KjartanEno

Using Eddy's map I'm seeing what looks like new planned regions for Zindra. They show a placeholder name "Ursula" followed by a number. Zindra has an unfinished feel to it since a lot of land abruptly ends in the air, so to speak. This! 🚢

Get the latest build of Singularity here: http://www.singularityviewer.org/kb/nightly-builds

I tested the water shadows issue with the Alchemy EEP beta. With a prim on my head, I took a walk in shallow water. Of all the EEP viewers I have used, only Alchemy did it right. Alchemy's water also looks different using the same region water setting than Firestorm and Kokua viewers. So, just to be clear, it's not that there are no water shadows at all in EEP. They are simply so faint as to be practically useless no matter what water preset or custom adjustment is made.

If I could get some feedback on this, I'll file a bug report. Here's a composite image with the avatar standing in the same spot in Singularity and Firestorm. In both viewers the setting "automatic alpha masks (deferred)" is enabled in the Developer menu. I checked whether this setting made any difference in Firestorm, and it did not. If this has been fixed in the LMR RC viewer, then I won't need to file a bug report.

Actually that might be related. If the water issue prevents ground shadows underwater, it's doing the same to the feet in that image. Also, at times the reflections of objects on water are much brighter than they should be considering the objects' colors in the scene.

I'm on Linux, so I cannot use the LMR test viewer. I was visiting one of the editor's picks, Beira da Ribeira, using Firestorm and Singularity viewers. Singularity still uses the Windlight renderer, and I used the shared environment. The sunlight is a bit too bright, but wouldn't that be expected in a tropical jungle? I saved a few pictures and came back in Firestorm. Again, I used the shared environment. However, wanting to try to replicate that high contrast look I got in Singularity, I turned up the gamma a bit and lowered the ambient color with Personal Lighting. It struck me how poorly the water shadows on Firestorm compared to Singularity, even being completely absent in some situations. I'm not picking on Firestorm in particular. It just happens to be the EEP viewer I use the most. Also, this is not the first time that something seemed 'wrong' with the EEP water, but as you can see from the images below, it's quite a contrast in this case. No sky or water preset made in Firestorm made any difference. Using the shared environment without tweaks didn't make any difference. Firestorm at the edge of the jungle: Singularity at the edge of the jungle: Firestorm at the village: Singularity at the village:

I'm very glad you're poking around and experimenting with the code! And you're quite right about AMD's official OGL drivers. Sometimes I wish I had gone for the GTX 1060 6GB instead of the RX 580. My EVGA GTX 960 FTW has been running well for 5 years. If I put the Nvidia card on my Ryzen 5 3600 system, it might actually beat the RX 580 at least in terms of [OpenGL] framerate, though not in memory capacity. I guess being on Linux, I wanted to go with the open source alternative, which is AMD, and my Sapphire RX 580 has been a solid card for Vulkan/DXKV gaming on Steam.

Well, I'm glad to hear that. This boost in speed for Cool VL Viewer happened after you installed Alchemy per your post in Henri's forum on 2021-03-15: I don't run Windows anymore to see if that would help in my case. The last time I had Windows 10 installed on a dual-boot setup, my tests then showed that AMD open source drivers on Linux ran all viewers around 50% faster than the official AMD drivers on Windows on the exact same hardware. This is on Polaris GPUs (RX580). It would be interesting to see how Navi 2 (RX6xxx) is faring with Linux kernel 5.11 and Mesa 21.1-dev. If I installed Windows 10 again, I'd be taking a big step backwards in viewer performance. Linux uses faster file systems by default than Windows, and installing one viewer would not have any effect at all on how other viewers run due to how the binaries are compiled with their associated libraries. Faster caching and multi-threading would likely benefit viewers compiled for Windows more than Linux, since Linux is already faster by design.

Many people express a desire for higher framerates overall and better performance when moving through sims, rezzing new objects and decoding textures. And what might be enough for some could be a struggle for others on laptops or older computers. Every optimization that helps the low end also gives a bit more room to push the envelope for those fortunate enough to have top of the line hardware. Taking a load off the render thread is a good idea, thus multi-threading. I'm all for people doing tests and showing results. Why has no one besides me told Henri that his viewer has had performance issues since at least the EEP integration and up to his latest release? What does the average user do? What settings do they use? Are they almost exclusively in clubs and skyboxes with the shadows off? Why did nobody tell Henri that his Windlight renderer has a bug where the moon doesn't shine or cast shadows, and it's been that way for months now? Maybe most people just use midday sky settings? They may not know or care enough to worry about a framerate difference. Maybe they don't go outside clubs, skyboxes or home parcels to explore the continents, taking pictures and playing with lighting all the time. They pick a viewer that they like, for whatever reason. It has a cool interface or some feature they can't live without. Word of mouth gets around that such-and-so viewer is 'the fastest' and they download it and try it. Maybe it doesn't have some feature they're used to like client side animation re-syncing, so they move on to the next viewer on the list. Someone willing to go to the trouble of poking and testing as much as I have ... I'd love to meet you!

