1.9.1 Preview - Initial Impressions
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Chosen Few
Alpha Channel Slave
Join date: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 7,496
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04-14-2006 11:29
Hardware Lighting- Looks great. Light actually scatters across surfaces naturally now. No more one-prim-lit/next-prim-dark syndrome on walls.
- No noticeable FPS drain with "HW-only" setting, but enabling vertex shaders (required in order to see the new light at all) is a definite FPS hit. SW light settings drain FPS, seemingly in the same way local lighting used to.
- New light setting on feature tab makes much more sense than light as a material. Settings are easy to understand.
- Text on graphics tab is a little messed up. The "slower when enabled" warning under Visual Enhancements overlaps the Lighting Detail text.
- Shiny objects seem to ignore light emitted from other objects, which is disappointing. This is easiest to notice with colored light. Rez two or more shiny objects in close proximity, and set one of them to emit colored light. The "emitter" object will reflect the color of the light, whether it's shiny or not, but surrounding shiny objects will not. This needs work.
Flexible Prims- Fun!
Occlusion Culling- It's about time. Seems to work really well.
Taper- Much better than the old top size setting. This will save some prims!
Overall, 1.9.1 seems excellent so far. I did manage to crash once within the first few minutes, but since then, it's been stable and the new features are great, although they still need some tweaking. EDIT: Just crashed again. Both crashes were while editing objects.
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Zapoteth Zaius
Is back
Join date: 14 Feb 2004
Posts: 5,634
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04-14-2006 11:38
Moving to the Preview 1.9.1 forum 
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I have the right to remain silent. Anything I say will be misquoted and used against me.--------------- Zapoteth Designs, Temotu (100,50)--------------- 
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Aliasi Stonebender
Return of Catbread
Join date: 30 Jan 2005
Posts: 1,858
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04-14-2006 12:02
From: Chosen Few Hardware Lighting- Looks great. Light actually scatters across surfaces naturally now. No more one-prim-lit/next-prim-dark syndrome on walls.
- No noticeable FPS drain with "HW-only" setting, but enabling vertex shaders (required in order to see the new light at all) is a definite FPS hit. SW light settings drain FPS, seemingly in the same way local lighting used to.
Actually, I seemed to be able to see light even without vertex shaders enabled. I have no idea if that's a bug or intentional.
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Dianne Mechanique
Back from the Dead
Join date: 28 Mar 2005
Posts: 2,648
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04-14-2006 12:08
From: Aliasi Stonebender Actually, I seemed to be able to see light even without vertex shaders enabled. I have no idea if that's a bug or intentional. You can see the light without it, but you cant see shiny on alpha textured without it. If only they could fix the bug that makes so many of us anable to access the preview grid this morning. Half an hour playing with floppy prims is not enough!  |
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Hello Toonie
Registered User
Join date: 25 Jul 2005
Posts: 212
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04-14-2006 12:17
New lighting with Vertex Shaders does look great. Sadly it performs at about half the speed of the same lighting options with vertex-shaders disabled, which itself is no great performer. (Is the 'Vertex Shaders' option mis-named when it seems that it uses fragment shaders too?)
That's on a FX5200 card, yes, whose fragment-shader performance (but not typically vertex-shader performance) naturally bites.
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Chosen Few
Alpha Channel Slave
Join date: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 7,496
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04-14-2006 14:18
From: Zapoteth Zaius Moving to the Preview 1.9.1 forum D'oh! Thanks, Zap. I didn't even notice this subforum existed.
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Land now available for rent in Indigo. Low rates. Quiet, low-lag mainland sim with good neighbors. IM me in-world if you're interested.
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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04-14-2006 16:20
From: Chosen Few No noticeable FPS drain with "HW-only" setting, but enabling vertex shaders (required in order to see the new light at all) is a definite FPS hit. I turned off vertex shaders and I see lights, they just don't look as good. From: someone Occlusion Culling - It's about time. Seems to work really well. How do I tell if I'm seeing the effect of occlusion culling? Turning it off seems to give me a slight performance boost(!) most places with many prims, possibly it's only a win indoors? From: someone Shear - Much better than the old top size setting. This will save some prims! Too bad they didn't add a bend-vs-twist option. I'd take being able to bend a prim 1 degree instead of twisting it over flexible prims, really, to do things like making perfect 300 meter circles and getting rid of many many toruses... I'm finding it very crashy. To crashy to keep working in it for the moment. |
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Argent Stonecutter
Emergency Mustelid
Join date: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 20,263
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04-14-2006 16:21
From: Dianne Mechanique You can see the light without it, but you cant see shiny on alpha textured without it. No great loss there... shiny is so overused I prefer leaving it off. |
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Hello Toonie
Registered User
Join date: 25 Jul 2005
Posts: 212
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04-14-2006 16:32
From: Argent Stonecutter
How do I tell if I'm seeing the effect of occlusion culling?
If you enable Debug->Rendering->InfoDisplays->Octree, you'll see red cubes representing the octree nodes which have been culled. The more red area, the more potential win. |
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Eep Quirk
Absolutely Relative
Join date: 15 Dec 2004
Posts: 1,211
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04-14-2006 19:46
From: Chosen Few New light setting on feature tab makes much more sense than light as a material. Settings are easy to understand. But not scriptable. From: Chosen Few Text on graphics tab is a little messed up. The "slower when enabled" warning under Visual Enhancements overlaps the Lighting Detail text. From: Chosen Few Shiny objects seem to ignore light emitted from other objects, which is disappointing. This is easiest to notice with colored light. Rez two or more shiny objects in close proximity, and set one of them to emit colored light. The "emitter" object will reflect the color of the light, whether it's shiny or not, but surrounding shiny objects will not. This needs work. [/list]I don't have this problem; maybe you have vertex shaders disabled. Granted, shiny objects should still reflect light with vertex shaders off, but it might depend on the light setting (which should adjust accordingly to non-vertex-shaded lighting if vertex shaders are disabled. From: Chosen Few Occlusion Culling- It's about time. Seems to work really well.
From: Chosen Few Shear- Much better than the old top size setting. This will save some prims!
taper |