On Tuesday September 30th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to the three primary RC channels (BlueSteel, Magnum and LeTigre). This updated focuses on the Experience Tools project and includes the following updates:
llUpdateKeyValue() now correctly creates a key if it did not previously exist
Objects using experience permissions and llAttachToAvatar() are no longer automatically detached when leaving an area where the Experience is allowed.
On Wednesday October 1st, the three primary RC channels should all receive the same new server maintenance package which fixes a bug related to viewing parcel details in gaming regions.
SL Viewer
The SL viewer list remains as per my Current Releases page, namely:
Release viewer: version 3.7.16.294015 (formerly the Maintenance RC, promoted on September 22nd – release notes
RC viewerS:
Log-in release candidate viewer 3.7.17.294762 (September 25th), with the updated viewer log-in splash screens – download and release notes
Project viewers:
Benchmark project viewer version 3.7.17.294710 (September 10th) featuring the removal of the GPU table – download and release notes
Experience Keys project viewer version 3.7.16.293901(September 10th) – managing Experiences and for contributing content for Experiences – download and release notes
Oculus Rift project viewer version 3.7.12.292141 (July 22nd) support for Oculus Rift – download.
CDN Work
As noted in a separate report, the Lab has issued an update on various projects, including viewer changes and the CDN. At the Open-source User Group meeting on Monday September 29th,, it was intimated that Highwinds Network Group are the CDN operator, who supply CDN services to the likes of Valve (Steam), Funcom, Meteor Entertainment, GameFly, and others.
At present, there are 10 regions known to be using the CDN service, although additional regions may have been added to the Snack channel on Monday September 29th – we just don’t have an updated list of regions available.
The following notes are drawn from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday September 26th, and shown in the video above. Time stamps, where relevant, have been included for ease of reference to the video. Note that items are listed according to subject matter, rather than chronologically, so time stamps may appear out-of-sequence in places. My thanks as always to North for the recording.
Benchmark Viewer & GPU Table
[01:00] As noted in part 2 of this report, a new GPU Benchmark project viewer is available (version 3.7.17.294710), designed to put an end to the need for a dedicated GPU graphic table as the mean by which the viewer determines a computer’s initial graphic settings.
Instead, if there is no settings file for the viewer (such as after a clean install), the viewer will measure how quickly data can be copied back and forth between GPU memory and your computer’s main memory. This, combined with a couple of other benchmarks, determines the initial graphics settings in the viewer. It may not always pick the most preferred settings (it might still set things a little high or a little low), but testing has shown it to be reasonably accurate, and it does prevent the viewer opting for the lowest settings simply because a card isn’t listed on the GPU table. As is currently the case, any subsequent adjustments you make to the graphics settings should be saved within the viewer and take precedence.
Feedback on the viewer is encouraged (a wipe of any SL viewer setting files on your computer will be required), particularly if you encounter issues such as finding the viewer “sticks” with the settings it has determined, rather than allowing you to adjust them. When filing JIRA, the Lab requests that log files are attached.
HTTP and CDN
[09:39] The anticipated HTTP pipelining viewer should be appearing as a release candidate viewer in the early part of week 40 (week commencing Monday 29th September). This is the viewer that the QA team in LL have been referring to as QA, “weaponized viewer”, it is so fast as a result of leveraging the HTTP streaming.
This viewer works with the CDN, with Oz Linden indicating a personal experience of logging-in to a CDN-enabled region with an empty cache and having the textures and meshes for the region loaded by the time the log-in process had finished, so it will be interesting to see how the viewer performs under more widespread use.
TPVs are being encouraged to adopt the HTTP updates as soon as their integration / release cycles allow. In the meantime, those wishing to test this viewer, when it appears, with the CDN can do so via one of the following regions: Denby, Hippo Hollow, Hippotropolis,Testsylvania, Brasil Rio, Brocade, Fluffy, Freedom City, Rocket City or Whippersnapper. It is anticipated further regions will be added to the CDN channel (Snack) in the next week or so, prior to CDN support rolling to one of the server RC channels.
Voice Updates
[17:16] Another batch of viewer updates due out, and which TPVs are being urged to adopt as soon as they can, are for voice. These mostly relate to managing voice sessions rather than voice improvements, and are aimed at helping Vivox with problems at their end, and should make troubleshooting genuine issues within voice a lot easier. However, this update should plug the hole where stalkers can track where someone using voice has teleported to just by monitoring their voice channels.
Z-offset Height Adjustment
The z-offset hegiht adjustment option should help in situations where the current Hover option is unusable – such as trying to adjust you avatar’s height when using a preferred AO sitting pose
[18:42] Vir Linden is now working on the z-offset height proposal. The work is in the early stages, so no date on when it will appear in a viewer.
The current plan is for a new option to be added to the right-click avatar context menu which will access an adjustment slider. However, at present, any adjustments made using it will not be persistent across log-ins, although it will work alongside the existing Edit Appearance > Hover option (allowing for the No Mod shape limitation of the latter).
