Boy Lane :: Cool Viewers for Virtual Worlds

[Update: New version 1.2 is out with the backported security fixes from the mandatory 1.23.5 official viewer update. This viewer is adult compatible and search functionality works properly. And some minor bugs are fixed. In case you use v1.0 or v1.1 you can simply install this one on top to update, but please delete your existing settings_1.19.xml file in your Application Date\SecondLife directory to avoid eventual problems.]

It took a while to play with my little Wind clone and to test all kind of different scenarios. I can't say it was conclusive, SL is too unpredictable, but I decided to give out a first version of a netbook optimized Rainbow Viewer to all of you who want to be a guinea pig .

Here it comes, Rainbow Viewer 1.19.0.5 Netbook Edition in version 1.2. Under the hood it's however pretty solid and based on the long Cool Viewer tradition. I've tried in this version to optimize the viewer as much as possible for speed on the small hardware handicapped Intel Atom machines with their underperforming 945GM graphics. The good thing is, pretty much all netbooks are more or less identical from their hardware and the viewer should just run on any of them. Default settings are already adjusted to a minimum for max performance, and you can even set the drawing distance to just 32m, that's perfectly fine when being inside buildings or closed spaces and should add some more FPS.

Other than optimizations a lot of floaters and panels have been adapted to the smaller screen size and should fit pretty well now (please set the Windows taskbar to auto-hide, right click => Properties). Nevertheless this is a first version to see how this works and I ask all of you to give feedback what still doesn't work or could need some improvements.

To get the netbook viewer running you need to install first an official SL viewer in version 1.19.0.5 you can find here:
http://download-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/Second_Life_1-19-0-5_Setup.exe

Then simply run the Rainbow Viewer installer over the default SL installation:
http://coolviewer.googlecode.com/files/RainbowViewer_1.19.0.5_NetbookEdition_v1.2_Installer.exe
MD5: e0253599b5ce041b336b7ec98f5659f9
SHA-1: 1ba9840b3fcbb5c87d2be27b324e8e29a8942225

Please start the viewer with the included RainbowViewer.lnk shortcut.

I hope it works for you and gives you some improvement on the small machine, but please don't expect a miracle on the limited platform . Questions, feedback, ideas, are welcome here as always.

Sources:
http://coolviewer.googlecode.com/files/src_1.19.0.5_NB_v1.2.tar.gz

Enjoy!
Boy

I know I know, I was not really active the last months. You may have missed me or not. No evil comments in forums from me either . Reason was simply I had to finish some study thesis and that is done now, results pending. After that's mainly off the table I thought I look into something that is of interest for a number of people rather than inventing the wheel again for a green life .

Sooooooo....I cut it short, as I got finally a netbook, a MSI Wind in fact, I try to squeeze the lil one out a bit. And this starts with some benchmarks and comparisons first.

I've done tests with all older and current working viewer releases and here are the fps benchmarks the SL viewer spits out in some test scenario I chose:
1.18.0.6: 6.6
1.18.5.3: 4.3
1.19.0.5: 6.7
1.20.0.17: 5.2
1.21.6.0: 5.1
1.22.11.0: 5.7
1.23.4.0: 4.8
S16: 5.0
S17: 5.7

Take that with a pinch of salt. Fact is non windlight 1.18.0.6 and 1.19.0.5 are superior from the start, that was expected. The first windlight 1.18.5.3 is almost as bad as the current official 1.23.4 viewer. Stay away from those.

I've gone through some tests with optimizations for Intel Atom (that's the usual netbook CPU) and could squeeze out some 30% more from the small box. Still all in testing tho. But may become a new viewer version soon. Stay tuned!

[Update]
We're coming closer to a release version, I spent days and nights with optimizations, some work, some don't, some are contradictory . But I want to get something out to you to try and see if it really helps everyday usage or not. If not, well, then I can spend my time with something else ...

