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

[BriannaLovey]

7 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Frankly, if i would have paid 2000 USD for this, I would be on the phone with the costumer service of Dell, because they have screwed me over. Or either, you are forgetting to list your dedicated graphical card.

That computer likely doesn't have a dedicated graphics card, as most prebuilt Dell computers don't have one, unless it is a workstation, since Dell has a subsidiary (Alienware) that is focused on gaming computers. There is no way it costed $2000 either (unless Dell or whatever retailer it was bought from is really good at scamming people.)

Edited June 26 by BriannaLovey

[Cube Republic]

1 hour ago, Velk Kerang said:

I, personally don't care for the changes myself. They do nothing to impress me. Mesh by itself is already taxing enough of high end gaming rigs let alone the average computer. I recently watched a roleplay sim fall under new ownership and the new owner replace all the builds with complete and extremely ugly mesh builds and it did nothing, but create a super duper lag fest. The new changes will only serve to make that experience worse. Especially if you are using Firestorm which most users are. 

However I have recently been testing out one of the newer viewers. Genesis Viewer. Mainly because Singularity has been having issues telling me to relog and I have been unable to log in with Firestorm. Probably because I have over 200k items in my inventory. I don't know. I've been using a text viewer Radegast for the most part. With Genesis I logged in and loaded my entire inventory instantly. To say this viewer is awesome is an understatement. The movement is fluid as if you are walking around on a brand new avatar. So this may the answer for some of you. 

You can find it here. https://genesisviewer.org/ I would totally recommend this viewer mates. It's like the viewer you'd get if Firestorm and Singularity had a baby, but even better. lol So it may not always be the hardware that is the issue. It very well may be the software you are using to log in to Second Life. I'll drop a video link so you all can see what it looks like. Hope this helps some and good luck mates.👍😎

 

 

Mesh isn't taxing on high end gaming rigs.

[Paul Hexem]

6 hours ago, DevlinMcDermott said:

Example

The latest Dell 4 months old

16g Ram
CPU Intel i5
Intel Iris Xe Graphics

Completely empty of programs other than factory installed. 

I've tried running Firestorm, Second Life's even Cool LV. It either lags for 15-20 minutes until the fan goes hyperspeed OR renders half of everything gray.

You got fleeced hard.

[Dorientje Woller]

7 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

You got fleeced hard.

Yeah, because you can get this for 2000 USD at Dell:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/desktop-computers/sr/desktops/alienware-desktops/1501-2000?appliedRefinements=40518

[BriannaLovey]

44 minutes ago, Cube Republic said:

Mesh isn't taxing on high end gaming rigs.

I mean there is a difference between most mesh ever made and the average mesh uploaded to SL

[Vivienne Schell]

3 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

My computer is beating yours like a rented mule and it shouldn't. I can get 30 FPS in a region with 50-60 avatars and my video card is rated at 40% of yours and my CPU's several generations older.

Yes, there's a problem - however, under the circumstances the story isn't "the viewer's too hard on old equipment" or this situation wouldn't play out the way it does.

So it's either an incompatibility with something in newer cards/Windows 11 or it's a setting issue. As far as settings go, I'd be curious to hear about 1) draw distance, 2) level of detail and 3) screen resolution.

Yeah, yeah, and there is no climate change. And everyone saying that there is one only must fix the sun settings. Or buy a new sun.

[missyrideout]

Ultimately I don't feel the difference is worth pinning my GPU at 100% for hours on end while I'm in SL. I'll probably look into one of the viewers that lets me disable it, or revert to an older FS for as long as I can.

[Infierna Bloodrose]

This will  be my last post on the whole PBR issue   . It's day 4 of running with it and I  did a lot of research as well as discovered the really amazing windlight made by Nuve. I'm Using this as a personal windlight instead of legacy midday now.

This and making a setting with my exposure set to.05  has  got me back and running happy! Things are clear  and I CAN build in this light thanks to using this windlight as a personal setting!

Yes its all brighter  but I'm not going blind now .

