Need to be Careful with PBR no Forced Update Ever

[Jase Devin]

I checked out the Secondlife Viewer and the Firestorm one with PBR update.

Findings:

• Drop in Frame Rates 60-70% without the new pbr settings turned on
• Drop in frame rates 80-90% with turned on
• EEP now not looking correct
• Endless users asking for help in support
• Other texture attributes not working right, showing different then intended (before pbr)
• Tons of lag, issues, problems mostly texture related

 

So the topic "Need to be Careful with PBR no Forced Update Ever".

Many users are running older systems 5-6 years old. They are able to come to SL now, even with sl/firestorm updates last year hindering performance and being forced to update to it.

This update here should never be forced, it would alienate many users to the point they can not use the system.

Secondlife is trying to retain users not send them packing. There's an entire Economy to consider. A Forced update to this would ruin SL for good in my opinion for many reasons.

I'm sorry to the Techs that worked very hard on this Secondlife Viewer and Firestorm alike. I don't see this ever being fixed, and they put a lot of hard work into it.

At best they fix it to the point where maybe they lose 60% frame rate. Unfortunately that wont work and cause users to leave and never come back.

 

Finally:

Think of a new user? Logging in and running this Viewer cause they don't know any better? So where are we then? Secondlife is trying to retain users, with this pbr update, wont happen.

Secondlife is trying to gain new users? With this update won't happen.

I normally don't write much on this Forum, but this is Alarming!!!

I am part of this Economy as many are, don't want to see a blatant mistake made here.

 

What should Happen?

This PBR implementation should be on a strict BETA TESTING platform, never EVER put on a download list to be downloaded to new users.

This Download here: https://secondlife.com/support/downloads/  

Should be removed immediately, and the older version put in its place, because you are causing new users to not ever give SL a chance because of the bad performance of this pbr updated version.

Again, sorry for all the hard work put in, but this Viewer is barely Alpha (super new full of bugs)not even Beta(older with few bugs).

 

 

[Aishagain]

Who Moved My Cheese?

[animats]

What effect is this having on user counts?

Who graphs the inworld numbers now? gridsurvey.com seems to be down.

(Edit: No, it's up, just slow.)

Edited Tuesday at 05:10 PM by animats

[Love Zhaoying]

I hope everyone joins this thread who are in the other threads on the same topic!  They will probably have good advice for the OP.

[Aya Sweetheart]

60% to 70% ... has to be super exaggeration.  Everything runs pretty much the same for me with barely a noticeable difference if I set the graphics to look similar as before.  People are running higher settings now and surprised it runs worse.

Instead of changing the presets, maybe they should just add "Super Ultra" and a "Mega Super Ultra Max" settings or something since people think the slider is the same as the old versions... and leave low, medium, high, ultra the same as before.

[Jackson Redstar]

of course way way back in the old days of web development, web pages were design for 800x600 monitors and 12kbs internet speeds. Those still on that old PC, modem and monitor howled loudly when standards to raised to 1024 and 56kbs modem speeds. Sometimes new technology just leaves some people behind - just the way it is

[Jase Devin]

39 minutes ago, Aya Sweetheart said:

60% to 70% ... has to be super exaggeration.  Everything runs pretty much the same for me with barely a noticeable difference if I set the graphics to look similar as before.  People are running higher settings now and surprised it runs worse.

Instead of changing the presets, maybe they should just add "Super Ultra" and a "Mega Super Ultra Max" settings or something since people think the slider is the same as the old versions... and leave low, medium, high, ultra the same as before.

No it is not, I had everything the same, and this is my sim which I know very well. I do have good eep going thats it.

[Jase Devin]

45 minutes ago, Aya Sweetheart said:

I hope everyone joins this thread who are in the other threads on the same topic!  They will probably have good advice for the OP.

I don't need advice, I'm the one saying this is a Huge Mistake. What advice would you offer me? This is a great thing? Sl has and excellent Future with discarding 90% of new users and possibly 50%+ of current users when the game is unplayable?

Lets be real this Game is barely holding on as it is, then you do something completely ignorant as this? Bye Bye game ..

Edited Tuesday at 06:21 PM by Jase Devin

[RhythmC]

23 hours ago, Jase Devin said:

I checked out the Secondlife Viewer and the Firestorm one with PBR update.

Findings:

• Drop in Frame Rates 60-70% without the new pbr settings turned on
• Drop in frame rates 80-90% with turned on
• EEP now not looking correct
• Endless users asking for help in support
• Other texture attributes not working right, showing different then intended (before pbr)
• Tons of lag, issues, problems mostly texture related

 

So the topic "Need to be Careful with PBR no Forced Update Ever".

Many users are running older systems 5-6 years old. They are able to come to SL now, even with sl/firestorm updates last year hindering performance and being forced to update to it.

This update here should never be forced, it would alienate many users to the point they can not use the system.

Secondlife is trying to retain users not send them packing. There's an entire Economy to consider. A Forced update to this would ruin SL for good in my opinion for many reasons.

