Tell Me Why I Need Windlight

In checking the Blog this morning, I saw where Windlight has been upgraded, and the blog featured a place to download it. I've been skeptical of Windlight, feeling more like the boys in Linden Lab wanted to distract us with pretty baubles rather than correct the mmyriad real and troubling problemscurrently experienced in the game. But I've mellowed. I like to look at pretty things too. So, convince me I need it. Convince me I can't enjoy SL without it.

How badly will it mess up the current game? MY computer is pretty fast, and I have a great video card so I am not overly worried on that regard...but will it cause me to crash more? What are the pros and cons of Windlight.

Talk to me, my people.

You don't need it.

Yes, it looks very pretty, and I mean VERY pretty. Sometimes I just sit on my dock, staring at the Windlight sky and dreaming....

If you build anything in SL you need to see what it looks like in both versions, since your customers could be using either.

One day Windlight will be the ONLY way of looking at things.

There are still bugs, so maybe if you don't want to disturb your SL experience, just wait until it becomes an official release.

If you download it, you will have two icons on your desktop - one for Windlight, the other the older way - you can switch between the two at will.

It will eventually become _the_ version of SL - from the blog post, it sounds like that day is getting closer and closer.

Might as well get used to it now and find/complain-about problems before it becomes the only choice.

try befor you buy

doesn`t works? trash it, still some time away befor being manditory
no 2 systems are alike so no one can tell you how it will run on your pc, also it`s a deifferent installation so easy to remove afterwards

I tried Windlight once and I really didn't like the way things looked - like there was a grey haze around my sky platform. I tried messing with the draw distances and I could get the gorgeous sky by setting a higher draw distance, but I don't want that - I don't want to slow down my computer just for the privilege of seeing all the ugly builds floating beyond 100m away. In the regular viewer, I can keep my draw distance at 100m and see blue sky in every direction - it's not gorgeous Windlight sky, but it's neither hideous grey haze nor cluttered up with other people's sky builds.

Best reason to download now is to find and report bugs, before this becomes the ONLY option for a LL client. The more they fix now, the less harmful the actual released version will be.

The next best reason is to determine if an older computer / video card that you have can run SL acceptably, and decide now if you need to do a hardware upgrade, before a mandatory switch locks you out or makes SL unplayable for you.

Windlight still has many bugs, but it is getting much closer to where they will release it as the official client. Eventually, it will be your only choice.

In my experience it runs at pretty much the same speed and reliability as the standard viewer, and it can look much prettier. I tend to find that it's great for looking at landscapes, especially things like sunsets over the sea, which can be absolutely stunning, but the differences are far less noticeable if you are inside a building, or surrounded by them.

In practice I don't use it much, I prefer the Nicholaz viewer which has the old-style UI before they came up with the Communicate window.

Windlight seems to be at least as stable as the standard viewer for me. As you can have both installed at the same time, you have nothing to lose by trying it.

Hi Penny

I'm stil fairly new but I have got the windlight viewer and in my opinion its awesome. Stability is comparable to the existing viewer - maybe a touch more crash prone but nothing more than I would expect from a new software interface. The trade off for vastly improved quality on graphics and lighting is worth it for me.

I would say it depends on what you need - I can understand that there are some folk running bots or scripts etc that would prefer rock solid stability - for the likes of me - seeing the sunrise flash off a new piece of armour I've made rawks!!

New WL is just as bad as the last one. Sand is rendered like surgical lighting.

Textures still have that slight blur, particles still render to grey when zooming out, etc.

I didn't like Windlight much at first. It was too washed out in the middle of the day and the shading on avatars was very harsh and unflattering. Those problems have mostly been fixed and it's now my viewer of choice. I also get substantially better framerates using Windlight than I do with the regular viewer. The Windlight team deserves major props for their responsiveness to resident feedback and the speed with which they stomped on bugs. Give it a try. You might find you really like it.

You can monkey with the settings to your heart's content and make it look how you want it. Seas are all sparkling azure to me now, which given the murky brown waters of the UK is a glorious thing.

Since it's not THE viewer and still glitchy I only use it for pretty pictures but as soon as it gets straightened out enough to run well then I am there. If only EVERYTHING looked as pretty in Windlight as the sea and skies ...

BUT you don't need it

It does look good, but it did hit my system resources a bit. However, that was a few updates back and I suspect the may have tweaked performance a bit since then. So I will probably give it another try before too long.

Naw, but I'll tell you why it's become my primary viewer.