This is totally free btw and you can make copies and mod it to tweak it... I tweaked to just a bit darker. 

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Nuve-Shadowless-WL-PBR-ready/26140532

Overall now that I understand it all a bit better I'm feeling comfortable about the changes.

This article I read today helped me  A LOT.

https://virtualbloke.com/archives/5400

I'm finding with a few simple settings adjustments things are really nice.  For those whose computers cant handle the firestorm, use that CoolVR everyone is hooting about.

 One thing I really like is I'm seeing people helping each other out learning to make things work. 

 Weirdly SL feels like a closer community suddenly.

So yes this has changed my SL. I like it. I even bought a new skin with a bit more shading to it    ( My old one I made was so ghost white I kind of looked like I swallowed a flashlight). My store has long been in need of a good overhaul so even thats a plus. 

 

 Again many Thanks to the people at Firestorm for doing such a good job. The viewer is running smooth and I'm loving the emojis. I look amazing, my land looks amazing, and all is well in the Kingdom. 

 

 

Edited June 26 by Infierna Bloodrose

[JUSTUS Palianta]

9 hours ago, DevlinMcDermott said:

Example

The latest Dell 4 months old

16g Ram
CPU Intel i5
Intel Iris Xe Graphics

Completely empty of programs other than factory installed. 

I've tried running Firestorm, Second Life's even Cool LV. It either lags for 15-20 minutes until the fan goes hyperspeed OR renders half of everything gray.

I have one of these stupid computers too that is what the shop is selling now.

CPU: 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1355U (2611.2 MHz)
Memory: 16096 MB (Used: 2973 MB)
Concurrency: 12
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 11 64-bit (Build 22631.3737)
Graphics Card Vendor: Intel
Graphics Card: Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics
Graphics Card Memory: 128 MB

At first it was terrible at running SL then over time it got better, now it still kinda loads textures wonky.

I think linden is going to find a lot of people with Intel Iris Graphics.

[Rick Nightingale]

32 minutes ago, JUSTUS Palianta said:

I think linden is going to find a lot of people with Intel Iris Graphics.

Yep, but it's something that isn't, and never was, suitable for running a viewer outside of a quiet region without much to have to render. I know... I've used SL on several iterations of their integrated graphics when I can't be bothered to fire up the main PC, or I need an additional login to test something.

I mentioned elsewhere that, for my money, LL would be better creating a viewer that runs well on these iGPUs than wasting it on a mobile platform.

When the performance enhanced viewer changes happened a few years back, that made quite a difference and made the iGPU more usable at least for framerate. PBR has just made it nose-dive again though. Turn all the settings down to minimum, enable texture compression, disable option hardware settings like AA, and it's only just usable to me.

It depends on how people 'use' their SL too of course... I have high requirements (I like the eye-candy, long draw distance, etc) but for someone who mostly hangs around their Linden home chatting with people, the iGPU is probably enough and they are fine. Until they want to go to that big shopping event that just opened...

Part of the problem with Intel's iGPU is the video RAM, or lack of. Video cards come with gigabytes of fast, dedicated memory attached with wide buses. The iGPU... well, from the specs shown above: 128 megabytes. That's not even a single, well-dressed avatar's worth of textures. While the system can allocate system RAM to share as VRAM, it never seems to work well in practice, at least not for SL. Hence the texture thrashing etc issues.

Linden Lab... forget mobile... work on a better iGPU-capable viewer for the many, many people with non-gaming laptops and PCs.

Edited June 26 by Rick Nightingale

[Vivienne Schell]

3 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

Linden Lab... forget mobile... work on a better iGPU-capable viewer for the many, many people with non-gaming laptops and PCs.

Maybe the plan is to make the desktop app El Dorado for high end users while sending everyone else onto mobile?

[BilliJo Aldrin]

How is this one for SL? I'll add 50 bucks for the dvd addon

 

[Vivienne Schell]

1 minute ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

How is this one for SL? I'll add 50 bucks for the dvd addon

 

I´d add a few bucks for a 4070 instead of the 4060. And an excellent cooling.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

1 minute ago, Vivienne Schell said:

I´d add a few bucks for a 4070 instead of the 4060. And an excellent cooling.

