PBR WOW!

[Theresa Tennyson]

6 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

 

Pee 1.0 was "working as intended, and would receive NO updates!  Despite the whole "broken speculars/invisible water/20% FPS drop" thing.

Then 3 months later came Project "Love me Render", a project to FIX  the broken things in PEE, that didn't get much if any promotion at all

 

EEP came out in 2020.

 

 

Love Me Render came out in 2018.

[AmeliaJ08]

6 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

This has been my experience. I've found myself blinking in disbelief whenever I've read, as I have here often, that making ALM mandatory isn't going to impact FPS very much.

Well, ok. Not as much as shadows. But the hit to my FPS has been substantial.

And It IS going to knock some people off the platform unless there are viable options or serious performance improvements. 

So long as older viewers are still allowed to connect to the server it shouldn't make any difference?

Obviously non-ALM users won't be able to use viewers based on the latest code base but that's to be expected. Things do move on and given the non-ALM renderer has been deprecated for years now it had to disappear some time.

LL are apparently confident that most users have the necessary hardware and when we are talking about suitable hardware that could be purchased for $100 brand new I can't really blame them for pushing forward and removing old features.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

EEP came out in 2020.

 

 

Love Me Render came out in 2018.

The PEE public beta feedback thread was started in October 2018. Server support for PEE enabled viewers was already in place, hence the square stars and ruined default windlight on 7500+ mainland regions.

It was well over a year before it went "RC", and it went "Live" with distressing speed, in early 2020.

Most of the bugs in the RC beta, remined unfixed in the Release version, and it was made clear, that it was considered finished by senior management.

"Kludge me Render" didn't go RC until quite some time AFTER PEE Day. Instead of admitting that PEE was  fubar, they rolled the emergency fixes for PEE into "Kludge me Render".

 

 A significant number of PEE bugs re STILL outstanding after 40 pages, 999 replies, and more than 4 years. If you re looking for a "shining example of how LL gets tech improvements right", PEE isn't it.

 

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

31 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

when we are talking about suitable hardware that could be purchased for $100 brand new

Where are you finding "suitable hardware to run a PBR viewer for under $100 brand new" as the only PC's I've seen for that sort of price are things like GeoBooks, which have 512mb VRAM intel graphics, and run ALM at bout 3 FPS.

 

[Luna Bliss]

If advanced lighting becomes forced then shadows would be automatically cast on everything. This is already a factor in the highest settings now, and skyboxes are too dark when using them.

Won't making this advanced lighting mandatory ruin all the skyboxes?

Come to think of it, even my store will be ruined, as it's in a skybox.

[Theresa Tennyson]

32 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

The PEE public beta feedback thread was started in October 2018. Server support for PEE enabled viewers was already in place, hence the square stars and ruined default windlight on 7500+ mainland regions.

It was well over a year before it went "RC", and it went "Live" with distressing speed, in early 2020.

Most of the bugs in the RC beta, remined unfixed in the Release version, and it was made clear, that it was considered finished by senior management.

"Kludge me Render" didn't go RC until quite some time AFTER PEE Day. Instead of admitting that PEE was  fubar, they rolled the emergency fixes for PEE into "Kludge me Render".

 

 A significant number of PEE bugs re STILL outstanding after 40 pages, 999 replies, and more than 4 years. If you re looking for a "shining example of how LL gets tech improvements right", PEE isn't it.

 

 

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Release/5.1.5.515811

That would be the "Love Me Render" viewer, released on May 31, 2018, several months before your "first thread" on EEP.

ETA: Actually there have been a number of "Love Me Render" viewers to fix a variety of rendering issues, both before and after EEP came out, and they weren't generally "EEP specific" in their nature.

https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/categories/viewer.html

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by Theresa Tennyson

[Frionil Fang]

10 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

If advanced lighting becomes forced then shadows would be automatically cast on everything. This is already a factor in the highest settings now, and skyboxes are too dark when using them.

Won't making this advanced lighting mandatory ruin all the skyboxes?

Advanced lighting never forced you to use shadows (and that was probably a big disconnect, people turning on advanced lighting and shadows, then getting their performance absolutely ****canned instead of mildly reduced) and nothing has changed on that regard.

Turning them off in the PBR gives you a spicy performance boost as always (lazy test in a very plain, noncomplicated scene: roughly +30-50% more FPS), and running with shadows on in scenes that are not designed for it is a subpar experience, so... make use of those quick graphics presets.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

9 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Release/5.1.5.515811

That would be the "Love Me Render" viewer, released on May 31, 2018, several months before your "first thread" on EEP.

