Andred Darwin

FPS, or any other measure posted, should not be used for comparisons between different players, its great that you pointed out, it depends on "where you are at, how many avatars", but I don't think is "moot" either, I like to share my setup and average FPS in discussions like this one (I have 2 machines I can use for SL, 11700k+nv 3060, 6700k+nv1080, and they both provide a quite nice experience, very similar... one is double the price of the other today ), that could be used by someone else as a base or at least more information in case they are trying to choose or upgrade a machine, many don't have any idea, and you may save quite few dollars getting a balanced machine that can fit your needs, many here at the forum even ask for opinions .... and avoid things like, "Omg, my $1000 laptop has the 12gen processor and SL runs like crap".... The link below never failed me and a few friends on trying to get a balanced machine, as long as nothing is under or over 20% (also saved a lot of money upgrading a current machine). https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/

Do you remember where (what region) you took the readings (if so, could you share)? For me Firestorm, the official and the alpha stays about the same around 11% - 14% (11700KF + NV3060) while active... no noticeable difference in temperature. With the 6700k processor + NV 1080 around 24%-30% (Firestorm after a while goes down to 15-20%)... didn't really measure temperature, since the machine was off (didn't want to wait for it to stabilize first...)

I don't see Candide LeMay's point as being selfish, neither anything against someone that does not own a machine capable of running games in a meaningful way. She is just expressing frustration (her "thing" is to build in SL, try to see it with her eyes), and it can be frustrating (create something for indoors as an example, and one that fits both ALM On and Off, is really hard.. you finally learned a bit about Blender or alike, a lot of time to bake.... the object in-world with default EEP, too bright, too dark, more time to bake again, shadows, AO, etc...), there are 2 distinct ways to see SL now (ALM, no ALM, iGPU vs discrete 3D Card) and the perception of both is completely different... whoever uses a machine with with less than a GTX 970 equivalent 3D card today (laptop or desktop), gets a very poor experience of all that SL can provide, that's a fact, not counting FPS, it looks really different without ALM. Having ALM on all the time, at the very least, will reduce the gap on how SL looks after rendering, be that at 1 fps, or 170 fps, Dave and team based on the exchange between you and him on the thread you shared earlier, is not only aware, but keeping as goal to make ALM On (the renderer) as fast if not faster than the other option, even using an Intel HD. This thread started in April, on a completely different note (how slow it was even on a gaming machine), the performance improvement came out and wow, what a nice (and much needed) bump in performance... I believe they will do a great job with ALM... ALM is the way to go, time to get out of old school! (For a month or so after the release of the performance improvement, compared to other viewers, the official viewer was one of, if not the fastest available, quite a surprise, who would even think! I also know you updated your "Cool Viewer" in some parts even before the official was released, so you don't need to highlight it.) Whoever chooses to buy a computer not built for gaming, does so for a reason... gaming is not really their goal, there are many other things the computer will do great and fit their needs.... be that limited by budget, choice or even knowledge... and to an extent, your argument about "poor" SL players... I don't really believe they are really that "poor"... if they feel its worth, plans can be made to get/upgrade to a machine that can actually play SL, take it a month, take a few months... a used machine (complete) with a at least a NVIDIA 1060 is not even close to be as expensive as it was when this thread started, in many cases way less than the current laptop/desktop they are using now... you don't need a $700 card or a $2000 laptop to run SL with a quite pleasant experience, of course, if you can afford it, you will be able to see SL at its best (not only SL, but almost everything else). ALM On looks better, sells better, much better PR, does not look "old school", metaverse (in SL at least) looks and feels a lot more interesting (can actually make you want to see it, and much higher odds you will choose to stay): https://www.flickr.com/groups/wonderful_sl_landscapes/pool/ https://www.flickr.com/groups/secondlife/pool/ https://www.flickr.com/groups/secondlifeofficial/pool/ Choice of computer is personal and limited by each ones budget, perception of worth, and usage needs, be that $89 one animats posted earlier, be a gaming "beast"... for the gaming industry today, computers without a "gaming" graphics card are not really their focus, SL actually, at least try and care... I am 100% sure all of them would love if it actually could be otherwise, it's a hardware limitation for today standards!

