What it means when they say "optional"

Over the last few days there was a bit of a lively discussion on the sldev mailing list, caused by a Linden dude who, when inviting people to test a high end experimental feature, wrote some posts with some weird overtones about graphics cards. The issue is discussed here on the forum where Kitty Barnett's and Matthew Dowd's posts pretty much reflect my ideas of the issue.

However, the discussion went on a tangent as it aways does, about how Teh Laboratory handles additions which are meant to be optional and how they affect those who want to opt out of those. Atmospheric rendering came up, being pretty close to the topic discussed and how Linden Lab says that if you disable the blissful sky, the 1.19.1 series of the viewer should run better than previous versions, while many people say it runs worse (which is my opinion too). Kitty Barnett made comparisons which were indicating the latter. I made some quick tests here with similar results.

Now today comes an interesting comment from the Lab which is interesting. What it essentially says is, that except for the lowest end, in WL there are no settings which exactly match the older viewers. Of course you can turn off the sky, but a bunch of new features come in a packet (Preferences, Graphics, Custom, Basic Shaders), which will either hit your performance or which will leave you with noticeably less appealing visuals. I.e. with mid-range machines, you can trade off graphics or trade off performance, but there is no way in the middle as with old viewers. (If you are getting funny results with Eye Candy, even while you think you have similar settings, the Basic Shaders option may be the key).

This may be a pesky little technical detail, but I found myself being irritated by the Linden's claim that Windlight was optional and could easily be turned off to give you an experience as before and the fact that whatever I did, I either lost visuals or framerates.

This not-so-optional new feature is not unlike what happened when voice was introduced. You could of course turn off voice, but you were then left with questionable changes to the user interface and with grayed voice-related buttons scattered around the windows.

Humans learn from experience. The lessons learned from Voice, Windlight and Dazzle, coupled with derogatory remarks about hardware introduced 3 years ago make it hardly surprising that people are getting nervous at the mere mentioning of a new experimental high-end feature or that those "optional" improvements are often considered downgrades.

Release: Old School OS-p

The Old-School viewer still had over 500 downloads this year and I am personally still very fond of this version. I was even asked about upgrades by a few people, so I wanted to give it a little attention.

Of course most user will instead want to try my Eye Candy or Bleeding Edge viewers, but I am sure this blast from the past will find it's audience (luddites like myself, or users which performance challenged hardware).

For vintage connoisseurs, the Old School version now comes with a few backports from the later releases, mainly Havok4 (4096m) building, redmap warning and IM filter, but also the new icon, title and channel name. See the change log for all the details.

Old School won't give you atmospheric bliss, it won't even let you use voice (although I guess few people will actually miss the latter), but it will give you good performance, low memory usage and the same extras as my later viewers. If you look at the change log, this viewer has come a long way, all based on the same version and I think that this does show in terms of quality.


Luddite or not, you will of course be subjected to my 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 Second Life account and inventory. Also read the disclaimer/header in the Install.txt in my archive.

Important: Before running this Old School version, you need to have the totally outdated Linden™ version 1.18.0.6 (download here) installed, preferrably in a separate folder like SL_1-18-0-6 .

Then have a look at the install instructions on my server and then download nicholaz-OS-p.zip from there.

After the download completes, follow the instructions and make sure the files go into the right folder and don't hesitate to buy me a beer if you find this piece of software beneficial to your second experience!

Also you will most likely download this little goodie from my server to get a more compact and appealing friends list (see the readme.txt inside that file).


Enjoy


Nick

PS: There is an in-world group for announcements of my releases: Search, Groups, "Nicholaz". Also, at 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.

Eating your world

At the time of this writing, a rolling restart is underway, which most likely will have your ability to create oversized prims for breakfast.

Despite my and Tateru Nino's judgment, where we both independently came to the conclusion that the ability to create new big-prims was intentional, the Linden™s say it was a bug.

Server updates are now being applied to change this particular server behavior, but you may still find opportunity to create sizes which you need if you find regions which are only due for update tomorrow (possibly down south on the map if the update follows previous patterns) or to pick up various pre-built prim packages available for free on SLX or via this forum thread.

