particles, ogg/vorbis, video streams....

hi,

first i have to say, that i use the linux client since 3 month now, every day
for about 16hrs. this means, it runs. beside 2-4 crashes a day, which i think
is 'normal' in such a 'complex' environment. my system is also not the
optimum. it's P4 with 1.6Ghz, 768MB RAM, nvidia4 440 go with 64mb vram.
system is kernel 2.6.19 on a debian basis, always using the newest clients.

but,

1)
i have a very strange phenomenon with particles. after a fresh login i
see all particles normal (all, 4096 like setted in the prefs), after a while
i just get about 0.5% or less of the particles visualized. it's like a buffer
run's full and didn't get emptied as fast as needed. after a relog the same
game.

2)
i really can't understand why linux an mac osx users can't get the parcels
ogg/vorbis streams. i'm not a customer of fmod nor i decided to use this
product. i made a bug report on jira a while ago and ogg/vorbis parcel
streams still hang or crash the linux or mac osx clients. change that with
top priority. maybe fmod4x is worth a try or go with openao, like others
suggested before.

3)
i can't understand why you don't use vlc to get video done on the linux
client side. another option is mplayer, but vlc is sure a very fine solution
to get those stupid .mov and also .mp4 streams build up on a prim. there
is also a pledgbank project pending (http://www.pledgebank.com/sl-vlc-not-qt)
to get vlc the standard viewer for all platforms. this would open a way
broader range of video posibilities. especialy for the linux clientel.

the last 2 points mean all in all a lot of work, but i think it's a matter of
priorities. i didn't mentioned voip because i don't see a need for it, yet.

thanks for any comments, especially on my first point. i really don't like
to relog just because i can't see my loveley fog machine particles anymore .

greetings.

w.z.

I like vlc, but since they switched to QT frontend I stopped using it.

I am not really sure on the details of VLC or its library subset, for all we know it isnt even capable of outputting to a friendly format for use in a 3d environment (note I havent looked into it at all). Just browsing over its library it looks like it doesnt support integration into other formats besides the player.

I would choose xine if anything, its cross platform and iirc has the interface for outputting the textures needed.

ok, i tried to approve my theory, that old particles didn't get deleted:

when i get new particles in the client buffer and tp to another sim, the
old particles from the first sim don't get deleted and so on. i proofed
it by self experiment. i freshly logged in, received some 1000 particles,
tp'ed to another location, received a lot of particles and on my trip i
passed by the particles lab, a must on the tour. after a while (maybe
5 minutes jumping back and forth) i don't the any particles. i even can't
see my edit/select beam.

can you confirm this?

thanks,

w.z.

I can confirm the problems with particles and ogg. After 3-4 tp's between med-high particle sims, the particles stop being rendered by the client. Re-log is the only fix as far as I can see. I also have crashes when listening to audio streams in the ogg format. Both bugs are 100% repeatable. The ogg stream bug prevents linux (and mac I belive) users enjoying the very popular AV Festival sim : P

I support anyone who can fix the no-linux support for streamed video. This is not good cross platform support : (.

(O.S. - Ubuntu (dapper) - Video Card - ATI Radeon 9800 pro 128mb)

[/not an expert on]
If we're casting around for a video player to use in Linux SL, I'd humbly suggest Mplayer.
A command line clunker that manages to handle most things thrown at it.
SL isn't going to care about GUI front ends that xine or vlc provide. Though I know the xine engine does get used in other programs. The VLC engine is used in Democracy player, and tbh, it annoys me how many times it decides to only play video and no audio and stuff like that.
[/not an expert off]

Im not an expert but you cant just take <insert random video player> and make it work with second life. It needs to have an interface for outputting as a texture that can be used in second life. I do believe mplayer has the capacity to do this, but it is up to the developers to do this and lay it out. So I am ending my triad