That's really cool! I think the screen-sharing would be nice, cause they could see the Edit window as an example, menus, etc as you go... a vnc repeater (or a stream bridge) is really lightweight.... and could run along with a region simulator (no worries with IP sharing... same as connecting to a region... ) basically, the person sharing the screen, connects in "reverse" after Enabled... , and the user would view the stream after an invitation.... Videos help a lot... but sometimes one may need a bit more attention, giving them a chance to ask questions as it goes, etc.... We did that in RL (something similar), we had info dashboards at clients locations (with an arm board running the software, very similar to a Raspberry Pi) ... both "user" and "support" could switch between "streamer" and "viewer" to show how to use the system, etc.. at the time, the repeater was running on a T2 medium at AWS, really cheap... 800 dashboards connected and in standby.... but rarely would reach let's say 20 streaming for support purposes (mostly when the customer just installed dashboards)... Anyway, that would make "teaching" or "support" in SL much easier between users.... I've seen a EEP class a friend of mine gave at the last "Focus Photography Fair", was quite nice, but loading textures on a slide with 30 avatars at the same area, was not as nice as it could be. Not to count, could create another "market" for "private classes" in SL....

Not really on topic, I'm sorry about that, but would be nice if SL had a built-in way for a user to share its own screen P2P (or a repeater to not expose IP's, etc...) to another user safely (instead of just allow others edit own objects), could be really useful in tutorials, schools, EEP classes, etc... or even help others build or setup things. Same could apply to stream to other devices within the local network....

Well, if anyone bought one of those for the specific goal of using with SL, they will learn really quick it was the same as throwing money in the trash... much better of, save a bit more money overtime, and get something on the specs of: https://www.ebay.com/itm/144791565646 I'm not suggesting to buy on eBay, but a machine bought locally from a used computer store with at least some warranty will cost about the same with Windows or Linux (to make Henry happy! lol) installed, and a small SSD, on the same or close specs... would allow ALM On most if not all the time, a completely new SL compared to the one you mentioned (in fact completely new experience for everything else too).

I respect what you say. Sincerely, "iGPU or APU to render, not a discrete GPU, ARM-based devices, Chrome-books" really? Maybe a super expensive Jetson TX2, AGX and alike (to that level) would have a chance to run SL with all it takes in way that is actually playable, and that in a very distant future! iGPU's, APU's, Chromebooks all have its pros, but in any of them SL fits... sorry, could get better, but is never going to work! I understand that sometimes people will use what they can or what they have, but for SL, in this case, it's the same as to "like to feel pain". It was the official dev team that came up with that idea to remove Forward Rendering and concentrate on a improved Deferred Rendered, and Dave's arguments make a lot more sense to me, I also believe they will do a great job based on what they were able to achieve with the latest performance improvement... there is also the ROI standpoint.... I think its the same as you keeping the v1 UI on the Cool Viewer, its cool to see and remember the old school SL but many can't stand it (its ugly to them compared to the current UI on Official, Firestorm, Black Dragon, etc...), and sincerely, some only use it cause you did a great job keeping it up, otherwise, it would only come up as "memories" from old times, and just because you did, does not mean a company looking for profits should, you very talented, you like SL, you like the Cool Viewer and have a lot of time to keep up with the Cool Viewer (and kindly shares it for free!) Actual state of Forward Rendering and continue to invest on it, in my opinion, is the same as keep spending money on that old car that breaks all the time! Deferred Rendering is the new "car" in this case (and seems in 2023 powered by Vulkan "motor" lol )... looks great, much better! And based on Dave's arguments, the old car, probably should be "retired"... The thought of having 2 viewers, a light one specifically tailored for iGPU's and APU's would allow users of those machines continue to use what they are used to, also allow passionate and talented people like yourself to continue to improve it with improvements specific to those machines... (and maybe as a base for ARM, etc... which is the only segment that still uses Forward Rendering, Vulkan is gaining ground...)... the same would happen with the discrete gpu's, actual gaming pcs... as of cost... if 30% of SL users need it, that cost would also be close to nothing for LL, many companies do that, keep one or two developers taking care of the current version, while the team works on the next big thing.. the cost of not moving forward will be much higher... competition, although pretty far away, will get there pretty soon, SL is the best in all metaverse as a whole today... and will continue to be the best with the improvements pursued by Dave and team!