There is a liquid cooled addon, but everyone poo pooed it as a fad

I can go to 32 gb ram for another 150, and a terrabyte of memory for another 100

Edited June 26 by BilliJo Aldrin
added stuff

[Dorientje Woller]

12 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

There is a liquid cooled addon, but everyone poo pooed it as a fad

I can go to 32 gb ram for another 150, and a terrabyte of memory for another 100

Note down the specs of this Dell PC and check system integrators like CyberPower, NXZT and such how much it will cost you. The problem with Dell computers is that they are using proprietary parts of "not of the best quality" and put it in a hot box.

[Vivienne Schell]

6 hours ago, BriannaLovey said:

Ooh nice! I will add it to the list of recommended non-PBR/optional-PBR list of viewers in my PBR Luddites group, since it says on the Genesis page that the viewer won't have PBR implemented until it is performant enough.

I thought that it IS "performant enough"? Only needs a bit of setting fixes or so? Or did i get you wrong so far?

[Zalificent Corvinus]

6 hours ago, Velk Kerang said:

It's like the viewer you'd get if Firestorm and Singularity had a baby

Just the implication that it is in anyway like that broken Viewer 1 clone drek is enough to say "HARD PASS".

[Ceka Cianci]

I'm running PBR pretty nicely. Object seem to rez much sooner than the previous version of FS, where before I would have to leave and come back to a sim to reload things to have them rez.

I've been checking to see how hot things get because the top of my case is open.. It's really not getting any hotter than usual.

We keep it really clean because we don't want to fins for the liquid cooling to get cloged up, plus have like 5 fans in there also.

I put the FS PBR version on my SSD USB stick,which might be helping things run a little better.

I think my system might be 6 years old, if I remember right..

This is the specs from the ABOUT in the FS viewer.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz (4008 MHz)
Memory: 16334 MB (Used: 1365 MB)
Concurrency: 8
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19045.4529)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 4037 MB
Graphics Card Memory (Detected): 4037 MB
Graphics Card Memory (Budget): Unlimited

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 31.0.15.4617
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 546.17

[Modulated]

1 hour ago, Rick Nightingale said:

Yep, but it's something that isn't, and never was, suitable for running a viewer outside of a quiet region without much to have to render. I know... I've used SL on several iterations of their integrated graphics when I can't be bothered to fire up the main PC, or I need an additional login to test something.

I mentioned elsewhere that, for my money, LL would be better creating a viewer that runs well on these iGPUs than wasting it on a mobile platform.

When the performance enhanced viewer changes happened a few years back, that made quite a difference and made the iGPU more usable at least for framerate. PBR has just made it nose-dive again though. Turn all the settings down to minimum, enable texture compression, disable option hardware settings like AA, and it's only just usable to me.

It depends on how people 'use' their SL too of course... I have high requirements (I like the eye-candy, long draw distance, etc) but for someone who mostly hangs around their Linden home chatting with people, the iGPU is probably enough and they are fine. Until they want to go to that big shopping event that just opened...

Part of the problem with Intel's iGPU is the video RAM, or lack of. Video cards come with gigabytes of fast, dedicated memory attached with wide buses. The iGPU... well, from the specs shown above: 128 megabytes. That's not even a single, well-dressed avatar's worth of textures. While the system can allocate system RAM to share as VRAM, it never seems to work well in practice, at least not for SL. Hence the texture thrashing etc issues.

Linden Lab... forget mobile... work on a better iGPU-capable viewer for the many, many people with non-gaming laptops and PCs.

This sounds good....but, there is still going to need to be a hardware line cutoff. The only igpu's that could even possibly handle PBR are going to coming from AMD's current line -they are rather capable for integrated . Stuff from intel , possibly...maybe...but all those older uhd and hd sets are dead in the water IMO. There is just not enough there for what's required, people will still moan about it.

