Pros/Cons PBR Viewer whats your take

[Love Zhaoying]

4 hours ago, Sabrina Nebula said:

5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

My eyes scan faster than my brain this morning, and I initially read this as, "Not to be a ferengi.."

 

You have nice ears sir 😉

They are large, soft, and furry.

[elleevelyn]

3 hours ago, Fauve Aeon said:

Well…I did a clean install of the official viewer on my laptop and let it run without tweaking any of the settings as I toodled about and shopped, and I didn’t have any issues except when I tried to run over a corner sim crossing? I think it’s reasonable for someone new who is on an average laptop to learn to turn down a couple of settings and to tweak a couple more - just to compensate for busy areas. And in my experience that’s all I had to do. 

yes

from a new user's pov this is what we do when we give new-to-us apps a go. Install it and go with the default settings out of the box

for sure experienced power users will start tweaking/dialling the app settings sooner than the less experienced. But I don't know anybody who doesn't go with the default settings initially. And when that initial performance is ok-ish then the first thought from pretty much everyone is: Well at least this new-to-me app goes

also to be fair to Linden, SL does go on a whole bunch of computers from the newest all the way back to ancient potatoes with varying degrees of ok-ish

Edited Monday at 11:02 PM by elleevelyn
typs

[CaerolleClaudel]

I don't know that people actually care about my evaluations, so not sure it is worth the effort to post. But, I will have a go anyhow.

Before I started I closed all the apps and rebooted my computer to clear out all the memory leaks. During testing I had Task Manager open, Firefox open with only this one window, and Microsoft Word open to copy-and-paste the text to in case the Forum tab crashed. Memory use was 10GB out of 32GB.

My test sites were my skybox and a sim that had ~18 avatars. I set the Environment to Midday in all cases (used Legacy for non-PBR tests).

I cleared the cache on each viewer from the login page before I logged so (I assume?) all the textures would have to load fresh instead of being pulled from cache. I assume this gives the clearest view of the performance.

LL Viewer
First, I installed the LL Viewer again. The Quality and Speed were set to High (Graphics tab). I changed it to the next notch up and did see some frame rate loss, ~10% though ofc that is not really a solid number. I then did Automatic Setting Adjustment (Graphics tab) and Reset to Recommended Setting (Photo 2); went back to High, and could not find anything else that changed. I then did Autoadjust with 15 fps, and again, no changes that I could find. Final settings shown in Photo 1.

This time I did notice an Advanced Setting button and clicked that (see Photo 1). The window included quite a few rendering options that are just included in the Graphics tab itself in other viewers (see Photo 3). I like what LL did there, some advanced options available for more experienced people, but tucked away so the Graphics tab itself is not so confusing. Shadows were set to Sun and Moon so I used those settings for the other browsers.

Draw Distance was 128m and Avatar Complexity 300,000 (I usually set this below 100,000, 150,000 at most).

Home: 65 fps on landing and standing still; walking about, up to as high as 90 fps; NO lag (!).

Sim: 36 fps on landing and standing still; walking about as high as 47; lag not too bad, very different from earlier in the day (I think there were a lot more avis there)

Fogbound Blues: Since the sim I went to was far less populated than usual, decided to go to a busier place. Opened Destinations, selected TP for Fogbound Blues, locked up viewer.

Logged back in to Home, fps now 100! Makes me wonder if the speeds are too variable over time to even be able to do this comparison...

Went back to test sim, 37 fps, so close to earlier result!

This time did a search for Fogbound and teleported from the Search result. 37 fps and no lag!!! Wow, not what I have seen in the past when going there...

Previous test sim: Went back there today, 22 fps, some lag. Far better than yesterday. Perhaps rebooting my computer and having most apps closed helped?

Conclusions: Extremely good results for LL Viewer! Honestly, with these results I no longer worry about PBR being an obstacle for new people as long as they have solid computer specs.

[CaerolleClaudel]

Firestorm w/PBR

This time I also had Affinity Photo open, though with no images open.

As with the LL Viewer, I opened Preferences before logging on and clear the caches. I also set the Graphics back to High. All the Graphics settings seemed to match those I used in the LL Viewer (see photo).

