KjartanEno

I've been to clubs where some avatar drags the framerate down to single digits due to the ridiculously high polygon counts that the body, head, hair, and all other attachments add up to on that agent. If I wanted to be dishonest, I would put my avatar in the view while wearing some awful bit of prim jewelry barely visible to the camera, yet severely affecting the overall framerate for that particular viewer. Instead, it made sense to me that someone could cam to the same view I showed and get an idea of how the sim renders without the variable of an avatar to account for. I'm not sure just how many people log in and admire the exact same view every single day. Part of the fun in Second Life is moving around. I took my Bandit 170 around the waterways of Bellisseria this morning using Alchemy viewer. It was wonderful. If 'zooming around' is enough to adversely affect the framerate of Cool VL Viewer compared to other viewers, will it be a good viewer for boating? 🤷‍♂️ I completely agree that people should do their own benchmarks. Don't take my word for it. Don't put faith in anyone's claims. And lastly, but most importantly, it's just a viewer. It's not a Church. There is no Sin here. Code is just code, not Holy Scripture. If you're not having fun, you're taking it all way too seriously.

On the viewer menu, Help > About Firestorm. Then copy the information and post it here.

No, it did not. WL rendered a few frames per second faster than EE using Cool VL Viewer on the AMD computer. I repeated the tests on my five year old computer with Intel i3 6100 @ 3.7 GHz, 8 GB system RAM, Nvidia GTX 960 2 GB, running Ubuntu 20.04 MATE with kernel 5.4 and Nvidia driver version 450.102.04. Settings were identical to the AMD tests with the exception of the texture RAM being set to 1GB on this computer. Cool VL Viewer 1.28.2.4 EE rendering mode, because it's supposedly faster: 37 fps Firestorm: 36-37 fps Alchemy: 41-43 fps I'm having fun.

I've been revisiting the same sim, Chakryn Forest, for benchmarks lately. Someone mentioned Chakryn in the Apple M1 Silicon thread, and since then I've posted screenshots in a few other discussions. Well, I got a hold of Alchemy for Linux, and it gives the best framerate by far of all viewers available for Linux. Settings used: 128m draw distance, advanced lighting (no shadows), ambient occlusion enabled, LOD 2.0, water reflections: all objects and avatars, sky/trees/flexiprims/physics=on/max, sky=midday. Alchemy did 56 fps, which is 10 fps more than Cool VL Viewer (WL renderer) was able to do on my AMD system. Firestorm came in between with ~51 fps. Alchemy Firestorm Cool VL Viewer Ryzen 5 3600, AMD RX 580 8 GB, 16 GB system RAM, Ubuntu 20.04 Mate: kernel 5.4 Mesa 21.0.0, & all viewers run in 'performance' mode.

Google Stadia streams games to a browser, so it would make perfect sense that similar technology could exist for other applications. The thought had crossed my mind about LL providing this kind of streaming service for premium customers. Would they do it? I think the infrastructure investment would be fairly high, adding another layer of complexity to the system. Would people pay for it?

As far as I can tell, the rendering engine would need a complete rebuild, which is no easy task. The current Second Life render engine runs on a single thread, which means that the CPU frequency and IPC (Instructions Per Clock cycle) become a bottleneck even for very powerful graphics cards. Your Intel iMac running at 2.3 GHz may be excellent for multi-threaded programs, but it's going to be a drag for Second Life even if you had it paired up with a decent graphics card. I'm going to guess that the M1 chip running at 2.4 GHz is also being very limited by the single thread rendering process that the Second Life viewers use. While the emulation being used is excellent, it can't perform miracles with the code it is given. As long as the Macs prioritize low frequency CPUs for power efficiency, no current Second Life viewer will run as well as it can on a desktop computer with a high frequency Intel or AMD CPU using a dedicated graphics card (and the power consumption and noise that goes along with it). To be completely frank, if one spends hundreds of hours in Second Life every year, why not invest in a computer that can really run it well? Save the Mac for other things you want to do.

I use GIMP too. Instead of the 'eraser' method, I like to 'connect the dots' on the UV map for the body section I'm working on. In GIMP I paint small black dots on the UV map while looking at where the clothing hides the body in the viewer. Once I have enough dots, I use the free select tool to click from dot to dot until I have completed a circuit back to the first click. Then it is just a matter of clearing the selection.