Sure thing! Please post back, how does it feel to play SL with the new setup! I think I've seen a post of someone already using that same machine (or similar), hopefully they will see it and also add their 2 cents!

My 2 cents... that laptop has great specs, and can run SL with all bells and whistles! Maybe you don't need that much, but it will be enough to (not only) run SL for a quite a few years, provided it lasts. A few things I would consider for SL purposes (That machine is great, and I guess you will not use for SL only, keep that in mind): 1) The default desktop resolution on that machine is 2560 × 1600, which is nice and quite high. Higher the desktop resolution/game resolution, usually, higher the demand (lower framerate) when playing games, SL running at 2560x1600 will look great, but not as fast as full HD 1920x1080 or lower. (You can connect a full HD external monitor to the laptop, or just lower the resolution on Windows, but kinda defeats the purpose of using a laptop) 2) Using Wifi vs a connected network cable. Assuming the physical internet connection (ISP cable) is good and relative fast (5mb/s or higher), normal latency on Wifi, interference, connection drops, number of devices connected, can still affect how fast you will load scenes/regions, causing that perception of lag, even using a nice machine like the one you chose. If you have the option to have a "physical" network cable to connect the laptop ( at least at the room/area you will use it the most ), it will be a much "smoother" experience. 3) Overheating Avoid putting the laptop over a soft material or any material that can obstruct ventilation like pillows, etc... gaming laptops tend to get quite hot and will "slowdown" in order to keep the temperature at safe levels. A "hard" surface like a laptop couch stand or sort, helps a lot to keep it cool, some even have a fan to help dissipate heat. (Will also help prevent damage from running at high temperatures for a extended period of time ) I know you are looking for portability and easily be able to move around (a laptop is also "cool")... but maybe keep in mind, for SL, a desktop machine with similar specs and a hardwired (cable) connection will cost less than that laptop, and easily give you a much better experience, easier on the eyes using a desktop monitor vs a laptop monitor, not to count, a desktop is easier to "upgrade" in the future, not as easy to "break" or "damage" and way less to worry about overheating.

I guess... pretty much! 😛 Take a look at the comments/exchange between Henry and Dave at https://bitbucket.org/lindenlab/viewer/commits/aaf7b17db047f0cb2630b479d5468062e6ca815e#comment-12384200 Of course Henry has a point, and to an extent, it's nice that he puts it forward (also very knowledgably), at the same time it's nice to see LL is going after, not only improving the viewer meaningfully (like the performance improvement) but quite fast! (TPV's will continue to improve it and maybe even better!) In my opinion Forward Renderer should be "kept" on its own viewer fork (like it happened in past many times... v1, Snowglobe, v2), and receive improvements when needed, for a period of time, but removed from the current development... so the current work can move forward easily... opportunities to improve or mistakes will happen for sure, but that can be worked out...

I know, I'm just glad it changed, I use the official viewer day to day and "texture downres" was is quite annoying (probably necessary... but still annoying) ! It doesn't seem to fully use memory available (or maybe it does, and I am confused about what VRAM really is, or the amount that is available to a program... or the info below is just the current amount used... ), the graphics card I use has 12GB of memory, and this is what comes up at the "About Second Life" window: Texture memory changed from 512mb to 4095MB. Hopefully, they will also change the default LOD when set to Ultra!

