Is Lindenlab choosing a doomed path for SL ? Tell us if the EEP and PBR introduction changed the way you play SL

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

That's not entirely true...

First, PBR requires OpenGL v4 (and preferably 4.6) to properly run. LL pretends that it can run with OpenGL v3.2, but not in their viewer (you'd get an almost black render), because then reflections do not work. I did report this issue (and worked around it in my viewer, so you can indeed run the latter with reflections disabled), but it was ignored on the pretext most systems would run with a new enough OpenGL, which might not be true (especially for small ARM64 systems, but LL does not really care about them).

Second, PBR does use a lot more VRAM, because it needs more buffers (especially for reflections, but not only) and may use more textures (up to 4 maps, when legacy materials were using only up to 3, and the forward renderer was only using the diffuse map).

Third, PBR viewers only sometimes (and with reflections set at the minimum, mirrors off, etc) run faster than pre-PBR viewers because the latter did not get the non-PBR-specific optimizations that went into the underlying render code (optimized vertex buffers, cached UI vertex buffers, optimized VBO pools, optimized draw pools code, optimized render pipeline code, etc); once the said optimizations backported, the PBR renderer is slower than the old ALM one: you can easily measure the differences for your system with the Cool VL Viewer which uses the same (and optimized) render code base to render in all PBR, ALM and forward modes.

Thank you. This succinctly explains why even those who are used to running at High or Ultra are experiencing performance hits (albeit probably ones that they can content with).

It also counters the argument that residents who usually ran with ALM on should have no performance problems with PBR. A great many people, I suspect, almost never enabled ALM because it lagged their computer -- or perhaps just turned it on for pictures and so forth. The performance degradation they're currently experiencing is, of course, in many cases worse than what they'd expect simply by enabling ALM. (Bearing in mind, of course, that the actual impact of the move to deferred rendering depends upon the configuration of your hardware. I know that there are some who get better performance from this now?)

[AmeliaJ08]

50 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Just a quick word of warning about Dell/Alienware (and HP, and other big brands in that space) desktops - they look very good on paper, but there's a LOT about your system they aren't telling you. And more often than not, you're going to get stuck with some proprietary parts.

Non-tech explanation - you're #$!@~ed and you often can't upgrade things that should be upgradeable due to nonsense hardware limitations because big brands want you to keep buying their PCs every few years. I found that out the hard way years ago when I got stuck on Legacy BIOS with no path to upgrade to UEFI as HP quit providing BIOS updates, which killed all ability to upgrade to a more modern GPU. It sucks. Avoid.

Problem areas - proprietary motherboards and especially PSUs. Sometimes cases. Chances are one of these things will lock your system out of further upgrades. Unless you plan to buy an entire prebuilt PC every few years as tech advances instead of gradually upgrading individual parts, don't buy from those brands.

Better option - Find a PC builder that uses real, actual parts. Parts you can find on PCPartPicker.com. Skytech. CyberpowerPC or iBuyPower (not a fan of those two, but they do use real parts). PowerGPU. Even grabbing a pre-built from or doing a custom build with MicroCenter is a better option. Do NOT purchase any system that doesn't tell you what motherboard you're running with, and ideally your PSU. Also make sure your wattage is sufficient for your needs, as many times, Dell and others will cheap it out and toss a 500W in a system that would benefit from 650W. 

If you get stuck, YouTube the hell out of everything. Things get real nerdy on there, but it's worth learning about PC hardware anyway. The folks over on r/BuildAPC know a TON as well, and there's r/SuggestAPC for full pre-builts and I can confirm the SuggestAPC Discord is extremely helpful. I learned a ton chatting and window shopping with people in there.

If you're only looking to upgrade systems for SL/PBR an don't need it NOW, it might be worth waiting until a major holiday like Black Friday/Christmas (we've got time) and checking out some budget options in the meantime.

Yeah pre-builts from big manufacturers are a minefield. That said in their gaming/workstation lines they do tend (tend, not always) to use pretty normal stuff if not great stuff but as you say a frequent issue is that the PSU will be right on the edge and probably need upgraded too. I think HP have a super budget 'gaming' line which is just one of their business machines with a GPU slapped into it and a green sticker or something, to be avoided. Either way it's a minefield for anyone in the market and safest bet is probably to avoid unless you have very good information... and they're usually criminally overpriced so it's probably not worth your time.

In consumer/business lines definitely be super careful, they're basically always full of proprietary nonsense. Dell are going to great lengths to avoid any of their business PC's living a future life as a used 'gaming' PC now, they definitely noticed what was going on with the whole slap a 1650 in an Optiplex and sell it as a gaming PC on Amazon thing, they're now basically impossible to do upgrade to anything useful.