I'm sorry to the Techs that worked very hard on this Secondlife Viewer and Firestorm alike. I don't see this ever being fixed, and they put a lot of hard work into it.

At best they fix it to the point where maybe they lose 60% frame rate. Unfortunately that wont work and cause users to leave and never come back.

 

Finally:

Think of a new user? Logging in and running this Viewer cause they don't know any better? So where are we then? Secondlife is trying to retain users, with this pbr update, wont happen.

Secondlife is trying to gain new users? With this update won't happen.

I normally don't write much on this Forum, but this is Alarming!!!

I am part of this Economy as many are, don't want to see a blatant mistake made here.

 

What should Happen?

This PBR implementation should be on a strict BETA TESTING platform, never EVER put on a download list to be downloaded to new users.

This Download here: https://secondlife.com/support/downloads/  

Should be removed immediately, and the older version put in its place, because you are causing new users to not ever give SL a chance because of the bad performance of this pbr updated version.

Again, sorry for all the hard work put in, but this Viewer is barely Alpha (super new full of bugs)not even Beta(older with few bugs).

 

 

100% agree with you...i had nightmare also with that and i have super PC for gaming and graphics card...the firestrom PBR 7.9 version is terrible as hell

[Nagachief Darkstone]

Could try Alchemy Viewer if Firestorm is giving you fits. We're the first TPV to implement PBR so we've had some time to find bugfixes and performance improvements.

LL also recently made a PR on their github with a fix that has the potential to double FPS in some scenes. We'll probably merge that PR if it turns out to not cause any issues.

[Rachel1206]

For me both the Linden Lab SL Viewer and Firestorm PBR Viewer run flawless and faster, modern gaming PC with RTX3070 - and my older laptop with GTX 1060 runs better and faster, no problems and I visit busy clubs, roam the Birthday regions in Second Life etc.

Minor glitches with EEP, expect it to be fixed fast, now they get a lot of feedback, reports on those.

Big applause to Linden Lab for embracing modern gaming technology 👍

I wished though the use of 2K texture would have been limited, we see creators now making like BOM tattoo with 2K. Wonder, what the impact will be, when it spreads all around.

[filz Camino]

People hoping for this change to be reversed need to adjust their expectations, that is never going to happen. Plus, if you stay on a previous version of the viewer,  your SL experience will slowly degrade over time as creators abandon the old system.

I haven't tried the latest Firestorm (I think i might wait for the next release, might be a bit less buggy!) but comparing the LL PBR viewer and the previous non-PBR version of Firestorm a while back, the performance on both of my computers of the former was similar to the latter with ALM turned on.

If you are getting less performance than that, it may be worth winding down your graphics settings and seeing if that makes a difference. If that still doesn't fix it, perhaps you have a platform-specific bug that will be fixed in the future (but you may need to report it as a bug in order for it to get addressed).

But either way, I think your choices at this point are find a way to make your PBR experience satisfactory, or say farewell to SL.

[filz Camino]

Further to the above, I decided to do some tests to see what the situation is with the latest release of the LL viewer. Unfortunately, I did notice quite a performance hit, in (a very busy) Peak nightclub I got the following frame rates:

Firestorm non-PBR with graphics set to Ultra: 80fps. With shadows turned off, that went up to 100fps.

LL PBR viewer with the graphics slider set to the lowest possible setting (except for max-avatars and max complexity, which were set to match Firestorm): 60fps

So basically (ignoring max avatars and max complexity), the LL viewer on its lowest graphics settings is 25% slower than the non-PBR Firestorm on Ultra, and 40% slower for an equivalent non-PBR graphics experience (ALM on, shadows off).

That is quite a big jump in hardware requirements for a reasonable experience I guess, hopefully there will be further performance optimisations over time though.

Tested on:

CPU: 7800X3D

GPU: 4070ti

RAM: 32Gb

 

[Chic Aeon]

NO ONE needs to install the PBR Firestorm viewer until it is mandated (so three "big" releases as sometimes patches don't count). This  is likely a year --- or even two down the road. The FS folks from what I have read are fully aware of the hit many computers are taking and want folks to have to to save up, adjust or move on (those are MY choices --- I only read the buy a new computer bit LOL).  

 

Anyway just go BACK to the previous release which is working fine except for the floating thing.   Hopefully the issues that are around now will be fixed by then. Remember when EEP rolled out on the grid how HORRID it was and most of that has been fixed or worked around over time.  

So just go back to your 3rd party viewer of choice.  Simple,

LL is NOT going to change its mind.   

[Modulated]

2 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

NO ONE needs to install the PBR Firestorm viewer until it is mandated (so three "big" releases as sometimes patches don't count). This  is likely a year --- or even two down the road. The FS folks from what I have read are fully aware of the hit many computers are taking and want folks to have to to save up, adjust or move on (those are MY choices --- I only read the buy a new computer bit LOL).  

 

Anyway just go BACK to the previous release which is working fine except for the floating thing.   Hopefully the issues that are around now will be fixed by then. Remember when EEP rolled out on the grid how HORRID it was and most of that has been fixed or worked around over time.  

