Firestorm PBR Release Is Out

[Scylla Rhiadra]

20 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

Water mostly looks flat -maybe need to understand EEP settings to fix that.

This is a known issue with the new PBR viewers (all of them), and one that LL has promised to fix.

"Soon."

It's the reason I won't be installing the PBR version of Black Dragon, which is what I use for photos.

[starladustangel]

I have a I5-13400, RTX 4060 and 32 GB of ram. My FPS has been mostly ok since the update running at 75-100 on average other than when I visit the more crowded parts of SL21B and occasionally drops down to 45 but it's averaging 60 there. I can  no longer use search or destinations. Whitelisting in my AV and restarting did nothing. Neither did temporarily disabling my antivirus software completely. 

[KellyMorris]

No one mentioned alternative viewers like Alchemy which work definitively better and less hotter with many features from Black Dragon (also PBR), so if is possible for Alchemy why will not be possible for Firestorm? Maybe cause the beta testers was users looking only at the FPS? (even there Alchemy is better). 

[starladustangel]

15 minutes ago, starladustangel said:

I have a I5-13400, RTX 4060 and 32 GB of ram. My FPS has been mostly ok since the update running at 75-100 on average other than when I visit the more crowded parts of SL21B and occasionally drops down to 45 but it's averaging 60 there. I can  no longer use search or destinations. Whitelisting in my AV and restarting did nothing. Neither did temporarily disabling my antivirus software completely. 

fixed my own issue with a complete uninstall and reinstall of firestorm.

[CaitlinParker]

I think the best thing to do is have LL fix this mess.

[Evangeline Arcadia]

I think at the very least there should be some video tutorials by LL on the Second Life YouTube channel that walk users through the graphics settings and provide tips on optimising performance. With such a significant update I'd expect to see something there, but there's nothing...

Edited June 22 by Evangeline Arcadia

[Jaylinbridges]

36 minutes ago, Evangeline Arcadia said:

I think at the very least there should be some video tutorials on the Second Life YouTube channel that walk users through the graphics settings and provide tips on optimising performance. With such a significant update I'd expect to see something there, but there's nothing...

The SL YouTube channel is not going to help Firestorm users.  LL refuses to provide any assistance for FS users.  

Firestorm has their own YouTube channel, and does have a recent tutorial for making mirrors now. I am sure FS would welcome volunteers to spend the 40 hours needed to make a useful tutorial for those that refuse to read text. Unpaid unrecognized volunteers of course that understood the inside of the FS PBR viewer to date, had video editing and presentation skills, and are unemployed so they have the time to work for free.   The FS developers have been busy fixing the SL Viewer bugs and trying to meet the SL21B deadline. 

Users could read Beq's statement on coping with older low memory systems.  But it is easier to just complain than actually learn something new.  The FS help forum is proof of that.

https://www.firestormviewer.org/

https://www.youtube.com/@PhoenixViewerSL/videos

Edited June 22 by Jaylinbridges

[BriannaLovey]

Just now, Jaylinbridges said:

The SL YouTube channel is not going to help Firestorm users.  SL refuses to provide any assistance for FS users.  

Firestorm has their own YouTube channel, and does have a recent tutorial for making mirrors now. I am sure FS would welcome volunteers to spend the 40 hours needed to make a useful tutorial for those that refuse to read text. Unpaid unrecognized volunteers of course that understood the inside of the FS PBR viewer to date, had video editing and presentation skills, and is unemployed so they have the time to work for free.   The FS developers have been busy fixing the SL Viewer bugs and trying to meet the SL21B deadline. 

User could read Beq's statement on coping with older low memory systems.  But it is easier to just complain than actually learn something new.  The FS help forum is proof of that.

https://www.firestormviewer.org/

https://www.youtube.com/@PhoenixViewerSL/videos

Someone inworld told me that the FS team was being heavily pressured by LL to add PBR to the viewer. The same exact person told me that FS has 40-50% of the userbase. Does that not mean the the firestorm team has at least some bargaining power over the PBR implementation and never realized it?