 

From the PEE Feedback thread, page 33. Late August, 2020.

On 8/25/2020 at 2:19 PM, arton Rotaru said:

Unfortunately, this is very true!

There are a bunch of EEP fixes in the latest Love Me Render RC viewer. The issue with too weak spec reflections from the sun/moon has been worked on as well. Now the reflections are way too strong, though.

On technical matters, I'd trust Anton's word over yours any day.

Oh... this might interest you too.

https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.4.8.547427.html

Note the DATE on that.

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

From the PEE Feedback thread, page 33. Late August, 2020.

On technical matters, I'd trust Anton's word over yours any day.

Oh... this might interest you too.

https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.4.8.547427.html

Note the DATE on that.

Note the edit on my post before your reply.

[Luna Bliss]

Thank the Goddess for our amateur historians!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

These things are relative.

Somebody with an older, weaker pc, gets 40 fps in SL, then they turn on ALM, and it drops 25% to 30 FPS, then PEE comes out and their 30 FPS drops to 23 FPS, then PBR comes out and their 23 FPS drops to 17FPS. Then they complain and ...

 

Along comes somebody with some high end "leet gamerz" rig, that can deliver 400 FPS, ALM drops that to a "mere" 300 FPS, PEE drops that to 235 FPS, and PBR drops it to 170 FPS, but they have VSYNC enabled and their monitor has a refresh rate of 90 hertz, so,  the FPS is capped at 90, and they see NO DIFFERENCE. Then they complain that the previous complainers must be wrong, and that there is NO performance hit to ALM/PEE/PBR.

Yes, definitely this. I do know people whose performance is only marginally acceptable now: this will nudge some of them into near "unusable" territory, with limited options available to rectify that situation.

I'm going to recommend that they try the newest official viewer, which I found not terrible, in terms of performance. Failing that, there is the Cool VL viewer.

1 hour ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Obviously non-ALM users won't be able to use viewers based on the latest code base but that's to be expected. Things do move on and given the non-ALM renderer has been deprecated for years now it had to disappear some time.

Yes, absolutely. I am not advocating, Luddite-like, for a roll-back or cessation of advances in the way in which SL is rendered. I am pretty happy about how PBR looks -- speaking as a photographer, I'm at least a little excited about the ways in which it might improve my photos.

What I am suggesting is that the transition to "you must now use these features (i.e., ALM)") needs to be managed in a way that isn't going to suddenly and dramatically render SL all but unusable for a not-insignificant number of residents. So . . .

1. Don't implement it until it's really and truly ready to go, including a real attempt to address the performance issues it might cause. Hopefully Firestorm's delay is about that, in part. I need to experiment more with the PBR versions of the LL viewer and Black Dragon to get a very clear sense of how well they've done that. My sense from briefly using both is that they have addressed it. Will it be enough?
    
2. Provide, at least in the short to medium term, options, including (as you've said) access to older viewers. The grid is not going to suddenly become "All PBR ALL THE TIME" overnight: I'd say that there is likely to be a window of at least a year or two before not using a PBR-capable viewer begins to impact on one's experience in really noticeable ways.

Computers die eventually; even those using ancient ones are at some point going to need to buy new ones anyway. A gentler transition will likely accommodate most of those.

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Don't implement it until it's really and truly ready to go, including a real attempt to address the performance issues it might cause. Hopefully Firestorm's delay is about that, in part. I need to experiment more with the PBR versions of the LL viewer and Black Dragon to get a very clear sense of how well they've done that. My sense from briefly using both is that they have addressed it. Will it be enough?

The question is how far you have to go to do this. One of the leading voices for the sans-culottes here is literally using a computer with a broken video card, and they haven't installed the non-broken replacement they already have because... well, there you go.

[LipstickAndDreams]

11 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

The question is how far you have to go to do this. One of the leading voices for the sans-culottes here is literally using a computer with a broken video card, and they haven't installed the non-broken replacement they already have because... well, there you go.

They don't even have to. Hypothetically all they have to do is keep the old forward rendering system alongside PBR. If a single hobbyist viewer developer can do it, then the company behind SL itself can do it. They have no excuse.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

9 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

The question is how far you have to go to do this. One of the leading voices for the sans-culottes here is literally using a computer with a broken video card, and they haven't installed the non-broken replacement they already have because... well, there you go.

