Optional "Low-Tech" Viewer?

Perhaps it's time for LL to give us the option to use an older version of the viewer, or perhaps one with not quite so many features.

It seems as though many of my friends and family have had to leave SL because their computers "just aren't good enough". LL Please remember, YOU have the power, money, and ability to continue with technological advances... BUT WE do not. Not everyone can buy a new computer, video card, etc EVERY month.

For those of us who remain devoted through thick and thin, crash after crash, but cannot keep up with how fast SL is advancing into the technology of the future. Perhaps you could offer us a "low-tech" viewer. One that may not be as neat or cool as the NEWEST one, but one that will offer us even the lower graphics, less features, with the full ability to continue our lives IN Second Life as we all so wish to do.

I thank LL for making a place where we do not have to be ourselves, but I beg of you to make it a place where everyone can continue doing so.

We no longer wish you to keep adding "NEW" features, but to perfect what is already there, and possibly offer something to those of us who just can't keep up.

Thank you,

Kitten Harrop

In fact I couldn't agree more.

The viewer to go back to is 1.13. The troubles all seem to have started with the issue of 1.14. Mind you: do Lindens ever look at these forums?

Everyone reading this: please vote, and ask your friends to vote, and then mention the URL of this thread the next time you reply to one of the `Linden's notices about outages. Lindens DO read the comments people write after their outage notices.

Byee!
Christi

Voted for it and blogged.
http://rpgland.extra.hu/news.php?item.174.2

totally agree, my laptop just doesn't cut it for rendering, the new windlight is even worse. My tower is better, but I do travel a lot and only have the option to use my laptop then. You can always set your rendering limits to the lowest as well, and strip all the new features manually. But yes a lowrez version would be great for my needs as well.

I hope that will resolve issues for my MacMini.

When the new viewer with the... silver motif came out, my friend said this:

They were supposed to fix lag issues by 20% with the last viewer. Then they came out with this graphics heavy viewer and jacked up the lag by 40%. Nice fix.

And that's exactly how it was. By adding a graphics heavy viewer it jacked up the lag. The lag makes it frustrating to do anything. Half the time some attachment just doesn't work. I've had too many issues with being unable to join in with group chats (Unable to join "XXXXX Group chat" please try again later) and I try later and it still doesn't work. When I TP, most of my attachments stop working. This is frustrating when you have to reset your AO, your collar, your DCS and your hair! My hair disappears ALL the time when I TP. Drives me NUTS!

Just as Kitty said, lets PERFECT the program before we ADD fancy schmancy new things to it that we do not need.

Please and thank you LL!

I totally agree that there needs to be a "Low-Tech" version. I have been there, and am there now. One of my computers wont work on sl since the new update. The "new features" cause it to overload every time and with in five mins of logging in it crashes...even with everything set to low.

Fix and improve on what a wonderful thing you have created LL, but make sure your constant "improvements" do block out most of your long time followers who just arent able to constantly upgrade their systems.

I voted "No I can keep up."
But! I do have friends, who can't and instead of loving SL they don't last long,
between the 'oh lag, no tels, general how tos etc... is a norm around here!" and their computers needing a low tech client.

Ah...and there were bad versions before that. Anyone remember my Ode to 1.1?
Actualy it was "An Ode to Updates" but I used 1.1 as a version we'd "want to go back to."

I think LL is not a big enough group of engineers to justify the effort to create and test a "Lite" version client, though I agree that people have been dropping like flies since the Voice and Windlight rollouts. You have to be a rocket scientist to use even quite good ATI cards. However, creating a "Lite" preset for preferences would be feasible.

For some people, it might help to run older viewers. Is everyone on this thread aware that you can run older viewers without being prompted to upgrade by using a command line option when you start SL?

On a PC, add " -channel old" to the Target line in the desktop shortcut you use to run SL. (actually, the word 'old' can be any word, lol).

Another great option is to use Nicholaz's pre-Windlight "BE-v" version; extremely stable.

Now, where do you get older versions? SL began using Amazon as a download server back in the 1.15.x. days. To get the setup program for 1.15.0.2, for example, you would go to:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/download-secondlife-com/Second%20Life%201-15-0-2%20Setup.exe

If you want to see a list of all the available versions, albeit in hard-to-read http encoded form, just go to:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/download-secondlife-com

(there's probably a nicer way to do this, but I'm too lazy to figure it out).
.

