'First Look' performance-enhanced client preview now available for Linux

Calling all testers!

http://secondlife.com/community/firstlook.php
http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/01/18/first-look-render-pipeline-improvements-upadate-for-1132/

Note that as this preview version changes quite a lot of the drawing code, I've disabled our normal 'safe' graphic options by default - the gloves are off! So all compatibility and performance feedback is welcome, both with and without the LL_GL_BASICEXT option active in the 'secondlife' script.

I haven't run it with LL_GL_BASICEXT on yet. But I'm doing great so far. Places do load up noticeably faster and the graphics are a bit sharper. I'll turn on LL_GL_BASICEXT in a while and see how it runs then.

Fedora Core 6
Kernel 2.6.19-1.2895.fc6
nVidia Geforce 5500 FX

LL_GL_BASICEXT seems to run fine, but when I went to edit an object I made before testing the First Look, it crashed. And it also happens when it's disabled too.

And when I bought something I made(just as a test), the money transfer didn't go through(said the request was denied because it's "stale".

Aside from the REALLY IMPROVED FPS, I can leave ALL the "#export LL_GL_BLACKLIST=abcdefghijklmno" options commented out, with all SL Client options enabled, and SL is Very Happy Me Too!

Fantastic work!

I DO have a problem with one transparent texture, though: it no longer shows up as transparent.

Are others seeing this? It's the triangular sail of the freebie "Sail Boat". It may affect other textures, too though.. I will check & report back if I see anything.

All in all, fantastic!

No other transparency problems.

I do see "artifacts" sometimes - phantoms that appear for a frame or two, then vanish as the proper textures load.

Also:

Standing up from a boat, several times - the boat vanishes into the ocean, gently and smoothly. And only reappears when I relog. It is not traceable with edit, the "select" tool, until I relog - then it is where I left it.

Getting into a boat once put me under the earth on the far side of the sim, and I could not get back. Both I and the boat were OK when I relogged.

"Overflying" when crossing a sim boundary is still a problem, a bit less than on the normal client. Also lots of bad packets - about the same as the normal client.

All in all, you can see it's not perfect, but what GREAT performance!

No graphical glitches found yet, and awesome performance!

I just found a small UI glitch:
I cannot right click name title anymore. The windows version of the first look client does not seem to have this problem.

I LOVE this version!

Thanks Tofu for this great work!

Wow, very nice! No major glitches here either(I haven't tried with GL_BASICEXT yet though), and very very smooth.

The only issue I saw was some textures getting "swapped"for example, my shirt texture got used for a stone texture meant for the ground.. kinda funny looking ) but otherwise very nice!

Thank you you Linden demigods!

Vastly improved performance, somewhat delayed "build up"of region, but that's something I can live with. Some textures stay blurry until mouse-hover. All in all great work

Steve and Runitai are to thank for the performance work - I just made sure it worked on Linux.

Remember though, the 'First Look' releases aren't just for fun; they also exist to get as much testing feedback as possible before they get merged into the 'main' client. That benefits everyone!

Another funny: sometimes when editing an object in the FL client, the "alt" key does not enable zoom any more. Mouse wheel scroll works OK.

Sometimes. simply putting the cursor on nearby land or another object re-enables the function; but sometimes not.

I have prims that do not materialize as well. Sometimes they come back after clicking around a bit, sometimes I have to relog. This I have seen twice with bits of my house.

Some tree textures flicker at a distance of around 10 meters.

There should be a new 'First Look' soon.
If First Look causes you major drawing problems or system hangs out-of-the-box (i.e. without LL_GL_BASICEXT) then please speak up because otherwise it's looking like I may leave LL_GL_BASICEXT turned off by default when this becomes the main client version, so people can enjoy the new performance properly. Thanks.

Am getting steadily increasing memory usage with the First Look client, increasing until the paging to swap prevents even logging out and the application has to be killed. While its running there's a very dramatic fps increase, and rezzing seems to be much quicker and sharper. If I end a session before before all the memory has been taken I get log files several hundred Mb in size filled with:

2007-01-25T10:20:29Z WARNING: Channel 86016
2007-01-25T10:20:29Z WARNING: Source ID: 9c980baf-133a-5d70-ca94-11a44eec6a02 at { 263910, 237981, 20.05 }
2007-01-25T10:20:29Z WARNING: LLAudioChannelFMOD::updateBuffer error: An invalid parameter was passed to this function
2007-01-25T10:20:29Z WARNING: LLAudioChannelFMOD::update3DPosition error: An invalid parameter was passed to this function
2007-01-25T10:20:29Z WARNING: LLAudioChannelFMOD::updateBuffer error: An invalid parameter was passed to this function

No comparable issues running the standard client with all video options turned on.

