A bit surprising in the light of what I said last week, but as promised yesterday here is another Nicholaz Edition for Windows. It is based on Linden Lab's current SecondLife™ viewer (1.19.1.4).
This version somewhat completes the Nicholaz Edition series. You can now choose between the pre-voice version Old School, the pre Windlight version Bleeding Edge or, if performance permits, now the atmospheric rendering Eye Candy a la Nicholaz. And of course, should you prefer different flavors or platforms, please have a look at the links to the right of this blog and check the ones from Barney, Boy Lane, Henri or Marine.
EC-e is overall a bit closer to the Linden versions than my previous builds. The Reason is that the Lindens have caught up a bit with crash fixes, asstachments and user interface and also because I have only put into it what did still fit in with reasonable effort (which was more than I initially thought). There were no compromises in stability and performance though, those patches are all back.
I did use it for a few hours now and am pretty satisfied with the result. The only slightly weird thing is that you will now have two different friend lists to choose from, but there are never enough ways to reach a friend and while Linden's un-docked friend list is far from being bad, I find mine still a bit more sleek and compact, so I took the liberty to exhume the friends button for the bottom bar.
Oh I amlost forgot: You will also notice a new icon, courtesy of Linden Lab's new trademark policy. I'm not sure if it was necessary (probably not), but for good measure other homebrewers are free to reuse it for their own purposes. I hereby declare it as now and forever being in the public domain with no strings attached (download here).
The main difference for the viewer however, and the reason why this release exists despite my earlier plans, is that it fixes a severe memory leak which was introduced in version 1.19 (not anyone to blame, it was just a case of Shit Happens™). But it's fixed now and unless you have an insanely powerful machine I am sure you will be able to feel the difference, because as far as I can tell there was absolutely no way to avoid it besides standing still and doing nothing.
Source code is also on the server (see the notes inside the archive). If you want to do builds based on this source (or if you do your own homebrews), feel free to post them here in the comments and I will let people know. (Update: Barney's version for the Mac is already available and now also Balp's for Linux).
Now, before anyone asks (and I am sure some will want to know), my stance towards continuing the work on the viewer hasn't fundamentally changed. My priorities are still my own business and real life, but I also must say that the leak hunt was a nice distraction. So I guess it will be best to make no plans and to allow myself to surprise me with whatever I may do next and that is all I can say about that.
After this short interruption from strictly version related information, we return you to the usual release blurp :-)
Disclaimer: This viewer is unofficial and although I am doing my best to make it better than the release viewer, it may contain extra bugs and you will have to trust me that there is no malicious code in it. Please also understand that it runs on the main grid with your real SecondLife account and inventory. Also read the disclaimer/header in the Install.txt in my archive.
First make sure that you have the Linden 1.19.1.4 viewer available or download and install it here.
Then download nicholaz-EC-e.zip from my server and while the download runs, have a look at the installation instructions and the change log. If you have trouble downloading or unpacking the file from there, here's a temporary alternate link. (In any case, the hash for the file should be "MD5 (nicholaz-EC-e.zip) = 448bb7ec74ec3e5a21b6597d17c327f0".)
After the download completes, follow the instructions and make sure they go into the right folder!
Enjoy ...
Nick
PS: There is an in-world group for announcements of my releases: Search, Groups, "Nicholaz" and on the top right of this blog you will find a link to a forum thread where I am sure that people will be able to help you if you have problems.
Monday, April 14, 2008
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40 comments:
Ok, and the Mac build is ready, too. Announcement for the release is here:
http://radio-boomslang.shacknet.nu/%7Ebb/archives/2008/04/14/index.html#e2008-04-14T23_57_39.txt
Thanks Nicholaz :)
"Pretty soon" was the understatement of the week, Nick-I'm off to dl and test this baby now! ;)
Thank you, oh Great Hunter of Leaking Stuff!
Nicholaz, your my hero!! I'm already drooling at the thought of a 1.19 NE version.
I had to abandon the 1.18 NE's due to video card incompatibilities. (The 8800GT nVidia card couldn't handle the shaders as used in 1.18 and earlier. 1.19 used ones that do work so I was forced to leave or live without bump mapping, water, shineys, etc. Living with Windlight.
As for the "Intangibles" that you've mentioned before. Make sure to keep an eye on the download stats for this latest version. I'm sure it will quickly climb and give you that good fuzzy feeling inside.
Yeah!!!!!
Thank you so much for coming to our rescue on your white horse, once again (even though you said you wouldn't!)
REALLY appreciate it that you did this new release.
Princess Ivory
YAAAAAAY!
Thank you, St. Nick!
Thank you so much, Nicholaz for the new viewer.