I'm through my tests, still fixing the look and feel which is equally if not more important. Here is a screenshot of the build menu fitting on the netbook screen (1024x600). Naked as Eve as the Lindens made me in a standalone Opensim :

Please let me know what else doesn't properly fit (I know appearance and search doesn't and I'm going to fix them ASAP), and please post it here.

People start asking, and I don't want to leave you out in the dark .

The Lab pushed some premature software, the 1.23.4 viewer, out to get their adult policy implemented at whatever cost, purely political and ignoring all damage it does to users. But that's nothing new and basically what we all had expected anyway.

I'm not supporting anything 1.23 in the moment and I can only recommend everybody *NOT* to *update* to that piece of cr*ppy software. It is not ready for prime time and it will cause you nothing but problems and reduced functionality. Stay away from 1.23, there is NO reason to *update* (eehhhh..downgrade...).

History repeats itself here....LL doesn't give a sh*t on it's users as they did in the past with lousy viewers they forced to the hands that feed them.

Boy

Update 24 May to 1.19.0.5 R59 and 1.22.11.0 R9 with: updated RLV 1.17b, new Hide IM in chat console feature in communication preferences, Avatar UUID in user profiles, Texture Aspect ratio in preview, Stuck group proposals archive and Local ruler alignment patches, new automated installer for non-redistributable components (if you have a viewer installed already).

That's going to be a long posting . Marine was busy again, and came out with a new release of her RestrainedLife 1.17. Henri was busy too. Thanks a lot you two ! Very slightly delayed here are the brand new corresponding Cool Viewers for Windows incorporating the new RLV and as always too much of the real good stuff that is almost impossible to count .

Two brand new Cool Viewers in official client version 1.22.11.0 R9 (with Windlight) and 1.19.0.5 R59 (non Windlight for legacy systems). Based on the SL viewer both clients incorporate a lot of improved, new and backported features that make CV the client of choice for many users. An incomprehensive list of included features are:

- CV's legacy User interface with a clean, simple and userfriendly layout
- Cool Features in Preferences for easy switching of features
- Marine Kelley's RestrainedLife 1.17 (off per default)
- Bulk permission editing
- Enhanced building tools
- Flexible Sculpties
- Double click to wear attachments
- "Worn" tab in inventory
- Large Prims (currently only for Opensim grids due to SL limitations)
- Maximized Network Bandwidth
- Flexible Grid selection at login for SL and all OpenSims
- MU Pose Style and OOC double parenthesis auto-close for enhanced roleplay
- Teleport on Double Click and Teleport History
- Avatar UUID key in user profile
- Improved Graphics rendering, especially for ATI users (measured >1/3 faster than official viewer)
...and a large number of other goodies and stability fixes that improve your overall experience. Too many to mention here . Please check the included Release Notes for details.


Cool Viewer 1.22.11.0
CV 1.22.11.0 R9 comes with a installer, similar to the official SL client that installs the viewer independently into C:\Program Files\CoolViewer and uses it's own Application Data folders to avoid interference with an existing SL or 3rd party viewer installation.
WinXP: C:\Documents and Settings\<you>\Application Data\CoolViewer\
Vista: C:\Users\<you>\Appdata\Roaming\CoolViewer\

Grab the latest version here (Note: Due to stability/startup issues some experienced that is a non-optimized SSE only version without the OpenGL fixes, it should improve stability for troubled ATi users with Xxxxx cards, thanks to ATi for dropping support!)
http://coolviewer.googlecode.com/files/Cool_Viewer_1-22-11-0_R9_Setup.exe
MD5: 7d6255b632aede4704d354a01f112431
SHA-1: 4366d3d8f0aa6d0e918bc1191db56301dc218b1d

If you have a recent machine (ATI HDxxxx and all Nvidia 8xxx+ cards) please use this OpenGL optimized SSE2 version for newer hardware that runs a measured 20...40% faster depending on your system, especially on new ATi cards. Just run this small installer *AFTER* installing the full R9 release to replace your CoolViewer.exe with the way faster one (if you experience instability/crashes on your machine simply install the full R9 version over it again):
http://coolviewer.googlecode.com/files/Cool_Viewer_1-22-11-0_R9_SSE2_NewOpenGL_Setup_exe_only.exe
MD5: 5f44f57772b394b3d9962fd503b5f9d9
SHA-1: 58cbf471900917801c6201cf9a05da11cb01015f