Home: 66 fps on landing and standing still; walking about did not change the frame rate; lag meter showed red, but I did not see any when walking

Test sim (18 avis): ~38 fps whether standing still or walking; some lag

Fogbound Blues: Did a search for Fogbound and teleported from the Search result. 37 fps on landing and standing still; up to 42 fps walking, and no lag!!! As with the LL Viewer, not what I have seen in the past when going there...

Previous test sim: Went back there today, 14 fps standing or walking, some lag. Worse results than LL Viewer!

Conclusions: Mostly ok results, but perhaps not as good as for the LL Viewer! Other than some conveniences relative to the LL Viewer, for my use cases mostly a wash. That said, photography and building do NOT fall in my use cases.

I do like having the Quick Preferences and built-in AO that FS has, though. The biggest issue for me with the LL Viewer is that I can never figure out how to turn group chat off for Groups. Notices can be turned off in the Group Info tab but I have never figured out how to control chat. Dead easy in all the other viewers I have used, including FS.

[CaerolleClaudel]

Cool VL Viewer w/PBR engaged
This time I also had Affinity Photo open, though with no images open.

As with the LL Viewer, I opened Preferences before logging on and clear the caches. I also set the Graphics back to High. All the Graphics settings seemed to match those I used in the LL Viewer (see photo).

Home (skybox): 66 fps standing still or walking; no lag. All three viewers pretty much the same.

Test sim (18 avis): ~31 fps whether standing still or walking; NO lag. A bit slower than the others but with zero lag. Oddly, even when all set to Midday (PBR), the lighting is different in the three viewers. The LL Viewer seems to have the softest light, and the Cool Viewer very hard light. Shadows are very subtle in the LL Viewer and far more distinct in the Cool Viewer. FS is in between.

Fogbound Blues (61 avis, more than in LL and FS tests): 28 – 35 fps standing still, a bit higher walking; no lag. As with the other viewers, not what I have seen in the past when going there...

Previous test sim: Went back there today, 24 fps standing or walking, no lag. A bit better than the LL Viewer.

Conclusions: Good results, in the same range as the other two viewers. Other than some missing conveniences that FS provides, my preferred viewer for my use cases. As I said before, photography and building do NOT fall in my use cases.

 

Cool VL Viewer w/PBR disengaged
I deselected the PBR setting and kept everything else the same (see photo). I changed the environment from Midday (PBR) to Midday (Legacy).

Home (skybox): ~220 fps standing still or walking; no lag. >3X faster than the viewers using PRB!

Test sim (19 avis): ~150 fps whether standing still or walking; NO lag. Colors and contrast cannot compare with the viewers using PBR, but are the same as I have been used to for years.

Fogbound Blues (62 avis, more than in LL and FS tests): 100 – 120 fps standing still (fluctuated wildly), 75– 150 fps walking (ALSO fluctuated wildly); NO lag.

Previous test sim: Went back there today, ~140 fps standing, 100– 150 fps walking, some lag.

Conclusions: MUCH higher performance than the viewers using PBR. Far faster than I ever saw with FS before PBR, even. Downside is that the visuals are far less compelling.

I am torn. I think the choice between PBR and non-PBR would come down to the situations I encountered. When I was actually engaging with SL a couple months ago, I routinely went to a club where the frame rate was like 5 fps with a LOT of lag. *I* looked fine to myself, but the movement of other avis was extremely jagged. Avatars across the dance floor were horrible. I don't know how the Cool Viewer with PBR turned off would perform in that situation, but if it performed a lot better than the viewers using PBR, I would probably use the Cool Viewer with PBR deselected (I am thinking that high frame rates do not correlate with less lag, but would have to test it to know). Under less fraught circumstances I might use PBR because the visuals are so much richer. No matter what, I do like having the option available.

[CaerolleClaudel]

A caveat I forgot to mention!

I did not whitelist any of the files for any of the viewers. I am uneasy with whitelisting anything, esp folders that I assume are constantly getting content downloaded into them. I have never done that in the past, and I didn't do it this time. I don't know if that would have made a difference or not.

