Category: Outdated and Discontinued

In something of a surprise move, Phoenix have released version 1102 of the Viewer. While an update was anticipated following the Ogg Vorbis Library files issue, the extent of this update took many by surprise, including as it does the Viewer 2 Avatar Physics code.

Yes, bouncing bewbs (and bums and bellies) using the official Linden code within Phoenix.

However, this isn’t a fad release: there have been reports that Viewers not using the LL Avatar Physics code are failing to render avatars that are using the Physics Layer correct (remember, Avatar Physics is a worn layer, like clothing, Alpha and Tattoo layers). So this inclusion of the code is as much about fixing this issue within Phoenix as it is about giving people bouncy bits.

To further encourage people to upgrade to 1102, the Phoenix team are including a set of pre-defined Physics Layers, each created by a different member of the team, which are ready-to-wear for both male and female avatars (yes, men can have wobbly bits as well!). For that want to make their own, there is an easy-to-follow tutorial from Phoenix.

Other fixes with the release include:

• Removal of old Breast physics code as it is now obsolete and no longer compatible
• Addition of further user-created WL Presets
• Set “Let Scripts Control My Play Button” to OFF by default. Prefs> Audio & Video>
• Fixed local lights issue for Mac users (could only see 2 local lights rather than the default 6)
• Security fix with OGG Vorbis Library (see above)
• Addition of Linden chat color options in Prefs>Text Chat>“Color text for linden text chat”
• Open buttons for logfiles, Chat logs etc on Linux and Mac fixed. Prefs> Network & Folder>
• Further sculpt fixes
• TP Failure crash fix
• Blank media texture crash fix.

Performance on this release (for me) appears somewhat better than 1050, and on a par with 977 Beta (which I had to roll back to following the 1050 release). However, given the Ogg and Avatar Physics “fixes” this is really a necessary upgrade than an optional one.

Phoenix .1050 was issued as a Release Candidate on the 21st April, and slightly surprisingly made the jump to a Final release on the 26th, without requiring any further downloads. The decision to flip the status of the Viewer to Final was bashed on a combination of reduced reported crash rates and generally good user feedback.

The core changes to .1050 comprise:

• Media filter
• Bridge prim update (please see the Phoenix READ BLOG on this)
• HTML link parser updates for local chat
• Correctly identify server 2008 and 2008 R2, added detection for Windows 8 and Server 2012
• Windows XP no longer shows as running compatibility mode in help → about
• Added cookie support for internal web browser
• Debug setting for making Linden chat blue (PhoenixColorLindensChat and PhoenixLindensChatColor)
• URLs in picks and profiles are now clickable
• Links in group charter are clickable
• Sound fixed in Linux (no more needing to copy files from 373)
• Sculpt rendering fixes (all those sculpts that didn’t look right should be fixed!)
• Added more viewer tags
• Added entries to GPU table to recognize more video cards
• Messages that fail to send to a group now say what group it failed to send to
• Ability to not show TP Offers (Prefs > Popups > “Show teleport offer popups”)
• Added to windows install the ability to have this build used for handling SLURL links from web browsers.

Plus a series of bug fixes and under-the-bonnet interface improvements. From a personal standpoint, the clickable URLs are perhaps the biggest “new feature” in this release. As I run this and other blogs, having the means to direct people to them straight from my Profile without them having to copy/paste is a major boon. The same is very much true for any merchant advertising their goods on the likes of the Second Life Marketplace. If you plan to include URLs in your Profile, remember that they’ll only be active for others viewing your Profile – links will not work in your own view of your Profile.

There are still issues with 1050; many people are reporting reduced frame rates, while the amount of memory the Viewer uses appears far larger than either the last “Full” release (908) or the last Beta (977). Some have reported issues with rezzing and sculpties taking longer than expected to load as well. These last two points may be attributable to the fact that HTTP Get texture loading is now OFF by default. To turn the faster HTTP texture loading back on:

• Preferences -> Phoenix -> Page 2 -> Advanced Graphics and check  HTTP Get Textures and then APPLY.

You’ll be prompted that you’ll have to restart Phoenix for the change to take effect. This is because your existing texture cache must be cleared. On initial re-logging, allow time for your inventory to full reload.

Another potential performance gain would be to re-enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects, which are turned off by default with this release:

• Preferences -> Graphics -> click on the HARDWARE OPTIONS button
• Check the option to Enable VBO and optionally enable Streamed VBOs.

In order to ensure these options are benefiting you, it is best to carry them out one at a time and monitor what happens – so enable HTTP Get and see if there is any significant improvements as you use SL before you try enabling VBOs.

The Phoenix release notes suggest that, as a last resort, you perform a completely “clean” install of the Viewer. However, before you do so, I would recommend you read Nalates Urriah’s excellent blog entry Second Life Clean install – it could save you a lot of time and frustration.

From a personal standpoint, I find 1050 a mixed bag; as stated, I like the click-enabled URLs when viewing other people’s Profiles, but at the same time, 1050 doesn’t get along well with my GeForce 9800-series graphic card as well as 977 or 908, and I’m still finding myself flipping between it and 977 at times.

Jessica Lyon took time out to pop into the SLU forum today to announce that this weekend will see a maintenance release of Phoenix that includes the new Media Filter.

This release is coming ahead of the planned update to Phoenix, and apparently as a result of the evolving situation regarding devices that seek to obtain avatar and other data via covert means using a media streaming exploit.

Meanwhile, Firestorm looks set to include the Media Filter with the release due on or around the 20th March, again as indicated by Jessica in the recent Phoenix Office Hour.

