Rainbow Viewers for Virtual Worlds

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Rainbow Viewer 1.19.0.5 Netbook Edition v1.2

Saturday, October 17, 2009 3:43:06 AM

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[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 smile.

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://code.google.com/p/coolviewer/downloads/detail?name=Second_Life_1-19-0-5_Setup.exe&can=2&q=

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 smile. 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

Cool Viewers - Latest VersionsCool Viewer 1.22.11.0 R10a - Fully adult compatible

Comments

Anonymous Friday, September 11, 2009 8:05:34 PM

Winter Ventura writes: Your timing on this couldn't be better. I just bought a MSI 120-020 (10.1" monitor, Intel Atom 1.6ghz cpu, 1gb ram, 160gb HD, using the Intel 950 gpu). Long story why, but the short version is, it shows up next week. So I'll be hopping on the testing bandwagon in just a few days!

Anonymous Saturday, September 12, 2009 1:14:52 AM

AKKM writes: I tried several times to download and get the viewer up and running on my netbook, but kept receiving the same error message running the Rainbow Viewer that I did with the regular SL viewer, that my video card drivers are out of date or unsupported, even after installing the latest updates. I must be doing something wrong. Any suggestions? I'd love to be able to use SL on my netbook

Boy Laneboylane Saturday, September 12, 2009 1:00:17 PM

/me waves at Winter smile

@AKKM
Most but not all netbooks are the same. You may have one with a different graphics chipset like GMA500. This is not originally made by Intel and it's known for driver issues. Can't tell from your posting. Could you please provide some more details?

Anonymous Saturday, September 12, 2009 2:29:42 PM

AKKM writes: Yes, I am on a system running on GMA500 - I can definitely tell that it is known for driver issues!

Anonymous Saturday, September 12, 2009 3:01:58 PM

Sayl writes: Hey! Thats an awesome viewer! Before my fps were always around 5.0 ~ 6.0. Now my fps were around 9.0 with the top of 17 =O! Good work! Still I keep crashing kinda often...more often than I do with the normal viewer, I didn't remove the old cool viewer to install this one though...I wonder if thats causing the problems...

Boy Laneboylane Saturday, September 12, 2009 3:19:21 PM

@AKKM
Hmmm.....so anyone got anything SL running with GMA500? If the driver kills it there is not much one could do. And I have no hardware to try either.

@Sayl
Cool, that's encouraging, I got very mixed results in different scenarios with different optimizations and I really tried a lot. Doesn't explain crashes tho but they could be caused by some modifications. I will likely provide some alternative RainbowViewer.exe executables if I can get that Intel compiler working properly. But for now it's a try and error game.

Anonymous Saturday, September 12, 2009 7:47:44 PM

Sayl writes: I removed Second Life and Cool Viewer and installed SL again with Rainbow Viewer. It's running smoother and I haven't been crashing nearly as often as before!But now I'm having problems with my avatars textures, they mess up every now and then, sometimes my clothes turn into something quite bizarre and colorful! I thought it was my graphic card but actually my gf could see it messed too. I don't know if it's a problem with the viewer itself or not but that's the first time something like that happens. Thanks for all your effort!

Boy Laneboylane Sunday, September 13, 2009 3:00:28 AM

@Sayl
I think thats a problem with Intel GMA graphics in general. I have seen that also on other older machines with different viewer versions. Sometimes it takes some wrong textures for no reason and bakes them on your AV. Other people can see it because the avatar texture you bake on your machine is uploaded to the simulator.

Anonymous Sunday, September 13, 2009 9:45:39 AM

Ronaldo Shepherd writes: Hi I loaded the viewer on a couple of Pentium 4 machines with great luck. I was seeing frame rates in the 50's with the draw distance set at 128m. The primary reason I downloaded it was to try it on my MacBook in BootCamp. I have one of the first MacBooks with an Intel GMA 950 GPU. I have it triple booting Snow Leopard, Windows 7, and Ubuntu 9. Your netbook viewer is great when booted to Windows 7. It actually runs not badly in a Parallels VM. It runs better in Wine on Ubuntu than the Linden Linux viewer or the GrenLife viewer do directly in Ubuntu with that graphics chip. It isn't great -- but it does run. Of all the viewers I've tried on that MacBook, the frame rates and general performance is much better with the Rainbow Netbook Viewer. I didn't benchmark it yet but my avatart could move and sooner or later everything rezzed -- which doesn't always happen on that machine. It does take a while to resolve some textures -- but you can move in terrible lag even before everything is rezzed around you. Great stuff. If I were to add one thing to the wish list, it would be the horizontal IM tabs like GreenLife. On the wide short screen on the MacBook, that style does work well. ...ron...