Ok, it seems like I had the wrong WL or time of day on the AMD RX 580 image in the post above. I repeated the test. The bluish cast to the AMD rendering is no longer present, thus making any differences between my AMD and Nvidia GPUs barely noticeable. I simply cannot say that one or the other looks better as far as Second Life is concerned. On the other hand, different viewers and monitor calibrations are far more likely factors in any perceived differences between video cards by different manufacturers.

I would recommend a used GTX 980, or even a GTX 970, but as you say, the asking prices for used GPUs have gone up again since demand for new models has outstripped supply. The video cards to avoid are older ones with less than 4 GB of VRAM (like my GTX 960). In your case, you'd probably benefit the most by overclocking that unlocked Intel processor to 4GHz or more, if you have the proper cooling for it.

I was going to disagree with your point that AMD and Nvidia render scenes differently. I took a screenshot with my Ryzen 5 3600 & RX 580, and then I took a screenshot at the same location with the same account on my Intel i3 6100 (2c/4t @ 3.7GHz) & GTX 960. There are differences in color rendition. Personally, I can't say I prefer one over the other, and I have no way of determining which one is more accurate. As for performance, the AMD system was getting 47 fps while the Intel/Nvidia system was getting 37 fps. The viewers (both Cool VL Viewer) were set up exactly the same way. Both computers run Ubuntu 20.04 with the Mate desktop environment. The AMD system uses the open source MESA drivers while the Intel/Nvidia system uses the proprietary Nvidia drivers for Linux. Just yesterday on the AMD computer, I had replaced a Ryzen 3 1300x (4c/4t @ ~3.5-3.7 GHz) with my new Ryzen 5 3600 (6c/12t @ ~3.6-4.2 GHz). Cool VL Viewer, rendering with the same settings on the older Ryzen 3 1300x, was getting 40 fps with this scene. That's around a 15% improvement using the newer, faster processor and the same RX 580 graphics card. I've seen noticeable improvements in framerate in other sims I visit frequently using several viewers. Clearly single core performance has a significant impact on SL rendering. It should be no wonder that those who buy a 'gaming' laptop where the mobile CPU is generally running at a reduced frequency won't see the performance they hope for in SL. Most modern games are designed to be multi-threaded and utilize the CPU to a lesser extent since the graphics card handles more of the load with DirectX and Vulkan APIs. So, to answer the OP's question, the 'best' graphics card for SL is one that has at the very least 4 GB VRAM. If you are using Windows, you should probably get Nvidia. AMD's Windows drivers are fine for DirectX and Vulkan, but they are awful for OpenGL. It's a wonder that the open source drivers available by default on Linux distributions do so much better in OpenGL than what AMD offers officially. But no matter which card you choose, don't pair it up with some old CPU and expect great things. AMD RX 580: Nvidia GTX 960:

Kokua is the viewer I like to use when sailing in my Trudeau yachts. It still enables invisiprims even in advanced lighting, so my boats don't have Linden water showing below the waterline for the most part. I can also go into mouselook while seated and not have attachments above the neck line interfering with the view while sailing (or driving or flying) even though my body is visible when I look down.

I just got a Ryzen 5 3600 (6c,12t) to replace my current Ryzen 3 1300x (4c,4t). Nice thing about it is not having to change the motherboard or memory. I already updated the BIOS. It may not be the newest and best, but six cores for US$200? I'll take that!

While I wouldn't say it's THAT much better, but yes, in my experience the open source MESA drivers for my RX 580 do give me much higher framerates in Second Life than the official drivers AMD provides for Windows 10. I'm really not quite sure how much of that is due to Windows 10 being horrible, AMD OpenGL drivers being horrible, or some combination thereof. Most Linux distros come with Gamemode, which can give a noticeable boost to any viewer once configured properly. At the very least, Gamemode simply sets the CPU governor to Performance mode, meaning that the processor will run all cores constantly at or near maximum frequency while the program is running. To run a viewer with Gamemode, open the viewer shell script instead of launching it and add: export LL_WRAPPER='gamemoderun' somewhere before this line, which in this case is for firestorm: $LL_WRAPPER bin/do-not-directly-run-firestorm-bin "${ARGS[@]}" I added the MESA mesarc PPA to my Ubuntu 20.04 installation mainly to get precompiled CoreCtrl, a nice GUI performance tool for Linux. With it I can create custom fan curves for my GPU, custom power profiles for applications, and even overclock my GPU. CPU settings are also available, but I generally let Gamemode handle the CPU power state switching. I don't currently have Windows 10 installed on a hard drive hooked up to my computer, but I did make some tests last Summer at Moonberry Bay in the exact same location using various viewers. Singularity got around 23 fps on Windows 10 and 32 fps on Linux. Firestorm 6.4.5 got around 12 fps on Windows 10 and 21 fps on Linux. Cool VL Viewer 1.28.06 (WL renderer) got 16 fps on Windows 10 and 24 fps on Linux. Windows only viewers like Alchemy (21 fps) and Black Dragon (14 fps) would likely see significant gains as well if they were compiled for Linux. HOWEVER, this ONLY applies to my AMD system, and Nvidia users may not see the same difference since GPU drivers for Nvidia are essentially the same between Windows and Linux. Do your own tests with settings appropriate for your own computer! Images of the tests can be seen here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/evqqdqmjqeib6p4/AABp1FP5JwZqfLxkRWaLqpdXa?dl=0

