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dmw9
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I'm conducting a survey about the percentage usage of each third party viewer for second life.  I'm struggling to find much information on the subject.  So, what viewer do you use (and why)?

 

Or,  if you can point me in the right direction in which I should be looking, I'd also appreciate that.

 

Thanks

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Niran's viewer. It is the best I tried so far (tried all official viewers, Phoenix, Firestorm, Singularity, Imprudence, Cool, Exodus...) Completely different and extremely fast! I would use it only because of the camera movement, sooo smooth, like its flying. UI is beautiful, fully customizable and has some autohide options so my whole screen can be clean. And some cool lights and windlights and and... I love it lol

Here's a quick snapshot of how clean the screen can be (top bar and local chat set to autohide)

Snapshot_001.png

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Right now I'm using Exodus. I was using Firestorm for several months, but the newer releases just crippled my frame rate. I get twice the frame rate with Exodus. I have not tried Niran's viewer, I don't believe they make a version for the Mac. If they did, that would be great, I'd love to try it.

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dmw9 wrote:

I'm conducting a survey about the percentage usage of each third party viewer for second life.  I'm struggling to find much information on the subject.  So, what viewer do you use (and why)?

 

Or,  if you can point me in the right direction in which I should be looking, I'd also appreciate that.

 

Thanks

Linden Lab does not report this information so any answers you see will be educated guesses.

The only information you will see is a ranking by crash rate in the TPV directory.

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Perrie Juran wrote:

Linden Lab does not report this information so any answers you see will be educated guesses.

I'm not sure that's true. Not that long ago I heard that TPV developers were getting data from LL about the proportions of login sessions associated with their viewer identification strings. I'd suggest checking with one of those developers to see how current that is, and what of that information can be made public.

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Qie Niangao wrote:


Perrie Juran wrote:

Linden Lab does not report this information so any answers you see will be educated guesses.

I'm not sure that's true. Not that long ago I heard that TPV developers were getting data from LL about the proportions of login sessions associated with their viewer identification strings. I'd suggest checking with one of those developers to see how current that is, and what of that information can be made public.

I'd heard some reference to this several months ago.

I am referring to officially published Data.

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Same as Tamara, it's Nirans viewer for me too.

Gorgeous graphics, excellent frame rates even with Shadows enabled and smooth camera movement. The UI takes a little getting used to but is so customisable compared to other viewers. Despite him favouring Nvidia cards, the viewer works extremely well with my ATI card. He provides regular updates with new features and fixes and he will answer any queries on his SLU thread same or next day.

 

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The Lab does not publish that information. The Lab, as Qie points out, is only providing numbers to the TPV Dev's. They are under NDA to not disclose it. So, you are NOT going to find anything authoritative.

You can get a good idea of which viewers are most popular with SL users. Look at the TPV Directory. The Lab requires something like 250k uses in a month to properly evaluate crash stats. So, the viewers in the first section of the list are the more popular and getting more use.

The list is to show the most stable viewer, the one with the fewest crashes. But, the minimum use requirement gives us a hint at which are getting the most use. Those in the second section are not getting enough use to provide significant stats on crash rates.

If you want to know about viewers Inara Pey and I review viewers. See her site: Viewer round-up summary: week 23. If you visit my site (link in sig) look in the menu for Viewers. We are currently in a lull without much viewer development news. 

If you just want to get some idea of how viewer use stacks up, Lindens have made comments in various meetings and conversations that give us hints. Also, some TPV Dev's have said things that give us a since of proportion without actually giving us numbers. From that sort of empirical data Firestorm and Phoenix are the most used. I think I remember being told that Firestorm is now in use by more people than Phoenix.

The LL Main Viewer is in use by about 1/3 of the SL users. 

Best Viewer

 SL users all have their favorite viewer. There is no BEST viewer. Niran's Viewer is a fun viewer that gives gorgeous renders and I call it a decedent of Kirsten's Viewer. Niran changes the user interface often which drives some people totally nuts. But, as he/she says the viewer is primarily built for Niran. I call it a user interface experiment.

Exodus was targeted at gamers, those into combat in SL.

Firestorm is the power user's viewer.

Cool VL Viewer is technically up to date V1 user interface.

Singularity is a fast viewer but lagging behind the tech advance curve. The dev's have many interests and limited time.

Currently only Imprudence is more stable than the LL Viewer, but it lacks many of the new features we have in SL. It is falling further behind as the development team is focused on the Kokua Viewer, which is working to be the OpenSim/SL viewer of choice.

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Nalates Urriah wrote:

Best Viewer

 SL users all have their favorite viewer. There is no BEST viewer. Niran's Viewer is a fun viewer that gives gorgeous renders and I call it a decedent of Kirsten's Viewer. Niran changes the user interface often which drives some people totally nuts. But, as he/she says the viewer is primarily built for Niran. I call it a user interface experiment.

lol yes...the latest interface is so vast I could never find the options I wanted so I used the Windows snipping tool to take images of all 25 option windows (yes 25!) and created a PDF file from them. Now when I have difficulty finding a specific option, I just open the PDF and flip through it quickly to locate what I'm looking for. I much preferred his previous interface. He has since added a hidden Machinima sidebar activated by F1 or in menu. Nothing stays still for long with Niran.

