Monday 17 December 2012

Ending support for the Phoenix Viewer

On Saturday, Dec 15th, we held an important office hour at which the subject was the removal of official support for our V1-based Phoenix Viewer at the end of this year. We are also no longer developing this viewer. (Not to be confused with the Phoenix-Firestorm Viewer, which will continue to be fully developed and supported.)

To be clear
- We are ending support for the Phoenix Viewer on Dec 31st, 2012. 
- If you are a Phoenix user we recommend you migrate to a peer-to-peer help group created for Phoenix users: “Phoenix Viewer Self Help.

- We are NOT forcing you to use Firestorm! If you don't want to use Firestorm, there are a few V1 alternatives out there. Check out the LL Third Party Viewer Directory. 
- We are NOT telling you not to use Phoenix Viewer.
- We are NOT blocking Phoenix Viewer from logging in.
- We are NOT breaking Phoenix!
- You MAY continue to use Phoenix as long as you want, but be aware.. it will become more and more deprecated over time.
- LL is not intentionally killing Phoenix but be aware, there are changes coming in the new year that will break some key aspects of its usability. 

We will remove the download links on our main website to Phoenix in the new year, but it will remain available from our "Other Downloads" section of our wiki. We will not remove any documentation or JIRA issues reported against Phoenix.

Please watch the video recording of that office hour here and that should answer all your questions as to why we have made this decision.
You can also read the speech here, which I had prepared and read during the Office Hour that explains our reasons for making this decision.

I realize this decision will not be popular among our Phoenix users, and I apologize for that, but I ask you to please watch the video or read the speech BEFORE complaining or asking why in the blog post comments. Our reasons are sensible, responsible and logical. If, after you've watched the video, you still do not agree with our decision, THEN please feel free to complain and vent.

Jessica Lyon
Project Manager
The Phoenix Firestorm Project, Inc

190 comments:

  1. As i always said. V1 interfaces are meant to die nowadays. But it's a good thing. It will mean more support for Firestorm than ever

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    1. Why support a viewer nobody wants? As the posts in here and in Youtube indicate we HATE the
      Firestorm interface. Read the comments and make us a Phoenix-like viewer, we do NOT want Firestorm. I have tried it 3 times and gave up after fighting with the strange interface. We obviously appreciate your hard work, but give us what we want, not what you want us to want! Firestorm just isn't usable, very few of us will be using it. Are you going to make us try Singularity and the rest before anyone listens to us users?I don't want a viewer I have to look wverything up to figure it out, stay with what works.

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    2. I personally do want Firestorm, and I know a couple of others who do as well. We don’t have issues handling it and it works fine for us, too. So we chosen few, and, as I shrewdly suspect, the devs, who do as they please anyway, and rightly so, are happy. Good enough.

      Henri and Seana might find new users like you a Danaans’ present.

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    3. for me its a shame but what can we say you made up your mind already its over the end.......FS wil take me a half hour to load if i go to any clubs with Phoenix its done in 3 min i stay on P til its compleet down or you all give me a beter pc lol

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    4. Haha! bye bye firestorm! you just announced you are killing your entire project and any hopes for the team to do anything that would cater to the user. As for more of our client going server side.. where did you get it in your head that would help anything.. you are going the wrong direction. todays data trans rates are so high a handshake to the servers and back doesnt even compare! for anything. all client data and inventory data should be stored on the users data storage & simply match a cloud on the servers. thats it! we pay real money for it how come you have it on your servers. you have gone the wrong direction and now you will fail because of the shear amount of work you have made for yourselves and im talking to you! and LL! some people just insist on doing things the hard way even if it means it will kill them in the end.. stop tinkering with perfection. you lost me i will not support any of this stuff from you or LL. consider one of the best content creators in the history of SL the last 5 years gone. Im going to go back in unreal engine and work on my games. from emerald to this ive stuck with you people but you have disgraced yourselves by refusing to incorporate coding changes into the viewer everyone loves. you want to do such hard work trying to work around issues that is pointless bc you are doing it the hard way. let me remind you that nobody is in sl on a 1984 tandy ok. graphics cards can handle anything you throw at them and if your machine cant run sl then you dont need to be in sl. firestorm on the other hand is such a p.o.s. resource hog its absolutely unreal. you people are just disgusting failures i cant wait to watch this flop.

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    5. people you want to know what this is all really about? its about secondlife eventually becoming a browser app. after phil linden was out thats the direction that was chosen. all the changes are for that purpose in the end you will log in like its imvu or some garbage. its about taking it ALL out of your hands to the point where content creators must be licensed and approved to even open the build tools. just run you will be glad you did

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    6. For me this marks the end of Secondlife for the purpose of performing live music. The V2/3 viewers don't give me the real time feedback I need to engage an audience. When Phoenix stops working in Secondlife so will I.