A performance improvement would be good. I've played around with alpha channels in normal maps using the information in the SL Wiki, http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Material_Data Is the information here up to date? http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life's_light_model_for_materials

I've been civil and polite in every interaction with you here and in your forum. I present my own personal experience based on thousands of hours in Second Life and several Opensim grids using every viewer available for Windows and Linux over the past five years. I may not be a master coder, but I have submitted bug reports and interacted with viewer developers on various occasions. I take every day as a learning opportunity, never assuming that I know it all. I appreciate your contributions to the viewer code. Perhaps you missed the part in my post where I said that I like your viewer? I'm not sure why you react this way. I've certainly never told anyone to not use your viewer.

If you have an Intel cpu and Nvidia graphics, perhaps Cool VL Viewer will suit you. On my AMD Ryzen & RX 580 system running Ubuntu 20.04 MATE (with compositing turned off), Cool VL Viewer is slower than other viewers even in Windlight mode, which is an option Henri maintains on his viewer. I like Cool VL Viewer, but I only use occasionally now. For speed, Singularity beta 8193 is still my choice, but it is likely to become obsolete at some point. I have an issue with the last official Singularity release, which is why I still use that particular beta. I'm uncertain whether or when the Singularity team will once again start a round of updates. As for other EEP viewers, you could try Kokua, which has received updates quite often this year and is at version 6.4.11. The downloads are found at Sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/kokua.team-purple.p/files/Kokua-SL/

Zindra has a good amount of sailing area, just avoid entering the rivers which may cause your computer to experience lag. There are several rez zones, but the one I prefer is the North Shore Rez Zone in Shell Beach, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Shell Beach/80/57/24 Bellisseria has quite a lot of sea to see, and public rez zones are easy to find. You could try http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Springhurst Gulf/221/173/23

I wanted that jacket shown on the video. It wasn't at Mancave, which took quite some time to rez. Turns out L&B has some new sneakers there, but I already got the limited edition EV-085 sneakers a couple weeks ago and didn't need another pair of sneakers. So, I went to the L&B mainstore after Mancave and got the EV-085 'demon' jacket.

Or you could change your Environment to something like CalWL in a couple of clicks! 💡 I've seen some stores adopting a "light box" approach where everything is practically white. I agree that a lot of places are simply too dark because the store parcel/region uses a default day cycle, and I happened to get there at "night." The customer shouldn't have to change their viewer settings just to get around.

On the Menu, click "Help" and then "About Firestorm." A window pops up. Open Preferences and click the graphics tab while you're in one of these places that gives you great framerates. Then take a screenshot so everyone can see what settings you use, like in my picture below. By doing so, you will help any MBP M1 users and prospective buyers to have confidence that it is indeed capable of running as well as you've said.