So just go back to your 3rd party viewer of choice.  Simple,

LL is NOT going to change its mind.   

It's going to be a lot sooner than a year with FS...literal months, probably 4 IMO. The next release , which will probably have some PBR fixes rolled , then another with webrtc for voice, and then probably a release with full webrtc , no more vivox. The pre-PBR viewers are in their last stretch as supported.

Edited Wednesday at 04:06 PM by Modulated

[filz Camino]

I've just tried out the Alchemy PBR viewer, that actually seems to perform better than pre-PBR Firestorm! All the textures load faster, and I seem to get about 5-10% higher frame rate for an equivalent graphics experience of ALM on and shadows turned off. Not sure why the LL viewer should be so much worse.

I have also seen quite a few posts on Reddit from people mentioning that they got an improvement in performance with the PBR Firestorm versus the pre-PBR release too, so it seems some people are very happy with it.

 

Edited Wednesday at 05:10 PM by filz Camino

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, Modulated said:

It's going to be a lot sooner than a year with FS...literal months, probably 4 IMO. The next release , which will probably have some PBR fixes rolled , then another with webrtc for voice, and then probably a release with full webrtc , no more vivox. The pre-PBR viewers are in their last stretch as supported.

Then why does Beq's long blog post on the FS blog give the impression that they are trying to go slowly to give folks time?    I guess we will see as time goes on.   

[Modulated]

Just now, Chic Aeon said:

Then why does Beq's long blog post on the FS blog give the impression that they are trying to go slowly to give folks time?    I guess we will see as time goes on.   

Slowly, perhaps, but not 2 years slow. There's al ot coming they have to roll in, so the non-PBR viewers will be out of support and FS support have said in chat multiple times-no extension of life on those viewers, but we'll see.

[Chic Aeon]

Well I just went back and read the blog post and the paragraph where I got my "not in a hurry" vibe seems to have been deleted (I read the first day) so perhaps you are closer to a correct timeline. What "the team" wants and what LL wants could easily be at odds and of course LL will win that argument.  Personally I have no issues aside from hating the Linden viewer. My machine runs fine but I suspect we will loose some folks.  

Edited Wednesday at 05:40 PM by Chic Aeon

[Flea Yatsenko]

1 hour ago, Chic Aeon said:

Then why does Beq's long blog post on the FS blog give the impression that they are trying to go slowly to give folks time?    I guess we will see as time goes on.   

It's why they took over 6 months to get the FS PBR viewer out on a public release than LL. They did take their time. They waited until a lot of major bugs were squashed. PBR content is starting to roll out and SL21B was coming. They had to do it.

1 hour ago, filz Camino said:

I've just tried out the Alchemy PBR viewer, that actually seems to perform better than pre-PBR Firestorm! All the textures load faster, and I seem to get about 5-10% higher frame rate for an equivalent graphics experience of ALM on and shadows turned off. Not sure why the LL viewer should be so much worse.

I have also seen quite a few posts on Reddit from people mentioning that they got an improvement in performance with the PBR Firestorm versus the pre-PBR release too, so it seems some people are very happy with it.

 

It really depends on your computer. But if you had a graphics card (iGPU is pretty much useless) that wasn't being used enough and your CPU wasn't limiting performance, PBR is going to be an upgrade. If your CPU was bottlenecked, or your GPU, you're going to see less performance.

[Kayen Starlight]

I get significantly quieter PC in VR than SL now.

SL on another hand
Before (pre-PBR): Ultra settings, max AA, everything maxed, render distance also pretty big. Room silent like a crypt.

Now (PBR) : Low(est) setting, render distance 32  yeah.. I feel my PC gonna take off and fly anyway, neighbors thinking I have an aircraft engine in my room.
Had to even fps restrict... yeah I don't need those  200 fps as it was blinking if it's gonna make entire house to take off,  vram intentionally toned down to 3gb...
Only when I drop on background it goes little more silent.

WIll try other viewers besides firestorm or just keep downgraded version until enforced upgrade and then see  how all was optimized if stil worth to stick on around.
But yeah I ain't sold on current state as it is.

 

[Chic Aeon]

Just for those who might care, I did a test with the same view of my shop that I posted earlier or on another thread -- it is making the rounds). 

ANYWAY 

In the NON- PBR viewer  I had 177 fps with a 47 degree heat o graphics card.

In the linden viewer I had 144 fps with 52 degrees on graphics card.  

settings were basically the same on next to highest ultra.

 

NOTE THERE IS NO PBR AT MY STORE.  

 

************************************************

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800 8-Core Processor               (3393.62 MHz)
Memory: 16310 MB (Used: 1986 MB)
Concurrency: 16
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19045.4529)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 8192 MB

 

[DevlinMcDermott]

Given the number of complaints on the Firestorms blog and other third party viewing sites about PBR. This is the biggest dumpster fire for SL. 

SL is not worth blowing out; your computer's fan is buzzing louder than a vibrator!