LL has been adding features left & right, when even the basic functions (inventory, friends list, logins, etc.) haven't proven to be entirely stable. I think LL should focus more on making the base functions really stable, as opposed to adding more and more features. Adding more features often contributes to more lag, thus more crashes, etc. Plus, the more you add, the more you have to maintain, so now the basic functions are suffering.

Please take into consideration those that have no money to update there computers...=0)

What's with all the first-post-ever people in this thread???

With windlight, you can supposedly turn down the settings to less than that of the pre-windlight viewer. My frame rate has gone _up_ with the new viewer, even with it on high settings.

For all the people who think they're being forced to leave: have you tried turning down the settings?

Probably not. In true SL irony, a lot of the things that can make things easier on the less technically astute seem to be thinhs that they aren't familiar with.

I also heartily recommend the BE-V viewer. I'm still using it, and will for as long as I can.

When turned down to where performance is acceptable, at least for, the Windlight was worse than the Non Windlight.water is a dull grayish color, and the sky was just dull blue with no clouds. The so called cartoonish graphics are more acceptable to me.

YEP! Im on MACBOOK, the cheapest white one with 80GB and im getting more play than those on powerbooks with super fast processors! HA! people have downgraded from powerbooks to macbooks cuz 4 some reason SL WONT WORK!

I just put 2GB of RAM in this laptop i have here, and u know what, IT WORKED, my Frame rates went up etc. If your on mac you might want to find that sudo command to turn off the DASHBOARD, what a RAM HOG it is.

ALSO you might want to find something to help you quit the finder, It will make the icons on your desktop INVISIBLE (oooo)... also helping with the RAM BiznESs!


And just because im feeling nice today
ill give u da link to the page with commands.

http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2008/02/top-50-terminal-commands.html
http://macrecon.com/minute-hack-kill-dashboard/

try those out and see if it helps, i know SL runs a whole lot better for me.
But also, check out newegg.com for that ram 2x1GB sticks for 46.00USD... AMAZING!

For the people asking... no Lindens do not read these forums they abandoned them in favor of the blog they now announce on and no longer listen to the customers there either. They just don't care how what they do affects you.

Many people I know who are having the major problems are still at a .4fps with ALL settings as low as possible. I hate to see my friends leaving due to problems. Thank you all for your suggestions though. It's great to hear what options we all do have, that aren't well known.

Thank you very much for this post. I found out last night as well from another friend about Nicholaz's versions of the viewer. This is and can be very helpful for people indeed.

My biggest concern though is that LL needs to offer a viewer or at least TELL how to use the older viewers somewhere a "newbie" can find, because I tell friends to play, they try.... the responses I get are.. "too slow, can't move, won't run properly....etc." So IF LL would at least make it known or OFFER one of their older viewers to us it would help many new people continue to start their Second Lives.

Yes. My comp is only six months old, not top shelf but only works good enough at lowest settings.
I'm afraid that a couple of versions from now it won't work at all.

We need an ASCII viewer
Maybe they need to find a way to crank WL even lower.

Thank goodness others are getting T'd off with this too!..I thought it was just me..
I voted..for stabilisation not fancy stuff that breaks down for loyal residents...lets hope LL are not too arrogant to discount their core support.
Ive personally given up on building stuff now when I used to enjoy it...big flat planes of color invade my monitor..and the lag is just as bad as ever..

I couldn't agree more. So many cant keep up or even get started on sl, and not all of us can keep up with the Lindens. Just make what we do have better and let us use earlier versions. At this rate only the Lindens will be able to have a decent experience soon.

I totally support the idea of a viewer optimized for older video cards.

This really ought to be something the newbies are alerted to, since no doubt some of them are lost because they have older machines.

There's a company working on making an SL viewer for cell phones, using a server to convert from SL to video. It seems to me that same technology could also be used to stream to a browser, and then the bar would lower even more for who can get into SL.

This may seem to someone with a decent gaming rig, to be going in reverse. But once you have established a social network in SL, you are desperate not to lose it, whether or not you can keep upgrading your computer.

For the CELL PHONE?!?

How on earth are you going to read the chat? Or respond?