 

 

Edited June 26 by AmeliaJ08

[AmeliaJ08]

9 minutes ago, Irina Forwzy said:

What if your PC is one of those Ibuypower ones? I assume one can change the Bios, haven't started to think about that yet.  But I assume I'm going to have to this baby was almost 4k so I am hopefully going to get (if I can) another year without updating the gpu.

I think ibuypower basically always use consumer motherboards and there should be no strangeness with the BIOS, should be just as it would be if you bought it off the shelf.

What are you looking to do?

 

[Dorientje Woller]

53 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Just a quick word of warning about Dell/Alienware (and HP, and other big brands in that space) desktops - they look very good on paper, but there's a LOT about your system they aren't telling you. And more often than not, you're going to get stuck with some proprietary parts.

Non-tech explanation - you're #$!@~ed and you often can't upgrade things that should be upgradeable due to nonsense hardware limitations because big brands want you to keep buying their PCs every few years. I found that out the hard way years ago when I got stuck on Legacy BIOS with no path to upgrade to UEFI as HP quit providing BIOS updates, which killed all ability to upgrade to a more modern GPU. It sucks. Avoid.

Problem areas - proprietary motherboards and especially PSUs. Sometimes cases. Chances are one of these things will lock your system out of further upgrades. Unless you plan to buy an entire prebuilt PC every few years as tech advances instead of gradually upgrading individual parts, don't buy from those brands.

Better option - Find a PC builder that uses real, actual parts. Parts you can find on PCPartPicker.com. Skytech. CyberpowerPC or iBuyPower (not a fan of those two, but they do use real parts). PowerGPU. Even grabbing a pre-built from or doing a custom build with MicroCenter is a better option. Do NOT purchase any system that doesn't tell you what motherboard you're running with, and ideally your PSU. Also make sure your wattage is sufficient for your needs, as many times, Dell and others will cheap it out and toss a 500W in a system that would benefit from 650W. 

If you get stuck, YouTube the hell out of everything. Things get real nerdy on there, but it's worth learning about PC hardware anyway. The folks over on r/BuildAPC know a TON as well, and there's r/SuggestAPC for full pre-builts and I can confirm the SuggestAPC Discord is extremely helpful. I learned a ton chatting and window shopping with people in there.

If you're only looking to upgrade systems for SL/PBR an don't need it NOW, it might be worth waiting until a major holiday like Black Friday/Christmas (we've got time) and checking out some budget options in the meantime.

Other tip: better to have a balanced mid-range PC with quality parts then a unbalanced high-end one with 2nd tier parts. Plus, most important tip: don't look for PC's on eBay, Amazon, Alibaba, AliExpress, Facebook Marketplace ... the possibility that you are getting scammed or fleeched is way higher on these sites then you can imaging.

[Irina Forwzy]

2 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

I think ibuypower basically always use consumer motherboards and there should be no strangeness with the BIOS, should be just as it would be if you bought it off the shelf.

What are you looking to do?

 

I am assuming that around March next year (I got this one in 2019) I will need to update my graphics. Because even with the rest of my games and the new ones coming into the market, I will start to experience degradation.  Right now I'm fine, for the most part.  I can't multigame as I used to but that's to be expected.

[Henri Beauchamp]

Just now, Scylla Rhiadra said:

It also counters the argument that residents who usually ran with ALM on should have no performance problems with PBR. A great many people, I suspect, almost never enabled ALM because it lagged their computer -- or perhaps just turned it on for pictures and so forth. The performance degradation they're currently experiencing is, of course, in many cases worse than what they'd expect simply by enabling ALM. (Bearing in mind, of course, that the actual impact of the move to deferred rendering depends upon the configuration of your hardware. I know that there are some who get better performance from this now?)

It depends on what viewer they used before PBR and now, and even more on their hardware.

If they used LL's official pre-PBR-viewer and  now use LL's offical PBR-viewer, and they have a powerful enough GPU (GTX 1080 or better), with enough VRAM (8GB is now pretty much the minimum), then they won't notice any difference in speed because on such a GPU ALM was already running (with shadows off) as fast as forward, and LL's PBR viewer got optimized under the hood (as I explained) to compensate the loss in performance due to the more complex PBR shaders. They will however have a harder time attending the very big venues (such as SL21B meetings, with 200-300 avatars around), due to the faster VRAM shortage PBR induces.

It they have a ”weak” GPU, then they will definitely see a big impact !

[AmeliaJ08]

Just now, Irina Forwzy said:

I am assuming that around March next year (I got this one in 2019) I will need to update my graphics. Because even with the rest of my games and the new ones coming into the market, I will start to experience degradation.  Right now I'm fine, for the most part.  I can't multigame as I used to but that's to be expected.

