1.22 RC8 Now Available

About texture priority:

- cache *at least* the content of two average regions(no, not legal OpenSpace, try xcite . If you want to default the cache still to 500MB; ok. But allow users to extend it to 10, maybe 50 GB (which is 1-5% of current hard disks).
- at, first load the own avatar (this should come from the cache, except rate situations)
- give the sim owner an option to mark a few (no more than 10 over the whole sim) textures as "critical" - for rules, warnings and similar things. Those are loaded directly after the ava and before anything else. So the user can read the rules while everything settles (currently those textures are the last loading, as text-textures must be high res and are useless until fully loaded).
- next are the avatars in a range of about 20m.
- then load all other textures in that range. Before they are _complete_, IGNORE all outside!
- now load the rest, closest first.
- the more often a texture is used, the less important is it.

sculpties on prims >1m in any direction are loaded before the rest of the same priority; on smaller with them. Oh, and don't load all textures at the same time - there is no use, if you are in s shop to see a lot of unreadable textures - then better one readable and the rest grey.

This release candidate is unusable for me as SLVoice.exe frequently crashes. This is the worst RC ever and I've had to go back to the normal viewer or use Skype as I use voice alot

This is under Windows XP.

I have added to the following JIRA:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-11910

I hope voice is fixed soon and I can use the RC viewer again. Hopefully Linden Labs aren't thinking of releasing this RC version as the new normal viewer.

Finally found somebody using voice, and it suddenly works for me, too, on a Gentoo box that used to only handle ESD audio. (It's almost got me thinking of plugging in a microphone. )

For one aspect of sculptmap loading delays, see http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/24971-oblong-sculpts-borked-1-22-a.html. Be sure to read though the posts at least through Qarl's comment.

Something I'm finding now with this version (did not happen with last version)

After a while (few hours) it gets jerky.

As I stand on the spot and just use "A" or "D" to pivot on the spot it gets stuttery/jerky.

If I quit and reload it's lovely and smooth again.

As I say, never seen this happen with any previous version.

Anyone alse come across this (on a E6600 PC with 4GB Memory running XP and a 8800GTS)
Or any "settings" suggstion to make it better (bandwidth / cache sizes)

Thanks.


==== EDIT ====

I've just bumped my BANDWIDTH up from default to the max 1500 (as I have a 20 megabit cable connection)

Just wondering about the Cache size now, I remember reading somewhere here about them messing with it recently. Can anyone bring me up to speed regards this point?

Thanks again

Make sure you have w32codecs and gstreamer*-pitfdll packages installed (names are Debian packages; names may vary on the Ubuntu side if they decided to obfuscate things here)

No need for that (difficult to get) w32codecs; just install all gstreamer-0.10-Plugins, you can find

/me nods

All of the important and oft-used codecs are already in the Good, Bad, and Ugly packages.

Except a usable quicktime to play videos such as the ones Torley has at Here. For those, the only fix was w32codecs and gstreamer-pitfdll

Although Voice has been strange the past 24 hours I'm not crashing with this RC due to it. XP user here.

Second Life 1.22.8 (109366) Feb 1 2009 13:13:47 (Second Life Release Candidate)
Release Notes

You are at 264755.0, 252350.9, 31.3 in van Eyck located at sim2285.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.17.36:13000)
Second Life Server 1.25.5.109327
Release Notes

CPU: AMD K7 (Unknown model) (2075 MHz)
Memory: 2048 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: RADEON X850 PRO x86/MMX/3DNow!/SSE
OpenGL Version: 2.0.5757 WinXP Release

libcurl Version: libcurl/7.16.4 OpenSSL/0.9.7c zlib/1.2.3
J2C Decoder Version: KDU
Audio Driver Version: FMOD version 3.740000
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.21635 (Mozilla GRE version 1.8.1.13_0000000000)
Packets Lost: 0/2369 (0.0%)


We have ATT-Uverse hookupand are hardwired to fiber-optic internet. File Size 2.9297 MB
Time Elapsed 3.953 seconds

SL Voice has been having difficulties lately, finally got posted to the status page yesterday and by late last night SLT it "seemed" to be working okay.

Now a confession. When I install new SL clients, I have seldom uninstalled the previous verions, chosing to simply download the new installer and then run it. I just hated doing all the setup each time.