I learned about the camera and focus offset debug settings a long time ago from some blog. I haven't found much use for the new camera presets system as I already have my own simple scripted camera HUD. She does make some nice recommendations in the video. Yeah, I was looking to see what graphics cards are selling for now. I got my Sapphire Nitro+ SE Radeon RX 580 8GB for US$240 (including 2 games, Resident Evil 2 Remake and Devil May Cry 5) exactly 2 years ago on the tail end of the 2016-2018 crypto-coin mining boom as prices for graphics cards were finally coming down. And now, once again there are new RX 580s for sale on Newegg and Best Buy for over US$200 while a lot of newer models out of stock. There is no way I'd pay the asking prices for used cards on those web sites. Wow, US$300 has become 'entry level'. Nvidia is programming the masses well. I'll just keep using my old EVGA GTX 960 FTW in my back up computer. It was once a 'mid level' card back in 2015, and only cost US$200. A GTX-960 is actually quite good for SL, especially if paired with a decent processor like an Intel i3 and some solid state storage for the viewer cache. I'd wager that there is a huge chunk of SL residents who are still on Intel integrated graphics, so what exactly is 'entry level' to them? I'll grant that consumers are getting a whole lot more power with each successive GPU generation, but I don't expect graphics cards to become cheap again due to currency inflation, which is beginning to become a noticeable problem. Well now, there's different kinds of mouselook! Let's see... in Singularity you can zoom the view while pressing Shift key (I think) right-click while in mouselook. Also in Singularity, you can have the first-person view 'realistically' moving with your AO as it moves your avatar's head position (not rotation). In Kokua you can have the viewer hide the attachments above the neck, so your mouselook view isn't ruined by the 'internal anatomy' of your head and hair. 💇‍♀️ 💇‍♂️

Here is an official explanation about Bakes On Mesh. How you use it, if at all, depends on the products you create.

If the body was set to modify permissions (and the scripts could remain no mod), it would be quite easy to fix the alpha masking issue. One could then rez the body and edit the mesh to set it manually to alpha masking, or one could add a simple script to set the desired parts of the linkset to alpha masking. I dare any mesh body or head creator to give me a good reason why their mesh is so precious it can't be set to modify perms. Edit: This was something I learned when BoM was new. Any object set to use the "baked" textures will default to alpha blending mode. BoM mesh that is set to alpha blending will not be able to use system alpha masks. Thus it is necessary to set the object to alpha masking, if possible, in order to use system alpha masks. When one uses an Omega applier to send the "baked" UUIDs to the 'skin' layer of the body, that does allow the use of system skins. However, since Omega system was not designed to also set the alpha modes in the receiver script, there is no way to also set alpha masking. On a no mod, BoM capable body, the creator of the body includes that alpha masking feature in the script after the part where it sends the BoM UUIDs to the appropriate linked mesh parts. This is what the "Reset to Bakes On Mesh" buttons on HUDs tell the script in the body to do: Set texture UUIDs and set linked parts to alpha masking. Again, there is no reason to sell a mesh body that is no mod. Even the Omega system creators emphasize that point in their documentation.

I have used at various points in time: the Official viewer, Alchemy, Black Dragon, Cool VL Viewer, Firestorm, Kokua, Restrained Love, and Singularity. Since I no longer have a Windows operating system installed on any computer, I no longer use the first three viewers on that list. Of the rest I would say... it depends on what I want to do. I probably use Restrained Love the least and Firestorm the most. I like Cool VL Viewer for mesh uploads, stability, and frequent updates. I like Singularity for being, well, Singularity, but it has some minor issues and doesn't get updated often. Restrained Love looks just like the official viewer, but has Marine Kelley's RLV code added to it. Kokua takes the Restrained Love viewer and augments it with some additional features that I find useful. I don't think I can name a 'better' viewer since they all have features that I like.

That's a very helpful observation. I was curious to see what my decent-but-far-from-high-end computer does in Chakryn. This is a screenshot of the view I cammed, showing the viewer, framerate, and settings used. The Ryzen 3 1300x in my computer has four cores, no hyperthreading, single core boost to 3.7GHz, and all cores max of ~3.5GHz. The RX 580 8GB video card is basically an overclocked RX 480, which AMD released in the Spring of 2016 (soon to be 5 year old technology). I run Ubuntu 20.04, a secure and free open source operating system. What the M1 needs is a viewer that is compiled from source to benefit from its strengths, and perhaps LL is working on it. Alternately, one could wait for Apple to release an M1 (or M2) chip with a separate GPU, but don't expect it to cost ~$800 like the entry level Mini. That said, I would surely hope nobody is buying these new M1 Macs mainly for Second Life since that would be an incredible waste of money considering how poorly they compare to decent-but-far-less-expensive computers. Edit: I tried out Cool VL Viewer in Windlight mode. Henri might be pleased to hear me admit that his viewer surpassed Firestorm in this case, getting 40 fps with advanced lighting enabled, ambient occlusion enabled, shadows off, and 128m draw distance.