As usual, when I get that excited at a meeting, I make a total fool of myself and regret it the next day. I had no idea the ass-tachment fix had gone in. But then none of the Linden's seemed to know either. [I like the comment in the code :-)] And, my major crash problems with 1.20 at least, seem to have been due to - shame of shames - an OUTDATED DRIVER! Oh! How embarrasing. I offered to apologize to Pastrami in public; she hasn't replied, but this is a start.
Not that there aren't problems with 1.20 aside from the color scheme which doesn't work well in dark, smoky bars. I've had some of my most spectacular crashes ever with it; for the first time ever, I've had to rebake textures to sort things out. Maybe the memory leak is to blame? Anyway, thanks for putting the Memory Footprint back into the Statistics bar. At least I can keep an eye on it.
Thanks again.
Ollipeist
Bug note:
Pressing CTRL-SHIFT-F to bring up the friends list causes the client to immediately crash.
I don't seem to have that problem Zatzai, but for some reason the Communicat(ion) button is still there
Oooh, it's like christmas! After your retirement message, that makes this release all the more sweet. I'm so glad there's a decent version of 1.19.1.4 out now... I was having a really hard time getting used to the new Communicate UI.
Anyone feel up to doing a Linux build? If not, I may give it a shot... although I've never touched the SL source code before.
Ollipeist: Don't feel bad. Three patches which make a hell of a difference are only available in homebrew builds. If they consider them amateurish or band aids or not the Linden-Way(TM) I can't help them. The difference between EC-e and 1.19.4 is not just GUI + 1.19-Leak.
Zatzai: Please make sure you use EC-e not EC-d.
Lex: I'm not sure about Linux ... I hear it's a PITA to build (but I never tried it). Maybe if someone asks Balp nicely :-)
Harrison: The communicator button was deliberately left in the status bar, or do you mean something else?
Regarding 1.20: No plans for that, not at all (plans may be subject to spontaneous change, but don't hold your breath ... I feel pretty happy with the viewers as they are now).
Kooky: Ahh, since you mention it. There were about 500 dl's for BE-v each month in Jan, Feb and Mar, ... I'll keep looking for EC-e ... in a while :-)
Princess/samantha: Neither saint nor white knight ... you know I'm just the compulsive pervert coder ... :-D
I yes I was on EC-D and responded to the wrong blog post, upgrading. Thanks.
I really don't understand how TM ppls don't appreciate your input,
when we all love it so much!
As always thanks again Nicholaz for ignoring TM ppls and going w/ your own creative clever interests and hearing us :)
P.S. - Pastrami did reply - I hadn't checked my mail yet. She appreciated my apology.
Olli
@Nicholaz,
I really appreciate your last move.
Thanks for your work!
@Lex,
a Linux viewer would be great.
I can usually build the official viewer from sources - follow the Wiki and it's not all that difficult - unfortunately I never built patched clients. It would be great if we added to the wiki how to patch the Linux sources, then how to build the viewer from them. This would be a really "open" practice :-)
/me apologizes for his broken english language
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Nicholaz! You are amazing =)
opensource obscure: It's not so hard. If you can build a linden viewer, just download my source archive. You don't need to deal with the patches, there's a source tree with all the changed files in their final form in them. Just ignore the .patch files and instead copy the tree over the linden tree and you're almost there. And in this particular case, to fix the leak, you will need to use the apr-libraries from an 1.18 library packet (at least that's the case for Windows, the apr-libs from 1.19 are a newer version and leaking).
If you're interested in applying patches, look at the "Submit Code" page on the wiki (near bottom of that page) for a start. Or ask Barney, what he does on the Mac should be pretty similar to doing it under Linux.
ollipeist: nice to hear you've got that off your mind then ... :-)
foe: well, they are what they are and I am what I am ... we just doesn't fit together too well. I just had to finally accept, that it doesn't work.
*waves at october hush* ty :-)
yes, with EC-e it's just unpacking the three archives from Lindenlab, unpacking nicholaz source files over the linden tree, adapting the project file (in case of Linux the makefile) to include all the nb*.* stuff in the newview directory and then run the build.
Most work on the mac doesn't go into the actual compiling but into waiting for the compile to finish and making the patch utility :)
Ah, ok Nicholaz, wasn't sure if that was on purpose or not
When will your depositors see their money back from your Ginko escapade?
@opensource obscure
Compiling a Linux viewer is not hard:
Get the sources, the libraries and the "art" archives for the viewer.
Get the fmod sources.
Get the patches (make sure they are saved as UNIX files and not DOS ones, else you will get rejects).
Put everything into the same directory.
Get make-SL
Run make-SL and go take a one hour break...
Hi...I grabbed this client for the first time the other day and I'm affraid the memory leak doesn't seem to be fixed. Under Vista my RAM use keeps creeping up into the 90% range as I continue to use the client; it seems to be antagonized by lots of region changes or moving around an area with lots of avatars and heavy textures.
