Ditching GLSL.... an all time low in promises

Wow, way to make a promise and not keep it. Words cannot express how disappointed I am. I think the Lindens have hit an all time low, and you all have surely broken the little trust you had with me. This is now a technical issue, an issue with trust also, the new local lighting was awesome with GLSL on everything, and I was VERY excited in hopes to see it in the final of 1.91. I really don’t know what else to say, maybe someone else will express there view of this disappointment also.

I was VERY excited in hopes to see it in the final of 1.91 BUT the new local lighting was awesome with GLSL but is off now, the programers make back all, they cleared everything to old system again , i think the preview is old game again and dont have nothing new, just have only flexible prims and any technics in any scripts not more
as much effort that made to eliminate everything

All we were told was something like "poor support for GLSL in drivers" as a reason for holding back on this.

Could we please have some concrete info on which drivers and on which platforms GLSL is failing, when used by SL?

If we don't know this, we can't help by applying pressure on manufacturers or developers to bring GLSL support up to scratch. And if we knew what the problem was, we could even test some shaders ourselves and possibly find workarounds. Shaders are pretty standalone, and client-side, so this is an easy win for LL --- give the community something to do.

Just another promise made that LL cant keep up to. There is no benefit for those who dish out the money for a good video card. Maybe they will add GLSL with Havok 2, haha, we all have heard the same bs from them, like "this will happen in the next update".

Purely out of interest - which Linden actually promised that GLSL would be implemented? And did they give a timescale?

Did you even listen in when they were talking on SL radio? I think you completely missed out on that. They did say this would be available in 1.91, and who is they, hell if I can remember, it was a linden who was working with 1.91, if you are so concerned with specific lindens you are going to have to ask for yourself, I believe each of there employees represent there company. If they are going to tell us a feature is implemented in 1.91 in voice, then they should follow through with it.

OK, fair enough, I haven't been inworld a lot lately, and listeneng to radio...

But... 1.9.1 isn't released yet! The current client is 1.9.0 (21)
1.9.1 has been delayed, largely because of problems with GLSL, so no one's broken any promises.

I do sympathise with you, but let's not jump the gun on this one. At worst you should see limited GLSL implementation in 1.9.1, if they manage to get it right, maybe you'll see the whole thing. Working. Properly.

You'd have had a whole lot more to moan about if they'd rolled it out regardless I think!

I've highlighted what people apparently didn't see. GLSL IS in 1.9.1(25), its just not being used for everything. GLSL isn't supported very well with older cards (GeForceFX and some ATI's) from what I can tell and seeing how not everyone in SL uses top of the line computers with the latest and greatest videocards I think they made a wise choice for the time being. And like Doc said, 1.9.1 is still in preview meaning they may find out what the problem is and fix it for another 1.9.1 preview release.

they quit all, and telll me what is new in this preview?
I was VERY excited in hopes to see it in the final of 1.91 BUT the new local lighting was awesome with GLSL but is off now

One word comes to mind people!
Not everone has cash to dish out for newer video cards.
it's no big huge lost for me,I have Geforce FX 5200

Everybody does not have old computers
not to be able to make better improve a game because of the people have old and obsolete video cards it is a bad policy

its very bad policy not to improve a game by which they have old video cards. that it wants to play paying to 9 dollars a single time and does not want to invest in a fine computer, for my it does not have right to anything

second life cannot limit its improvements so that people have old machines, the price for a video card 5200 nvidia is 40 dolars and the video card 6800 is 170 dollars, the one that wants to play that it pays, tooo gimp play second life with a video card 40 dollars

Until they dropped the GLSL support, my laptop (a low-end one with a Radeon XPress 200M video interface) was LOVING preview; I was getting frame rates of 1.5 - 2x what I see in the main grid. It would seem that for some newer video cards (this one at least), the switch was a big win.

The new builds without are at least 30% SLOWER than the main grid. One possible problem is the fact that there is no longer a check box for the avatar vertex program; if 1.9.1(25) is using it with no option to turn it off, it's going to be a dog on my laptop. (On the main grid, turning on this supposedly faster option cuts my frame rate in half.)