CPU temperature does indeed fluctuate more with Cool VL Viewer than Firestorm. Nevertheless, both viewers are rendering fairly static scenes, and the temperatures are well below the throttling threshold of 80C for an Intel i3 6100 (2c/4t) desktop part. It's not as if I'm rendering a scene in Blender with Cycles or compiling a viewer. I see no need to worry about the Ryzen 5 3600 since it is more robust CPU with 6 cores and 12 threads. Cool VL Viewer shouldn't need more power to accomplish the same tasks that other viewers are capable of anyway. I do not intend to run any viewer 'locked' at maximum frequency on a regular basis. I've configured my operating system to go into 'Performance' mode when I run certain programs and return to 'On Demand' mode when those applications are closed. However, since Henri made a claim, I tested it and found it had no basis in fact. Locking the CPU frequency did not result in Cool VL Viewer having a higher framerate than Firestorm in a fairly static scene. I see no need to revisit the boating tests on the Ryzen system using 'locked' CPU frequencies where it can be seen that both viewers rez objects and textures in a similar way while moving through multiple sims. And what about my rigged mesh body disappearing when I cross sim boundaries using Cool VL Viewer but not in Firestorm? To be quite frank, it's not my computers and operating system that are at fault here. From the first time I mentioned the performance issues with Henri, it was one thing after another. He was so sure it was my AMD adaptive sync. Well, then what about my Intel/Nvidia tests? Oh it must be my CPU isn't 'locked' to maximum frequency? Nope. Thermal throttling? No.

Firestorm with the CPU 'locked' at 3.7 GHz Cool VL Viewer with the CPU 'locked' at 3.7 GHz Cool VL Viewer reports 15 MHz less than Firestorm. I opened the Help > About repeatedly to confirm this. It's well within a margin of error. NVTOP still reports that Cool VL Viewer is not fully utilizing the GTX 960. Oh and by the way, your Windlight renderer has had an obvious bug for some months now. The moon is in the sky, but there is no light or shadow from it at night. I would have reported it by now, but ...you know why. I'm surprised nobody else has posted about this bug in your forum yet. The moon works as expected (as well as LL has made it anyway) in your EEP renderer.

I'd say multi-threading to keep the graphics pipeline supplied with data is the whole point of the thread. If the GPU isn't being 'fed', there's something amiss in the pipeline. You know that the internal viewer frequency measurement is inaccurate. The 2nd image posted (CVLV 1.28.2.5, Ryzen system) shows internal viewer measurement at 4.14 GHz with a framerate of 69 fps. The 4th image posted (Singularity 1.8.9.8419) shows internal viewer measurement at 3.6 GHz with a framerate of 83 fps. I've made comparisons on two different computers using Ubuntu 20.04 with the standard LTS kernel. I believe I've provided sufficient data to make my point that the issue is unique to Cool VL Viewer. If a prerequisite to attaining the best results requires 'locking' cores at maximum frequency, how is this viewer intended for general usage by people who aren't hardware savvy? There are two videos posted showing how the viewers compare in rezzing moving scenes. At one time I believed your viewer was 'smoother' with boating and driving. That was last summer. Then I looked carefully at video recordings I made months ago which showed CVLV didn't rez objects as quickly (at that time) as Firestorm. Fewer rezzed objects in a moving scene would correlate with a higher average moving framerate. I have noticed an improvement in rezzing speed with the current version, as the videos in my post above show. I like your viewer. I have used it almost exclusively for my mesh uploads over the past couple of years, for example. I want to see it get even better, and believe me I'll be first in line to sing its praises when it does.

I needed to know if the Cool VL Viewer issue mentioned in my previous post was due to my main computer having an AMD Ryzen CPU and AMD graphics running MESA open source drivers. I have another computer with an Intel i3 and Nvidia GTX 960 graphics card that I rarely use for SL, so I installed the latest versions of Firestorm and Cool VL Viewer on it. It uses Nvidia proprietary graphics drivers. My GPU monitoring tool in this case is NVTOP. Cool VL Viewer is not keeping the GPU at 100% while Firestorm is. Background yield time is set to 0 on both viewers, so there is no difference whether NVTOP or the viewer is in active focus by the desktop environment.

I might as well add Kokua and Alchemy too... Alchemy with EEP is still in beta.