I know, not the best way to do it, but had seemed to work okay. Well, last night I went and uninstalled ALL my SL Clients. Just wiped it off this machine completely.

I then setup my seperate cache directories so I could pick them under preferences (no ability to "Make New" and installed the RC8 again.

While still seeing some issues, it seems to be running much smoother. I definately notice that the video is smoother and things seem to load faster.

This issue with the texture picker and new inventory window opening seems to have been greatly improved by doing the wipe and install. Texture picker now opens in about 2 - 3 seconds and does not seem to get slower with subsiquent uses. Inventory > New Window is still slow, about 6 - 7 seconds, but does not get slower each time it is used. It was never quick in the past, so this seems to have resolved both these critical issues for me.

I will post more a little later and update this.

Just an FYI, you might want to try a completely clean SL installation if you are having difficulties.

thanks Zenity / i disabled the OpenAL as you suggested / and have my audio stream with Ubuntu 8.04 working again

Yes, I have also experienced that OpenAL does not allow music streaming under WindowsXP. Some types work, but MP3 streams (99% of all streams) don't. I've had others confirm this issue.

If LL intends to keep OpenAL, I hope they make it easy to disable. Won't using OpenAL to listen to a simple music stream burn CPU on any machine using onboard sound chips, and even on lower-end sound cards? I'd appreciate hearing from someone a description of what user experience improvements are anticipated from OpenAL's use - I'm looking for knowledge here, this is not a trick question!
.

I haven't experciened excessive CPU usage from OpenAL. OAL seems to be the fix for a lot of problems with sound under Linux when using crappy sound chipsets (such as those found on 90% of motherboards and almost all laptops).

As far as OAL on Windows is concerned, don't expect on the situation getting better until Microsoft catches up with the rest of the industry in terms of OpenGL/AL support: SL is doing the right thing here.

Well, you don't need it, if you have a correct configured ALSA and/or don't use voice... And it seams to break things for a lot of people.

I am experiencing more, and more severe, crashes with RC8. These take the form of a screen freeze. Sometimes the program won't self-end, and simply remains frozen until the computer is rebooted. Last night, I had a crash of a sort I haven't seen for over a year...most of the objects on the screen simply disappeared.

Also, in Preferences/Voice Chat/Setup, there is a persistent "please wait" message and the sound bars appear misplaced and flicker.

On the other hand, the startup "white screen" freezes seem to have gone away, starting with RC7.

so they're doing the right thing by breaking streaming for Windows users? Explain that.

Only because Microsoft has broken standards implementations for so long, they've become the rule rather than the exception.

Do you guys realize that SL on Windows could be getting nearly double the framerate it is now if Microsoft hadn't been so busy these last several years ramming DirectX down everyone's throat?

OpenAL is the audio equivalent of OpenGL.
OpenAL is an open-source 3D audio accelerator equivalent to DirectSound.
OpenGL is an open-source 3D graphics accelerator equivalent to Direct3D.

I wish I had the answer for why OpenAL is broken on your system. I don't run Windows, so it'll be hard for me to chase down the probable issues, but I would be willing to bet it's a codec issue, or you may need to actually install OpenAL on your system.

This might be a good place to look: http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/default.aspx

To be precise, OpenGL is an open standard for 3d graphics acceleration that has both open source and proprietary implementations.

Ummm, are you saying that if we (on our PC's) run some other OS than windows (I'm using XP myself) we will get better performance (framerate) on SL ?

Does SL run a lot faster under Ubuntu (for example) on the same PC ?

This site might have a partial explanation: http://www.adequacy.org/stories/2001.11.26.101258.24.html .

I get better performance with Ubuntu on the same box.

To return to the initial topic this thread was about: RC 1.22.8

I recognized during the last few days that a some things improved significantly for me. Crashes have been greatly reduced, overall stability of the client as as good as it felt with 1.22.7.

But: Lag, texture- and object-cache, avatar texture reloading, and generally a feeling of "underperformance" sticks. Especially lag is a serious issue with 1.22.8.

LOL thanks, that does explain a lot.

Well this was still about RC 1.22.8, and the fact that it breaks Streaming on Windows because of OpenAL.

Microsoft isn't going to suddenly say "Oh no, SL users can't stream, lets dump DirectX and Directsound immediately."

So, I hope LL actually tries to fix this issue.