[Are viewers for Mac on borrowed time?]

The Lindens have, of course, already created an app to run on Apple Silicon - the new mobile viewer. (iPads have pretty much the same hardware inside them as Macs these days, though generally lower specs).

[Are viewers for Mac on borrowed time?]

It seems I was hasty in my judgement of Megahapit. I've revisited it, and it is much more stable this time around. Maybe I was having issues because it was  a brand new, fresh install? It is certainly fast and looks promising. Good, also, to hear that it is under active development and there is a team behind it.

I would be curious to know if there are any plans for dealing with OpenGL issues and the whole general future of SL on the Mac, as regards Metal and Vulcan and all that stuff.

[Are viewers for Mac on borrowed time?]

53 minutes ago, Eris Ravenwood said:

When was the last time you tried Megapahit and experienced this? I admit i’ve only been on SL for a bit under a month now but MPv has been my main viewer on my m1 max mbp for most of that time and I haven’t encountered this issue yet. I’ve been helping the team squash any bugs i’ve run into and at this point, i haven’t encountered any recent huge glaring issues like the one you described.

It’s still missing QOL features like built-in AOs, favorite wearables, RLV, and whatnot, but i’ve been having a pretty smooth time running megapahit as a replacement for SL viewer. If you’re still experiencing that black blob thing, do you think you can hop on the discord and help us reproduce it, or file a bug report so we can figure out what’s causing it?

It was yesterday (June 25th). I'll try it again and see if it happens again. Happy to help, but I don't use Discord because it is a privacy disaster.

[Why does LL not integrate more QoL features from TPVs?]

Oh, by the way, forgot to mention - when you first fire up Kokua and check out the 'favorite wearables' it somehow finds and loads the ones you have already set up in Firestorm, so you don't even have to redo everything. It's like magic, or something.

I think I'll have a chaser with that beer: an Islay single malt please, Cristiano.

 

[Why does LL not integrate more QoL features from TPVs?]

I've just discovered the Kokua viewer, which is basically the Linden viewer with a few extras added, including Area Search and Favorite Wearables, as well as a built in AO. Cristiano, I think you owe me a beer.

[Are viewers for Mac on borrowed time?]

I have found the PBR release of Firestorm to be unusable because of the textures not loading and other weirdness. The official Linden viewer is miles better, and actually looks great.

As a compromise, I can recommend the Kokua viewer for Mac - it is based on the Linden viewer, so having few issues at the moment, but they have added a few of the great features from FS, including: favorite wearables; in-built AO; and, joy of joys, Area Search.

While browsing the third party viewer directory I came across an experimental Mac viewer called Megaphahit. I gave it a go, cautiously, using an old redundant alt. It is a port of the official viewer to Apple Silicon. Very rough and ready. Basically broken. When I tried to quit, all I got was a black blob in the middle of the screen. Pressing command q repeatedly just made the blackness grow and I resorted to a force quit.

But wow... the FPS I enjoyed for the few minutes I was in there. I was on an M2 max Mac Studio, which is a pretty capable machine. I can often get up to 60, 70, even 80 FPS with HiDPI turned on.

In Megapahit, I was getting into the high 200s FPS, which I have never seen on my Mac, no matter how low the settings.

I can't recommend that viewer for daily use, but it does show that even a rough and ready port over to native Apple Silicon could deliver enormous performance improvements.

[16,384 double protected, open ocean with sailing - great home]

Sold.

[16,384 double protected, open ocean with sailing - great home]

Now at L$135,000 which is only L8 per square meter, and it's double protected. Take a look.

[16,384 double protected, open ocean with sailing - great home]

Price reduced to L$160,000 (L$9.77 per sqm) for a few days only.

[16,384 double protected, open ocean with sailing - great home]

For sale at Dotbyeul, a 16,384 parcel which is double protected: sail-able Linden ocean to one side and Linden land sloping down to more open ocean on the second. Also, no hideous builds around. Nice, quiet, residential area. Parcel has great views from the high areas and a shapely ocean bay for beaches and harbors. There is also some abandoned land nearby which could potentially be added to the parcel through the Linden abandoned land process.

(The sailing available from here includes four to five ocean sims. There isn't access to the wider ocean routes, as far as I can tell.)

Recently acquired with the intention of making a home here, but real life has intervened and I'll be spending very little time in SL for the foreseeable future.

Currently priced at L$200,000, which works out as L$12.1 per square meter, which I think is reasonable considering the benefits this land delivers. I will listen to offers, but I'm not in a mad panic to sell so please don't be silly. Contact me in-world or add a message below. 

Parcel ID: 975fbfe4-579e-69f2-3eb5-c634ef0ee323

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dotbyeul/177/207/28