Anonymous: That was someone else (Nicholas Portocarrero)
Elle: The description somewhat fits the leak which I found. I can't guarantee that there are not other leaks ... here it runs with stable memory usage. But just to check, are you sure that you started my viewer (different icon, different title) and not the original Linden one?
*heavy sigh of relief*
Thank you Nic! You big old sweet leak fixin, pervert coder/addict you! *giant hug*
Yikes! One evening and its better than a Ship load of Lindens (TM) working flat out for weeks. Why don't they do what you do? Hats off, you are a genius!
I dunno what area you codein for a living but I bet it ROCKS!
Nicholaz: Very positive, yes - running from shortcut to nicholaz.exe
For the record, system specs are Windows Vista, 2GB of RAM, 2.something GHz core2 duo CPU, gForce 8800GTS graphics card.
What can I, as an "average power-user" type, do to gather data about memory leaks, do you know? I don't have a coding dev environment set up, although I do have virtual studio express sitting on my hard drive for that mythical "I'm going to try to learn to code!" time.
Elle: Tracking down memory leaks without a dev-environment is close to impossible (and even with one it's a difficult task).
But since you mention vista and an 8800, I remember something from the OldSchool viewer days. I had a user then with a similar setup and problem and back then it helped him to turn off (or was it turn-on?) object occlusion in the Advanced menu. It seems to have been a driver and memory-management issue ... I'll see if I can find the name from the guy and will send you an IM inworld, maybe he remembers more about it.
*waves as solanghe* Thanks :-)
anonymous: I'm doing communication software for a living (terminal emulator, ISDN file transfer, etc.) ... it's not 3D cutting bleeding edge stuff ... but you can bet it runs rock solid :-)
Thank you Thank you Thank you! I have my Vista 64 bit machine up to 6GB RAM trying to fight the memory leaks!
I wish there were a way to ensure your continued "Nicholaz Edition" builds. How about we get enough people together to chip in enough money to "hire" you away from your RL job? Maybe by say, doubling your current income? Would that work?
All the cool things are back -- the bandwidth meter in the corner, the memory footprint in the console, and all the other stuff I have really missed. Thanks again.
Gee, Nicholaz has been so generous in providing this for free to us all, it never occurred to me to gift him with some currency. What kind of expenses do you have inworld, Nicholaz? Premium membership, tier to own land, what? Let us know how we can "share the love" (isn't that a Torleyism?) and give something back to you from the community. Please. Let us show you our appreciation. The viewer can remain free, but I personally would feel better making a donation for it, as you have helped make our in-world experience run so much more smoothly!
Princess Ivory
Princess: Thanks for the offer ... Your (and other's) wish is my command. My SL doesn't cost me anything (I have a basic account and free land from the Lindens for a year), but I'll go on vacation on Friday, so that will be a good opportunity to spend some extra money :-)
Thanks for this! SL never runs smoother than under an Nicholaz viewer!
the Object-Object-Occlusion bug, ah yes, I know it well....
It's been VERY useful on my XP box as well as my vista box. And I don't have an 8800GT on either, lol. :)
Definitely enjoying the new viewer of yours, and good to know I'll still have the BE-v version to fall back on if worse comes to worse.
Linux build up. Sorry for the delay, been busy in RL.
I updated the post. (No need to feel sorry ... I certainly understand the bit about RL ... and I'm happy you're making these, it's not that you have any obligation to do that). Thank you Balp!
Triple: Hiring me would not work. I'm running my own business for 10 years now and am very happy with it ... and a stubborn guy like me isn't good being hired or working for anyone else ... not even for doubled income (which would be quite a challenge to achieve :-))
Btw, such lots of RAM won't help much, I'm not sure but I think one single process (program running) can't get much more than 1.6GB.
That 1.6GB makes sense -- about the only way I got the EC-e to crash is to set everything on max/ultra, set the draw distance to 512, and visit enough sims so the memory footprint hits 1.6GB.
But 6GB does help my system a lot overall, because I typically have 2 SL clients, a TV tuner, a spreadsheet, and a few other things open. Plus it is 64-bit Vista, which is a memory hog.
Someone tried setting the slider that controls the texture memory (under Graphics --> Hardware) to more RAM than is on their video card and reported an improvement. I must admit, after setting it to 1024MB (I have a 512MB video card) it does seem to help the stability. That setting, combined with your EC-e viewer, has made my SL world MUCH more enjoyable.
Yay! A new one! :D
Thanks so much!
Thanks for tossing the md5 hash into the post about the download, Nicholaz. Unfortunately, I still can't get it to download - 3 downloads so far, 3 different md5sum totals on each download. o.o I don't know what it is with e and your server - the version you uploaded to the mirror gave the correct hash when I downloaded it at least!
Thank you Nicholaz for all your efforts and the suprise release, I just found it after being on the BE for a few weeks too long it seems now ;)
It works a treat and we are in your debt ^^
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