Running on fully updated Ubuntu Edgy-Eft, nvidia 128Mb 6800 video card, 1Gb main memory

The current First Look Client has no major Drawing problems for me. It has a minor glitch - the flickering tree textures at 10 to 20 m. I also get very occasional stutters (hangs and goes again), and I twice had missing prims. But this was at a time when SL was staggering anyway, so I am very reluctant to blame the client for this, especially since none of the glitches were reproducible.

It DOES have major Plusses on drawing - it loads textures faster, and Goes Like Hell

And I no longer need to use option "c" to get Bump Mapped and Shiny! It's all plus, so far.

Hi,

I experience some crashes (once or twice every day) and some hangups once in a while (once a day).

This is about the same a the normal client.

The drawing to perfect, no problem here.

Config:
Suse 10.2 (x86_64)
Core2 E6400
2Gb Ram
Nvidia 7600GT 256Mb

Regards,
Marco

Hello!

I have to blacklist the l (uncapitalized L) extension to prevent a hard lock on my system (ATI), same as in the normal client.
Performance seems ok, no drawing problems.

System:
Sabayon 3.2
Kernel 2.6.18-gentoo-r5
Pentium M 1.6
ATI Mobilitiy x600 (driver: 8.31.5)

Edit:
I did some checks and it seems that for me the -normal- client's performance is better. It takes longer to load all textures but after that I get higher fps (+10fps compared to first look)

building of any type seems to lead to a reproducible crash on my system (create cube, instant crash).

0: ELF(do_elfio_glibc_backtrace()+0x200) [0x970f290]
1: ELF(viewer_crash_callback()+0x15f) [0x9715e0f]
2: ELF(signal_handlers(int)+0x1f2) [0x9703452]
3: [0xb7f98420]
4: /usr/lib/libGLcore.so.1 [0xb6bbb6d3]

A new 'First Look' is out with a bunch of fixes and optimizations. Check it out.

I did some testing today:

Enabling VBO slows the client down on my system, so I disabled it.

Running with

export LL_GL_BASICEXT=x

results in very high frame rates, so I checked which extensions I have to blacklist to get the same result.

After some relogging and extension-blacklisting I see the best performance with

#export LL_GL_BASICEXT=x
export LL_GL_BLACKLIST=lno

Blacklisting "m" results in a viewer crash.

I don't know the technical background of these extensions, so I hope my post is not totally useless

System: Sabayon 3.2,Kernel 2.6.18-gentoo-r5,Pentium M 1.6,ATI Mobilitiy x600 (driver: 8.31.5)

First Look 57209:

The texture flicker on trees has gone, now they get weird shapes at a certain distance - the trunk of one tree is much thinner, and conicaolly tapered thinner above, than the identical tree that is a bit closer. Sometimes trees appear as Edge On views, no thickness to the trunk at all, also only at around 20 to 30 meters.

The texture problem on the free boat I mentioned before is gone - this transparency type is working now

I may be kidding myself, but it seems slower at first - then the original Goes Like Hell speed comes again

An "overfly" problem I had a Sims Boundary Crossing, where the location data at the top showed the exit sim with negative coordinates for AGES, and I sailed off into eternity , before I appeared JUST across the sim boundary seems to be gone. It was there in the normal Alpha client and First Look.

I have all options on, including VBO.

I don't know what's happened but the Firsat Look client has fixed a dreadul flashing I used to get with the 'old' client. I originally thought it was hardware, cos it started happening just after the motherboard was replaced...but it's gone! It's not just the the removal of LL_GL__BASICEXT as I tried in on the old client.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Problems I see with it are

- Building (going into edit) crashes with a double-free error. This doesn't happen to me on OS/X so seems to be Linux-specific.
- Odd transparency problems : from some angles/distances parts of my house are transparent! it might be because the windows are part of the texture rather than transparant individual prims, but I don't really know.

DELL 3.2Ghz, 1GB RAM
NVIDIA Gforce 6200 256MB RAM
kmod-nvidia-1.0.9746-1.2.6.19_1.2895.fc6
Fedora Core 6

I don't know how you've done it - I'd like to think it had something to do with the open sourcing of the client, but I know it hasn't.

Secondlife first look linux is the difference between night and day. It is just that much faster that I can actually use secondlife now.

with First Look 1_13_2_57278 I have strange effects with some scripts moving the avatar. For example joining the guided tour on Svarga results in the avatar somehow staying on the ground. Other residents see him moving correctly tough.

But this version really is incredibly fast and has very few side effects for a technology preview of an alpha version. GREAT work.
Thank you very much Tofu!

Best,
Daniel

Problem is gone with 1_13_3_57520. I should have waited for this version before reporting I think. :-}

Thanks!

Daniel

first few minutes installed in Edgy 32 bit, and the graphics are impressive. Thanks guys, now I don't have to boot to that other os! If I could only get my 64 bit functioning to test.

OpenSuse/amd64/smp works fine for me. Great job!