That's great to hear! Thank you for sharing, also sharing the release of the new alpha viewer! I played with the new alpha viewer this morning on the main grid, not to test PBR (not available at the main grid yet), just out of curiosity to see how it renders (considering known issues, water, etc..) compared to the current one, what called my attention on the notes was "Improved VRAM Utilization". From the release notes: This is really noticeable compared to the current official viewer, like water to wine, lol, even after going back and forth to quite a few regions and let it load completely (cache full)! Rendering seems darker than the current viewer. Looking at FPS, it takes a hit even without the new features in-world, average of 10% to 18% (Main grid, no reflection probes, pbr materials, etc), probably due to Occlusion culling either being disable or just not working (notes mention it does not work in this version), however it feels smother. I thought it would be really slow on an event area with occlusion disabled, but didn't seem at all... the perception of not seeing "texture downres", and objects fully “rezzed” while turning or "going up a stairs between floors" was a much nicer experience than the current behavior (I'm sure that perception will vary between machines…). Even taking a hit on performance, I wonder if there is an option to set the distance for occlusion culling take effect on the current official viewer? Example: Draw distance set at 256m, but no object occlusion within 64m (or 128m) What is sort of a bummer, is the LOD factor, set and reset to 1.125 every time you switch between viewers (alpha and official) or reinstall... the "thing" sets itself to Ultra, and LOD at 1.125? Sincerely, I think that is one of the main reasons, a lot of people just "ignore" the official viewer ( That first impression... ), the default could be bumped a bit (2.0 like Firestorm?) and the maximum allowed at the graphics preferences window could also be bumped (Maybe 4.0, Ultra, lol).

That's exactly my point, and I hear the same from many others... I hope they will continue to improve the viewer ( the last update made it go, in my case from an average of 50 to 60 fps, to 130 to 200fps depending on the region on the same hardware! ), a newer pc can help depending on the configuration you choose, sometimes a small update on the current pc (assuming is not a laptop, like in your case... ) can make a huge difference (not only for SL) and not be, hopefully, too heavy on our pocket. I really like the official viewer (specially since the performance update), and that is the one I use when playing, Henry's Cool Viewer is probably the fastest, using the v1 UI/Layout.... Firestorm seems to not be as fast for me compared to the other two, but the dev team is getting there (if not already... ), I just don't like too many options on all windows... feels clunky to me (even though many are very useful and handy....)

You are right, I picked that area because it has many lights, I wanted to showcase ALM in action.... I'm not sure what you are referring as "normal" scene conditions, but most if not all areas in the Destination Guide are like that, be that night, be that sunshine, whatever, those are the areas users that like to explore, new users, visit the most (Flickr is a huge example of it, and yes, people that like landscaping as an example do zoom out... and a lot...may not be your personal experience though...neither needs to be, you do whatever you want ) my goal was to highlight that ALM is awesome and way more "interesting" compared to simply turned off and development of the viewer should not be held back because of old hardware (as I mention at another post, in my opinion should not be ignored either), the comment I hear the most from users coming back is how nice SL looks now with EEP, Mesh and ALM.... not FXAA or old computers running SL... The computer I took the screenshot is not by any means the fastest or the latest or expensive, its not old yet either, and I since the viewer update I have not seen a region that would drop it below 60 fps, which is awesome ( although I don't really visit any region with more than, lets say 10 avatars in view ).

Dishonest? Pretend? Really? lol, we are better than that! You are also comparing the landing point, with a different viewer.... not the same area... you know very well there are differences between viewers, machines, operating systems. Here is mine and anyone with the same settings and hardware will get very similar results : CPU: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11700KF @ 3.60GHz (3599.99 MHz) Memory: 65361 MB OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10/11 64-bit (Build 22621.674) Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060/PCIe/SSE2 Windows Graphics Driver Version: 31.0.15.1659 OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 516.59 Window size: 1920x1009 Font Size Adjustment: 96pt UI Scaling: 1 Draw distance: 128m Bandwidth: 3000kbit/s LOD factor: 4 Render quality: 5 Advanced Lighting Model: Enabled Texture memory: 512MB Disk cache: Max size 3993.6 MB (100.0% used) SL Official viewer (Second Life Release 6.6.7.576223 (64bit)), Use Shared Environment enabled, teleported from one my locations, in fairness I do have a custom preset enabled, that I use while seeing areas from the Destination Guide (I will reset all settings and post a new screenshot later on).... and did exactly what a regular user would do to test.... Turn off Advanced Lightning Model under graphics.... I don't think the average user cares or know about FXAA, or SMAA or whatever... The new improvements, ALM On, EEP, rendering speed can and will help SL continue for many more years, staying stuck with the old will not (maybe short term) .... Edit: I just reset the settings on the viewer and here is a new screenshot from that same area with ALM off... also... that area seems to have a light changing script.... between blueish, white, green... so its not same as I posted before. ALM ON Above, Off below.