Meaning: If FS rolled back PBR because people didn't like it, then how much backlash would LL face if they decided to be stupid and remove FS from the TPV list and block logins?

[Jaylinbridges]

2 hours ago, starladustangel said:

fixed my own issue with a complete uninstall and reinstall of firestorm.

When you remove an older update and do not keep the data files you can lose the pointers to open Chrome. It's easy to do.  The simple fix is just reinstall the new Firestorm again and answer Yes to the first question before installs.  That sets the Registry pointer to your default browser again.  A clean install is not usually needed.  That info is hidden somewhere in a FS Wiki, and most of the FS help folks should advise that.  But not surprised if you didn't get the best answer since the PBR release.  Human brains are not perfect devices after being hit with insults and rude people for 8 hrs straight.  

Edited June 22 by Jaylinbridges

[Scylla Rhiadra]

10 minutes ago, BriannaLovey said:

Someone inworld told me that the FS team was being heavily pressured by LL to add PBR to the viewer. The same exact person told me that FS has 40-50% of the userbase. Does that not mean the the firestorm team has at least some bargaining power over the PBR implementation and never realized it?

Meaning: If FS rolled back PBR because people didn't like it, then how much backlash would LL face if they decided to be stupid and remove FS from the TPV list and block logins?

I'm afraid this makes no sense. PBR isn't just a sort of add-on feature: it represents a pretty fundamental rewiring of the base code of how SL handles materials and, to a degree, light as well. Future changes to the platform are going to be built upon it.

Refusing to implement it would not only almost certainly get Firestorm removed from the list of approved viewers; it would also seriously degrade the graphics experience of FS's users. Already, now, you need PBR to see much of what is going to be on display at SLB21. And it would mean that future changes to things like lighting would also be out of reach of FS users.

This is a lot like saying, "What if FS just refused to implement mesh?" PBR represents that fundamental a change to SL.

[BriannaLovey]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'm afraid this makes no sense. PBR isn't just a sort of add-on feature: it represents a pretty fundamental rewiring of the base code of how SL handles materials and, to a degree, light as well. Future changes to the platform are going to be built upon it.

Refusing to implement it would not only almost certainly get Firestorm removed from the list of approved viewers; it would also seriously degrade the graphics experience of FS's users. Already, now, you need PBR to see much of what is going to be on display at SLB21. And it would mean that future changes to things like lighting would also be out of reach of FS users.

This is a lot like saying, "What if FS just refused to implement mesh?" PBR represents that fundamental a change to SL.

Its a hypothetical scenario. I don't care how fundamental of a change it is, I am just wondering what would happen. I don't see how this is hard to understand.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

So reading all the replies, its obvious, I just stay on my computer with the old viewer to keep from overheating horribly, then when I have no choice but to use a PBR version, I log in and see what happens.

Best case, SL is still usable, worst case, I buy a new computer. Thanks LL, as usual you can eff everything up if u try hard enough.

I really don't want your gd latest shiny, I just wanna log in, go to a club maybe, and hang out with some friends

[Scylla Rhiadra]

8 minutes ago, BriannaLovey said:

Its a hypothetical scenario. I don't care how fundamental of a change it is, I am just wondering what would happen. I don't see how this is hard to understand.

What would happen is Firestorm would be removed from the list of approved viewers. LL is not going to hold back the future development of the entire platform, not to mention undo what must be thousands of hours of work on the code, because Firestorm has a hissy fit.

As much to the point, I don't think the Firestorm devs want to say "no" to PBR. My experience of the discussions within the group chat for the alpha/beta test viewers group was that there was mostly a fair amount of enthusiasm for PBR.

Most, if not all of us, agree that LL could have implemented this better -- and that includes the FS team, who've contributed by cleaning up some of LL's mistakes and offering bug fixes.