Andrew says that the feature will come back as part of a more thorough approach and that Quarl is working on the project. If I could wish for anyone working on a Linden project, Quarl would be high up on that list, so I am sure the implementation is in good hands. But don't hold your breath: The procedures and hamster wheels inside Teh Laboratory are grinding slowly and the queues are long, so I'd even consider a time to market of 3 months being quick.

What I do like about this (w)hole issue though, is the spirit which it inspired. I sensed an feeling of adventure, liberation and cooperation among residents, something which is rarely experienced throughout the highly fragmented virtual population. At least for a few days, there was that feeling of our world, our imagination again.

So let me just say that I tremendously enjoyed the opportunity of being part of that.

Thanks

Nick

PS: If you like, post SLURs or SLX links to your primsets in the comments if they are for free.

Release: Eye Candy EC-f

Last week's experimental Eye Candy worked well, so I am also calling it good. The change log has a bunch of changes since the previous EC-e version, which should make the upgrade worthwhile. Mainly the separation of settings files between Bleeding Edge and Eye Candy, the fact that the New IM tab is now gone from the communication window. There are a bunch of fixes/changes by other contributors as well: Aimee Trescothick, Gigs Taggart, Henri Beauchamp, Squirrel Wood and Teardrops Fall (again see the change log for details and JIRA numbers).

I also added (quite literally) a last minute patch. Yesterday Able Whitman posted a patch on the sldev mailing list about the creation of megaprims (see discussion on sldev near the bottom and also check this forum thread). After some mulling over the pros and cons and after a bit of testing on the beta grid, I decided to give it a go and implemented that feature (it's just done in a slightly different way, i.e. via Ctrl+Alt+S debug settings rather than patching the official dialogs, see comments to this post for details).

Reason for the implementation is that there are already ways to achieve this via legacy megaprims and via libsl and slproxy. Also, I found that the Haovk4 sims do limit the size of prims on the low side (H4 still does not allow true microprims, i.e. no scales under 0.01m) and with that and with the megaprim discussion a while back and even H4-megaprim fixes, I seriously doubt that this is an actual server side bug. To me this "bug" looks more like something which is tolerated but not actively supported. My implementation however limits the creation to max. 100m, which should cover most legit uses for megaprims and which is well within the bounds of which the Linden™s say that they are safe.


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, fast as lightning, already offers a Mac OS X build of the EC-f viewer).


After this short intro, 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-f.zip from my server (or from this alternate temporary download link) and while the download runs, have a look at the installation instructions and the change log.

After the download completes, follow the instructions and make sure the files go into the right folder and don't hesitate to buy me a beer if you like this viewer!

Enjoy ...


Nick

PS: There is an in-world group for announcements of my releases: Search, Groups, "Nicholaz". Also, at 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.

Release: Bleeding Edge BE-w

There were no reports of adverse effects with BE-xw, so I'm calling it a good release. It is based on an old Linden version and you can see the glorious details in the change log. Main point is that it allows building and teleporting to up to 4096m and separates settings from the Eye Candy versions (you may want to copy settings_nicholaz.xml to settings_nicholaz_BE.xml).

Source code is also on the server. If you want to do builds based on BE-w, post them here in the comments and I'll let people know. (Update: Barney's Mac build is already available).

So, here goes the usual 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 Second Life account and inventory. Also read the disclaimer/header in the Install.txt in my archive.

First make sure you have the expired Linden™ 1.18.5.3 (download link) installed.

Then download nicholaz-BE-w.zip from my server and while the download runs, have a look at the installation instructions and the change log!

After the download completes, follow the instructions and make sure the files go into the right folder!

If something goes wrong with this version, go to the previous-versions folder. BE-v will still run very nicely and rock solid.

PS: There is an in-world group for announcements of my releases: Search, Groups, "Nicholaz"

What happened to ... ?

Maybe some of you who follow more closely what the 2L guys do (or who go to their meetings) know something about these?

Age Verification? Personally I'd say it's face down dead in the water. I see no way Aristotele can fix their process internationally, not in Germany, France or Canada for that matter, where all the relevant informations are not at all released by the governments and where they are even protected by strong data privacy laws.


