Further Conversation... with M Linden

I wonder how many of these might be due to the freeze/crashes so VERY much increased with the firced new Viewer 1.20.17. Others see/are told I am crashed. I get to either ping people (annoying us both if I AM still online or wasting time. Voice quality is actually worse; hard for me to believe that is possible. I am not happy. There was a reason I avoided all the updates; I had YET to hear of a friend who liked one, or found it stable. This forced update is significantly less stable for me than 19.whatever it was.

Oh and re: crashing: NOT in overloaded sim; in a nearly desserted one, with 1/2 land unowned so not prim cluttered either. Land prices are in the toliet, I know because I contemplate selling mine. I see loads of brand new avatars - people trying it out. Are they sticking? Not so sure they are.

Rising Logins? I would have thought if the viewer really was as bad as some make it out to be that, the numbers on line would have dropped not risen? To me it looks no different at this hour than normal.

Second Life will not be popular for long unless Linden Labs will fix 2 major bugs in it:

Current viewers have huge memory leaks. It is not a good sign when memory usage jumps to 1 gigabyte in few minutes and crashes due to running out of memory under 15 mins. I have seen programs with major memory leaks before, but Second Life clients beats all the records hands down.

Client is damn slow. I have graphically very heavy games running around 100 fps when SL client crawls at around 15 fps. Not very impressive result imho.

Once again it looks like another "Discussion with the Lindens" thread has evolved into "Talk amongst yourselves"... Nearly a week of Further Conversation with(out) M Linden.

Yeah, I'm just fishing for my own "Thanks for writing!..." response to the post I made upthread. Nothing important, just some gripes about stability and wanting to be treated like a customer.

-Atashi

Wow, thanks! Now if I need to do a lot of searching for something I don't have to camp somewhere looking like an idiot or a bot while I wait for search to work. I don't even have to be logged into SL.

Other thoughts:

1. The grid has been much more stable lately, and this is coming from someone who has a computer that meets few of the minimum requirements.

2. If you are having problems with crashing, try some of these (if you haven't already): Regularly check that your firewall is still accepting connections from SL addresses, don't set your operating system to automatic updates because you will never know if the new update is causing the problem, reduce your bandwidth usage and frames per second under Edit - Preferences, reduce your inventory (give it away, delete it, store it in a box on land, etc.), and when exploring (flying, vehicles, etc. - not TP/url) drastically turn down your graphics settings until you need to see more detail. Just a few hints from my own experience. I know they won't solve everything.

3. I think a mixed over/under 18 area would be a great way to share ideas and friendships as well as sharing festivals such as Burning Life (which the Teen Grid missed out on), as long as there are still separate areas that need age verification and areas for only minors.

4. Roads are good, thank you

5. As my alt, I have reported two locations that violated the new ad policy and seen them cleaned up within a couple of hours. Great job, LL!

6. I would like to see new residents given a link to the video tutorials page and, after orientation island, a choice of welcome/info areas that includes a picture or two of the choices along with a description of what the area is like so that they can find the one that's most likely to be interesting to them.

7. If there is a list somewhere of Linden attractions (like the volcano and Chalet Linden) I would love to know where it is, and it should be easier for residents to find. If there isn't one, could someone please make one?

Thanks for reading

where is the settings to reduce the frames per second? (you don't mean turning the graphics setting up, do you? 0.o

and about storing stuff in rezzed boxes doesn't that increase the risks of loosing big amounts of inventory items?

To M. Linden and the Linden Staff:

Most of my experience in SL has been very good -- albeit, I've experienced like many here the frustrations of laggy sims, teleport issues and crashing. And I miss Ruth. But overall, I am amazed that this virutal world exists at all. So kudos to all who, from it's inception, have worked long and hard to create and improve SL.

But there is an impending technical tsunami that will change who can access SL. And when it hits, it will wipe out thousands of users.

I recently was forced to upgraded from the 1.19... viewer to the 1.20.17 viewer.

And yes, forced. I was no longer allowed to log in using the older viewer. I had to upgrade or no mas SL access.