🤷🏻‍♀️

[CaerolleClaudel]

OOOOOOO!!!!

I love to watch waves coming in, the light reflecting from the crests. In the past I had a house I loved in a perfect spot for that, and spent a lot of time sitting and watching the waves roll in under moonlight.

Sadly that place is long gone, but I did find a place I could watch waves come in. I went there to see if I could find some Environment in PBR that would look good to me. Nothing the same, but I guess that was because the water was always opaque for me. This time I could actually see down in the water, all the way to the bottom! Quite amazing! I turned off PBR and Midnight worked just like it had for me for years and I got to see the waves I like. However, the PRB version is quite compelling too!

Pictures ofc do not capture the dynamic aspect, but here are screenshots of each view FWIW.

[Arielle Popstar]

21 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

A caveat I forgot to mention!

I did not whitelist any of the files for any of the viewers. I am uneasy with whitelisting anything, esp folders that I assume are constantly getting content downloaded into them. I have never done that in the past, and I didn't do it this time. I don't know if that would have made a difference or not.

🤷🏻‍♀️

I only use the default Windows Defender which comes with Windows and when FS support kept insisting to whitelist, I did go into Windows Security and completely turned it off temporarily to see how much difference it made if at all. There was a difference and I will whitelist as suggested.

[AmeliaJ08]

Fameshed event is a pretty good PBR shiny floor showcase it's not too excessive, looks nice.

[CaerolleClaudel]

37 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I only use the default Windows Defender which comes with Windows and when FS support kept insisting to whitelist, I did go into Windows Security and completely turned it off temporarily to see how much difference it made if at all. There was a difference and I will whitelist as suggested.

What was the difference you saw?

It seems straightforward to whitelist the viewer files, I just kind of cringe at that. If it made a big difference I might try it and then just delete the exceptions after. I am pretty close to uninstalling all the viewers anyhow, just want to try one more (Genesis) and I am done with this project.

[Codex Alpha]

5 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

What was the difference you saw?

It seems straightforward to whitelist the viewer files, I just kind of cringe at that. If it made a big difference I might try it and then just delete the exceptions after. I am pretty close to uninstalling all the viewers anyhow, just want to try one more (Genesis) and I am done with this project.

Now imagine this advice being told to thousands of people "Just put exceptions in your firewall for our very special program, unlike thousands of other programs where you never have to do this" and that is more offensive than anything else - just having to do this so the program runs as it should.

[Henri Beauchamp]

6 hours ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

Test sim (18 avis): ~31 fps whether standing still or walking; NO lag. A bit slower than the others but with zero lag. Oddly, even when all set to Midday (PBR), the lighting is different in the three viewers. The LL Viewer seems to have the softest light, and the Cool Viewer very hard light. Shadows are very subtle in the LL Viewer and far more distinct in the Cool Viewer. FS is in between.

When you compare viewers, be careful with the settings you use: my viewer got features (some of them ”boosting” the render quality) that others do not have...

For example, in the Preferences screenshot you took, you have ”Low altitude clouds” (AKA Classic clouds) enabled and these do consume processing power, while no other viewer have them.

But there is also:

• The ”Mesh objects boost factor”: set this to 1.0 for benchmarks (see its tool tip for a full explanation of how it works), else you will render meshes at a much higher LOD (more vertices) than in other viewers.
• The Linden trees LOD is much higher in my viewer (”High” setting = 3.0) than in most other viewers (LL's ”High” = 1.0).
• Shadows are softened by default in my viewer, even with SSAO off. The toggle is in the ”Advanced” -> ”Rendering” -> ”Deferred rendering” sub-menu.
• The default camera field of view (FOV): my viewer got a default camera axis which is parallel to the ground, while all other viewers use an axis pointing towards the ground; it means that by default there will be more objects encompassed in the FOV by my viewer (more objects rendered in the distance, instead of rendering the ground): you must absolutely ensure you are rendering with the exact same FOV in all viewers (exact same camera settings and axis), so that you render the exact same objects.

But these are only a few examples, and for benchmarking you must set all the render-related debug settings (for example Render*LODFactor ones for the LODs) directly from the debug setting floater, to avoid discrepancies between viewers.