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  2. Well Jessica when Phoenix breaks I will seek alternatives as I just can't stand the IMs and Notifications in the way you do it in Firestorm at the top right hand corner.
    I just do not understand why when you have made Firestorm so much like Phoenix you have neglected these miniature things at that corner.
    Also surprised I'm the only one who hates that top right corner.
    Thanks anyway for the few years of excellent Phoenix use.

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    1. it has an option for right bottom

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    2. should have options for off all together, can see in the window there an im as well... But that is just my humble opinion on that one.

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    3. I hate it too, June. The Messages shouldnt be in any Corner. Because the whole Screen need´s to be free for a lot of HUD´s. At the Firestorm-Team : Cant you add a Option to deactivate the little Message-Windows?

      Greetings

      Belial

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    4. Moving the stupid message notifications doesn't solve the problem. In a V1 viewer, when something asks for permission to animate, it just popped up a window and I could just click Allow. In V2+, it pops the notification behind things, I have to move the windows out of the way so I can click on the notification, click on it to get what KIND of notification, click that to pop up the actual dialog, and THEN click Allow. Ditto for group notifications and other things. That's HORRIBLE! How can ANYONE excuse going from one click to as many as 5 to do the same task? Notifications are one of THE worst "features" and need to be addressed. I really don't care about most of the other features to be honest - if you fix one thing, FIX NOTIFICATIONS!

      Scrript dialogs are also broken with this offset behavior - when the windows start stacking, they move to the right - moving themselves right of the screen so you can't click the ignore button! How stupid is that!! If there is any offset (which I would prefer to be ZERO) it should go LEFT not RIGHT. Now I have to click on invisible headers (because there is no visual cue as to where it is) to drag the window back onscreen so I can click on ignore. Do that with 15 stacked windows and you get pretty pissed off using V2+ FAST.

      The notification and menu handling in V2+ has been horrible since day one and is STILL horrible today. There is nothing about the V2+ notification system which can possibly be considered "good design."

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    5. Absolutely truth everything you said.
      I hate those notifications at the corner

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    6. Why doesn't one of you raise a feature request Jira. Let all the rest of you vote it up and the dev team will take a look at it and evaluate it.

      If it were simple it would have been done.

      If it is possible (and little seems beyond the Firestorm dev team) then with enough community support I am sure the project leads and developers will find a way.

      Whinging on the comments of a blog posting is not the right way to go about this. Who knows, perhaps a Jira already exists, in which case someone please post the link so that those who wish to see this feature can vote for it.

      Note however that there is a maintenance burden to all deviations from the V2 core. Every time the Lab implement a change the team have to reconcile their code with the Lab code. Fundamentally changing the way that core messaging works would strike me as a very high overhead change, though that is a persoanl subjective view. I would still encourage someone to raise the Jira, outline the features you want or don't want and let one of the developers explain whether it can feasibly be done or not.

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    7. What they said above So True! I love Firestorm. Honestly I do. However I do NOT like the LL lab intragation of the chicklets being in the upper right hand corner or lower corner or where ever you put it. Its annoying. I use V1 style for everything and move buttons off and away, but STILL have to stop what I am doing because of those annoying pop ups that you have to do something right NOW about. If you playing any kind of FPS,that sucks. Lag the last few days has been horrendous. I never have lag, ever. Now, Lag step and everything is grey. Last 2 weeks have really sucked. I understand viewer changes etc. Server changes. I have done all the recommended Wiki things, cleared cache 2 hours to reload!and in general gave up, Left world and did other stuff. I dont think LL wants us to do that, right. Please try and fix all the stuff they all asked. I dont know much, but I do know this. Stuff is really bad for right now. I miss the last viewer.

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    8. Im with you June, I just sit there and click everything closed and am actually no longer reading whats being sent in those notices. It may not seem like a big issue, but to some of us it is. As a side note I have tried to be fair and use Firestorm in the Phoenix format but still issues like the pink screen with my video card makes it really hard for me to give it a fair shake.

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  3. I miss the first Sl viwer and Emerald.
    Now bye-bye Phoenix...
    Hmm...

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    1. Ana, the vintage skin for FS looks like the original V1 LL viewer. It even has the same color scheme. I hated FS at first, but after giving it some time ( 2 weeks for me) I learned all the other great features and now love it! I hope you enjoy your sl!

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  4. June, for what it's worth, there is an option in Preferences - User Interface for having group notices and chicklets in the lower right hand corner. It's great for not having everything cluttered in one place.

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  5. I've been using Singularity anyway since they don't plan to abandon it. I kinda need a low lag viewer so I can multitask with other apps and games. It's either singularity or a text viewer like radegast for me. Sure I can run firestorm but voice chat doesn't work that well on it.