That's a good question for which I don't have a ready answer -- beyond, maybe, as far as is "reasonable."

Obviously, they can't delay the release of a new feature until they have it absolutely perfect. Nor does it make sense to accommodate older computers forever.

But, as I say, a more gentle transition that provides a year or so grace for those who need to catch up seems to me not unreasonable, at least. So, keep older versions of the viewers available for at least that long, or build into the new ones an easily found and easy-to-use method of turning off ALM.

I could couch this in quasi-moral terms -- note that many residents are on fixed incomes, etc., etc.

But it seems to me that it also just makes good business sense to do this. If SL loses, say, 2-3% of its currently active user base immediately that PBR (and ALM) becomes obligatory, that's not good for business. And the idea that they'll "drift back" a year from now when performance updates have made the new viewers usable again for them is highly questionable.

[JeromFranzic]

38 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yes, definitely this. I do know people whose performance is only marginally acceptable now: this will nudge some of them into near "unusable" territory, with limited options available to rectify that situation.

I'm going to recommend that they try the newest official viewer, which I found not terrible, in terms of performance. Failing that, there is the Cool VL viewer.

Yes, absolutely. I am not advocating, Luddite-like, for a roll-back or cessation of advances in the way in which SL is rendered. I am pretty happy about how PBR looks -- speaking as a photographer, I'm at least a little excited about the ways in which it might improve my photos.

What I am suggesting is that the transition to "you must now use these features (i.e., ALM)") needs to be managed in a way that isn't going to suddenly and dramatically render SL all but unusable for a not-insignificant number of residents. So . . .

1. Don't implement it until it's really and truly ready to go, including a real attempt to address the performance issues it might cause. Hopefully Firestorm's delay is about that, in part. I need to experiment more with the PBR versions of the LL viewer and Black Dragon to get a very clear sense of how well they've done that. My sense from briefly using both is that they have addressed it. Will it be enough?
    
2. Provide, at least in the short to medium term, options, including (as you've said) access to older viewers. The grid is not going to suddenly become "All PBR ALL THE TIME" overnight: I'd say that there is likely to be a window of at least a year or two before not using a PBR-capable viewer begins to impact on one's experience in really noticeable ways.

Computers die eventually; even those using ancient ones are at some point going to need to buy new ones anyway. A gentler transition will likely accommodate most of those.

BD has addressed it well, and luckily for me (and a few hundred other Tux fans in SL), still works in Linux via Wine, but I also have Windows 11 installed.

Cool VL is awesome, though anyone who chooses to use it has to enjoy the older v1 interface. It is a very advanced TPV under the hood, yet very usable for some of us running on hardware that's 5+ years old, even on integrated graphics.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

38 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'm going to recommend that they try the newest official viewer, which I found not terrible, in terms of performance. Failing that, there is the Cool VL viewer.

For me, neither of those is a viable alternative to anything.

The LL Fail-Viewer is too deprived of basic quality-of-Life options like derendering, and of course, has NO RLVa support of any kind. The other uses that abomination that is the Fail-Viewer version 1 UI, with the dreadful pie menus, Captain Olbies might love that drek, but to me, it's ugly and inefficient, and utterly alien, I don't like the idea of having to switch to a UI that's repellent, and which was officially deprecated as broken junk before I even came to SL

Both are out of the question on Quality of Life grounds, the cure is worse than the disease.

 

[LipstickAndDreams]

2 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

For me, neither of those is a viable alternative to anything.

The LL Fail-Viewer is too deprived of basic quality-of-Life options like derendering, and of course, has NO RLVa support of any kind. The other uses that abomination that is the Fail-Viewer version 1 UI, with the dreadful pie menus, Captain Olbies might love that drek, but to me, it's ugly and inefficient, and utterly alien, I don't like the idea of having to switch to a UI that's repellent, and which was officially deprecated as broken junk before I even came to SL

Both are out of the question on Quality of Life grounds, the cure is worse than the disease.

 

What do you use? I am seriously considering maintaining forks of existing TPV versions without PBR because of all this nonsense, and would like to know which ones people would actually use.

Edited December 14, 2023 by LipstickAndDreams

[Istelathis]

10 minutes ago, LipstickAndDreams said:

They don't even have to. Hypothetically all they have to do is keep the old forward rendering system alongside PBR. If a single hobbyist viewer developer can do it, then the company behind SL itself can do it. They have no excuse.