Oh if you think so, if it's a reasonably new machine that should not be a problem. Should just be a replace the GPU, connect the power cables up and it'll be good to go type situation. The newer generations of graphics cards should even prove lower-power than their predecessors.

 

[Ayashe Ninetails]

14 minutes ago, Irina Forwzy said:

What if your PC is one of those Ibuypower ones? I assume one can change the Bios, haven't started to think about that yet.  But I assume I'm going to have to this baby was almost 4k so I am hopefully going to get (if I can) another year without updating the gpu.

iBuyPowers can be upgraded. They use regular, normal PC parts to build with. If you check your system specs or download software like HWInfo, you can see what brand and model you have for your motherboard, GPU, CPU, etc.

You don't need to touch your BIOS in most instances, though. It only became an issue for me when the ancient legacy BIOS got replaced many moons ago and HP didn't give a rats about modernizing their older boards.

 

2 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Other tip: better to have a balanced mid-range PC with quality parts then a unbalanced high-end one with 2nd tier parts. Plus, most important tip: don't look for PC's on eBay, Amazon, Alibaba, AliExpress, Facebook Marketplace ... the possibility that you are getting scammed or fleeched is way higher on these sites then you can imaging.

Really good tips here, too. Totally agree with all of this.

[Blush Bravin]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

This makes sense. Who really needs shadows (or "Ultra", not to be combative) turned on, unless they are taking pictures? Maybe shadows are important for some roleplay. "Look out! He's hiding in the shadows!"

I need shadows! I'd rather not even be in world if I can't have my shadows. But I have no problems limiting my fps to 30, and I keep my draw distance at or below 120. When I'm at home and have neighbors with very laggy content I reduce my draw distance to under 50. So, shadows on all the time!!! I'll use other methods to improve performance.  

[Paul Hexem]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

"I can't afford to buy food!"

"Have you considered not eating?"

Didn't you call us fat the other day?

I'm noticing a trend!

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

"I can't afford to buy food!"

"Have you considered not eating?"

Didn't you call us fat the other day?

I'm noticing a trend!

In some countries, "you're fat!" is a compliment.

I was remembering that the other day (a Filipino boyfriend explained it to me years ago).

[Flea Yatsenko]

40 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Well on the desktop it involved taking the video card apart and thoroughly cleaning to get it down from 80C+ on the PBR. Also there is a 30% drop in FPS.

It is still a thing that I see little to no advantage visually for having PBR and that to me is the important part.

That probably saved you from your card dying early, running your GPU or CPU very hot will shorten the lifespan. And it was only going to get worse.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

46 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Well on the desktop it involved taking the video card apart and thoroughly cleaning to get it down from 80C+ on the PBR. Also there is a 30% drop in FPS.

It is still a thing that I see little to no advantage visually for having PBR and that to me is the important part.

That probably saved you from your card dying early, running your GPU or CPU very hot will shorten the lifespan. And it was only going to get worse.

Right! It's not like they never would have needed to clean their video card, if not for PBR. (That would have been BAD!) So from that perspective, the fact PBR encouraged them to clean the card is a GOOD thing!

[Irina Forwzy]

And woaw 51 pages!  We may hit the 100s!

[Arielle Popstar]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Right! It's not like they never would have needed to clean their video card, if not for PBR. (That would have been BAD!) So from that perspective, the fact PBR encouraged them to clean the card is a GOOD thing!

Not when it requires cleaning every 3 months instead of 6 months. Each time it has to be disassembled, one takes a risk of buggering something up.

[Ceka Cianci]

4 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

intelligence is a bell curve, not everyone can be smart, there is no evolutionary advantage to that.  In fact,  in our modern world, intelligence is an evolutionary disadvantage, the intelligent ones are refusing to reproduce, and the result will be the dumbing down of the species over the generations.

Eventually the entire population will devolve to a borderline retarded state.

 

I just watched that again the other night.. hehehe

[BilliJo Aldrin]

People are trashing Dell computers, but i’ve had no problem with them. My current one I’ve got now i’ve had about eight years, and it runs fine, except for second life. That nvidea 705 just doesnt cut it any more.

My previous one was a Dell, and I had that for about eight years too. It had integrated graphics, and barely met the minimum specs for second life when I joined, but it worked ok for years.

So I’m looking again, and if I buy other off the shelf Dell, and its good for another eight years, I won’t complain. 😁

I have some idea what I need from what people have said in the forums, so when I do buy, I’ll do okey.

[Toothless Draegonne]

3 hours ago, Toothless Draegonne said:

Xe is literally the (iGPU) testbed for the Arc dedicated cards. It very much can run SL, just not in ultra. The 1165G7 CPU with decent LPDDR RAM can run a viewer on medium-ish graphics, The Z1E in the ROG Ally can do medium-high, depending on how many fps you want. The problem with integrated GPUs and particularly Intel cards was the viewer incorrectly guessing that you only have 512MB of VRAM available.

