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Boy Lane :: Cool Viewers for Virtual Worlds

Odds and Ends from Another Life

[ANOTHER UPDATE] Cool Viewer 1.22.11.0 R3e Test Build with OpenGL fixes (ATI users please try!)

Wednesday, 25. March 2009, 08:27:48

This is a test build (otherwise identical with 1.22.11.0 R3) that incorporates the fixes of VWR-12540. It includes updated OpenGL headers and detection routines. Hopefully this helps the ATI users out there that are suffering from bad performance of their graphic cards with SL. Please give it a try, perhaps it works for you. I can not test it myself as I returned my 4870 for a GTX260 due to the problems with SL.
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=312711

This is again an updated package R3e with some modifications in the detection routine and again optimized settings as below. For ATI it was reported that setting RenderUseFBO to TRUE will disable Antialiasing.

DisableVerticalSync: TRUE
RenderAppleUseMultiGL: FALSE
RenderAvatarCloth: TRUE
RenderAvatarVP: TRUE
RenderCubeMap: TRUE
RenderUseFBO: FALSE
RenderVBOEnable: TRUE
RunMultipleThreads: TRUE
VectorizeEnable: TRUE
VectorizeProcessor: TRUE
VectorizeSkin: TRUE


As always you need to install first the official Linden viewer you can find here:
http://download.cloud.secondlife.com/Second_Life_1-22-11-113941_Setup.exe

Then download the Cool Viewer installer or zip archive and replace all files in the Linden viewer you've just installed:
SSE Version:
http://files.myopera.com/boylane/files/SL/CoolViewer_i686_1_22_11_0_R3e_Installer_%28extract_and_run%29.zip
http://files.myopera.com/boylane/files/SL/CoolViewer_i686_1_22_11_0_Release_3e_exe_xml_only.zip
SSE2 Version:
http://files.myopera.com/boylane/files/SL/CoolViewer_i686_1_22_11_0_R3c_Installer_%28extract_and_run%29.zip
http://files.myopera.com/boylane/files/SL/CoolViewer_i686_1_22_11_0_Release_3c_exe_xml_only.zip

Please also delete your old settings in C:\Documents and Settings\<you>\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings when switching versions.

Make sure you start the new viewer with the included Cool Viewer.lnk shortcut, do not use the existing Secondlife one or it will crash!

Again, I can not promise it will indeed improve your viewer performance. Please give it a try and report results, good or bad, back here. Thanks! :smile:

Sources and further info:
http://files.myopera.com/boylane/files/SL/src_1.22.11.0_3d.tar.gz
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-12540

Updated *nix compatible patch and OpenGL headers (all you need to make it working under VS2005):
http://files.myopera.com/boylane/files/SL/slviewer-0-v122110-OpenGLFixed.patch.bz2
http://files.myopera.com/boylane/files/SL/OpenGL_headers.zip

Viewer BenchmarkCool Viewer for ATi (Windows) with OpenGL fixes - some more testers needed!

Comments

Anonymous 25. March 2009, 12:02

Candy writes:

I have a 4870. I am using catalyst 9.1 because of the horrible mess 9.3 makes.

The fonts look the same messy as before.

I am sure it is running faster as this version of Cool Viewer disabled Antialiasing altogether, and I suspect anisotropic is also not working.

Not interested in SL without anti-aliasing though :(

Nice of you to try! Thank you.

OpenGL... OPEN? Hah.

boylane 25. March 2009, 12:14

Cool Viewer doesn't disable anything. You can set this stuff in your preferences as in the normal viewer. It also doesn't change the way how fonts are rendered.

The changes are under the hood with detection of OpenGL capabilities of your graphics card and it's driver. And you will only be able to see these in your log file if at all :wink:. What these things eventually do is improving overall performance as SL can make use of more OpenGL extensions it could not detect and enable before and as such run faster.

If you want to know more about OpenGL I suggest you visit http://www.opengl.org :smile:

Anonymous 25. March 2009, 13:02

Candy writes:

All right..

After installing this release I could no longer enable Antialiasing using the in-game controls nor with the ATI control panel. I tried both ways and it seems that with this version of Cool Life, even though my video card DOES SUPPORT antialiasing, apparently it could no longer 'detect' nor utilize that feature of my card. Since I had no desire to use Second Life without anti-aliasing I did not fully test anisotropic but I suspect that feature too may not be 'detected'.

Fonts still look funny compared to my bf's computer which has a gtx280. (I only bring up fonts because in the thread you referenced in the original post about this version, fonts are mentioned as being messed up with ATI cards and I too have that issue as well with all versions of secondlife, including this release of the Cool Viewer).