Nice work Kathrine & Henri! I did some test comparing the latest Cool VL Viewer to a version from last August. I see around 15% improvement in framerates on my system. I used CoreCtrl, a Linux tool for managing CPU and GPU settings. It's especially needed for AMD graphics cards since we lack even the most basic GUI GPU control panel on Linux. I'm still a bit concerned that Cool VL Viewer, when configured the same(*) way as other viewers, appears to not be fully utilizing the GPU at all times as seen by the dips in the bright green line on the CoreCtrl panel. Viewers were allowed to 'rest' for a few minutes before each screenshot and no other major programs were consuming system resources at the time the image was taken. Links to video captured using SimpleScreenRecorder of a trip through part of Bellisseria using Firestorm and Cool VL Viewer: https://www.dropbox.com/s/22v6dgas25fsvwg/CVLV-1.28.2.15-boating.mp4?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/e6celnppig9fm8z/FS-6.4.13-boating.mp4?dl=0 * The Same Way: Using settings that appear to be the same across all viewers which will provide an equivalent experience visually.

I make custom Bento mesh heads when I am motivated enough, like the one in my picture. While I have tested them on a few bodies, I'd like to know if there's anything I need to do to confirm my techniques are in line with the standard. I'm never going to compete with the big stores, since I'm doing it more for fun than profit.

Where does one get this 'universal neck'? I've looked on Marketplace and in the Lelutka in-world store and on the Lelutka blog. There's no mention of a download link for this anywhere I've looked.

Out of sheer curiosity can you try setting the debug RenderShadowErrorCutoff to 0.100 instead of the default 5.000?

I tried a lot of images. Seems like the AI thought this one was the best among those I tested. I'm not so sure it's made to judge how good looking a person is as much as it tries to rate the composition as a whole. However....

The Newegg link in my previous post is to a prebuilt computer with an RTX 3060 priced at US$1400. Looks available to me. Here's a laptop with a GTX 1660Ti for US$850: https://www.newegg.com/bonfire-black-asus-tuf-gaming-a15-fa506iu-nb53/p/N82E16834235505 There's a lot more options than integrated Intel HD or AMD APUs for the price of a new Mac, M1 or otherwise. I certainly envy (but in a nice way ) your RTX-2080. My point was that in this very thread I've read how the M1 gets "60 frames per second on high settings" only to see from a screenshot posted later that it was 60 fps with advanced lighting OFF (no shadows) in a skybox with the graphics slider set to medium. What is someone who isn't as tech savvy as you or I supposed to think when they see glowing reviews of this hardware without context?

Someone like me who buys components will have to wait. But a quick search of electronics stores shows pre-built computers that pretty much match the specifications I posted above. For example, https://www.newegg.com/abs-ali490/p/N82E16883360085 is available at the time of this post. I just took this picture on my computer with a Ryzen 5 3600, 16 GB RAM, and AMD RX 580. The components cost me well under US$1000. Shadows are on, and the draw distance is 192m. I used Singularity viewer with its PyFX feature. It is straight out of the viewer, and the framerate is in the bottom right corner. Let's see some awesome ground level, shadows on, and long draw distance pictures from the M1. This thread seems like a good place to show off how awesome the M1 is, right?

It would be preferable to use the .anim format for uploads anyway. Use BVH for preview only.

I recently bought a Ryzen 5 3600. For one thing, I already had a Ryzen 3 1300x and an MSI B450 motherboard. I updated the BIOS on the motherboard to accept the Zen 2 chips. The second thing was that it was available, while newer Zen 3 chips were out of stock. I run Ubuntu, and it has performed perfectly. Really, as long as the kernel is the right version, it should perform equally well on any distro. Newer Zen CPUs have been designed to avoid the vulnerabilities which plagued older Intel and AMD (and to a lesser extent ARM) processors. Personally, I'd consider AMD's offerings 'safer' than Intel's. While Intel's chips do maintain a single core performance advantage, one might also factor in the cost of replacing a motherboard with each generation they release. All of AMD's Ryzen chips so far have been on the AM4 socket, making it possible to upgrade the CPU as long as the motherboard manufacturer has released a BIOS update for it. For example, my MSI B450 motherboard had a BIOS update for the Zen 3 chips last month, not that I need it.

@Tanjee, Singularity doesn't block. And it is still WL. I've been running the last nightly build 8419 (released this month) for a week, and it seems fine. Downloads are here: http://www.singularityviewer.org/kb/nightly-builds

I think Firestorm has some bug(s) regarding the texture memory. I visited Kiyori sim last month with Firestorm and Singularity. Firestorm eventually crashed, but not before taking up all 16 GB of system memory and going into HD swap space. Singularity ran for a couple of hours without issue. The tooltip on Enable Streamed VBOs says that AMD cards might have poor performance when enabled, but in my experience this is not true. What I meant is that the tooltip was written long before the RX 4xx/5xx series of cards was made. Turn on VBOs and see how it goes.