By Avatar JayR Cela
Ok everyone that regularly reads this blog, already knows I'm a Crank-Case Raving Lunatic, but that's besides the point.
If you look back on 2014, Oz Linden and the numerous Third Party Developers have achieved the seemingly impossible, and let's not forget the folks on the LL server team either.
They actually made SecondLife work as it was originally intended to, and they accomplished this using 10 year old and very outdated technology.
SecondLife, looks and functions better than it ever has.
Fantastic Job, well done beyond comprehension.
Happy New Year
JayR Cela :_)
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Friday, December 26, 2014
Virtual Worlds and Your Graphics Driver : How Important Is It ?
By Avatar JayR Cela
Very Important !
Virtual Worlds such as SecondLife and OpenSim, are basically streaming services, however unlike a typical video game in which all of the textures are static ( embedded into the program itself ) just about everything in SL or OS is user created, and thats what make our chosen Virtual Worlds so unique and special. However there are some downsides to this, not everyone creating things in a VW has the luxury of being properly trained in the art of efficient graphics design. So we end up running across some very interesting and killer things during our virtual travels, that may or may not have been built ( designed ) with efficiency in mind. This can put a huge strain on your graphics hardware, and if you are not using an up to date driver for your hardware, the results can be less than the best you can achieve.
First off if you are on a laptop 9 out of ten times you will have integrated graphics in the CPU or Mother Board and stuck with what ever you have. If you are on a Desktop rig more and likely you can simply install a new graphics card, either Nvidia or AMD/ATI, and there are a plethora of various brands for each, EVGA, PNY, MSI, ASUS, GIGABYTE........
But thats besides the point, you really need to insure that the most up to date Video Driver for your hardware is installed and set up properly. Checking out your hardware vendors proper website for graphic driver updates is an unfortunate downside of being able to fully enjoy an immersive Virtual World experience.
http://www.geforce.com/drivers
http://www.amd.com/en-us
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/
Nvidia and AMD/ATI are pretty much no-brainers and you should have no difficulty finding the correct driver for your hardware, INTEL, good luck with that one.
JayR Cela
Very Important !
Virtual Worlds such as SecondLife and OpenSim, are basically streaming services, however unlike a typical video game in which all of the textures are static ( embedded into the program itself ) just about everything in SL or OS is user created, and thats what make our chosen Virtual Worlds so unique and special. However there are some downsides to this, not everyone creating things in a VW has the luxury of being properly trained in the art of efficient graphics design. So we end up running across some very interesting and killer things during our virtual travels, that may or may not have been built ( designed ) with efficiency in mind. This can put a huge strain on your graphics hardware, and if you are not using an up to date driver for your hardware, the results can be less than the best you can achieve.
First off if you are on a laptop 9 out of ten times you will have integrated graphics in the CPU or Mother Board and stuck with what ever you have. If you are on a Desktop rig more and likely you can simply install a new graphics card, either Nvidia or AMD/ATI, and there are a plethora of various brands for each, EVGA, PNY, MSI, ASUS, GIGABYTE........
But thats besides the point, you really need to insure that the most up to date Video Driver for your hardware is installed and set up properly. Checking out your hardware vendors proper website for graphic driver updates is an unfortunate downside of being able to fully enjoy an immersive Virtual World experience.
http://www.geforce.com/drivers
http://www.amd.com/en-us
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/
Nvidia and AMD/ATI are pretty much no-brainers and you should have no difficulty finding the correct driver for your hardware, INTEL, good luck with that one.
JayR Cela
Monday, December 15, 2014
Virtual World Viewers : The newest FireStorm 4.6.9.42974 On Linux : MAJOR WebKit Issues : And Solving Them
By Avatar JayR Cela
Your results may vary depending on which distribution or particular flavor of Linux is to your fancy, but for me the latest FireStorm was a major Pain In The Ass to install, and all because of WebKit !!!!!!!!
I like FS, I love the features, and everyone on the team I have had the pleasure to meet are outstanding pioneers in their field, however this may well be the final straw for me, couple that with a lack of a new 64bit release, I'm really disappointed, not with the viewer itself. I have gradually gotten accustomed to the massive amount of user options available and can handle all that, add in the settings back up feature and leaving the total garbage CHUI chat hub where it belong's ( in a cave lost and far away from anyone sane ) it is by far the best in my personal opinion piece of software available for Virtual World exploration.
So why am I gripeing ????
WEBKIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
problems continue to persist.
I thought this issue would eventually be solved with the announcement a few months ago that WebKit would be dropped in favor of the Chromium rendering engine for web pages, at least on the official LindenLab viewers.
Look everyone know's Linux is a mixed bag of tricks, you either learn it or use MS Windows, if you are not prepared to getting your hands dirty and figuring stuff out, go buy an Apple, done deal ! At least that way you will have a real operating system.
Ok so lets get down to brass tacks here, why is this VW Viewer such a pain in the ass to get up and running properly ? Well it's simple not all Linux distributions have the necessary WebKit Libs installed, couple that with the fact that Linux is mostly 64bit now and the majority of Virtual World Viewers are still 32bit, and ya toss in a little bit of Ubuntu and Debian switching to Multi-Arch and SystemD, now we add hybrid Linux distro's using both Debian and Ubuntu repositories, plus KDE or Gnome or perhaps Cinnamon or Mate, things can tend to get a bit messy to say the least. If you are on Arch or RH, or a Gentoo based system some of the following advice may apply, but dont take my word for it, ya just gonna have to try it out for yourself.
WebKit is a browser rendering subsystem that allows relatively seamless graphics on your screen or within a window. I am pretty sure it was originally conceived and implemented by Apple with the Safari web browser, sadly it is rather long in the tooth now, however all of the back end stuff needed in order for it to function properly is already built right into both Win XP on up and Apple OsX.
