden Lab error, which I had already worked out from testing with other viewers. What I don't know though is if it is documented, and if it is my graphics card or what that is causing it.

Edited June 23 by Aethelwine

[Henri Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

Cool Viewer doesn't have that problem, but then Cool Viewer doesn't show animated Alphas at all under PBR mode.

I did not notice any such issue... Please, fill in a bug report (with proper repro steps) on the support forum.

[SandorWren]

3 hours ago, Omegaslayer said:

linden labs is actually very good at porting second life to mac, firestorm not so much but linden labs actually cares and makes it work well for a mac. As sad above they put a fix in place and from what i can see its worked and worked well, problem is a lot of people look down on it because firestorm has so many pretty additions, but at the end of the day the default viewer has stability on it's side. Firestorm is notoriously unstable, i play on a busy rp sim and i hear even pc users struggle and crash. I will note that since using this macbook pro i have only had sl crash once, and i've had this computer a few years now. As i have said there are always pros and cons, as for the software side i have always found mac will run it stable, it may not be the best performance but the software will stay open even with rubbish fps. 

The downside of the official viewer is that it doesn't support RLVa. To some of us, that makes it totally useless, no matter how stable it is. And honestly, I rarely crash with FS if I am using an official release, and not a beta. I have been down to 2 FPS with no crash even on my older PC's. I have zero experience with MAC though.

Edited June 23 by Bagnu

[Modulated]

15 minutes ago, Bagnu said:

The downside of the official viewer is that it doesn't support RLVa. To some of us, that makes it totally useless, no matter how stable it is. And honestly, I rarely crash with FS if I am using an official release, and not a beta. I have been down to 2 FPS with no crash even on my older PC's. I have zero experience with MAC though.

That may change in the future...at the dev meetings a Linden discussed something called the Avatar Control System, which would be their version of rlv. Just talk but it's on the radar.

[Aethelwine]

1 hour ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

I did not notice any such issue... Please, fill in a bug report (with proper repro steps) on the support forum.

I made an account and was about to post on your forum when I noticed my inventory wasn't fully loaded. So I cleared my inventory cache and I have now managed to get the water in my hot tub to show on Cool Viewer. I have checked where the alphas were flashing and your viewer behaves there too unlike the Linden Lab and Firestorm viewer.

I seem to have an asset loading probelm at the moment with your viewer (it stops 10,000 items short) which is probably just asset servers I will try again with it for tomorrow. But it looks like your viewer is behaving properly and better than the others.