Cool Viewer 1.19.0.5
Alternatively for a bit older systems with single core CPU and not the latest graphics; Cool Viewer in the long established version 1.19.0.5 R59 is the version of choice. Clean, fast, efficient and rock stable. It has all the latest security updates, bug fixes, feature add-ons, and of course it has Marine's latest RestrainedLife. It can only be gold after 59 releases (!) and I call it Solid Gold .

To use this version you need to install first the official 1.19.0.5 (non Windlight) LL viewer (that's an older version!). Get it here:
http://download-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/Second_Life_1-19-0-5_Setup.exe

Then download the latest Cool Viewer 1.19.0.5 R59 installer:
http://coolviewer.googlecode.com/files/CoolViewer_i686_1_19_0_5_Release_59_exe_xml_only.exe
MD5: d6705adee57f5cab8ad80660c1e53e9b
SHA-1: 5b7dfd25494cd41c6439e6581a3e0e20b36fc782

Run the installer and select your install path (default "C:\Program Files\SecondLife" and install CV into this folder and replace all existing files.


Please start CV with the included Cool Viewer.lnk shortcut, but take note that you may have to adjust the properties to match where you installed the viewer.


Important:
Please note that the following libraries and components are not included in the package as they are not redistributable. The installer will try to automatically pull them out of an existing installation of a SecondLife, CoolViewer or RainbowViewer on your machine. Please follow the prompt on the screen. Should it not work please copy them from an official Linden Labs SL 1.22.11 viewer into your C:\Program Files\CoolViewer directory to get full functionality :

llkdu.dll Kakadu JPEG2000 library
SLVoice.exe Voice components
vivoxsdk.dll
alut.dll
ortp.dll

The viewer will still run without them but with lower performance (OpenJPEG) and missing voice features.


Sources (GPL):
http://coolviewer.googlecode.com/files/src_1.22.11.0_9.tar.gz
http://coolviewer.googlecode.com/files/src_1.19.0.5_59.tar.gz

A number of you have shown interest in a viewer that brings you all the cool features but keeps the current official user interface, to name the evil: the Communicate floater.

I've said it many times that the clean user friendly legacy UI is an integral part of CV. However I understand that you got used to this evil communicate thing and you'd like to have it in a Cool Viewer.

I don't know if it is worth to spend any time with that and I want to see you on your knees begging for *giggles* . Or at least tell me and convince me to make a viewer with a Communicate floater.

Let the games begin

[Update]
Thanks for all your feedback. I think the issues that you mentioned you have with CV are:
- Separate Groups and friends: It can be separate or combined in CV.
- The chat thing CV has now... Set it properly. See pic.
- IM and chat are separate and should be combined... Set it properly. See pic.
- Need to open chat history and attach it manually each time... Set it properly. See pic.
- Use the communicate window to chat... Set it properly. See pic

And all of them are not missing features but the way how you configure CV. It doesn't limit your options or forces you to use use a Communicate feature. CV rather enables you to configure your viewer in a way that you prefer. But perhaps some more info is needed on how to do this. Basically it is pretty simple. Let's compare: That is the official "Communicate" floater.

And this is CV properly configured to provide almost exactly the same feature.

And here is how to do it.
First uncheck in Cool Features the "Use old style 'Chat history' window" checkbox. That enables the chat input field inside the floater.

Secondly open your chat history and click on the small attach arrow in the top right corner. This attaches your chat floater to the IM floater and there you have it, a Communicate floater in CV.

Perhaps it's a bit tricky to set it up in the first place, but I'm sure the flexibility CV offers is a much better solution than the bloated default Communicate feature in an official viewer.