With Linux you may not be so lucky, a good place to start in solving the dreaded WebKit_Media Failure dilemma on FireStorm just takes some patience and a lot of unnecessary time and checking out this FS Wiki page http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/32-bit_firestorm_in_64-bit_ubuntu
Thats just part of the story, and may or may not solve your problems.
MySelf I took a Brute Force approach and eventually ended up installing just about everything I could find with WebKit libs.
It was a total Pain In The Ass !!! However it did eventually work, all I can say is I will more and likely stop using FS in the future.
JayR Cela :(
Your results may vary depending on which distribution or particular flavor of Linux is to your fancy, but for me the latest FireStorm was a major Pain In The Ass to install, and all because of WebKit !!!!!!!!
I like FS, I love the features, and everyone on the team I have had the pleasure to meet are outstanding pioneers in their field, however this may well be the final straw for me, couple that with a lack of a new 64bit release, I'm really disappointed, not with the viewer itself. I have gradually gotten accustomed to the massive amount of user options available and can handle all that, add in the settings back up feature and leaving the total garbage CHUI chat hub where it belong's ( in a cave lost and far away from anyone sane ) it is by far the best in my personal opinion piece of software available for Virtual World exploration.
So why am I gripeing ????
WEBKIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
problems continue to persist.
I thought this issue would eventually be solved with the announcement a few months ago that WebKit would be dropped in favor of the Chromium rendering engine for web pages, at least on the official LindenLab viewers.
Look everyone know's Linux is a mixed bag of tricks, you either learn it or use MS Windows, if you are not prepared to getting your hands dirty and figuring stuff out, go buy an Apple, done deal ! At least that way you will have a real operating system.
Ok so lets get down to brass tacks here, why is this VW Viewer such a pain in the ass to get up and running properly ? Well it's simple not all Linux distributions have the necessary WebKit Libs installed, couple that with the fact that Linux is mostly 64bit now and the majority of Virtual World Viewers are still 32bit, and ya toss in a little bit of Ubuntu and Debian switching to Multi-Arch and SystemD, now we add hybrid Linux distro's using both Debian and Ubuntu repositories, plus KDE or Gnome or perhaps Cinnamon or Mate, things can tend to get a bit messy to say the least. If you are on Arch or RH, or a Gentoo based system some of the following advice may apply, but dont take my word for it, ya just gonna have to try it out for yourself.
WebKit is a browser rendering subsystem that allows relatively seamless graphics on your screen or within a window. I am pretty sure it was originally conceived and implemented by Apple with the Safari web browser, sadly it is rather long in the tooth now, however all of the back end stuff needed in order for it to function properly is already built right into both Win XP on up and Apple OsX.
With Linux you may not be so lucky, a good place to start in solving the dreaded WebKit_Media Failure dilemma on FireStorm just takes some patience and a lot of unnecessary time and checking out this FS Wiki page http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/32-bit_firestorm_in_64-bit_ubuntu
Thats just part of the story, and may or may not solve your problems.
MySelf I took a Brute Force approach and eventually ended up installing just about everything I could find with WebKit libs.
It was a total Pain In The Ass !!! However it did eventually work, all I can say is I will more and likely stop using FS in the future.
JayR Cela :(
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
SecondLife : The Lab Want's You To Help Make SL A Better Place : What Happened To SL2 ?
By Avatar JayR Cela
The recent announcement that SL will now become a more open to suggestion kinda virtual world place with the new So Called Suggestion page is laughable at best, this idea has been stuffed into a dark hole for 10 years, and now it emerges as something new and wonderful for all to behold ?
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/A-New-Way-to-Share-Your-Suggestions-for-Second-Life/ba-p/2867935
Give me a break, what the hell happened to SL2 is it now dead ?
JayR Cela :(
The recent announcement that SL will now become a more open to suggestion kinda virtual world place with the new So Called Suggestion page is laughable at best, this idea has been stuffed into a dark hole for 10 years, and now it emerges as something new and wonderful for all to behold ?
http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/A-New-Way-to-Share-Your-Suggestions-for-Second-Life/ba-p/2867935
Give me a break, what the hell happened to SL2 is it now dead ?
JayR Cela :(
Sunday, December 7, 2014
SecondLife : My 9 Year Anniversary : Hang Out Together Tonight With Myself and Cathy
By Avatar JayR Cela
For me it will be 9 years in SecondLife
Today at 4:30pm PCT I will be celebrating my 9 year anniversary together with Cathy Jackson in SecondLife at our Mallard River Front Home on the Mainland area of SL. If you would like to stop by and say hello we are looking forward to meeting you. Also you can pick up a free full perm copy of our house, and textures are included in the root prim.
http://status.secondlifegrid.net/2014/12/03/post2430/ Mallard (16,30,25)
http://status.secondlifegrid.net/2014/12/03/post2430/
I'm not sure if SLUR's are working correctly, if not a simple cut and paste in your Nearby Chat window should produce a working TP location.
So come on over and hang out if ya like.
JayR Cela :_)
For me it will be 9 years in SecondLife
Today at 4:30pm PCT I will be celebrating my 9 year anniversary together with Cathy Jackson in SecondLife at our Mallard River Front Home on the Mainland area of SL. If you would like to stop by and say hello we are looking forward to meeting you. Also you can pick up a free full perm copy of our house, and textures are included in the root prim.
http://status.secondlifegrid.net/2014/12/03/post2430/ Mallard (16,30,25)
http://status.secondlifegrid.net/2014/12/03/post2430/
I'm not sure if SLUR's are working correctly, if not a simple cut and paste in your Nearby Chat window should produce a working TP location.
So come on over and hang out if ya like.
JayR Cela :_)
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