More on the New Viewer

Moron?? WHO'S a moron?? Oh, MORE on, yeah, that's it. LOL... I spoke a bit about LL's latest viewer for SL the other day, and I just wanted to add a few things. First of all, I wanted to be clear: I have NOT switched over to a Mesh viewer. I wanted to try it out, simply because some people had said that it can be tweaked to look more or less like the standard SL viewer (not V2, the older one). While I was able to get things to where I felt I could deal with using this viewer if I absolutely had to, my opinion is that 3.5.0 is still not what I am looking for, and it still needs a lot of work.


Too Crashy

The viewer crashes, and freezes, for no apparent reason. It often just gets hung up and sits there loading, NOT a good thing when you're trying to fly or sail. Yeah, it's Mesh's fault, I'm sure of that.

*Ducks bricks thrown by the Mesh peddlers and their shills*

Actually, it IS Mesh's fault, in an indirect way. While perhaps Mesh DOES cause excess lag in sims that have an abundance of it, and it is known that the planes themselves have lag and border-crossing issues, the viewer crashes are most likely caused by the constant changes that Linden Labs create as they ineptly stumble along in a vain attempt to appease those who think Mesh is 'better.' Second Life was never designed to work with Mesh, and now that LL went ahead and implemented the needed changes, there is no turning back. The fact remains that the current servers are not able to handle it, yet we keep trying change after change to see if any improvements can be made. This is something akin to having an amateur mechanic attempt to repair your car when they really don't know what they are doing, and they keep trying out new parts (at YOUR expense) to see if maybe THAT will finally fix the problem instead of actually getting a hard diagnosis, and addressing it directly. Linden Labs really doesn't know what to do, but in their minds, at least they are doing something, even though said efforts are ineffective.




Yet Another Viewer: Singularity

It was brought to my attention yesterday that I was mistaken (Thank you!) when I mentioned in my 'The New Viewer' post that I thought that Phoenix 1185 was the last of the V1-type viewers. It seems that Singularity is now the way to go if you're looking for a V1-type interface. I was right that Phoenix 1185 is no longer available for download, but the good news is that Singularity still has all their older viewers listed for download. The last non-Mesh viewer available on Singularity's download site is version 1.5.10. It will be the only V1 interface remaining that will work in SL when the next changes come about. Singularity officials are quite steadfast about preserving the V1-type interface, and thankfully theirs will remain. Their newer Mesh viewers are also configured with the V1 interface, if I'm not mistaken. HERE is the URL for the Singularity web page; look in the sidebar for their downloads page.


I noticed a couple other things with the Linden Labs viewer, and possibly with any other new generation viewer. One, I noticed that the standard invisiprims (such as those used with shoes) no longer work. Instead, Alpha masks replace these in service. Fortunately, these Alphas also work with the older viewers. Also, it seems that the graphics settings are different enough that the use of a face light washes out one's appearance with a bit too much light, but NOT using a light leaves the face in shadow. I fiddled with the settings a bit, but I decided that things simply do not look as good with these new generation viewers. Those who were weaned on V2 will never know the difference, which is what LL was counting on. Another thing, which is important to me, is that Phoenix still has TONS of extra features that the LL viewers never did. If you go to the 'About' page on the above-linked Singularity web page, you'll see many of these features listed. Those who never strayed from the LL-specified viewers will be surprised to see what they have been missing. Going back to a Linden Labs viewer is like driving a stripped mini-van with no air conditioning. It'll get you where you have to go, true enough, but it's just not as nice as driving the Escalade you were already accustomed to. I am still using Phoenix, and I'll continue to use it until LL finally 'fixes' things to the point where it will no longer load. Then I'll move on to Singularity.


~Jamie~