There are two possible classes of video related problem: lack of hardware support (or poor support) for new features (for instance, that made 1.9.1 very slow if I turned on the vertex shaders on my desktop with an NVidia FX5600), and driver issues (fixable with an upgrade). LL should be more concerned with the first type, which people can't get around without a hardware upgrade, than with the second.

if a guy have a money to have an island in secondlife must have money to have a decent card, not it better but something fine, hopefully that secondlife decides put back the GLSL again

Maybe if I type in BIG BOLD LETTERS people will not ignore this...



What this means is SL WILL be using GLSL and IS using it, just not for everything at the moment. When they manage to get it compatable enough accross the board they will implement it.

As for teh remark about not affording to buy videocards remember a good chunk of the user base is on older machines or on laptops incapable of being upgraded. All because you or your buddy can afford it doesn't give you or anyone else the right to say "F*ck you, upgrade! I want my shinies!" Not everyone is a paying subscriber and many of these folks are on older machines. I myself am on an older machine, if it wasn't for my birthday coming up I wouldn't be able to think of upgrading past what I have because I personally can't afford it on my paycheck.

The people that are happy that they removed the GLSL are the people that only pay 9.00 one time fee account and do not want to pay a monthly fee.

They do not want to contribute in the land buying and want everything for free. These are the people that for the most part have obsolete computer systems.

In general the people that are in the game trading lands and creating objects tend to have a
good video card so they can enjoy all the features of the game.

Its hard to believe that someone would drop 195 dollars and not have a good video card on their pc.

Linden Labs should go ahead and implement the GSLS, and not let the people small percent of players that are not paying for the game to dictate what should or should not be in the game.

I hate to point this out but the announcement said "Many" ... not "older" and not "out of date" graphics cards. I have an old gForce-2 card which works fine in SL, and was working in Preview. Purr-haps I should tell you people with NEW video cards to dump them since THEY dont work with this new system? LOL

New and Shiney dosent always mean better.

I've met more basic users who have contributed more to SL then a majority of premium users. All of a sudden you don't own land it means you don't contribute anything? Bull. My friend is a basic user and she's building up 3 sims for a land baron. Her computer is a crappy 3 year old iMac that can't be upgraded. Another person I know was hired to build up an entire Kingdom Hearts sim and nets in thousands of L$ a week in sales from his avitars/accessories. His computer hasn't been upgraded in as long of a time as mine. Another young man built the club being used in the sim I help manage and he's basic & uses an old Radeon 9800Pro. Plus there are countless basic users who buy L$ to buy things in SL contributing DIRECTLY to the economy. You're making a pretty big claim when saying basic users don't contribute anything.



You're contradicting yourself here. You're saying people who buy up sims and resell them have good setups yet you turn around and accuse them of not having good setups.



Again you're making a rather big claim. Show me statistics that say that only a small percentage of the user base is free/basic users. Last I've observed basic users make up a rather large chunk of the userbase. Alienating them because they don't blow entire paychecks for top of the line setups each month is NOT a good business plan.

Come to think of it, Cg has a system of "profiles" which allows shaders to be enabled, disabled, and or specific versions selected depending on the graphics card in use. The purpose of this is of course so that the shader side of things can have a degree of portability across generations of hardware.

Since Cg preceded GLSL by quite a long time, one would imagine that something similar exists for GLSL. Does it, or not?

And if it does, then the fact that cards differ in their degree of GLSL capability shouldn't really matter too much.

I wish we had a bit more info on this. Just getting small dumbed down titbits is annoying.

ok, then LL should care only for who can buy lands... Geez and I was pondering about buying a 9600Pro card

Second Life required a fines video card for the new GLSL,

Gimps totaly imcompatible for trash. GLSL, dont works it does not work nor in dreams
1-All Nvidia 4000 MX Series
2-All Nvidia 5000, 5200, 5500 series
3-All Radeon 8000 series, 9000 series,

Regular Video Cards for Second Life, half compatible. not all effect

1-All Nvidia , 5800, 5900, 6600 SERIES, 128, 256 mb, sli or single
2-, Radeon X200, X300 series x700 SERIES

Excelent Video Card for Second Life fully compatible with nice frame rate in GLSL

1-All Nvidia video Card 6800 seriesl 6800 Ultra AGP
2-All Nvidia 7800 Series GT, GTX, AGP or PCI
3-All Radeon 1800, Radeon X800, X1200 X1300 series