A Note on the Media Filter

The Media Filter has been developed in response the a number of in-world items that seek to covertly obtain information on avatars and their users. It was initially developed by Sione Lomu, specifically as a result of the recent RedZone farrago. The code has since been adopted by third-party Viewer developers and has been accepted into Project Snowstorm for inclusion in Viewer 2.x.

I’ll be publishing a tutorial on how to use the Media Filter when the Phoenix update is released, together with links to all Viewers currently supporting the filter.

Tutorials will also be made available through a range of in-world sources as the Media Filter comes into wider availability.

The concerns about RedZone et al continue. Qie Niangao echoing my concerns over the potential impact on the in-world economy thus:

“There are, however, two other self-victimizing effects of Redzone use, besides losing one’s own customers.

“First, it’s driving everybody’s customers from LL’s grid.  As this plague spreads, the in-world consumer economy shrinks, leaving less and less room for shopkeepers to recoup the cost of doing business in Second Life.  This, ultimately, is what will doom Redzone.  Either LL acts, or there’s nothing left worth “protecting” — just a bunch of increasingly desperate Redzone users and the disposable griefer accounts that don’t have any reason to care if they’re scanned… and there’s no money in that for anybody, including Linden Lab….”

Quite. The levels of paranoia and fear – coupled with outrage and concern – potentially mean that in-world shopping will be the overall loser in this sorry mess, as I’ve previously mentioned.

However, while people are absorbing Prokofy Neva’s well-placed thoughts on the matter  – and even echoing them within the thread linked to here – Innula Zenovka relays welcome news that at least one team of Viewer makers are reacting to the the fact that a vulnerability in the Viewer code itself makes tools such as RedZone possible.

Now developers have created a a media and audio security filter which intercepts the incoming media streams and flags up unknown domains encountered with a series of options the user can take as actions. The filter is being adopted by the Phoenix team, and is available to other TPV developers.

The filter is still being worked on at present, but for those whole compile their own versions of the Phoenix Viewer, an initial patch is available. The completed version of the filter will hopefully be available in the next maintenance release of Phoenix – and again, hopefully, will be included in Firestorm.

One hopes that the code also finds its way back into Snowstorm, and that Linden Lab are encouraged to adopt it as well.

Note: updated to reflect feedback from Innula – with thanks.

Phoenix have issued a new Viewer release – .908 – potentially one of the last maintenance releases as work gathers pace on Firestorm and we approach the end-of-the-line for Viewer1.2x-based clients.

The release is timely, given the rising issues users have been experiencing, particularly those that use the Restrained Love Viewer/a extensions.

Here’s a bullet-list of key fixes:

• Improved overall performance and stability
• RLVa Assertion Failure fix
• 42 group auto detection, no need to enable via debug
• Showcase TP links have been fixed to work properly for Windows & Mac, Linux to follow in the next release
• Updated Webkit helping webpages load faster in the web browser, improved memory handling etc.
• The momentary viewer lock-ups experienced on 373, 725 and 818 should be a thing of the past
• Texture jumping issues (where textures load, then unload, load, then unload) resolved
• Updated Viewer tags
• Built in IRC client has been fixed! No more ??? ???  names in IRC rooms
• Huge improvement to ‘De-render’, which now permanently de-renders items until they are removed from the Asset Blacklist
• Skin downloader fixes
• Improved installer, no more downloading additional files during the install process.

Of these, I have a bias towards the De-render option fix, and I hope this finds its way into Firestorm. Having recently suffered the blight of a view-blocking eyesore popping up (or perhaps pooping up) my home sim, having to constantly de-render it from my view each time I logged in / returned home was a complete and perishing nuisance.

The updated Viewer is now available on the Phoenix wiki.

Today sees the final major release of the Phoenix 1.23.5-based Viewer from Jessica, LLG and the rest of the team.

With it comes some major bug-fixes, not the least around RLVa, which had more than a few issues, and some rounding-out of features as well as some natty new additions. The full list of updates is available as always, however, here are the highlights of the “new” stuff:

• Full Display name support in groups, local chat, radar etc.
• Add button to refresh contents of a prim being edited.
• Script count now includes Script memory in square brackets. This is not an accurate measurement of how much work scripts are doing. But it gives you more info on the amount of memory the scripts are using. Requires Bridge v12.

As long as there is the promised option to have Display Names OR avatar names show up in chat, etc., then the first addition won’t cause too much head scratching as people notice “Hungry Scoffadopolous” or “Lord Almighty Schmoo III” or “Jeanie’s Lil’ Bunny” (or other variants of names) showing up in their lists, or tedious pulling-up of Profiles just to be sure.

The Refresh button for edited prims is *so* welcome, especially for those of us who use things like rezzers, vendor servers, etc., and are forever re-editing prims to get the contents to correctly list.

The Script memory use tool could be very useful in the right hands. Hopefully it will encourage those who don’t currently, to think about whether their script(s) really *should* be Mono (and grabbing 64Kb of memory each) or remain in LSL(2) where they grab only 16Kb. After all, three scripts grabbing 16Kb of memory each is still only 48Kb…whereas “combined” into a single Mono, they are grabbing 64Kb and eating resources. And if they are kept as three individual MONO scripts because it is “faster”, that’s a whooping 192Kb eaten from server memory.

Phoenix has been a marvellous addition to the TPV stable of Viewers, and all who have contributed to it deserve our thanks. It may not always be perfect, but Phoenix is the welcome flagship among TPVs in terms of overall popularity, feature spread and ease-of-installation (even with the return of the split between the SSE and SSE2 downloads – so make sure you follow the right link!).

Phoenix will continue with maintenance releases, but this is a fond farewell to major development work as the team now gear-up with developing their Viewer-2 based Firestorm, which we’ll be seeing (hopefully) around Q2 of 2011, I understand.