Anonymous Wednesday, September 16, 2009 1:05:56 AM

kelly writes: i kept getting crash report when i tried to run the newly installed rainbow viewer on my netbook,i'm wondering if there's anyway to fix it

Boy Laneboylane Wednesday, September 16, 2009 8:47:46 AM

@kelly
What netbook do you have? Might also be one with the GMA500 chipset that doesn't work.

Anonymous Wednesday, September 16, 2009 8:50:29 AM

Cristopher Lefavre writes: This really feels like some kind of miracle! When up in a sky box I get 21 fps on my MSI Wind U100; for building and scripting and just being online for IM's this is just amazing. Thanks a lot, Boy!

Anonymous Friday, September 18, 2009 1:49:35 PM

Anonymous writes: I installed Rainbow Viewer Netbook Edition over SL 1.23. When I attempt to run I get an error about a procedure entry point in dynamic link library xul.dll. Help please, I would love to have better SL experience on my Netbook.

Boy Laneboylane Friday, September 18, 2009 2:59:03 PM

You should read the description first before downloading and installing anything wink.

The netbook viewer requires you to install a 1.19 viewer, not 1.23. That's why it obviously doesn't work....give it another try and RTFM smile

Anonymous Monday, September 21, 2009 5:20:52 AM

sabah writes: I have an older laptop and installed the netbook stuff on it as I would to be able have a decent experience on it. it loads but after I try to log in it immiediately crashes. Like hit log in and get crash messages. when I treid to run sl on just 1.19 version viewer, it say s that I have to update the viewer and doesn't let me go any furthur. My machine is a toshiba m45 s331. I hope you can help me

Boy Laneboylane Monday, September 21, 2009 5:29:50 AM

@sabah
You probably try to start it with the old SecondLife shortcut. Please use the RainbowViewer.lnk instead which is in the same folder where you installed the viewer

Anonymous Tuesday, September 22, 2009 7:01:27 PM

paglialite writes: Forgive my ignorance, but I've got the newest SL viewer installed. The only problem is framerate so I'd like to try yours (I have Nvidea Geforce Go 7300 on an Acer Aspire). When I install the SL viewer 1.19.05 do I have to redirect it from it's default location - which is presumably where the SL 1.23 is?

Anonymous Wednesday, September 23, 2009 1:31:23 AM

paglialite writes: Ok - I think i've figured out the answer to my last question (don't have to uninstall newest SL viewer, install old one in new location). I'm not sure though, if I should be trying this new netbook version you're talking about here or your other one. I'm running an Acer Aspire laptop Intel Duo core 1.86GHz 2GB Nvidea Geforce Go 7300. The framerate generally wobbles around 10-12 (although only between 5 and 10 toninght) plus or minus a bit, the client light on the lag meter is often amber or red - green only on quiet sims.

Boy Laneboylane Wednesday, September 23, 2009 3:04:59 PM

@paglialite
You may want to try the 1.19, it may be faster on your older graphics as it has no Windlight rendering. On the other hand a dual core CPU should be fine to work with a newer version. You need to try what works better.

And yes, you can install multiple viewer versions in parallel in different directories and use a different settings xml file you can define you your Windows shortcut. Drawback, depending on the actual version it may still share the cache and only the last installed viewer will work with SLURLs as it updates the registry.

Anonymous Thursday, September 24, 2009 7:04:56 AM

paglialite writes: "and use a different settings xml file you can define you your Windows shortcut" er ... how do I do that?

Anonymous Thursday, September 24, 2009 7:42:31 AM

paglialite writes: When I click on the RainbowViewer Shortcut, I get this - C:\SLpack__1.19\Rainbowviewer.exe The specified path does not exist. Check the path, and then try again. The Second Life Shortcut, which previously launched Cool SL Viewer 1.23 now launches Rainbow Netbook version but on opening a box pops up, saying - A new version of Second Life is available. (Required version: 1.23.4.123908.) You must download this update to use Second Life. It gives 2 options - 'Download' or 'Quit' I'll try to fiddle around with paths but I really don't know what I'm doing. I'm using Vista 32bit, btw.

Anonymous Thursday, September 24, 2009 7:57:33 AM

paglialite writes: Target for Rainbow shortcut is - C:\SL\pack_1.19nb\RainbowViewer.exe -settings settings_1.19.xml -set SystemLanguage en-us Start in - C:\SL\pack_1.19nb Clicking on RainbowViewer.exe in program files brings up the message - "This application has failed to start because xul.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."