This can now be overridden in at least some viewers, and even the older Iris graphics can probably run SL on (much) lower settings. GMA perhaps not.

Welp, just tried the Z1E Ally and I have to be honest and say there's currently issues that were not present in previous PBR releases of various viewers. So there you go, don't try running PBR on an ROG Ally (yet). There do seem to be updates in the works though, so watch this space, so to speak.

As for everything else, nope, mid range laptop, budget desktop, anything from medium to ultra graphics will be fine depending on how budget your system is.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

So PBR…. lots of people screaming they don’t want or need all this excess shiny crap, they just wanna shop a little, build a little and hang out with my friends.

LL’s response? We don’t care what you want or need, you are gonna take all the excess shiny crap, and we won’t give you any choice in the matter.

As someone else mentioned though, will the mobile viewer be able to process all this excess crap?

 

[Cristiano Midnight]

4 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

So PBR…. lots of people screaming they don’t want or need all this excess shiny crap, they just wanna shop a little, build a little and hang out with my friends.

LL’s response? We don’t care what you want or need, you are gonna take all the excess shiny crap, and we won’t give you any choice in the matter.

As someone else mentioned though, will the mobile viewer be able to process all this excess crap?

 

Unity does support PBR, which is what the mobile viewer is built on.

[BriannaLovey]

1 hour ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

That's not entirely true...

First, PBR requires OpenGL v4 (and preferably 4.6) to properly run. LL pretends that it can run with OpenGL v3.2, but not in their viewer (you'd get an almost black render), because then reflections do not work. I did report this issue (and worked around it in my viewer, so you can indeed run the latter with reflections disabled), but it was ignored on the pretext most systems would run with a new enough OpenGL, which might not be true (especially for small ARM64 systems, but LL does not really care about them).

Second, PBR does use a lot more VRAM, because it needs more buffers (especially for reflections, but not only) and may use more textures (up to 4 maps, when legacy materials were using only up to 3, and the forward renderer was only using the diffuse map).

Third, PBR viewers only sometimes (and with reflections set at the minimum, mirrors off, etc) run faster than pre-PBR viewers because the latter did not get the non-PBR-specific optimizations that went into the underlying render code (optimized vertex buffers, cached UI vertex buffers, optimized VBO pools, optimized draw pools code, optimized render pipeline code, non-redundant uploads of mesh skin matrices to shaders, etc); once the said optimizations backported, the PBR renderer is slower than the old ALM one: you can easily measure the differences for your system with the Cool VL Viewer which uses the same (and optimized) render code base to render in all PBR, ALM and forward modes.

I would give you money for all your work if I had it. The fact that LL hasn't offered you a job says a lot about them.

[Toothless Draegonne]

8 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

So PBR…. lots of people screaming they don’t want or need all this excess shiny crap, they just wanna shop a little, build a little and hang out with my friends.

LL’s response? We don’t care what you want or need, you are gonna take all the excess shiny crap, and we won’t give you any choice in the matter.

As someone else mentioned though, will the mobile viewer be able to process all this excess crap?

 

PBR is not excess shiny crap. It's how everything else does it. You want those shops to continue having things for you to buy, you'll need to support PBR sooner or later, because the people that make stuff to put in those shops have been getting increasingly fed up of having to be special just for SL versus making something once and using it literally everywhere else. Many of them left years ago, or did you not notice things getting a little thin on the ground lately?

[BilliJo Aldrin]

38 minutes ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

Unity does support PBR, which is what the mobile viewer is built on.

oic, well thats good then

[BilliJo Aldrin]

35 minutes ago, Toothless Draegonne said:

PBR is not excess shiny crap. It's how everything else does it. You want those shops to continue having things for you to buy, you'll need to support PBR sooner or later, because the people that make stuff to put in those shops have been getting increasingly fed up of having to be special just for SL versus making something once and using it literally everywhere else. Many of them left years ago, or did you not notice things getting a little thin on the ground lately?

I have enough clothes for ten second lives, I don’t buy much of anything any more.

Since Second Life is really the only game in town, and by far the most popular, what are these other platforms creators are selling to that they have to complain about doing it different for SL customers?

Edited June 26 by BilliJo Aldrin
changed a word to get rid of the *****

[Arielle Popstar]

42 minutes ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

Unity does support PBR, which is what the mobile viewer is built on.

You mean being built in that it is in long term alpha mode. which as far as we know, is only so far on apple devices. For all we know they are having issues supporting PBR in the mobile viewer.