But they're not going to champion a refusal to move forward with this. And if they did, they'd be history, regardless of how large a proportion of residents use their viewer.

Edited June 22 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Dorientje Woller]

1 minute ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

So reading all the replies, its obvious, I just stay on my computer with the old viewer to keep from overheating horribly, then when I have no choice but to use a PBR version, I log in and see what happens.

Best case, SL is still usable, worst case, I buy a new computer. Thanks LL, as usual you can eff everything up if u try hard enough.

I really don't want your gd latest shiny, I just wanna log in, go to a club maybe, and hang out with some friends

Wonders what your cooling is in your system? Running the FireStorm PBR now in a place that is pretty crowded. CPU temps, average 51°C, GPU average 54°C. GPU is a Gigabyte Windforce RTX 2060 OC, CPU is a AMD Ryzen5 3600X, housed in a Corsair 4000D Air (6 fans for cooling) and CPU is cooled with a DeepCool AS500 Plus aircooler.

[Jaylinbridges]

1 hour ago, BriannaLovey said:

Someone inworld told me that the FS team was being heavily pressured by LL to add PBR to the viewer. The same exact person told me that FS has 40-50% of the userbase. Does that not mean the the firestorm team has at least some bargaining power over the PBR implementation and never realized it?

I think LL wanted the FS viewer to release PBR to the public before SL21B started.  Beq was releasing new Betas every day for the last week before the July 21 SL21B opening.  You could always run the Firestorm Beta PBR viewer since last Fall if you joined the Beta test group.  None of the residents who were shocked by the PBR viewer had any clue what it was.  And it would have made no difference to give warnings that it was coming "soon" (which Beq actually did last month), because that depended on the SL PBR viewer progress and bug fixes,  hundreds of bugs.  And the average user pay no attention to viewer issues until they find one that is "broken" for them. 

 FS has more like 75% of the user base.  FS and LL were working together on the PBR viewer.  It was the FS testers who posted bugs in the FS and LL Jira groups that helped test it before the FS release.  LL released a buggy PBR viewer too early, knowing that almost no one would use the SL PBR viewer that had any technical knowledge and would not file bug reports.  LL used FS for that.   FS has bargaining power over SL?  You must be new here.  LL depends on it's residents to make SL what it is, and charges them for privilege of working for free.

Edited June 22 by Jaylinbridges

[BilliJo Aldrin]

7 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Wonders what your cooling is in your system? Running the FireStorm PBR now in a place that is pretty crowded. CPU temps, average 51°C, GPU average 54°C. GPU is a Gigabyte Windforce RTX 2060 OC, CPU is a AMD Ryzen5 3600X, housed in a Corsair 4000D Air (6 fans for cooling) and CPU is cooled with a DeepCool AS500 Plus aircooler.

my cooling is the cover is off and two large fans blow right onto the graphics card. The card has had overheating issues for years. Its an nvidea 705.

I'm a cheepskate, computer works fine for everything else. I'll just soldier on until SL is unplayable, then upgrade.

[Richardus Raymaker]

I never update a viewer quick. Except now because pbr.

It did push the fans up, but after setting graphics back to mid-high and mirrors on it nice and silent again.

 

No problems with graphics, the feel to look better then on older viewer. Am curious if people with problems still use old graphics drivers.

The only bug I found is that the last notification message cannot be deleted from the floater bug. Hope we get update soon.

Need to see if things still work fine in a week.

[Anna Nova]

Well, what's all the fuss about?   I finally got the updated Firestorm on my Archlinux system (firestorm-bin from the AUR), and everything works just dandy!  I like it, but I just don't see it as being all the great a jump forward.  I wondered if it was somehow switched off, so I got the test environment from The Black Forest Store (as someone suggested, but I can't find any more), and inside the test is the same as the guide piccies.  So I guess that's PBR done then!  (AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, GeForce GTX 1080 TI, using X11)

[Aethelwine]

I went back to see what the weird psychedelic problem I was having was about. It seems to be an alpha sorting issue on the PBR viewer with alphas constantly alternating. On the region with wave Prims it looked awful.