1. On the new iMac, I can have a very pretty sky, improved lighting, and beautiful water. Graphic-wise, it looks so much more "real" than what I saw before. Very useful given how much I do with in-world photography.

2. On the older PowerBook, while I can see all that, I can use the low setting and get a better fps than I get on the current official viewer on low settings.

3. After using it for some time, the official viewer's graphics look dated and weak.

4. I do have a store, and work with others, so it only makes sense to have an idea what my products might look like when WL is integrated into the official viewer

Finally, because it is a beta project, and does have it's glitches and weirdnesses, I feel like I am contributing to SL's future by using this on my system and reporting what I find. I have seen fixes I've reported addressed by the WL team very directly, which has made me feel more confident in SL and LL as a whole.

Mari

Here, here! The rest of the company should (and, I hope, is) take a cue from the Windlight dev team, particularly their willingness to solicit feedback and act on same. I've actually felt like I have a "voice" in the process, something that I think many SL users don't feel.

Mari

Good morning friend

As has been said, you'll want WL to be able to see your creations in both versions. I was using it before I decided to jump on the Release Candidate bandwagon, and liked it, once I got my settings right.

The new RC though...whew, there's something to mess with your mind...lol

Well, as I said, in the one time I tried to use it I could *not* make it look how I wanted. I could *either* have pretty skies with clearly rendered sky-clutter in the distance, *or* I could obscure the clutter but get stuck with weird, hazy skies that was far worse than what I had in the standard viewer.

There are lots and lots of settings to change, but since I don't know what most of them do I didn't at that moment have the patience to tinker with them and see if I could make the ugly go away. I might try again; I might not, until LL gives me no choice but to use Windlight.

Is using Windlight heavier on bandwith usage than the regular client?

I like WindLight, only way for you is to try it!
I do not crash very often think it pretty stable now, but I do have good graphic card and lots of RAM.
Ok I crash once over last w/e but was in a crowd and over 60,000 in SL.
Go for it!
Love
June

Apparently it looks nice.

I don't know, because I can't run it on my computer. Luckily LL plan to make it the only viewer in future so that we on lower end machines are unable to participate in the bleeding edge metaverse anymore. I support this because who wants poor people around? The harder it is to run SL, the more people will want to spend time in it. So you need to upgrade your computer before you get locked out by rich people. Buy one with precious rubies in it, so you can get extra enjoyment before the next mandatory update three weeks later.

I'm using Windlight more and more, despite my dislike for the viewer (my primary viewer is Nicholaz, with the old style communication boxes). The earlier problems of the washed out textures at noon and poor stability seem to have decreased.

The comments about builds are spot on. If you are building, you really ought to download Windlight and peek at your build in it. I've found that it is sharper, which can be both good and bad--good because detail comes out, particularly on textures, bad because issues such as prim joins are less forgiving and must be worked around.

But like it or not, SL is headed that way. Go sailing at sunset in Windlight, and you will probably come to love it

I have used WL exclusively for about a month now. I really like it. I was at a friends place a few days ago. He uses the standard client and I found it kind of dull and flat, the sky and water rendering in WL make SL look much more alive and vibrant. There are environmental settings on the World menu where you can change the sky and water to your heart's content.

The lag seems a little less, the FPS is about the same. Didn't notice any change in bandwidth usage. There was a post on the blog a couple months back saying it should run faster because a good portion of the code was rewritten. This is still beta code so there are glitches and more unresolved issues than in the standard client. But I find it very stable and rarely crash out of it, usually when doing a TP. Anyways, I don't even plan on downloading the new standard client release, I have no interest in it.

I suggest you download it and try it. It installs in its own folder and has its own icon so you can switch between it and the standard easily.

Yeah as has just been said ... the regular viewer looks ... well ... flat and lifeless and dull.

But then again, for some, boring and lifeless and dull may well suit their personalities

NOT aimed at the OP!

Chav, you can certainly run Windlight with atmospheric shaders (and even basic shaders) off, which should still run SL "fine" even on older hardware.

Pictures I've seen of it look nice, but I'm sure my graphics card doesn't do them justice. It'll get a try when it becomes unavoidable I guess, although a new video card is not in the plans for this machine.

Yep, you don't have to have all bells and whistles.

Hardware marches on like it or not though. This machine was a dream when I got it last year, now it is starting to chug a little and I definitely will be getting an 8 series card at the least for it but until then, if Windlight becomes the norm, I'll just knock down the bits that I can.

I understand (correctly or not) that there's a Nicholaz viewer with both Windlight and Voice? If this is true I might give that a go.