After installing the last viewer upgrade (1.19..), I received a message upon logging in that my graphics card was not sufficient. But I was still able to log in and to my knowledge, my experience in SL was no different from previous viewer versions which worked fine with my apparently now obsolete graphics card.

This latest "forced" upgrade to 1.20.17 has also supplied me with the pop-up that my computer graphics card is obsolete (i.e., doesn't meet the minimum requirements).

However, unlike before, my experience in SL is now compromised. The camera movements are dysfunctional -- whenever I cam, I get a residual "echo" bounce -- the camera keeps moving in the direction I cammed in jerky increments. Not only is this exceedingly annoying, it makes it really hard to build, navigate and generally view anything in SL. This greatly diminishes the SL experience.

I don't know how many other people are experiencing significant problems with the 1.20.17 viewer but from what I've read and what I've heard in SL, it's pretty huge.

I realize as technology advances, the need for hardware upgrades to access this new technology is necessary to some extent.

What I don't understand is why Linden has forced us to upgrade to the 1.20 viewer rather than letting us use the older viewers.

I don't know if I can find a graphics card that will work in my Gateway laptop that will meet the suggested requirements, let alone the minimal requirements. If not, I will be stuck with this degenerating experience and eventually, as Linden continues to upgrade with only the latest computer graphics hardware in mind, I will not be able to log into SL at all unless I buy a new computer that has a graphics card that is so advanced, I can be assured that it will not become obsolete in two years.

My laptop is two years old this month. It runs several graphics software apps with no problems. But now it's choking on SL with this latest viewer 1.20.17, which I was forced to install.

I should not have to buy a new computer or graphics cards every time Linden upgrades their viewers.

If Linden truly wants to increase their user base and maintain brand loyalty, you will have to be more inclusive of those people who can only run SL on older viewers (and older computers/graphics cards) and who cannot afford to upgrade their computers/systems every time Linden upgrades the viewers.

If Linden does not effectively address this issue -- allowing the use of the older viewers for those of us who can't afford to buy new computers and graphics cards -- you will upgrade yourselves out of thousands of users.

I thought the ideology of SL was to make this virtual world accessible to as many people from widely diverse socio-economic backgrounds as possible. But if Linden continues to implement technology that discriminates, Second Life will become an elitist virtual world that will add to the ever expanding digital divide that separates the haves and the have-nots.

I hope you will seriously consider fixing this problem with the viewers and allow users to choose the viewer versions that best suit their needs.

Thanks!

Pixels Sideways

I do agree that there needs to be much more effort into making the official viewer work on less expensive hardware but one thing to keep in mind if that having SL looking (and/or performing) worse than popular MMOs and non-massive games out there does have a negative image impact in the image of the platform, I often see people who don't know SL enough saying things like "this game is crap, game X looks much better and works much better in much weaker hardware". So I think the solution is to make the client perform and look the best possible for a much wider range of hardwares than it does now, eye-candy for those who can afford it without noticeably poor performance for those who can't/won't get pricier hardware (and this needs to be the main client having alternate obscure official alternatives , or third-party clients doesn't help as much unless someone figure how to get that info in an easy to digest form to everyone, both the people kicked off due to financial conditions and for newcomers)

Mmmmmm...... surprising quiet on blog front now. Mark's was the last post and it's getting a bit old hat now its getting on for 2 weeks old.

LL have managed to push the people who used to ask questions on the blog back here out of the way, now we get some sort of response for the first few days, then silence, eventually we will all get bored and give up, then LL will have their nice quiet life with no complaints.

I see there has been no post whatsoever on the main blog since the one that started this thread.

So much for LL new regime of customer communications.

I dont know why I even bother to post this, I am so damn disheartened by the complete lack of customer support.

We used to get updates on new server code, new viewers, what was coming soon, TORLEYS BLOG, ( which seems to have been forgotten ) Maybe he was getting too popular.

Maybe the tech posts are somewhere in the forums, I have no idea where and no idea how to find them though.