Quality Metrics? Last update seems to be in January. From what I see on JIRA I doubt that crashes went down and from my own tests with WindLight, I doubt that FPS goes up either.

I've ran my BleedingEdge against EyeCandy in various places and the frame rates were either very similar (around 10% difference indoors with many avatars around and imposters enabled) or BleedingEdge came out on top with up to 50% more frames (outdoors with few avatars around). Henri told me about similar results for Linux (and even worse results on single core machines). I guess one of the basic laws of computing still holds. Surprise: if you do more complex stuff, it takes longer :-)

As far as I can tell, the only way they could have gotten better overall frame rates was because they reset draw distance to 128 for almost everyone, but that's just spin-doctoring and not really a performance improvement in my book.

I think I remember seeing a graph that SIM crashes went down dramatically with Havok4, but I'd really like to see full metrics for the last quarter.

Grab a Band Aid and Snow Goggles

More arrivals in the ~experimental download folder.

Bleeding Edge
One is a new BE-xw build. It should be fairly solid, it is just tagged experimental to be sure and it will eventually become version BE-w.

After juggling versions for some time now, this is still my absolute favorite. It is still high in demand (total of almost 9000 downloads now), balanced visuals because most content seems still to be build for the old rendering engine and probably because I'm a luddite who prefers the tried and trusted :-).

You will find the download here, together with change log and installation instructions. If something goes wrong (pretty unlikely), please go back to BE-v.


Snow Blind
This is a new build and with that name I think you will be able to guess what it is. It is very early, very experimental and very low priority for me (I just did it because I had some spare time and I'm just sharing it because it might help someone). I just put in what went in easily (most of the GUI reversals are dead, but release-key, IM-filter, memory bubble fix, etc. are there). It will be better than the official RC6, but understand that it is merely a half hearted attempt in Nicholazification and besides, the original source distribution does seem to have stale files too.

Feel free to post your findings here, but don't hold your breath for fixes. If you're adventurous grab your Ray Bans or some snow goggles and download it here (also see install notes and change log).

Experimental EC-xf2

I have a little update to Sunday's experimental viewer.

• fixed collision of settings between Nicholaz EyeCandy and BleedingEdge viewers (manually copy user_settings\settings_nicholaz.xml to user_settings\settings_nicholaz_EC.xml if you like to import the older ones)
  
• fixed a bug in the texture-hiccups patch
• VWR-4371 (ambient sound volume) by Aimee Trescothick
• (full list)
  

As far as I can tell, this should be a very nice viewer. I plan to turn it into EC-f without other changes after a few days (probably next Sunday), but for now I'd call it true release-candidate status.

If you want to give it a try, point your browser to the experimental folder on my server, follow the usual steps and post observations, problems, results as comments to this blog post.

Everybody who is interested in stable and tested versions instead, please continue here.

Enjoy ...


Nick

PS: As a side note, I'm also planning an update of the BleedingEdge viewer (1.18.5.3). Nothing dramatic, just a tweak to the settings and one or two patches. I personally really prefer the BE viewer for it's performance and even visually so I'll give it a little extra love.

Second™ Sunday

Selfless über-geek that I am, I'm spending part of this lovely Sunday in front of the computer, digging through Second Source. :-)

The result is an experimental version, basically EC-e (based on 1.19.1.4) with a few new things.

Here's the excerpt from the change log:

• removed the "New IM" tab
• 768/4096m building, teleporting and 100m prims for OpenSim (thanks to Henri Beauchamp for leading the way)
• backport of a few Linden fixes in 1.20.5 (unbind-Textures and others, not really sure what it is good for precisely, but it looks like it will help some)
• VWR-5308 (performance improvements related to wind-sounds) by Gigs Taggart and Aimee Trescothick

If you want to give it a try, point your browser to the experimental folder on my server, follow the usual steps and post observations, problems, results as comments to this blog post.

Everybody else who is interested in stable and tested versions, please continue here.

Enjoy ...

Nick

Back again ...

Monday night I returned from a lovely vacation with excellent weather, lots of beer, wine and and fine food, courtesy of generous donators (again, thanks to everybody), but also finding a not so lovely backlog of RL work. (One of the wonders of self employment is that a vacation is more or less an time of organized procrastination, but heck I wouldn't want a different life :-).