I agree, but it seems that LL has determined that a significantly large portion of SL users are able to handle PBR and thus have decided not to.  My experience with the LL viewer, has been comparable in terms of FPS before PBR, using this older laptop with a cheap integrated 1050 card when I have adjusted the settings.  Using Cool VL does produce a significant increase in FPS though, and has for a while, even before PBR.  At least that has been my experience, I can't say everyone has had the same results on their computers.

The viewer has overall, been a pleasure to use and compared to pre PBR much nice looking even when I have scaled it down.  Thankfully, for people with really old computers, with even worse graphic cards than mine, they have Cool VL to hold them over for a while.  I know I like to use it at times while driving around mainland, where I have always had a significant drop in FPS in certain locations.  

[Theresa Tennyson]

18 minutes ago, LipstickAndDreams said:

They don't even have to. Hypothetically all they have to do is keep the old forward rendering system alongside PBR. If a single hobbyist viewer developer can do it, then the company behind SL itself can do it. They have no excuse.

If a single hobbyist viewer developer can do it, and wants to do it, why should the company behind SL pay somebody to do the same thing if they could be doing something else?

Now yes, you should allow the hobbyist's viewer to connect to the environment but that hasn't really been a problem.

There are people who love to say, "Second Life isn't a game, it's a 'virtual world'." But when you say that, what do you mean? In my mind, it's the "place" formed by the pre-existing and newly-added items, and the possible other items. There's a reason that viewers are called viewers. They're just a way of looking at the "world." And there's a lot of ways you can look at that world - that's one of the reasons that Second Life has stayed around so long.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

3 minutes ago, LipstickAndDreams said:

What do you use? I am seriously considering maintaining forks of existing TPV versions without PBR because of all this nonsense, and would like to know which ones people would actually use.

Catznip R13.2

[LipstickAndDreams]

2 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

I agree, but it seems that LL has determined that a significantly large portion of SL users are able to handle PBR and thus have decided not to.  My experience with the LL viewer, has been comparable in terms of FPS before PBR, using this older laptop with a cheap integrated 1050 card when I have adjusted the settings.  Using Cool VL does produce a significant increase in FPS though, and has for a while, even before PBR.  At least that has been my experience, I can't say everyone has had the same results on their computers.

The viewer has overall, been a pleasure to use and compared to pre PBR much nice looking even when I have scaled it down.  Thankfully, for people with really old computers, with even worse graphic cards than mine, they have Cool VL to hold them over for a while.  I know I like to use it at times while driving around mainland, where I have always had a significant drop in FPS in certain locations.  

I know. See my previous comment about integrated graphics, which the vast majority of computers come with.

[LipstickAndDreams]

Just now, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Catznip R13.2

Noted. I will take a look and see what can be done.

[JeromFranzic]

If you don't mind the older v1 interface, the current release of Cool VL is great. PBR and ALM can be switched off in that viewer. Catznip is terrific, but it's behind on many of the other current LL fixes aside from PBR. It should work, I run the 14.0.2 beta.

I'd also recommend Kokua. Its interface is closer to the LL viewer, but has some expanded options similar to Firestorm.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 minute ago, JeromFranzic said:

I run the 14.0.2 beta.

Tried that, hated what Coffee did to the places floater, in slavish imitation of yet another anti-improvement from LL's "stupid Ideas from back office staff who don't use SL" department.

Some filing clerk from Billing who logs in twice a year, once for the SLB employee group photo, and once for the xmas employees vs despised cashcows snowball fight, who has maybe 4 LM's in  4k inventory, said they didn't use the places floater to find those 4 LM's, so the Stupid Ideas dept. decided we didn't need to keep that functionality.

I actually love the fact that R13.2 doesn't have the "auto graphics fubar performance junk code, or the ruined places floater junk code.

I don't even mind that Coffee seems to have abandoned the viewer and run off to play Gor-nan the Boybarian.. At least it stops her adding more "leet pvp gamerz" UI expectation apeasment features, like the one that assumes if you left click on an attachment close to your body, that rather than the attachment doing what it's supposed to do, instead your avatar turns its back on the camera.

[Theresa Tennyson]

2 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

If advanced lighting becomes forced then shadows would be automatically cast on everything. This is already a factor in the highest settings now, and skyboxes are too dark when using them.

Won't making this advanced lighting mandatory ruin all the skyboxes?

Come to think of it, even my store will be ruined, as it's in a skybox.

Advanced lighting doesn't require using shadows.