Beta Viewer – Ciaran Laval

May 1, 2013

Beta Viewer To Be Replaced By Multiple Beta Viewers

In what is a rather odd sounding move, Linden Lab have announced that the beta viewer is to be replaced by multiple beta viewers. The idea seems to be akin to how they release new code on the servers where they have a main channel and then other channels such as Le Tigre, Blue Steel and Magnum.

The reason this all sounds a bit odd is that there have long been project viewers for specific projects, so I’m not sure how this is going to drastically change much. In the blog post Linden Lab tell us that the problem with having only one beta channel is:

“In the past, we have used the ‘Second Life Beta Viewer’ channel for this final user validation, but because we had only one Beta channel, some features and fixes have been significantly delayed waiting for their ‘turn’ in the channel. We will now be able to put those Viewers in the regular Release channel to a smaller randomly chosen group, allowing us to test and release new features more quickly.”

Hmm, I’m still struggling to see why this is different from having project viewers, other than the fact that they may get more feedback by getting rid of the main beta viewer and replacing it with multiple ones.

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December 17, 2012December 17, 2012

Beta Viewer Introduces More default Graphics Levels

Previously, in “What the bloody hell are they doing to the graphics“, I asked Ok what have they done to the graphics?, followed by Some Information On What They’ve Done To The Graphics! Basically, for those who missed the enthralling first two episodes of this series, I discovered that the beta viewer had moved my graphics preferences from High to Ultra but that performance still seemed whizzier.

I was somewhat perturbed about my graphics card being overworked, in episode three of this series I can reveal that the latest beta viewer has by default turned my graphics down a few notches, but has also introduced new notches to the default graphics slider.

An Image Should Be Here — Beta Viewer Prefs

So now, rather than being ultra, my graphics preferences are now at the new default notch point of between Medium and High. Now you may think this is a bad thing, but to be honest, I’m not noticing much of a difference … actually I’m not noticing any difference but then again my eye for artistry is not exactly top of the range.

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November 24, 2012November 24, 2012

Some Information On What They’ve Done To The Graphics!

Yesterday I blogged about mysterious improvements to the graphics subsytem which had caused my settings to change from high to ultra and had also seemed to produce a performance increase. I mentioned how the lack of information about these changes were puzzling. I have asked some questions, read other blogs and received comments.

This blog post is therefore coming to you in association with Inara Pey, Honor McMillan, Coby Foden, Hitomi Tiponi, leliel Mirihi and Theresa Tennyson for their contributions in a thread on the official forum.

So what’s the skinny on the lowdown? Well first things first, it appears that if your graphics settings are changing from high to ultra, your graphics settings might not actually be changing, confused? Well it seems that the new rendering subsystem means the bar has been lowered. Honor McMillan makes observations in her blog post on the subject:

When I logged on my settings did show the move to Ultra – BUT, when I looked at them in detail there really hadn’t been much change. Just the $*(@&^%$ physics of course.

The choices I had been using seemed to have remained, so I think one can assume there will be no frying of graphics cards. At least not because the viewer says you’ve been moved up to the next level.

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