Today however is a national holiday here in Germany, so I'm taking a little break from the backlog and was checking what's up with 3D Life this morning, so here is what I came up with:

Trademarks
One bit which comes back to my mind is the new Linden Lab® trademark policy and it happens that Barney shares some good thoughts about it on his blog. What amazes me about the Linden™s is how they constantly misjudge or ignore the effects which their actions have on people. It's like a company suffering from Asperger Syndrome. Asperger of course is an individual issue and I doubt it has ever been diagnosed on a group, but if you have a bit of time I am sure the the description of the problems in social interactions, loosely applied to LL™ and residents, may ring a few bells.

For myself I'm still unclear how to handle the use of the Linden™ trademarks, I guess I will try to avoid the terms whenever I can and will otherwise follow the rules to the letter, up to the point where it is shows how ridiculous the whole issue is. This is not because I do not accept their legal rights, because actually I do. I have two registered trademarks myself but it would never occur to me to use these against fan sites or even add on products. After all, especially with the Googlification of the internet, the biggest asset for a brand is exposure.

Anyway, Barney is certainly right that levering the enforcement of their guidelines through the TOS is baaaad idea. They already know that seizure of assets most likely will not hold up in court because the TOS shows signs of being unconscionable because of being a contract of adhesion (see here), so all it does is alienate people. The average customer of course won't go through the hassles of going to court like Bragg, but in a situation of such power imbalance users will instead try to evade the issue by either avoiding use of those terms or by following the rules rigidly or satirically, which will limit the brand exposure and/or will show how kafkaesque LL™s idea of brand usage is.

EyeCandy
The new EyeCandy viewer seems to be doing nicely (there were over 1700 downloads in April, WOW!). A few users have pointed out some quirks which I will try to fix and I'll also see if I can integrate some stuff like Henri's 768m limit backport or add the odd patch from the patch sematary.

Speaking of the patch sematary, Steve Linden™ has posted a viewer roadmap, which in the middle somewhat indicates the Linden™ stance toward patches. This is nothing new. In the past features or changes already had least likelihood of acceptance, but it sort of clarifies how many (albeit not all) Linden™s or at least their studio bosses' view of outside contributions (tidbit 1). But this is fine by me, now that I managed to adjust my view (tidbit 2) and adapted myself towards this situation. In fact I'd wish they would make this even clearer and/or put that into a more prominent place, because that's not just something about the next quarter but also about the time since Summer 2007. Business as usual really.

Dazzle
I also gave 1.20 a whirl. Previously I had just seen the screen shots which did not thrill me to any extent and now having seen it live I am even more underwhelmed. I fully agree with Aimee Trescothick's excellent analysis about GUIs in general the dazzle GUI in particular.

This somewhat ties into Steve's roadmap, because as with patches, Dazzle it is of little surprise and mostly business as usual. They'll roll out early and repair the damage later. If anyone feels reminded of the voice GUI, this is no surprise because Dazzle is brought to you by the same team as the voice GUI, i.e. User Experience who's boss Benjamin Linden™ has an impressive track record of being resilient to outside opinions.

At least the roadmap says, they don't want to make the viewer mandatory before it offers user-skinning, but saying "However, this is the look we are planning to support going forward" is pretty much what I expected. It will be interesting though to see how or if things change with their new CEO (interview).

On the source side, I did a quick run of my patch script which showed that many of my patches need some (or even serious) attention to go into Dazzle. With no visible benefit whatsoever in this viewer I will ignore 1.20 and instead, when I find time, will spend it on EyeCandy instead.

CoolViewer
Boy Lane has posted a comment that a new version of Henri's CoolViewer is available. She says: "To give Nick time to relax in Spain...I've just updated the Cool Viewer for Windows with the new feature to build / TP over 768m and up to 4096m high. If someone needs that *smile*. Linux: (link) Windows: (link)". Barney also has a version for the Mac: (link)


Traffic vs. Showcase
As with the trademarks, Barney offers some good insights on traffic metrics. Prokofy also has thoughts on the issue and what I find pretty amazing are the comments there. Not having a business I'm not really interested in the issue, but if you are, these may be two good places to go.