You asked for feedback, my feedback is that with this version of Cool Life, antialiasing no longer works for me and I lost interest in further testing when I realized I could no longer enable it no matter what I tried.

OpenGL is a great idea, but apparently Nvidia's OpenGL is somehow enough different from ATI's (now AMD's) OpenGL that it seems less than 'open' to me.

Anonymous 25. March 2009, 13:05

Candy writes:

Oh, maybe I should have mentioned that with the other Cool Viewer releases as well as the official clients I can easily enable Antialiasing via the in-game controls as well leaving them Disabled in-game and then enabling it in the Control Panel which overrides the in-game setting correctly, but not with this version.

The antialiasing effect is very noticible to me at my LCD resolution of 1280x1024. So it is very easy to notice.

TrasheVyper 25. March 2009, 14:12

for starters i saw 1st time on my life sl with 27 fps i will continue to see what happents with vpu recover!
on a very populated sim (10 times tp till tp there "sim was full")
my fps are between 10-15 on high setings no vpu recover till now :smile:
i used to strangle on 4-8 max on the same sim and getting spam of" vpu recover"

boylane 25. March 2009, 14:30

@Candy

There were no changes for anything "Anti" in this version :smile:. I have no issues with any graphics setting here. Did you try a clean install? Please make sure to delete all settings xml files in your user_settings folder.

boylane 25. March 2009, 14:59

@TrasheVyper

Sounds like it works. Cool :smile:. Could you please check if you have also issues with Antialiasing as Candy reported?

TrasheVyper 25. March 2009, 15:14

ok windows and fullscreen 1400x900 16x and 4x anialising looks like they are not working :frown: still no vpu recover but i have been on 1 hour again with out problems if it keeps like that sl is fully playable for me !!!
the fonts looks ok under fullscreen mode btw

boylane 25. March 2009, 15:23

That's weird. Do 2x and 8x work? I have no problems at all with this. Please also try to delete your old settings.xml file under user_settings and try again afterwards.

The font rendering problem must have some different cause, I have this also on an older laptop with Intel graphics. So it is not Catalyst related.

TrasheVyper 25. March 2009, 15:25

2x and 8x are not working going to test the xml file
"second life could not load it's default settings file.the installation may be curapted" and the sl not running nowi deleted the xml under app_settings

placed the xml file from your cool viewer zip and place it inside the app_settings folder aa is not working looks like :frown: the fps look at the same rate
http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=snapshot001.jpg

boylane 25. March 2009, 16:05

You deleted the wrong one :smile:. There is another one in C:\Documents and Settings\<you>\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings\ thats stores your settings. For Vista it's a different location under c:\users\*something*. Don't really know. Try to remove this one.

TrasheVyper 25. March 2009, 16:07

oh ok give me some time :smile:

ok deleted the proper one ...still aa looks like not working

(i am on xp sp3)

need to logout for now. Never played that long with out vpu recovers ...
thank you so mutch for this one Boy tell me if you need to test somethink more with the viewer!

ok so far 1) "the fonts are still broken on window mode (not realy care for a fix about it)"
2) better frame rates!
3) Vpu recover errors looks like they disapeared! (still need more time to be sure about it)
4) anti alising not working window or full screen mode (never used it before so i don't have problem with that)
i am on 9.2 drivers ...will be intresting to see what happents with 9.3 and the broken graphics! i will keep you informed

with this looks like sl+ati on 1.22.11 it is more playable than ever!!!

boylane 25. March 2009, 17:11

I need some more folks to check on that Antialiasing missing feature. It doesn't happen on Nvidia it seems.

Confirmed to work on 3 different machines with GTX260, 8600GT and FX570m.

Anonymous 25. March 2009, 20:24

JV writes:

OK, on Vista Radeon 4670, ver 9.1 drivers...so far so good. Frame rates better for sure...using 4X antialiasing no problems and this is teh recommended setting on the ATI website for my chipset....although 8x seems to work ok too.

Will continue testing but so far so good..thanks Boylane....much appreciated.

TrasheVyper 25. March 2009, 23:07

@jv
are you sure ? does this effecting the what you see because for me i have no problem to enable em but not effecting what i see or fps and i believe from no aa to 16x this will make a huge diference

Anonymous 25. March 2009, 23:24

Lil writes:

Here's another testbunny... x1950 pro here... I guess it's recommended to do a clean install as in uninstalling the LL viewer, clearing the folder, reinstall viewer and then add your files, right?

