Argent Stonecutter

OK, I'm not liking 3.3.0: the "people" button brings up the "conversations" window instead, and it's broken antialiasing... I have to turn on lighting and shadows to get antialiasing and that doesn't actually give me shadows... it just cuts my FPS from 25 to 5.

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Argent Stonecutter -- Skyhook Station -- Coonspiracy Store

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The previous is a cybernetic datum published - in direct contravention of DoD Regulation #229RR3X3 - as being conducive to the physical, psychological and/or social well-being of the population.

Adeon Writer

That's new viewers in general; not specific to Firestorm. If you want AA without deferred, log in with deferred off and AA already on. It must also be forced on your graphics driver.

Yes, it's annoying, they need to make it easier to set up or automatic even, but the result is higher FPS.

In reality, turning "Lighting and Shadows" on and off or modding the AA setting should be a (requires restart) option, but it doesn't force it.

Argent Stonecutter

What? That's ... OK, I'd have to channel someone like Siggy to adequately describe how stupid that is: I just don't have the fluent command of invective. Especially "it must be forced on in your graphics driver". I don't care what the technical explanation is, that should have been a blocker.

I don't believe that.

Adeon Writer

Well it is for me. It could just be that the in-viewer AA is just really inefficient.

As far as Nvidia goes,

Override > Let Application Do It > Enchance.

Argent Stonecutter

There is no "in-viewer AA". It's always handled by the video card, the same way, whether it's requested by the application or forced on from outside the application.

Whether the other changes in the shader code happen to make it more efficient on your particular card is irrelevant... having to force AA on is... [insert suitable invective here].

Edit: Yes, I know how to force it on, it's just [imaginative expletive] to have to do it.

Adeon Writer

Are you sure there's no viewer AA? For me, "Application Controlled", "Override" and "Enchance" are all visually distinct for the same setting (say, 4x)

4x Application controlled looks nice but eats FPS and only works in deferred.

4x Override makes
Much crisper edges without bluring, but the aliasing is slightly more notable, however it barely dents FPS.

4x Enhance is a blur-fest in non-deferred, looks the same as override in deferred but lower FPS.

Dolly

I always use non-deferred rendering, (unless I have to turn shadows on of course) and have never had to *force* anti-aliasing on. I simply set it in the viewer and it works fine, without any noticeable FPS drop.

And I really cannot imagine that there would be an actual visual difference between 4x AA turned on via the nvidia control panel, and 4x AA turned on through the viewer. How would that be possible

On a different note, since updating to 3.3.0 I still experience issues with the inventory jumping when friends log in or out, and the recent items sort order not persisting between sessions.
I thought that these bugs had been fixed? Sadly they still happen to me just as in 3.2.2...what could be the reason for this?

Adeon Writer

It is the case that the results are different, both visually and FPS-wise. Why? I don't know. I had assumed the viewer does it's own AA but Argent says it doesn't, and I don't know the technicalities , I just mess with things until I get higher FPS and noticed the differences.

Dolly

Really curious, then! Perhaps it is possible that even if you use the same AA settings in the viewer or in the nvidia panel, the graphics card actually uses different levels of AA in each case, which would explain the difference in FPS and visual quality. Otherwise, it should simply be a matter of telling the graphics card either to perform hardware based AA or not.

Perhaps I would experience the same as you, if I tried forcing AA on in the nvidia panel instead of in the viewer. I might try this and see what happens

Argent Stonecutter

OK, let's put it this way: unless they're even more [inappropriate language], whatever setting LL uses when you select "4xAA" is handled by the video card, not by the viewer. All the viewer is doing is selecting the AA mode.

OK, so you're not saying that whatever [inventive scatology] change LL came up with in the new renderer used in 3.3 is better than the settings in 3.2, you're saying that AA using deferred rendering has more overhead than AA forced by the nVidia settings. Yes, turning deferred on has a huge overhead for me too. But that's the case whether I have AA set or not, deferred rendering slows me down by a factor of 4 or 5.

What I'm saying is that LL [awesome expletive] up in the new renderer, and their [obscene gerund] needs to be fixed to set AA properly.

And, yes, there's not a single "4x" setting, there are a number of different sampling/oversampling/supersampling schemes and patterns that produce visibly different results, but they're driven by what the video card implements. Doing it manually would be [lyrical description of mental images worthy of 4chan].

Adeon Writer

You don't want to look at the depth of field code then. >_>

Dolly

Argent, you surely do use some very colourful language. At least that is what my imagination tells me...

Argent Stonecutter

I've been trying out a variety of plaids, and a lovely retro-60's batik.

Karen

I have tried this viewer and like it. Now I can still have the similar look of the viewer 1.x that I like without being accused of "holding back the rest of SL" for using the viewer that I prefer.

ShrugDangle

That's correct. All antialiasing is technically hardware antialiasing with the exception of FXAA that some earlier builds of Exodus and Niran's had. They may still have it but I haven't checked. FXAA is basically approximate software assisted antialiasing that does a pretty good job if your video card can't do hardware AA and deferred rendering at the same time, which most can't.

EDIT: Here's a good article that explains all the different antialiasing modes.

Beezle Warburton

Bad coding.

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Argent Stonecutter

Hmmm. So how come I have to turn on deferred rendering to get it to do AA on Firestorm?

Dolly

*sighs:/ this has happened twice today - both times I was taking some things off my avatar when this appeared moments later...

ShrugDangle

Hmm good question. Maybe Firestorm has FXAA and that requires deferred to be turned on.

Geenz wrote something on the Exodus blog a while back that explains it exceptionally well.
From the blog:
I'm completely stumped if it's not that or something similar.

Argent Stonecutter

What version of the Linden viewer has the "new" code? Is it in release? I'll check it out when I get home (had to work Saturday morning... starting 5:30 AM... sleepy weezl).

EricCastanea

Performance is still lacking significantly compared to V1 based viewers. Uninstalled.

Jenn Luke

/fixed

EricCastanea

Try both on your PC, then get back to me.

/me waves and smiles

ShrugDangle

That's like saying Morrowind runs faster than Skyrim on the same hardware.

IsisAlexander

Thank you for posting this! I had a major issue with crashing because of the http texture issue on 3.3.0. I waited to dl the update because I finally got this viewer 3.3.0 over it. Until they fix that issue, I wont be downloading updates, it isnt worth the hassle of a clean install for minor changes (for my uses). I love firestorm but that issue is annoying as hell.

This is the fix that was given to me by the firestorm support group in case anyone needs it. It worked for me.

If you find that you are crashing frequently in FS, then 1] Disable VBO (preference > graphics > hardware settings) 2] Disable HTTP Get Textures in (preference > graphics > rendering) and manually clear cache 3]Disable Anisotropic filtering (pref > graphics > hardware settings) 4] You could have corrupted textures, try manually clearing cache cache_clear [Phoenix Viewer] 5] see for more troubleshooting fs_run_crash [Phoenix Viewer]

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“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
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