It has been suggested the offset setting could be made persistent by tying it to a debug setting. This is something the Lab has said they’ll think about; should they opt not to go that route, there will hopefully be no reason why TPVs should not go that route if persistence was deemed vital to their users’ experience.
[48:13] Adjustments made using the slider will occur locally until such time as the mouse button is released; only then is an update message sent to the server & relayed to other viewers, to prevent multiple messages spamming a server as people make adjustments. It is hoped that this approach will also allow z-offset adjustments to interact with other active animations relatively smoothly (e.g. adjusting your height to prevent appearances of dancing on air when using couples dance poseballs).
As always, please refer to the forum discussion thread for the latest updates and information.
There was no scheduled deployment to the Main (SLS) channel this week.
On Wednesday 24th September, all three RC channel received a further update to the Experience Tool maintenance release deployed in week 38, which includes:
llUpdateKeyValue() now correctly creates a key if it did not previously exist
Objects using experience permissions and llAttachToAvatar() are no longer automatically detached when leaving an area where the Experience is allowed.
SL Viewer
The promised viewer using the new GPU benchmark system appeared as a project viewer on Thursday September 25th. Version 3.7.17.294710, includes MAINT-3131, which is simply described as “Death to the GPU Table”, which pretty much sums the viewer up!
Rather than using the GPU table as a means of determining default graphics level for a graphics card, the viewer measures the memory bandwidth of the card, and sets the default based on that (plus a couple of other parameters. The release notes add, “Initial settings on shiny powerful hardware should now let that hardware shine. Initial settings on low-end machines should not degrade performance from current experience.”
CDN and Regions
The Snack RC is currently being used for CDN testing on Agni. As noted in my week 38 updates, Denby, Hippo Hollow, Hippotropolis and Testsylvania Sandbox were initially placed on the RC, and they have since been joined by Brasil Rio, Brocade, Fluffy, Freedom City, Rocket City and Whippersnapper.
Group Ban Trivia
OK, so not exactly an update, but Baker Linden indicates that some 4500 group bans have occurred since the arrival of the group ban list functionality in the official viewer (and a number of TPVs). Will be interesting to hear how that number increases once Firestorm includes the capability.
The following notes were taken from the Open Source Dev meeting on Monday 22nd September 22nd, and the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday 23rd September.
Server Deployments Week 39
As always, please refer to the forum discussion thread for the latest updates and information.
There will be no scheduled deployment to the Main (SLS) channel this week.
On Wednesday 24th September, all three RC channel should receive a further update to the Experience Tool maintenance release deployed in week 38, which includes a fix for an issue with llGetExperienceDetails().
SL Viewer
The most recent Maintenance release viewer, version 3.7.16.294015, was promoted to the de facto release viewer on Monday 22nd September. This viewer includes fixes for inventory and outfit management; appearance editing; group & group ban management; camera controls; multi-grid support for favourites; notifications management; stability, bug and crash fixes – see the release notes for further information.
On Friday September 19th, the New Log-in Screen RC viewer reached release candidate status when 3.7.16.294345 arrvied in the release channel. This viewer brings a simple and clean login screen for new users, and a corresponding update for returning users. (download and release notes, my overview).
GPU Table Retirement
An ongoing project at the Lab is to remove the need for the GPU table within the viewer. This is currently used to set the default graphics level for a user’s graphics card, and requires constant checking and update as new GPUs and cards are produced. Recent work has seen the GPU table massively updated, with the Lab working towards an alternative strategy of determining the capabilities of a graphics system. This is primarily done by measuring the memory bandwidth of a card and setting the default based on that (plus a couple of other parameters.
A viewer utilising this approach is currently with LL’s QA team and should be making an appearance soon. This strategy has already shown sufficient promise that new GPUs are no longer being added to the GPU table in preparation for it to be phased out.
Other Items
iCloud Conflict
A recent update to Apple’s iCloud service aimed at users of windows system using the service has had an unexpected impact on various aspects of the SL including killing mesh uploads, snapshots (saving to inventory fails with “Error encoding snapshot”) and textures (upload fail with “Couldn’t convert the image to jpeg2000”), and UI elements can turn completely black.
Full details of the issue can be found on BUG-7343, and the problems have been particularly noted in both the official viewer and Firestorm, and Catznip. investigations are underway by both the Lab and the Firestorm team, and one line of thinking is that it might be some DLL injection poisoning issue.
The iCloud update, which was apparently deployed over the weekend of the 20th /21st September has, at the time of writing, yet to be deployed for Mac systems. There is some speculation that it may not result in similar issues for Mac users due to the way iCloud is implemented for each OS. One potential work-around is to roll-back to an earlier version of the service’s client, making sure that any auto-update option is disabled.
Group Tags
We’re probably all aware how changing group tags can often be a cure-all for a number of problems, even when logically it should be the case. One possible explanation as to why this is the case is that changing your group tag may trigger a full update of your avatar.