TrasheVyper 25. March 2009, 23:38

yes kinda remember you can havemany diferent instalations at once :wink:


ok here are the news
NO BROKEN GRAPHICS!!!! with 9.3 drivers!!!!
no vpu recovers so far! a bit better framerate than 9.2 (i think)

Anonymous 25. March 2009, 23:52

Lil writes:

Yes, but not several installs of the same viewer version, as far as I know.
I have no problems installing the RC, the current 1.22 main viewer and the old 1.19 viewer, but never managed to get to installs of, say, RC#1 and RC#2.

Anonymous 26. March 2009, 00:50

Lil writes:

Well, I can only agree to what's been mentioned before... no AA, anisotropic filtering doesn't do anything except dropping the framerate.

But yes, the framerate went up from usual 20-24 frames (measured by FRAPS) to 30+ in my test environment.

Anonymous 26. March 2009, 00:57

LL writes:

Hi and thank you for all the hard work that goes into making this. I love how CV works for me.

I just tried the CV-R3a on a Vista 32bit PC with an ATI Radeon x300 (Catalyst 9.3). I cleared all user xml files, and did a complete reinstall of both SL and the CoolViewer installer. This seems to start up fine but when I try to login the viewer crashes. Also if I try adjusting the anti-alias settings as soon as I hit apply the viewer will crash. (I checked both crashes 3 times, and it was consistent). Re-installing the R3 fixed the apply problem, and I was able to login again.

I hope this helps

TrasheVyper 26. March 2009, 01:36

ok catalyst 9.3 and sl works great no broken graphics with 9.3 and 1.22.11 i was geting broken graphics after 3-5 mins always more than 2 hours and nothink!!!!!!!!

@lil i got 1.19 with cv 1.21.6 with rlv 1.21.6 with cv 1.22.9 with cv 1.22.8 with cv 1.22.10 with cv 1.22.11 with rlv 1.22.11 with cv 1.22.11 with updated opengl cv !!!! dunno what you mean not many setups P:

boylane 26. March 2009, 03:30

Ok folks, sounds good so far. The OpenGL patch definitely works. There are some additional changes in that test version that enable vectorization and I think this may cause some of the problems you see.

You may try one thing. Take the app_settings\settings.xml file from the 3 (not 3a) version and use it instead of the 3a file. Also delete your user_settings\settings_1.22.xml. Then start the viewer and see what it does. :smile:

Anonymous 26. March 2009, 09:39

CF writes:

Hi, I'm using XP-SP3 and hd3870 (Cat curr 8.6 bec of framerate and 9.3 was a triangletheatre).
I never could enable AA without crashing the client, now that works, but, no effect, either if I adjust inside Client or CCC.
But... I see the property lines through objects and avatars, a nice to have sometimes, but irritating a bit.
Framerate is indeed higher, I never understand why a system with a 3dmark06 score over 10000 can be so slow in SL.
thanks for CV

boylane 26. March 2009, 11:32

@CF

Please try the settings.xml file (in app_settings) from R3 instead of this R3a as I wrote in the previous comment and see if this changes anything for AA. I'm still puzzled why that happens. It works just fine with Nvidia.

Regarding the property lines, this is probably a feature you enabled in the menu :smile:.

Anonymous 26. March 2009, 12:03

JV writes:

Will try the xml file changes later, but as I previously said my AA seems to work fine with my 1G 4670 card and ver 9.1 of Catalyst. I did notice the viewer crashes if I enable Catalyst AI Advanced..but otherwise no problems so far.

TrasheVyper 26. March 2009, 13:30

ok i just finish the testing with the r3 xml instead of r3a xml
well the results are GOOD :wink:
AAx2 WORKS!
AAx4 WORKS!
AAx8 WORKS!
AAx16 not working P: but you will be fine with 8x!
AF WORKS!!!!!
here is the image to see it with your eyes!
http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=testing.jpg

boylane 26. March 2009, 13:49

Yay! Guess the settings were a bit "overoptimized" for ATI then :smile:. I'll make a new version and put it up for download later. The OpenGL patch will also be included in all future versions and I have to see if I can backport this to 1.19.0.5 as well :smile:.

TrasheVyper 26. March 2009, 13:51

those are great news!!!! thank you thank you thank you !

TrasheVyper 26. March 2009, 13:58

ops looks like the triangles are back with the old xml file and 9.3...
rolling back to 9.2 to test it :frown:

boylane 26. March 2009, 14:03

Not sure about the triangles, they occur when VBO is enabled.

TrasheVyper 26. March 2009, 14:04

VBO ?

TrasheVyper 26. March 2009, 14:08

with 9.2 aax2 works aax4 works aax8 works aax16 not working af works

boylane 26. March 2009, 14:14

VBO = Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects in Graphics, Hardware Options. If it is on it may cause the triangles.

boylane 26. March 2009, 14:17

New package is up but the only difference is the R3 settings.xml file. I mentioned the changes in the main post, feel free to play a bit around with those debug settings.