No question about being stable and the fact that it can really give a new life to that old hardware ( I use it too! ), but to "get there" is not as simple as you mentioned (its easy for you!), you need to know your hardware, choose a distro, a desktop manager, find the "current" drivers, and in most cases, build the right machine for it ... the fact is that the average user won't deal with it... it barely broke 2.5% in desktop market share... and for SL is probably even less... Also no question about SMAA (I keep your viewer installed and updated on my machine, even though I don't use it much while playing SL, but I really enjoy seeing what you were able to do with it)... but when it comes to ALM just as "enabled" and "disabled"... ALM enabled (provided your machine can handle, for most new players and players coming back, it can handle ) is 200 to 1 compared to it disabled, as on the screenshots below (It's a random area from the Destinations Guide, really nice actually, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Holiday Magic/114/182/40 )... ALM enabled easily makes SL way more interesting... the current improvements on the viewer were just great and should continue and not be hold back... Coffee Pancake has a good point in saying "runs modern SL like garbage", is not even close. You proved, yes, it can run... but how many will actually will go through install Linux, on a "old potato" like many people labels an old machine, along with its pains for someone not used to Linux, install a viewer.... just for SL.. do you really believe it... in itself it means it doesn't matter if it can run... ALM On above compared to it turned off below... (Not even close!)

Henri, yes, "could" run, but… really? Experience is mediocre at best! The bare minimum for SL would be around a GTX 970 with a fast 4th gen intel processor (i5 4690k or i7 4770K and above) using your viewer or SL official viewer (a used build with these specs and a small SSD would be around USD $250). A GTX 1060 with a fast 6th gen processor will allow you to run with ALM On (with at least 30fps on a HD monitor 1920x1080) at most places in SL for a little bit more (USD $300 to $400). Linux, which I not only like very much but use most of time for work, it's a pain in the a** for the everyday user, let alone keep a SL viewer running... (even though you did a great job!). Intel integrated GPU's will not run SL to the point you can really explore, there might be something misleading in that 30% mentioned earlier in the thread. SL without ALM is not only boring, but also ugly! OpenGL is showing its age, SL could benefit a lot from Nvidia DLSS and AMD's FSR super sampling and many other new features, new laptops (which some people use even for gaming) are coming with default resolutions over 2K, which "cripples" the viewer fps even more specially with integrated GPU's, it's huge difference to run any game at 1280x720 vs the quite common default of 3840x2160 (whoever is reading this, if you have a monitor with resolution higher or at 1920x1080, close SL, lower the desktop resolution and run again to compare). I'm not saying my opinion would be to just ignore the 30% of users (of course it should not), but maybe just "branch out"... have a viewer tailored for those machines, with its own "improvements" to at least "see" SL, and continue with the latest, will not be easy, in this case, to deal with 2 opposites in the same branch, one will stop or block the other and nothing will get done … (time and TPV viewers will take care of the rest... gee, you, mostly by yourself, kept v1 for how long time now and did a very nice job!.

Yes most places will go through some challenging times, economy, energy, etc... my point was about the new user experience (which is the topic ... I guess... ) and what I wanted to bring up, is that there are options on the viewer to adapt the experience according to what your machine can do... ( be that make full use of your hardware or even reduce power consumption like you mentioned ), but its not easy to do that... and for sure it is one area of opportunity (along quite a few ) ... I've seen the reaction of a new user, a few weeks ago while showing SL to a couple friends at their house.... a very "powerful" machine, and SL looked horrible with the default settings right after the installation visiting a place at the Destinations Guide... a few tweaks after, which are almost impossible for a new user to do right out of the gate, the experience was completely different, I have also seen the reaction of someone when they learned a bit about EEP, tweak the viewer LOD based on where they are in-world... how to make custom pictures... use the Black Dragon viewer, etc... the comment was... "omg its a new SL for me", the first impression matters... In some machines, ALM can be a resource hog... but for others it would not really matter... that was my suggestion, make a lot easier to tweak it... PBR I think it will be great, can reduce the number of textures and scripting if they can manage to implement it... may also bring more fun to tweaking objects /meshes in-world... ( you would not need to depend on the creator of a house for example for nice textures, or deal with Blender and alike... just change the material you either created or got it some other way, its way easier to create/use a material than wait for it to render in Blender, etc.. walls, bricks, roof, wood, etc... provided the object is set with mod permissions, that "old house" can become new and shiny again with very little effort ). Its easy to see and understand why users here at the forum are so "negative" about SL ( me too sometimes ) ... SL history of events ( old management ) explains everything... but I think its getting better, a lot better.. a few years ahead of any competitor in most areas (Philip got it right! lol) ... I like the idea, I like the game, and enjoy it a lot using it a few hours a week... also... in-world, you don't see that much "negativity" we see here, in fact completely the other way.. if anyone is new to the forums reading this... just take it as is... just a forum... some people will try to come up with ideas, opinions, news (some quite good ones) and you may even learn a thing or two, some are here just cause SL became their first life... and some just don't have anything else to do...