However, possibly as a result of interest list changes, there is now one situation where changing your group tag is not a good idea – and that is when a scene is still loading, as doing so can cause the scene load to fail, and the only means of resuming it is to relog – see BUG-6299. So, if you arrive in a location that sends you a request to join a group you’d like to join, wait a couple of minutes in order to give the scene the chance to fully load before you do so.
This issue is known to the Lab, but a fix has yet to be determined.
llSetlinkAlpha Update Issue
This is an issue that is getting a little long in the tooth – see BUG-1786 – which sees llSetLinkAlpha failing to correctly update a percentage of prims when a large(ish) number are updated simultaneously. Weapons users are liable to be familiar with this, as it can occur in “holstering” or “slinging” a weapon which should cause the “held” version of the weapon to turn transparent and the “slung” / “holstered” version rendered, but often results in elements of the “held” version of the weapon remaining visible.
This issue appears to be related to UDP packets being lost between the server and the viewer, with Simon Linden commenting, “I remember digging into this and it seemed like lost packets. It’s really hard to predict when they’ll get lost, but it seems it’s not slowing down updates quite right when there’s a sudden flood.” He promised to pass the issue with LL’s product team, but wasn’t optimistic it might move higher up the “fix” chain due to the current volume of work.
As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest updates.
On Tuesday September 16th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to the three RC channels, which includes crash fixes and a fix for a bug that prevented some people from leaving Skill Gaming regions – notably Linden staff who entered a region using their admin powers …
On Wednesday September 17th, the three RC channels each received a new server maintenance package, which includes some bug fixes, and tweaks some behaviours related to experience tools.
CDN News
CDN support has been deployed to a small number of regions on the main grid. Maestro Linden indicated these were four Linden-owned regions. These are Hippotropolis, Hippo Hollow and Denby (where the Simulator User Group meetings are held), and the Testylvania sandbox (which isn’t open to public access).
Further regions will be updated to use the CDN service going forward, and the Lab had created an e-mail address region owners can apply to have their region(s) added to the test channel for the CDN: cdn-test@lindenlab.com. Note that regions should be those with a relatively high texture / mesh count, and space is “very limited” at this time (the total for the initial testing appears to be set at around 30 regions).
In addition, the map tile fetching for the main grid is now entirely carried out via the CDN, so map tiles should load a lot faster for people now.
World Map tiles are now served via the CDN
Abuse Report Category Changes
The categories used to define Abuse Reports were recently revised in the official viewer.
The old (l) and new (r) AR categories
This has led to some discussion on the forums and not a little speculation elsewhere as what it means for the AR system, with some people speculating that because some categories are no longer explicitly listed, there are therefore now “allowed”.
While views such as this might be debated until such time as the Lab issues commentary on the changes, the one thing that is clear at the moment is that they do put the AR floater somewhat out-of-synch with its official Knowledge Base article given the “Other” category has been removed. This has been noted and the Knowledge Base article is liable to be updated.
The changes also put some TPVs out-of-sequence with the revised categories until such time as they update. However, this hopefully will not negatively impact ARs filed via viewers using the older category options.
As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest updates.
On Tuesday September 16th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to the three RC channels, which includes crash fixes and a fix for a bug that prevented some people from leaving Skill Gaming regions – notably Linden staff who entered a region using their admin powers …
On Wednesday September 17th, the three RC channels should each receive a new server maintenance package, which includes some bug fixes, and tweaks some behaviours related to experience tools.
CDN Micro Channel Deployment
The CDN micro channel deployment is due this week. As noted in mt last TPV meeting report, this will see a small number of regions updated to use the CDN test configuration for texture and mesh fetching, bypassing the simulator entirely. No viewer-side update is required for this (that will come in the future), so the benefits should be felt by anyone entering those regions (assuming the region is already cached by their local CDN node).
There currently isn’t a list of regions which will be included in the micro channel, although it has been suggested that the Lab consider including the Home and Garden Expo and the Kustom 9 event regions are included, as these all have considerable mesh and texture use. Two regions that will be included in the micro channel are Hippotropolis and Hippo Hollow. The latter can be a reasonable text of texture downloads, as it has a wide variety of items sitting on it.
Group Chat
While Izzy Linden had reported something of a drop in the number of reports of requests for the back-end chat servers to be restarted at the end of week 37, reports continued through the weekend and the start of this week. The changes aimed at fixing the problem (essentially a network issue which causes the chat server to run out of ports) has been delayed, but commenting at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday September 16th, Simon Linden said he hopes to see them deployed soon.
There is also a further update aimed at improving group chat performance that is also in the pipeline, the result of recent testing on Aditi; Simon Linden has “high hopes” for these changes once deployed.
Other Items
The Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday September 16th saw renewed discussion on a number of subjects which have been previously raised, such as improvements to scripted sounds / sound functionality (see my January 2014 and November 2013 updates) and the environment improvements project. While no conclusions were drawn on specific improvements to the sound functionality (it doesn’t appear to be on the current roadmap), Oz Linden did confirm the environment improvements are still on the roadmap, but are not currently being worked on. It’s not clear whether the SL roadmap will be made public, although it was indicated this might be the case when it was first raised a couple of months ago.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 