TrasheVyper 26. March 2009, 14:29

thet think is only 9.3 do the triangles ...ok i will try 9.3 with out VBO
:smile: but not now i have to go to my university i will post the results as soon as posible

2 crashes in short period (yesterday didn't crash)
and 1 vpu recover .
i will keep the same xml file to check if this was just bad luck
if this continue i will try again with the xml of the r3a version

boylane 26. March 2009, 15:22

Ok, I think there are a number of changes that do different things the same time. The viewer itself has updated OpenGL and SSE/SSE2 detection capabilities that lead to more features it enables and uses. However the settings.xml may affect other functionality that is not directly related with these changes in the viewer and may cause different effects.

I'd suggest to try single settings only and see what these change. It also makes sense to delete the user_settings\settings_1.22.xml file before trying new debug settings as previous settings are stored in this file. Also have a look in logs\Secondlife.log and see if there is more information.

This OpenGL patch fixes only a part of issues that are in the current viewer. Don't expect miracles :smile:.

Anonymous 26. March 2009, 20:50

OwenLusch writes:

Thank you BoyLane for making this viewer. I recently upgraded to an Ati HD4870 and the performance in SL didn't improve much. I'm running your viewer now and so far it seems to be running much smoother. I have anisotropic filering turned on trough CCC and 8x AA in SL and it's running and looking very good. I'll keep using it to see if the performance is better on other places. Thank you for your work.
Bye, Owen Lusch

boylane 27. March 2009, 01:50

One question, could someone please tell if the ugly font rendering in the menu is still there or if it's fixed, and which driver version you are using.

TrasheVyper 27. March 2009, 02:23

fbo causing the problem with the AA with the r3a xml confirmed ...
with the r3b xml i got back the vpu recover problem ..
curently on r3a with fbo on False ...no vpu recover so far
yep is is here on test a and b with 9.2 and 9.3 drivers

TrasheVyper 27. March 2009, 04:57

ok after a while i got spamed with vpu recover errors ...i turn back to
test a and delete the xml and looks like vpu recovers stop ...i am gona turn Fbo to false tomorrow to see if that cause my problem

boylane 27. March 2009, 06:34

Another update....exe and settings.xml. Please report if it changes anything.

TrasheVyper 27. March 2009, 14:38

triangles show up again but disabled VBO and they disapear so this one solved for now got some vpu recovers with c 2x 4x 8x aa works
i haven't notice somethink more

boylane 27. March 2009, 14:55

Thanks, it's an independent issue with the triangles I think. It was suggested to keep VBO off to avoid them in Jira. Not that this would be a good thing as some acceleration features will not work.

TrasheVyper 27. March 2009, 15:19

i seted Fbo to true and looks like vpu recover stoped bothering me

i am sorry if i have tired you mensioning vpu recover but for me it is
what making unplayable secondlife since i can handle low fps "most of the times" but not vpu recover

so my conclusion is that for now is better for anyone to stay at 9,2 drivers they are kinda new still and not causing the triangles with vbo enabled

hopefully 9.4 will not have the same triagle problem :smile:

Anonymous 27. March 2009, 19:12

Luricos writes:

Hi TrasheVyper,

didn't see a note in your comments, what grafics card you own. Is it a AGP Card? I own an ATI HD3870 SCS3 from MSI .. it's an PCIe Card and i didn't find "VPU Recover" in ATI Catalyst cause this is an AGP Feature. So i guess you are running the 9.2/9.3 Drivers with an AGP Card?

regards LS

TrasheVyper 27. March 2009, 23:22

no it is not an agp feature my spec is athlonx2 4800+ pcix16 shaphire 4830 512 mb ram 2x1gb ddr2 667mhz fsb ram windows xp prof sp3

http://img212.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vpu.jpg

4800 series as you can see and 4xxx card does not exist for agp

Anonymous 28. March 2009, 03:38

JB writes:

Have to say I'm very impressed with this release. Humming along nicely with about 40% FPS increase from Windows 7 build 7000 (x64), 9.3 drivers and a HD3870X2.

Can't wait to see what else is coming, great job

Anonymous 28. March 2009, 18:42

Phox McCaw writes:

this works beautifully i'm running the newer cards the HD4670 with the original client this runns 100%exelent well faster. good work!

Anonymous 28. March 2009, 19:56

CF writes:

I will try new settings and so on later, i got some freezes with this version. Propertylines are visible, bec i switched that on, but its a bug if they shine THROUGH objects and avatars, you can see sim borders through the surface (ground).

Anonymous 28. March 2009, 20:30

CF writes:

atleast propertylinesare ok now, more later....

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