second life What’s the latest on SL Viewer Options?

[Pancake]

So I’ve been out of SL for some time, what’s the latest on viewer options? I know “best” is highly subjective, and definitely drama causing, so I’m more curious which are known for which specific features or niches and not necessarily a cage match to the death if we can avoid it.

What’s the recommendation for lower end computers? How about mobile or web, anything out there on these?

How about photography or building or role play? Any viewer more cudtomized for those than others?

 

[Adeon Writer]

As far as rendering settings go, they haven't added anything new that I'm aware of in the last year.

There's the max complexity setting which lets you auto-derender any non-friend avatar that is above a certain level of laginess of your chosing. That's about it.

The most recent SL features is rigged/animated rezzed objects and, not so new now, but, the Bento skeleton update. Neither is anything you can particularly disable, they're viewable on minimum.

 

[Val]

I used to use Alchemy on oldest recent computer and it served me swell while Firestorm lagged to hell and back, same thing happened on the PC afterwards but Alchemy started to also lag at the very end of it's lifespan. I started using Black Dragon then and it still works best with me. However, I noticed that there is absolutely no logical answer when predicting which viewer will do you best; on laptop very similar to PC, Firestorm is the best one. Most of them are very similar actually besides Black Dragon being very different with rendering and I find it better for photos (especially HD ones).

Here is the current list of viewers and best answer is to try them all (I actually do use most besides Singularity which lags on all machines ) and see which ones you fancy for what.

 

[Han Held]

I would try one of the singularity alphas and then if that doesn't work Alchemy, after that try the cool viewer.
Singularity Alpha; Singularity Viewer Automated Build System
Alchemy; Alchemy Viewer
Cool viewer vl; Cool VL Viewer

On a totally unrelated note I broke down and tried Black dragon; no opensim and being too different from what I'm used to means I'll never use it regularly ...but gawdamm if it doesn't just make everything pretty

 

[Puretone]

So I’ve been out of SL for some time, what’s the latest on viewer options?

Whichever one gets you back in world!!

srsly, i got a new place to hang I think you'd like.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

not necessarily a cage match to the death if we can avoid it.

I see you fail to appreciate the best things this forum has to offer.

 

[Chalice Yao]

I had a sticky on the ole SLU with a list of viewers and features. I think I should recreate it at some point, as the list on SLU was somewhat outdated after a while. Gives me a chance to get up to speed, too.

 

[Pancake]

I had a sticky on the ole SLU with a list of viewers and features. I think I should recreate it at some point, as the list on SLU was somewhat outdated after a while. Gives me a chance to get up to speed, too.

I didn’t want to volunteer you, but I was telepathically summoning you a little bit.

 

[Raindrop Drinkwater]

I quite like the official viewer, to be honest.

For Opensim, I've tried Alchemy for a little while, and while I really liked it, I had some graphic glitchs with it. I've now switched to the OS version of Firestorm. It's fine, although it's slower than Alchemy. The thing I don't like too much about Firestorm is that it feels "bulky", if that makes any sense? It's more of a general feeling than anything in particular, though, so it's worth giving it a try.

Some neat stuff (in both viewers) is the ability to copy/paste prim settings, something I wish SL would implement in the official viewer.

 

[lord]

What happened to Lumiya Viewer ? It's no longer on the TPVD nor is it listed as a TPV compliant but not directory listed alternative viewer like the Cool VL Viewer is...yet...it is still being offered on GooglePlay.

 

[NiranV Dean]

I had a sticky on the ole SLU with a list of viewers and features. I think I should recreate it at some point, as the list on SLU was somewhat outdated after a while. Gives me a chance to get up to speed, too.

Do it! For science!

 

[Nika Talaj]

I had a sticky on the ole SLU with a list of viewers and features. I think I should recreate it at some point, as the list on SLU was somewhat outdated after a while. Gives me a chance to get up to speed, too.

Yay! Cris made a brand new subforum for it to be stickied in, too!

 

[NiranV Dean]

Nice.

 

[lord]

I had a sticky on the ole SLU with a list of viewers and features. I think I should recreate it at some point, as the list on SLU was somewhat outdated after a while. Gives me a chance to get up to speed, too.

Of course, there is the old question of how long should a viewer be on the shelf, not being developed, before it should be considered defunct...or take a viewer like Singularity Viewer, or Kirsten's Viewer, or Alchemy Viewer, who hasn't had an official new release in quite some time but has a few alpha or beta builds available if you know where to look...how should you view a viewer of that type ? What about a viewer like Lumiya Viewer that suddenly disappears from the TPVD and Alternate Viewer list but is still available via Google Play ?

 

[Spirits Rising]

Well ....

The TPVD is absolutely useless as it's a listing of those who have bothered to self-certify that they comply with the Linden Lab Third Party Viewer Policy.

If a Client/Viewer is still being developed - it is "active" no matter if one has to go grab the "test" builds to remain current or not.

 

[sldenizen]

I forgot that there are viewers other than Firestorm. A few years ago, Firestorm became really stable for me, and I kind of forgot all the other viewers that I kept trying out. Maybe SL became really stable and I happened to be using Firestorm at the time.

 

[lord]

I've been waiting for updates to the viewers before starting a new thread for them here on VirtualVerse, but perhaps I'll just go ahead and start them anyways since it looks like it will be awhile before they do.

 

[Tirellia]

Lumiya is still working fine for me, I run it on a tablet when I'm travelling. I've no idea why it dropped off the TPVD.

 

[Mondy Bristol]

Considering another android viewer was recently banned from connecting to the second life servers it's nice to remember Lumiya has no such restrictions.
Not being listed in the TPVD isn't a requirement as pointed out on the Cool VL viewer page.
" Being listed in the directory is in no way a requirement for a viewer to be considered TPV-policy compliant anyway: see the paragraph 6 of the TPV policy"

I love Lumiya for when I only have a phone or tablet, especially the virtual 3D feature!

 

[Cherokee aka]

I have been using the Catznip R12 viewer - simply because its the only one that will run on my old laptop - the graphics on other versions are too ''heavy'' for my pc, and I've had to opt out of updating / upgrading.
Anyone else use this?