Boy Laneboylane Thursday, September 24, 2009 9:02:17 AM

Ok, you forgot one step then. You need to install first the official 1.19 viewer (not 1.23 or any other version). Link is in the main posting. Then install the netbook viewer in the same directory and replace all existing files with the new ones.

Anonymous Thursday, September 24, 2009 4:33:46 PM

paglialite writes: No that is what I did. As I already had SL viewer 1.23 installed (with Cool Viewer 1.23 installed on top) - when prompted for a location for 1.19 I replaced programfiles\SecondLife with programfiles\NetRainbow and then installed Rainbow Netbook into that as instructed. I thought I was fairly computer literate but apart from following instructions and clicking next I really don't know much else about how apps and their directories, files and shortcuts work.

Anonymous Thursday, September 24, 2009 5:55:41 PM

paglialite writes: Just to clarify - SLviewer 1.23 +CoolViewer 1.23 is working fine. When installing SLviewer 1.19 and prompted for location, I changed it from "C:\Program Files\SecondLife" to "C:Program Files\NetRainbow" and then installed Rainbow Netbook into the same location. I've seen that you say here and there to only use the Rainbow shortcut but this brings up - "C:\SLpack__1.19\Rainbowviewer.exe The specified path does not exist. Check the path, and then try again" And the shortcut target is given as - "C:\SL\pack_1.19nb\RainbowViewer.exe -settings settings_1.19.xml -set SystemLanguage en-us" So what should the target be? I'm guessing - "C:Program Files\NetRainbow\SecondLife\RainbowViewer.exe" But then when I try to open that directly it says "This application has failed to start because xul.dll was not found" The new SecondLife shortcut in the new directory "NetRainbow" definitely points to SL version 1.19 but it won't let me connect without updating to 1.23 I guess I should uninstall 1.19 and start again. Just worried that that may also take away something I need for SL+CV 1.23 and Emerald. Should I back anything up first? Paggy

Boy Laneboylane Friday, September 25, 2009 10:51:03 AM

Oh my....seems I screwed up the shortcut then, that's the wrong destination and when it looks there it obviously can't find that dll. Please change the paths in the shortcut to your installation directory (NetRainbow), then it should work. Sorry about that smile

That should work:
Target: C:\Program Files\NetRainbow\RainbowViewer.exe -settings settings_1.19.xml -set SystemLanguage en-us"

Start in: C:\Program Files\NetRainbow

Anonymous Saturday, September 26, 2009 2:29:19 AM

paglialite writes: I suspect it was Vista that mucked it up

Anonymous Saturday, September 26, 2009 3:22:22 AM

FrikkiAya writes: Any chance there will be a Linux version of this?

Boy Laneboylane Saturday, September 26, 2009 8:25:45 AM

@FrikkiAya
You could use Henri's 1.19 linux viewer and replace all the xml's with the netbook version. This will not be optimized or any faster, some things will not work like the Avatar UUID, but at least the floaters fit on the screen smile

Anonymous Saturday, September 26, 2009 10:15:22 PM

Melissa Yeuxdoux writes: A Linux version, pretty please?

Anonymous Saturday, October 3, 2009 9:50:03 AM

Balp Allen writes: My netbook came with Linux. And... ok. version for Unbuntu/Easy Peasy in the pipe...

Anonymous Wednesday, October 7, 2009 4:51:08 PM

Anonymous writes: Fantastic work for a first release, already running much better on my nc10 netbook than any other viewer I've tried. Still painfully chuggy in places, but certainly usable. Keep up the great work, look forward to seeing how this develops.

Anonymous Monday, October 12, 2009 12:34:15 PM

Siggy String writes: Okay nice for sure but when playing games it don't work for some reason I can't seem to click parts, like with zyngo, I can't click numbers I want to have checked but like I said, nice anyways :)

Boy Laneboylane Monday, October 12, 2009 4:05:15 PM

@Siggy
Not really sure what that means. Could you explain a bit more in detail what does not work and eventually provide the steps to reproduce it?

Anonymous Tuesday, October 13, 2009 8:12:54 PM

Siggy String writes: Hi boy, I will try to explain in 2 ways I have expierenced problems. I wanted to vote on one of them contest boards. it has 5 rows with names on it and I needed to click one to vote. It wouldn't register my vote. Seems like it sees it as one prim while the 5 rows with names on em are seperate attached prims. Same with playing games like zyngo and so on. I need to click a square with a number to fill up rows but it won't register my click on the square I click. Like I said it seems like it sees the whole game as just the one single prim. Now I posted this issue here and right after I was thinking so many people having issues with SL at the moment due to server moves and other crap SL changed I wondered if it might not be an issue to this viewer but maybe to SL itself. I hope you understand what I mean now but I will keep trying in the next few days to see if it keeps doing it or not, cos maybe it's just SL screwing with things again.