I put up with the interface because it is so customisable and the viewer graphics are beautiful combined with the highest FPS of any viewer I've tried. I can happily go around SL in his equivalent of Ultra with full shadows activated and still get 30+ FPS at a draw distance of 128.

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Nalates Urriah wrote:

The Lab does not publish that information. The Lab, as Qie points out, is only providing numbers to the TPV Dev's. They are under NDA to not disclose it. So, you are NOT going to find anything authoritative. [...]

Thanks.  (I should have guessed as much, given that if that information were available for public release I would have seen it somewhere... and given the Lab's NDA fetish.)

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Hitomi Tiponi wrote:

You could always use an older version of Phoenix or Firestorm that uses the viewer tags to detrmine what people are using  - think it still works.

Actually, it does not any more.

That information was broadcast by the Server and according to Oscar they turned that function off Server side.

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Thanks very much for your responses :) I don't have time to go through them all now but looks like you've provided me with some good material.  I'll make sure and have a good look at it all tomorrow :)

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I am not to adventurous when it comes to trying new viewers.  Have been using Imprudence since the demise of Emerald. I did used Kirsten's some and liked it.  So what you said about Niran's Viewer “I call it a decedent of Kirsten's Viewer”, I had to give it a try.  I have not stopped using it, I loaded it and logged on and love it.  Could not even walk at first, but all viewers have a learning curve.  Finding things is a challenge but that has never been a complaint about any viewer.  I'll find what I am looking for or ask for help.  And I don't care if a viewer changes often, as long as the changes are not just out and out stupid and don't do anything but remove things that are useful.
The frame rate is good, the look and feel is good, I think I may have a new viewer.
Thanks for the post.

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dmw9 wrote:

Thanks very much for your responses
:)
I don't have time to go through them all now but looks like you've provided me with some good material.  I'll make sure and have a good look at it all tomorrow
:)

You're kidding, right?

Good material? from the 10 or so different people?

I have a serious question before i answer yours.. Why do you want to know this information? What are you going to do with it?

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:


dmw9 wrote:

Thanks very much for your responses
:)
I don't have time to go through them all now but looks like you've provided me with some good material.  I'll make sure and have a good look at it all tomorrow
:)

You're kidding, right?

Good material? from the 10 or so different people?

I have a serious question before i answer yours.. Why do you want to know this information? What are you going to do with it?

Next time a survey taker wonders why we don't like surveys I will point them to this thread.

Doesn't have time to look at ten responses?  Ludicrous.  Absolutely Ludicrous.

If it hadn't been for Hitomi's comment I probably wouldn't have posted here.

But to the OP I say, there is no way you can find out that info unless Linden Lab tells you.  So go diddle yourself some where else.

 

 

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@OP since you are so damn busy i took  a minute and did your work for you

Firestorm  2

Niran 3

Exodus 1

wooooo. that answers all our questions.. according to this data, no one uses the official LL viewer and most others use Nirans closely followed by Firestorm, with Exodus coming in last.

such a complete survey of all of the users of SL.

 

ETa stupid forums.. not meant for Pierre.

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Drake1 Nightfire wrote:


dmw9 wrote:

Thanks very much for your responses
:)
I don't have time to go through them all now but looks like you've provided me with some good material.  I'll make sure and have a good look at it all tomorrow
:)

You're kidding, right?

Good material? from the 10 or so different people?

I have a serious question before i answer yours.. Why do you want to know this information? What are you going to do with it?

Perhaps they've got some sort of twisted fetish for statistics.

...Dres

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Teagan Tobias wrote:

I am not to adventurous when it comes to trying new viewers.  Have been using Imprudence since the demise of Emerald. I did used Kirsten's some and liked it.  So what you said about Niran's Viewer “
I call it a decedent of Kirsten's Viewer
”, I had to give it a try.  I have not stopped using it, I loaded it and logged on and love it.  Could not even walk at first, but all viewers have a learning curve.  Finding things is a challenge but that has never been a complaint about any viewer.  I'll find what I am looking for or ask for help.  And I don't care if a viewer changes often, as long as the changes are not just out and out stupid and don't do anything but remove things that are useful.

The frame rate is good, the look and feel is good, I think I may have a new viewer.

Thanks for the post.

Well, immediately you install and login you'll see the over the shoulder camera position. I immediately change that to normal using the standard camera control.

Next thing you'll notice is what happens when you turn. Instead of you turning, the camera spins around you unless you turn and walk. You can correct that by changing the Max cam / pelvis diff settings as shown in my pic below.

2. User Options - Advanced - Camera.JPG

I suggest you read his SLU thread http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/alternative-sl-clients/64897-nirans-viewer-fixed.html  He posts there virtually every day to keep users up to date with what he;s doing as well as advising of new releases.

If you would like a PDF I created of all 25 Preferences pages, send me a PM here with an email address I can send it too or you can create your own by taking a snip of each window and making a PDF of them. Very handy when you want to find an option quickly.

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