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  6. Well after almost 6 years in SL, it's time to do something else. Firestorm does not work well on my "Gaming PC" (3 years old), and I'm definetly NOT buying a new "super gamer computer", cause I can't afford it. I'm really bored with SL anyway and think of the RL money I don't have to spend anymore.

    Thanks everyone on the Phoenix team. The best viewer I've ever used during my time in SL. I'm really grateful and appreciate all the hard (no-paied) work you have done over the years. And a big kick on the butt at Linden Lab for making all these changes.

    But everything has an end, and this will be mine



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    1. Voff, I agree. I have been in SL for more years than I care to admit. First Emerald, now Phoenix. While my new gaming laptop can run Firestorm, I think it is not user friendly with the notification and the crashing everytime I try to tp anywhere. Time to delete my avi and move to Virtual Highways. They are still perfecting it, but at least they aren't going to abandon it.

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    2. Voff,I've been seriously thinking it's time to give up SL as well. The more LL adds or "fixes" the less usable it becomes. I think SL hit it's peak in summer of '07. Voice was in and actually worked, the world loaded fast, and crashes only happened occasionally. Now no one uses voice much anymore, it takes minutes for the world to load after TP, and to be honest I've never been a fan of the Disneyfication of SL and letting the kids in. Yeah, I think I'm done with SL. And I think LL is too. I'm convinced they want this pig to just die already so they can move on to more profitable things.

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  7. Thanks to everyone at the Phoenix Firestorm project for all of their hard work and giving us the best V3 viewer alternative to LL's viewer in place of Phoenix.

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  8. I wonder why the LL make a viewer where the interface is so closely related to the main rendering engine. Can't the interface be completely separate?
    With that said, I like the flexible UI of firestorm better than phoenix. V2 was horrible when it first came out. But the Firestorm of today is nothing like that. Let alone all the goodies that the newer viewers bring, such as handling multiple layers of transparency. Try walking in a forest with Phoenix and then with Firestorm and see what I mean.

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  9. June, it's also important to keep in mind that removing those chiclets is not a trivial task. The code comes from the LL viewer code base, and it just is not a simple task to remove them. In fact, the code necessary just to move them from top to bottom took significant jiggery pokery. But you are not alone in hating the chiclets (watch the video and hear Jess state that).

    Now if you're going to let "these miniature things at that corner" become such a show stopper that you will choose an alternative, you will find a list of viewers through http://www.secondlife.com/.

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  10. Virtualban Alex, you are far from the only one who can't believe that the viewer has the UI code so intertwined with everything else. That's a violation of basic good software engineering practice, and yet the viewer is now well over a million lines of code that can't be separated. It drives us nuts too.

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  11. Actually, Mister Acacia, it is a simple task and has already been done in the development repo.

    http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/phoenix-firestorm-lgpl/rev/abb8b2f384a4

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  12. Many will hate me, but haven't you been saying all along that LL is going to break V1 code server side and render v1 viewers obsolete unless they hacked or updated?

    Here is the I told you so moment. We all knew this was coming and I FULLY SUPPORT your decision to stop offering support on Phoenix. It was a good viewer in its day, but the time has come to re-energize, refocus that energy into a viewer that is worth continuing. From the ashes of Phoenix, rises the Firestorm!

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  13. The only thing, I will be missing, is OTR support.

    http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/FIRE-1349

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  14. I think there are really no reasons for people to stay in V1 viewers nowaday. I see that someone talks about little miniature in the top right corner and they neither know in Firestorm miniatures can be moved in the bottom right corner, others says firestorm voice doesn't work but i use it daily and works perfectly. When it seems to doesn't work just turn it on and off and it will work. This can happen being a separate process and this is good because you have not to relog if your voice crashes, just turn the process off and on again (or terminate it from Process Manager and then turn it on again from the viewer).
    I had experiences and chats with phoenix and singularity users and every reasons to use it or features they belive to have in their viewers and not in firestorm was just chimeras. I shown easily that firestorm has all the features phoenix had and they also can (for who is really "addicted" to the (forgive me) horrible phoenix's interface) switch to a interface that is similar to the ancient one. Firestorm has lot of new great features, often more than people knows, and often more than people usually needs.
    It is the most reliable and stable viewer since ages.
    It works perfectly in my midlevel PC, in multitask and i've been able to use Photoshop, Chrome, a media player to listen to music, and MSN messenger being online in SL with full shadows in high level graphic. If my dual core with 8GB ram and winshit 7 is able to do this.... i think everyone can do the same.
    Really, the only reason to continue using phoenix or singularity is laziness.
    I am happy finally firestorm staff realized it was time to abandone the boat to spend their time to work on the spaceship.