[Porky Gorky]

30 minutes ago, Anna Nova said:

Well, what's all the fuss about?   I finally got the updated Firestorm on my Archlinux system (firestorm-bin from the AUR), and everything works just dandy!  I like it, but I just don't see it as being all the great a jump forward.  I wondered if it was somehow switched off, so I got the test environment from The Black Forest Store (as someone suggested, but I can't find any more), and inside the test is the same as the guide piccies.  So I guess that's PBR done then!  (AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, GeForce GTX 1080 TI, using X11)

Non reflective materials will render the same using PBR or Blinn Phong so you wil see no real difference.

Non metallic, reflective materials like a glossy plastic or shiny leather will look slightly better in PBR than Blinn Phong but not a major difference.

Metallic reflective materials are where you will see a significant difference (improvement). Metallic PBR materials will offer realistic reflections whereas Metallic Blinn Phong materials will just “shine” when exposed to light.

Edited June 22 by Porky Gorky

[AmeliaJ08]

13 hours ago, Evangeline Arcadia said:

It's not so much that performance is intolerable (but then again I haven't kept it on for a long spell to really tell), but I don't like my PC running hot when it doesn't need to. I want it to last as long as possible, and I prefer it not to be kicking up in the 70-90° range I'm not happy with that. For me it's merely about prolonging the life of my computer. Yeah there's lots of articles on the web say the computer can handle it, but there's also a fair few saying it's not a good idea, plus the fact that of course it does comparatively speaking at to wear.

I might be an anomoly though lol - maybe most others aren't that bothered by it if it doesn't impare their experience within SL.

70-85 is entirely normal for a contemporary GPU, for what it's worth. Absolutely no danger to components at temperatures like that, they're designed to run at it.

You can definitely limit heat/noise by limiting frame rate though, I often have SL capped at 30fps since you don't really need 100+FPS.

The one's saying it isn't a good idea are just wrong

Edited June 22 by AmeliaJ08

[Rick Nightingale]

1 hour ago, Jaylinbridges said:

LL depends on it's residents to make SL what it is, and charges them for privilege of working for free.

That's the thought I was having about this, and other SL things, last night. It's a good business model, from one point of view I guess. Just drop in a half-baked, poorly implemented 'feature' (because doing the full job is hard and costs money), then let us (being everyone other than LL) figure out how to fix it, make it work, use it, and teach others how to.

Meanwhile there are always those who will applaud the lab for everything it does, those who will condemn it to hell for all eternity no matter what, and some in the middle who just wish we could have had a feature with those extra little bits we hoped for that would actually make it so much better!

(I tend to lean a little towards the 'condemn to hell' side myself, I know that, but hey, I'm the Devil. What do you expect?)

Edited June 22 by Rick Nightingale

[AmeliaJ08]

8 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Regardless, you are of course right that there's no way Unreal Engine or Unity could ever be used as a viewer for SL

The mobile viewer being developed right now is using Unity

[Zalificent Corvinus]

4 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

The mobile viewer being developed right now is using Unity

Which is why it sucks! 

 

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

6 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

The mobile viewer being developed right now is using Unity

That's a fair point but then one of the main hurdles of creating a mobile viewer is dealing with the massive amount of assets SL has and the subsequent performance issues that they create. 

The mobile app is hardly a replacement for desktop viewers, more like a supplement.  Using a typical game engine like Unreal for that purpose makes sense because you've (presumably) already taken steps to reduce the excessive amount of data/content that you're dealing with so it won't cause the same issues you'd get with a full viewer (probably far sooner and more noticeably on mobile devices). 

In order to use a traditional game engine to build a viewer for SL you have to make all sorts of compromises that, while those on mobile devices may find them acceptable, the majority of desktop users would consider completely unacceptable compared to the viewers we have now.