Project SnowStorm Veiwer 2 Nightly Build v.2.4.0.213450

It's Friday again, and the weeks cumulative results from the nightly SnowStorm builds is ready for a drive around the block. I have been attending the teams daily SCRUM meetings several times a week, and am quite impressed with the way they are handling the situation. So my current plans are to take the Friday build out for a spin each weekend. If you are a V2 fan ( user ) already, there is no need for a review of the current stable release, please remember that the nightly ( weekly ) builds, are not considered as stable releases, they are not even in a Beta status yet. If you are comfortable with Alpha software testing, by all means, download one and try it out. If you are not, I hope that my post's will help keep you up to date, with the rapid changes taking place with Viewer 2.

This particular version loaded very quickly, all of my settings remained in tack, from the previous build, I did not have to reload 6 or 7000 items to my inventory upon initial log-in. Frames Per Second ( FPS ) seems to have taken a hit in the performance department from previous versions I have tested, but are still on par with any of the 1.x series viewers. So I took it to one of the more busy Sim's I know of, "Bare Rose of Tokyo" Clothing.

Bandwidth was extremely high and steady, virtually no packet loss. FPS was rock solid, all textures rezzed almost instantaneously. Quite impressive to say the least.

So it seems that the SnowStorm team is very focused on the Fast portion of the "Fast,Easy,Fun" metaphors. Easy, well its getting better, albeit more slowly than I care for, Fun? a definite no in my opinion. I still do not care for the User Interface. One thing that really continues to bother me, is the weird way that V2 treats tear off windows, and that's just it, they are not tear offs. You need to un-dock and re-dock them from and to the sidebar, they have limited re-size control, couple this with a lack of semi-transparency as you move focus from one window to another, while the previous windows remain opaque, is just lousy design, that results in a total pain in the ass while building. And the camera control is still way over sized, and opaque as well.

All in all, I will have to say, this viewer is moving in the right direction, but still has serious UI design flaws that need to be addressed. I keep hearing talk in the meetings that that these issue's will be dealt with soon.

After 2 hours of use, I experienced no odd problems of any sort, and feel that if you are a V2 user this is a stable enough release to use on a daily basis until next weeks Friday night release.

JayR Cela :_)