Anonymous Wednesday, October 14, 2009 6:37:12 AM

Kana writes: The game and the voting board probably use some of the "newer" functions for touch face detection in their scripts. Those touch face detection functions were introduced with viewer version RC 1.21.4; so they probably won't run on a viewer that is based on the 1.19 viewer, if it hasn't been modified to support those functions too. As for Zyngo, I found a note on an official or semi official site that says, that Zyngo 3.0 (releaded in 2008!!!) requires viewer version 1.21.

Anonymous Tuesday, October 20, 2009 5:30:18 AM

Anonymous writes: I have an Issue, im not sure if you answered this or not. But i installed the RAinbow viewer, the first time it went into the regular secondlife folder and when i tried to start it, gave me some long coding like: ?AppendUTF16toUTF8@@YAXPBGAAVnsACString_internal@@@Z could not be located ion the dynamic link library xul.dll Then i installed it into his own folder like you stated above but then i got another error message saying the xul.dll was not found. can you help me?

Boy Laneboylane Tuesday, October 20, 2009 5:38:16 AM

Please download the latest v1.2, there was a broken RainbowViewer.lnk shortcut in the earlier one.

Then install the official 1.19 viewer first (not 1.23!), link in the first posting. And install the NV on top of it.

Anonymous Wednesday, October 21, 2009 3:00:16 AM

Anonymous writes: alright i got it working. thank you, but is there anyway to stop the constant crashing? (sorry if you answered this too)

Boy Laneboylane Wednesday, October 21, 2009 4:12:08 AM

Hmmm...doesn't crash for me. Did you delete your old settings and cache folder too?

Anonymous Wednesday, October 21, 2009 3:18:17 PM

Anonymous writes: yup. could if have something to do with the reason why when i try emreald i crash instantly?

Anonymous Wednesday, October 21, 2009 3:19:18 PM

Anonymous writes: Perhaps its the same thing that is causing emerald to crash instantly for me?

Boy Laneboylane Wednesday, October 21, 2009 4:07:42 PM

If you switch versions you should always delete and clean all old settings. Uninstalling the viewer is not enough, you also need to delete all data in your application data\secondlife folder.

Anonymous Wednesday, October 21, 2009 10:30:44 PM

Anonymous writes: Your viewer failed to start, why ?

Anonymous Wednesday, October 21, 2009 11:04:41 PM

Anonymous writes: Anyway is running a recent new Acer Aspire One. With Ubuntu 9.10 NBR With WINE With Snowglobe Viewer Runs well, I can't get your viewer to start though.

Anonymous Thursday, October 22, 2009 2:49:01 AM

Anonymous writes: OK I finally figured out how to get it working. You must Select MAKE LINK on Rainbowviewer.exe to get it going copy link to desktop.

Boy Laneboylane Thursday, October 22, 2009 5:10:19 AM

Yes, it says that clearly in the main post you have to start it with the RainbowViewer shortcut smile. I marked it red again. Otherwise you start the "official" Secondlife.exe and that crashes.

Anonymous Thursday, October 22, 2009 5:56:20 AM

Anonymous writes: OK the link needs a Icon not the spring board generic. So far this viewer works perfectly The Snowglobe viewer works fine yet slower & when you quit it disturbs the video. You have to restart pc to fix. Your viewer is the only 1 that does work no problem so far.

Anonymous Thursday, October 22, 2009 7:08:19 PM

Anonymous writes: Well after running your SL viewer for a few hours I'm impressed. It is 9th viewer I tried on my Acer Aspire One. I'm running UBUNTU 9.10 NBR / WINE / RAINBOW VIEWER perfectly ! Tried OMViewer @ 1st & GetDeb Viewer & on to SL original, a few others including Emerald Viewer. The Linux - Ubuntu Viewers work up until they freeze entire PC & was just using Snowglobe Viewer as well Snowglobe ran stable until you shut it down & it would mess up the video. I see it ran slower than this viewer to. Special request: !1st can you create a UBUNTU client like this 1 ? 2nd can you include the Avatar radar that allows you to TP to a AV on list like in OMViewer ?

Anonymous Thursday, October 22, 2009 8:49:23 PM

Anonymous writes: OK, I need settings help, tried to contact you on SL. Can you provide a IM contact ?

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