Once all settings set to the exact same values, you will notice that my viewer is among the fastest, if not the fastest...

 

As for lighting ”hardness”, be careful too... Make sure to use v1.32.2.2 (latest release), in which I exposed in the UI the Sun brightness factor setting; this setting used to be at 1.5 (instead of 1.0) to un-break shadows with ”legacy” EE settings, shadows that went missing with a change implemented by LL shortly before they pushed their PBR viewer to release: see this bug report for details.

However, 1.5 is way too much for the new PBR-aware settings which start spreading on the grid (they did not exist when I increased this factor to 1.5 to un-break shadows, back in October 2023), with which the Sun brightness is pushed to ”excessive” values when compared with legacy settings.

In the Cool VL Viewer v1.32.2.2, I implemented an ”Automatic exposure” feature for the Sun brightness factor, plus some manual presets: see the ”World” -> ”Environment settings” -> ”Sun brightness” sub-menu.

”Auto exposure” (defaulting to ON) will work pretty well for both legacy and PBR-aware EE settings, but you may be better off using ”150% (legacy settings)” or ”50% (PBR-aware settings)”, depending on the parcel environment, and for viewers comparison the ”100% (LL's default)”.

Oh, also, the default midday setting (CTRL SHIFT Y) is the ”legacy” one in my viewer, when it is the PBR one in LL's viewer: set midday from the ”Environment settings” menu, to be sure to select the same in all viewers, and finally there's ”Adjust legacy to HDR”, defaulting to OFF in my viewer while set to ON (and not exposed in the UI) for LL's viewer.

Quote

Fogbound Blues (62 avis, more than in LL and FS tests): 100 – 120 fps standing still (fluctuated wildly), 75– 150 fps walking (ALSO fluctuated wildly); NO lag.

You will want to try the smart frame rate limiter: you do not need the ludicrous fps rates my viewer can provide (in my sky box, forward rendering mode, I'm at 1500fps ! 🤣) and instead get the GPU to run cooler while the CPU ”free time” between frames will be instead used to rez more objects and textures.

The setting is in the ”Preferences” floater, ”Cool features” tab, ”Misc.” sub-tab. ”Frame rate limit” spinner. Set it to, for example, 60fps, and enjoy a Cool™️©️®️ and quiet Second Life, with super-fast rezzing ! 😉

 

Edited Tuesday at 07:53 AM by Henri Beauchamp

[MadyHades]

Ok so what i experienced in the new pbr version using firestorm:

slow performance for me especially with advance lightning on all times. I dont have high speed internet or a good graphics driver (using cable internet 5Mbps).  i used to keep off Advance lightning if i was not doing anything creative. Im fine without reflection too.. had to reinstall old version.

So id say im fine without PBR too unless they make it playable for people with not so powerful PCs . 

[AmeliaJ08]

7 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

Now imagine this advice being told to thousands of people "Just put exceptions in your firewall for our very special program, unlike thousands of other programs where you never have to do this" and that is more offensive than anything else - just having to do this so the program runs as it should.

I've tried.

Got a response "most applications don't have giant caches" which is... semi-true. Somewhat. Kinda.

Gave up. Having a cache isn't particularly abnormal for a variety of apps and making regular access to it isn't particularly abnormal either, never had to specifically whitelist my browser for example (that would be a terrible idea).

I can see the argument but I also think in 2024 it is far overblown as far as something that will limit performance, some people have noticed that Windows Defender (or their AV of choice, I guess) does spend some CPU cycles - that SL is rarely using 100% of - scanning cache files and don't like it though.

Some people report magical effects of whitelisting, I personally see no appreciable difference but I'm not sitting monitoring Resource Monitor in Windows to see whatever effect it may have. I've certainly never seen Windows Defender block access to any file the viewer may need. I generally sorta-trust SL but it's a platform where security probably isn't the #1 concern and the way it works and I'm sure there probably is some security hole sitting undiscovered... it seems to come down to a decision on how impactful you feel msmpeng.exe doing it's thing on your cache actually is and if that tradeoff is worth it.