[panterapolnocy]

2 hours ago, missyrideout said:

Ultimately I don't feel the difference is worth pinning my GPU at 100% for hours on end while I'm in SL

Over coming days and weeks @Beq Janus will try to highlight some of the reasons people are unable to settle on the new version and where appropriate suggest things to try; You may want to follow her on social media and/or observe Firestorm's blog for new posts. For now, you can try these quick suggestions, for Firestorm 7.1.9:

1. Whitelist or re-whitelist viewer files and directories, as per https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/antivirus_whitelisting - sometimes AV doesn't 'see' the whitelisted binary as the same one after a reinstallation of such and scans it despite it being on the list.
2. Try disabling v-sync in Preferences -> Graphics -> Hardware Settings.
3. On this tab, tick the "Override VRAM", read the warning, then put half of the VRAM (video RAM, not the regular RAM) you have in your graphics card.
4. On the Rendering tab, Restrict maximum texture resolution to 512px.
5. Enable 'Limit Framerate' and set it to no more than 60.
6. Reboot the viewer (let it close fully, wait 10-15 seconds, boot it up again) and see how it works now.
7. You may want to pull the "amount of time, in milliseconds, to yield every frame to other applications when Firestorm is not the foreground window" slider in Preferences -> Advanced a bit further to the right. The viewer will run a bit slower if you alt-tab out of it, giving computer some breathing space while you use web browser, graphics program etc.
8. When a new release comes out (WebRTC one) try removing the VRAM override and giving it a go again, as this part is being tweaked right now internally, along with several other things. Do not forget about this step, if you applied the override.

2 hours ago, missyrideout said:

revert to an older FS for as long as I can

That is not a good idea for the long term, as old versions may become unusable sooner than you think (voice stopping to work, gray textures instead of PBR ones, GLTF scenes not loading due to lack of support for them etc.).

Edited June 26 by panterapolnocy

[Rick Nightingale]

19 minutes ago, panterapolnocy said:

7. You may want to pull the "amount of time, in milliseconds, to yield every frame to other applications when Firestorm is not the foreground window" slider in Preferences -> Advanced a bit further to the right. The viewer will run a bit slower if you alt-tab out of it, giving computer some breathing space while you use web browser, graphics program etc.

This is a good one for people like me to know. I spend a lot of my time in Blender, Photoshop, whatever, with the viewer open in the background. As long as I can see even a static view in the viewer (as I adjust in Blender) that's enough.

Edited June 26 by Rick Nightingale

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 hours ago, Vivienne Schell said:

Yeah, yeah, and there is no climate change. And everyone saying that there is one only must fix the sun settings. Or buy a new sun.

Yeah, some people really need new brains instead.

[Krystina Ferraris]

5 hours ago, Cube Republic said:

Mesh isn't taxing on high end gaming rigs.

Agree. I have an average desktop and mesh isn’t at all taxing. PBR though requires a few tweaks.

[AmeliaJ08]

1 hour ago, Modulated said:

This sounds good....but, there is still going to need to be a hardware line cutoff. The only igpu's that could even possibly handle PBR are going to coming from AMD's current line -they are rather capable for integrated . Stuff from intel , possibly...maybe...but all those older uhd and hd sets are dead in the water IMO. There is just not enough there for what's required, people will still moan about it.

Yeah. Intel HD/UHD couldn't even cope with ALM properly. Iris Xe integrated doesn't sound like it can either so all of those should be considered non-options. I think there is another generation of Intel integrated GPU now, "Arc Capable" whatever that means and absolutely no clue how good it is.

Newest integrated Radeon 780M in the Ryzen 7000 mobile and Ryzen 8000 desktop CPUs *might* be... kinda okay? I keep seeing benchmarks showing it falling behind a GTX1650 even in absolute best case (DirectX) scenarios even with very fast RAM though... it'll definitely work but it probably won't be a great experience in SL.

 

[Qie Niangao]

2 hours ago, Vivienne Schell said:

Maybe the plan is to make the desktop app El Dorado for high end users while sending everyone else onto mobile?

Now that you mention it, that would be the smart business move.