I think SL is getting better, after the new ownership, things are changing fast than ever, and changing for the better, it will take a little while to see the full results, this "world financial crisis" is not helping much either. Will not be easy to crack that new user experience... not everyone is equal... you could guess and be creative as much as you want.. it will never be one thing fits all, maybe instead of one way, have a few options or "first things to do" aligned to what they want or expect? Be that see places of interest/landscapes, visit a club, meet new people, cultural places (XXX lol)… provide a really nice, modern starter avatar (picture worthy), so they can “look good/feel good” (close to what they see on pictures, blog, flickr, etc.) at first rez and not scare the c**p out of them to learn and spend a lot of money to customize your avatar right out of the gate. (If they stay, they will to get to that later!) For sure, the first few people they meet, and the first few places they visit in-world will shape half of what they will think about SL, and half way through the "Will I come back?" answer. The viewer performance got a lot better... the new "materials" work looks promising! I just wish they fixed or improved some things first, before adding more stuff, it got to be easier to tweak the viewer to match your machine performance and current scene you are visiting. A fellow with a gaming machine should be able to easily (if not ready from the start ) enable all the cool features that generates a nicer SL experience, way higher LOD setting from the start, it just "su**s" to login with a new installation of the official viewer, half, if not more off all objects are just deformed, "texture blurring", LOD changing in some places at every turn (which is really irritating on the official viewer )…, that's not what they expect using their "gaming machine" … my own machine is by no means the latest, but it can handle almost everything to the max (I only keep draw distance low at 128m), and the viewer, after tweaked, provides a completely different experience compared to a new installation... does first impression matters? (I hear a lot of people saying its only old avatars in SL… login with a default installation of SL viewer on a gaming machine and compare what you see with what it is advertised on the Blog, Destination Guide, Flicker, and you will understand right away…) On the same note... someone using a machine not really designed for gaming or 3D rendering, should be able to reduce some settings easily enough to make the most of their experience... and the viewer should let them know, in a nice way, that there is not much that can be done about their current machine, it’s a 3D world! Who are we kidding... a built-in graphics card will never be able to handle SL or any other relevant 3D game per say, but options could be “easily” available, so they can enjoy it with what they have at the moment. Right now it’s like a nightmare for current users and new users to tweak the viewer, a bunch of menus, sliders (I guess its ok for fine tunning, experienced users), and most of the settings don’t really make a noticeable difference in performance, would be good I guess if they knew right from the start, viewer performance will vary a lot depending on the places and number of avatars present in the same region they are visiting… and a simple screen, was easily accessible to toggle the top 3 main settings that affect performance according to the scene (ALM/Shadows, LOD/draw distance, avatars rendered), the user should be able to toggle them easily since performance perception varies a lot from person to person.

I think unless there is a strong technical reason to remove, they should keep the option to turn off ALM, so people can enjoy SL using the hardware they have access to, as of what is the best LOD, ALM, Shadows, etc... it really depends on current computer, connection and objects or scene they are currently playing with ( of course some objects/meshes in-world don't really help... ). There is some opportunity on the official SL viewer to make easier to switch between the options and see how your computer responds... Firestorm made it a bit more accessible, but still too complicated. Would a simple window to easily switch between settings that affect FPS the most help? * The screenshot above was created using an editor... not an actual viewer. (ALM Proposal?)