At the $18,000 US per year I pay LL, maybe I dont actually pay enough to be counted as a customer, just a "resident".

Goto Preferences>Input Camera

Then turn Camera Transition and Camera Smoothing down to 0 then Apply the changes this then should stop the stupid camera movements you describe, well it did for me

Lately, server and viewer updates have been posted on the "Second Life Grid Status" blog at;

http://status.secondlifegrid.net/

These posts, most of them anyway, have included links to the forum threads where discussion and feedback are taking place. You can also, from the "Official Second Life" website;

http://secondlife.com/

go directly to the Forums from the "Resident Links" drop down menu in the upper right corner of the page. Or, go directly to the forums using;

http://forums.secondlife.com/

Within the upper portion of the Forums main page you will see the links for threads relating to Rolling Restart (server) and Release Candidate (viewer) updates. Plus many other topics of interest from LL.

With regard to Torley's absence, it is somewhat strange. I can only hope that he is on a well deserved vacation.

M, I enjoyed reading your post and share your optimism for the future of Second Life. Keep your eye on the ball and don't forget about the residents (customers) of this virtual world which have entrusted a lot of their money, creativity and vision to Linden Lab via SL. Please do not squander that trust. Because if you do, as others in the past have, then i fear Second Life is doomed to failure. Anyway, I believe you have started off well--keep up the good work.

T Linden. Welcome to the Lab and Second Life.

they can't have fired Torley, could them? o.o

the text at http://torley.com/about doesn't make me too sure if he is or isn't still working for LL ...

I think I'm gonna email him asking that

Fire Torley, no way, they could not possibly do that because then LL would have lied to us all.

His last post said back in a few weeks, and that comment was supported by Kat, so it MUST be true.

I guess that means he is here somewhere we just havent found him yet.

It wouls be good to hear from someone at LL about this though

WE WANT TORLEY..............................................................................

Wait.. What?

Where did the Where's Torley bit come from? Torley.com still says "As Resident Enlightenment Manager at Linden Lab..."

The blog just fell (or was pushed) outta vogue at LL.. We don't see stuff from Jon/Jeremy or teh grid monkeys any more either.

Torley is more then alive and well. He was on vacation for the month of September and he also now has his on island.

I saw Torley about 2 weeks ago at his Office hour, he is still going just can't communicate with us while the blog is down I guess.
$18k per year? I'd hope you were also getting money back as well

Thanks for the mandatory new SL Viewer, buzz-kills. I realize that running SL on a laptop for the last 9 months haven't given me the best that SL has to offer, but it worked for me, and I had a blast.

The last three or four upgrades were optional, which I really appreciated, because none of them worked for me and my apparently crappy SiS graphics card. I was always able to reload my original version, and happily kept chugging away.

Now that the newest SL Viewer is mandatory, I'm no longer able to go inworld at all. That also means that until I can (and I have to, apparently) get a newer computer that supports the new viewer, the remaining three months of my paid premium account is now going to go to waste.

By the way, curious onlookers, the customer service rep who I was working with answered that question of mine by saying that since the problem here is "to do" (sic) with my computer and not with SL, that my subscription would not be credited for the time I'm forced to be away. Fun stuff. "Too bad, so sad, bye-bye."

Seems to me that Linden Labs would be better served making SL available to as many potential residents as possible, instead of just those lucky enough to have chosen a computer with either NVIDIA or an ATI graphics cards.

Well, smell ya later Linden Labs ... whenever I can scrape together enough cash for a new machine, and good luck!

just having a vboard made by a big brand isn't enough, it can't be too old either....

There was a recent Sarah Silverman show where she was walking through a convenience store and noticed that there was toilet paper, diarhea medicine and some sort of snack food all grouped together, and that they were all made by/owned by the same company.

One wonders if SL is invested in only the newest technology, anti-depression/anxiety drugs, and ... and ... a third funny thing.

What really rankles is that about two months ago I upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM and SL was never better.

How many other people have been denied access because they can't afford all the newest gear?

even if it was just one it would be too many in my opinion

Help, help! I'm being repressed!

what do you mean?