 

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:41 AM by AmeliaJ08

[HeathcliffMontague]

For low powered setups whitelisting can have quite a noticeable effect. For others maybe not so much, in my experience. It varies. I've whitelisted FS several times, never had any issues, FWIW.

[Toothless Draegonne]

10 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

Now imagine this advice being told to thousands of people "Just put exceptions in your firewall for our very special program, unlike thousands of other programs where you never have to do this" and that is more offensive than anything else - just having to do this so the program runs as it should.

Unfortunately due to the increasing paranoia of AV software and the cost of getting certified, this is an increasing occurence for an increasing amount of any kind of indy software, which basically every TPV is. Either you're having to add exceptions, or you're having to override the install-wall. Or both.

I'm wondering if this is a deliberate Microsoftian attempt to force everyone onto their crappy app store, but nonetheless, FS is far from alone in needing people to turn off AV or access control features, and kind of removes the point of even having them.

[Codex Alpha]

1 minute ago, Toothless Draegonne said:

Unfortunately due to the increasing paranoia of AV software and the cost of getting certified, this is an increasing occurence for an increasing amount of any kind of indy software, which basically every TPV is. Either you're having to add exceptions, or you're having to override the install-wall. Or both.

I'm wondering if this is a deliberate Microsoftian attempt to force everyone onto their crappy app store, but nonetheless, FS is far from alone in needing people to turn off AV or access control features, and kind of removes the point of even having them.

I've never had to do this with any software, only the PBR viewer versions of SL.

[Toothless Draegonne]

Just now, Codex Alpha said:

I've never had to do this with any software, only the PBR viewer versions of SL.

This has been standard viewer advice for the last year now, and hitting the install-wall has been a thing in general for much longer than that.

[Fauve Aeon]

I don’t mind following a laundry list of directions and doing tweaks to get a better performance result and a customized experience on a viewer, and I’m kind of glad that many people are downright preoccupied with it - enough to do the comparisons and share their experiences for us to learn from, but I also think much of it may be way more confusing now for new people just test-driving SL.

[Love Zhaoying]

8 minutes ago, Fauve Aeon said:

I don’t mind following a laundry list of directions and doing tweaks

It's just like RolePlay!

He presses her buttons.

"I don't like that!", she said.

He twiddles her knobs instead.

"Gasp!", she gasped.

Suddenly, the picture became clear.  She was a sentient Television.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

13 hours ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

A caveat I forgot to mention!

I did not whitelist any of the files for any of the viewers. I am uneasy with whitelisting anything, esp folders that I assume are constantly getting content downloaded into them. I have never done that in the past, and I didn't do it this time. I don't know if that would have made a difference or not.

🤷🏻‍♀️

I think, "good" AntiVirus software should warn a user if it suddenly has to scan new folders a lot / all the time due to downloads, etc.  Then, it should prompt the user and ask if they want to whitelist that set of folders.

Alternatively, if the user explicitly said "Yes, trust this application" then why wouldn't "good" AntiVirus software automatically whitelist any folders accessed by that application?

I use Norton. I haven't noticed performance issues. 

 

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

It's just like RolePlay!

He presses her buttons.

"I don't like that!", she said.

He twiddles her knobs instead.

"Gasp!", she gasped.

Suddenly, the picture became clear.  She was a sentient Television.

 

This is the most erotic emote I've read in SL for years.

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

It's just like RolePlay!

He presses her buttons.

"I don't like that!", she said.

He twiddles her knobs instead.

"Gasp!", she gasped.

Suddenly, the picture became clear.  She was a sentient Television.

At some point, this conversation must introduce a pair of pliers... and possibly aluminum foil.

Edited Tuesday at 04:14 PM by Madelaine McMasters
The thoughts come pouring in.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

At some point, this conversation must introduce a pair of pliers... and possibly aluminum foil.

I hadn't run across this kink before.

And to think I thought I knew you!

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

At some point, this conversation must introduce a pair of pliers... and possibly aluminum foil.

Ahh, pliers! A great reference in the classic Firesign Theatre album!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Crush_That_Dwarf,_Hand_Me_the_Pliers