Second Life price 9.00 dollar one time, dont fees montly=gimp old computers
Second Life price, 5 to 15 montly fees regular video card, regular or nice computers
Second Life price 20, 40, 100 to 195 montly fees, excelent computers

all people love Second Life want pays montly fees and looks for the way to improve the computer and video card with time

all people dont want pay montly fees,and want all free , love and likes to give opinions in the forums have a mediocre and gimp video card

Radeon XPress and 9000 Pro series cards love the GLSL vertex shaders. Every ATI user I met on 1.9.1preview with those cards noticed large gains with VS on. My friend Feynt was going on and on how his 9800Pro has never ran SL so fast. ATI's in this generation without a doubt have better VS support. Your claims against the 9000 series are false.

Ok, you said the nVidia 5500 is total crap and you contradict yourself here saying its half supported. Also I own a 6600GT, GLSL is FULLY supported and ran fine with no slowdowns on my low end machine. Radeons in this class also have good support for GLSL from what I've seen.

Pretty obvious, if they don't then there's something wrong with the card.

Where's your statistical proof? Do you secretly work for LL and have access to the database containing hardware statitistics? There are people with good computers on free/basic accounts just as there are people who own entire sims that have crap computers (so you claimed and contradicted in previous posts). I'd seriously like to know where you get your information from. Maybe a laison can interject here with statitistical data in percentiles what kind of hardware people are using?

Ok, so if I've been playing SL for a year or more I don't love SL unless I've blown my entire paycheck each month on the latest upgrades and a premium account? *shakes his head* There are other ways to improving performance like better drivers, overclocking, system tweaking, good maintance, etc etc. Not every upgrade comes with a pricetag or a shiny new sticker to slap on your case. And not everyone can afford to make major system upgrades, many people are still making credit card payments on what they already have. You also don't have to be on a premium account to have fun or contribute to SL as I've stated in previous posts with examples.

Much like you're doing right now? Guess what, I know plenty of basic users that have probly invested more time, energy, and effort into SL then you ever have. All because they're not paying LL a monthly fee doesn't mean they're freeloaders. Many chose to live on private islands instead of the mainland and/or found it to be cheaper to purchase the L$500 a week off LindeX (wich LL still takes a fee off of) then to go premium. Oh yes, they're really leeching off the metaverse.

I suggest you put up or shut up and show us where you're getting all your statistical data from. Otherwise all your claims are nothing more then hot air.

Ron you are wrong in your all arguments, the nvidia 5500 is a crap, i write wrong, all peoples dont like pay montly fees dont love second life!!

I didn't say the 5500 wasn't crap when it came to Vertex Shaders, without them its an ok card. If I can get it to run SL at a stable 15fps with 20 FPS in mild traffic areas I think the card is far from being total crap. But I did point out you contradicted yourself by putting it in two catagories.

As for your comment about all people who don't pay monthly fees don't love SL, well that just shows how much of a self centered jerk you are when you ignore the fact that while landbarons can be the bane of many SLer's existance, they do offer better land deals half the time to LL. The number of basic users who choose to rent land is pretty large especially when they way the pros & cons to owning mainland parcels. Also buying L$ on the LindeX is alot cheaper then being on the monthly or quarterly plan (assuming you only buy 2k a month). And if you rent land in private sims its far cheaper then being a yearly subscriber and paying the monthly tier.

Example, my friend rented a 6000m2 plot on an anshe land plot. He was paying $20 a month. If he was a premium user he'd be paying $40 a month plus his premium membership (for sake of arguement lets say yearly plan). Now lets do the math here assuming he decided to buy his 2k a month on the lindex and the lindex remained constant.
(current cost of 2000L is $6.86)

premium: $40x12 months = $480 a year + $72 a year premium = $552 a year.
basic (renting & buying L$): $20x12= $240 + (6.86x12) 82.32 = $332.32

difference of $219.68 a year. I just did the math for you, if you want more basic users to become premium yell at LL to become more competitive in pricing.

"Card X is total crap, Card Y r0x0rz" is an utterly idiotic discussion anyway.

ja you are crazy, the video card issue is the reason for lindens dont make the GLSL, this game needed a great video cards for the new update in the game!! if you dont liked the theme, its simple , dont enter in this post