Voice and the latest Viewer / Contacts and IM's in Dazzle

So.. it has become a question of choosing. If I want voice (only works in Dazzle now- in Release Candidate on and off sporadically) then I give up access to my Contact List and cannot respond to IM's nor initiate any. If I choose to have my Contacts and access to IM's then cannot have voice other than as stated.

Tried voice on RC and OnRez - nether worked- only Dazzle worked and the others I had no Contact list.

Anyone else? I resorted to Notecards for private conversations this morning. Electronic SnailMail!

RC and Dazzle different things?
I have RC and with its silver finish I thought that was Dazzle, so then what is Dazzle?
Is it a more experimental viewer, but I thought that was Beta.
Love
June

You are proly right June- I may not mean Dazzle anymore- sorry- the current xperimental viewer I can have voice - not the RC - and not OnRez. I haven't tried Xtender or the Nicholaz - which I have not used at all before-

There is no current experimental viewer for the main grid, or at least nothing shows up under First Look.

There's a beta viewer for the beta grid, but I assume that's not what you mean. There's a 1.20 Release Candidate, which includes both Dazzle and Windlight, there's the 1.19.1 latest official version, which includes Windlight but not Dazzle, and there's the 1.19.0 previous version, which includes neither. None of these fit your description of what you're using.

Given how often people get confused about which version other posters are talking about, it would help if people always give the precise version, which is available in the lower right hand corner of the login screen. Include both the name and the version number.

(Aside: LL might describe a release as "experimental", but I don't think I've ever seen them use that as an official label. The official labels are Release Candidate, First Look, and Beta. They don't have a label for "current" or "obsolescent", which is why there's so much confusion about the 1.19.0 version that still works, and why there's no substitute for the actual number.)

Well thank you for the thorough explanation Kidd - I will look up all the specs etc and update my post when I am home. I am sure you will all be waiting with baited breath-

I did however mean all of the most current available downloads other than OnRez which I downloaded ages ago. The other two- the First Look and the RC are the mos current iterations thereof.

OK- I just Re-Downloaded from the SL website : Second Life 1.19.1 (4) A

I cannot access my contact list at all. I alone right now and cannot try voice- but that one had voice working earlier. That one also has Tools back in the Tool Bar above which I asked about on another thread a couple days ago.

This one: Second Life 1.20.4 (8582 Apr 24 2008 14:59:50 (Second Life Release Candidate) has chat and IM and Contacts - but did NOT have voice this morning other than sporadically - it does NOT have Tools up in the Tool Bar.

Any input welcome. TIA

Hopeful Bump...

I don't seem to have any problems with my Contacts on either of these versions but, like you, I do not have a Tools option on my Menu bar when the Release Candidate version first starts. HOWEVER, if I select 'build' under the View menu item, I get the normal box used for building and editing AND the Tool menu is now present - and it goes away as soon as I close that little build box. That will ultimately drive me nuts.

My voice setup options were there and that wonderful little white dot above my head, but nobody was around at that time to actually talk to - I'll try to check that option here shortly.

I have no problems with my contacts in any of the current versions.

The Tools menu being removed in the 1.20 viewer seems to have been intentional. Have to ask the Lindens why. It only appears when in build mode now.

I don't use voice so I can't comment on that.

The voice is annoying cause I will be in a club where everyone talks normally and I am whispering. Thought it was my mic but it works perfectly and the other one. Might cause me to go whine in the whine thread.

The "Avatar Position" option for voice is completely whack for me. I have to turn up people next to me, but can clearly hear people halfway across the sim.

OK- at least I'm not the only one with voice probs- what version are you using, Beezle?

I haven't been on in a bit -- the RC just before the current one. I haven't been using the current one to see if it's still happening.

This is with a Soundblaster XFi-Gamer.

Last night I was briefly in the same club mentioned above- there was live music and others were having issues- but this time hearing the performer..

/me scratches head...SL is an exercise in Jobian Patience...

I salute that!!! I have the same trouble and 1.19.1 (4). version. The voice comes through crackled up and broken. I was talking to my friend and he heard me all broken up. I heard him like a faint whisper, but not so broken up. I heard him best in the start, worse after we both relogged and cleared cache.

He heard me clear a few seconds - but I can't figure out what I did then that made it work. Probably a glitch.

Private call was absolutely impossible. Chat was barely working, with the problems abowe.

Any suggestions? What is most important when using voice?
- Good bandwidth?
- Big memory?
- Cable instead of wireless?
- Good (expensive) headset?

And what about preferences.... what is best? To hear from avatar or from camera? I'm not sure if I will buy new stuff before I've tried out if it's a way to change preferences.

I don't use voice. Someone might find out I'm really a girl
lol

The same logic that made them hide the Shout button in a drop down menu under the Say button. "Hey, let's clean up the interface by hiding something in the next layer down!"

Noooooo - please, say it isn't so.

Last night the SL gods struck me with Divine Inspiration

In the Preference option in Edit I ran the Voice Set-Up again...seems with this latest download the Input for my mic had gotten turned way down... so- I can speak again! Woohoo!!!

Unfortunately the chat thing is still dead on the other viewer

Thanks all for the contributions.