Congratulations to Casper, and great to see LL being proactive! If I could wish anything out this news, is to see a "new and nice transaction history module" with in-world and marketplace transactions in one place, reports, one UI! Redelivery, versioning, gift purchase, discounts, after all these years, is long overdue as a "standard" feature of the entire platform (not only marketplace), and not something that should be "charged extra" for or executed by a third party, but built-in. The server team and viewer team, in my point of view are doing a great job recently, lots of improvements, could that be extended to the way transactions are managed and conducted within SL? I know there is probably a boat load of data, and with this acquisition, probably another boat to be processed (and much of that data somewhat duplicated using different systems / databases... Marketplace, In-world and now Casper's, the "snowball" will continue to grow? 3 UI's, 3 different storage/reporting systems, maintain all of it... then raise fees? ). Wishes: 1) A "sales / shopping" module within the viewer, similar to the marketplace listings, with "versioning / demos" built-in (using the listing as a UUID, mapped to the latest "version" available, etc). 2) Script functions to access and perform optional tasks on a listing: - Listing metadata (Name, category, maturity, etc...) - Delivery. - Redelivery. - Gift purchase. - Demos. - Access main texture of a listing to be displayed in world. - Display the marketplace listing in a viewer dialog. 3) Eliminate fees on sales!(lol... wishful thinking!) I think those would cover the basics! No more hassles with using different systems... one "source" for reporting... smooth sales transactions, peace of mind for buyers and sellers!

Cool place to play with EEP! http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/WilloW Falls/125/183/27

Really? For a long time SL has been "adding" and "trying" new "half baked" stuff and leaving many others behind... attract new users and leave them with bad performance... crashes, mainland pretty much somewhat abandoned... do whatever you want policy... of course they didn't not retain anyone, many here have been raising these issues for a long time... but things changed or at least seem to be changing now... recent viewers and servers overall are performing much better... seems to be going to new direction... even though many in management are still the ones since SL started going down ( which for me started in 2010 with Rod,. then Sansar, list could go really long ... ), also, SL was never "affordable"... regions had a setup fee of over U$ 1000, maintenance fee of over U$ 300.... by the time they started lowering the price... the image was already twisted... expensive, low performance, somewhat offensive ... ( Sex games only!?) I think SL's orange has a lot more juice to give! My point is, I think if they continue to work on the basic stuff ( improved performance, etc ), fix critical issues (in-world search and discovery, group /social functionality) and make SL more affordable ( is pretty close... at least not as bad at it used to be), then SL may even grow by itself... COVID, although very unfortunate in RL, gave a boost to SL, this metaverse hype, also giving some visibility to SL, Philip is to an extent, back with SL .... otherwise... Deja Vu again... economy, transactions going down, people who came back... just leaving...

I know you do... and yes would be nice if SL looked like Cyberpunk 2077 , and you are right, 2007 will not return... at the same time, I think 2022's SL platform is way better! Still on this topic of new users and retention, management (if they want to grow), need to invest on showcasing and providing a way for people to really try the 2022 experience that SL can provide (a free account helps, but not enough for a 1st week...) ... it needs new people to create/use and improve... Even though it may not be up to the latest standards... there are a lot of areas in SL that are really nice, "not too shaby", whether landscapes, racing, role play, shooter games.... and with the recent improvements, are really easy to enjoy with decent speeds... ( Minecraft and Roblox dont look as nice as SL can... and yet, they have millions of concurrent users! Management had its role in the past, but hopefully now with resources, they will be able to improve!)

I get your point, but I believe its personal to each one... in this case, to you and probably quite a few... I dont think SL is just as you described... The link above ( SL Official Flickr channel ) shows that a lot of people do enjoy the Barbie/Ken play (and not black and white... actually, full of bright colors and HD), the landscape, the exploring, the communities, the role play... Almost every day (mostly when someone contacts me) I meet people with huge projects and some extremely impressive... or at least, projects that matter to them and they are having a lot of fun developing them! I think that is what SL can provide and that is what SL is... From a retention standpoint, the majority of new users don't get to experience or even know that it does exist....