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    1. The problem with what you are saying is that though I personally have 8GB ram a quad core processor & windows 7 on my laptop not everyone has & will have issues running firestorm because of it...not everyone can afford to go buy a new laptop/pc just to keep up...I have tried firestorm on a couple of occassions & found it to be the worst viewer out there for secondlife, what with constantly being logged out if i try to tp, being unable to load past being a cloud & last time i did manage to load enough to change clothes there was no add option which is one of the things i really do love about Phoenix...I have tried Imprudence too which though its an easy viewer to use like phoenix again it has no add option for clothing etc...I will definitely NOT be using firestorm unless there are major improvements to it.

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  15. You have no idea how happy you've made me. This is long overdue. A lot of work will now go into one less viewer, and we'll see lots of cool stuff. Awesome.

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  16. You Should end the viewer with an even number, since it's close already to 1700.

    Make it look final , etc. You done a great job with fixing it up and everything, i use firestorm, but phoinex can be always a back up in any case possbile hehe.

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  17. I like both Phoenix and Firestorm, and for some reason this past weekend I absolutely could not log in using my Firestorm viewer. I still plan to use Phoenix as my backup.

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  18. Michael S.:

    If it were such an easy task, don't you think we would have incorporated it into the viewer much sooner than now? Thing is, it's not such an easy task. There's a lot of time and effort that goes into moving and removing something. Type something wrong, or cut corners, and you run the risk of breaking something that could be something major.

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  19. I loved the Phoenix Viewer back in the day, but technology moves on & if we want to get the best of it, we have to move along with it.

    I've been using Firestorm for about 2 years now, and even though I'm not keen a few features, I sure love all the options & control that The Phoenix Team has given us & with the support being cut off from Phoenix, the more the Team can concentrate on working on Firestorm which I think is great! :)

    Thank you Phoenix Team for making both Phoenix & Firestorm Viewers! I'm looking forward to seeing what's to come for Firestorm in the future. :)

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  20. Hmm ya know if firestorm actually gave me more then 3 fps with everything set to low. I'd use it... but 3fps well it doesn't work, so for me LL viewer is better(20+ fps). Phoenix is still the best(40+ fps). So have fun with your worthless firestorm, that only seems to like high powered quad core and above PCs. Welcome to the corporate stand point you guys, like me break it down for you "Pfft fuck the middle class users they can upgrade" <- that is your current standing.. have fun.

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    1. Ahaha, what an idiot. FS runs perfectly on my 5 year old core2 duo Intel chip and an 8800gs.

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    2. and 640 x 480 resolution lool, no anti alias, no anisitropic filter nothing. wow it must look like barf. ill sell u a pc 2x better for 50 bucks

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  21. @Laura Aastha Bondi17
    I guess you didn't read my comment, because you pass off usage of V1 as laziness. In my case it's lag and usability. Funny how people like to judge each other these days. I require a low lag viewer and V1 hits that mark due to not having to render a ton of viewer effects I don't need to see.

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  22. I'm glad you did a new Phoenix or Firestorm Hour. The topic covered regarding server side avatar baking is a big deal. People should hear about it and understand it. It is going to render viewers that can't do it useless. Firestorm will be able to do it.

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  23. Aaes, priorities of devs and the ease or difficulty of a tweak or fix are not always aligned. Some things are left unchanged for long periods of time in programs simply because some devs flat out don't care to change something or it simply hadn't crossed their minds. It is clear that you don't understand coding at all because if you did, you would have seen that the particular revision on a viewer coding level was child's play and you would have not gone off on a mini rant about ease or difficulty of developing or priorities.

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  24. Phoenix is the only way I can play sl on my computer everything else confuses me or doesn't work!

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    1. Well... the Firestorm people provide classes and an excellent Wiki. Plus, there are numerous videos about using SL and some specifically on Firestorm. So, there is no reason to remain confused.

      As to features not working, I have yet to find anything in Firestorm that doesn't work. Firestrom people provide a great in-world support group. Use it and learn.


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  25. The chiclets being tied to the right side of the screen only is my biggest complaint with Firestorm. add options to move them to the left side would be a big improvement.

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    1. Ben,dig around in Firestorm Preferences and you will find that chiclets and notifications can be moved to the bottom right.

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  26. Personally i do not mind it, I love Firestorm even if it took me a few days to get used to it, though sadly i do have to add, am not to happy with the current release. And i guess this is the largest issue over all, And am sure we get big answers like but this and that was added... But my biggest issue with current viewers from any branch or creator is the huge cost it utilizes (memory and CPU) versus what you get. Mean over all 5 years back or now, not really big changed, yes we got the nice sky and clouds, and yah we got mesh even though the clients already could do mesh as linden ground and avatars are made of it. As so thus here my points, the client is not doing really anything more yet uses like 50%~75% more on the computers. And seems every update we see, uses more while we visually see no change. But thats just my two cents, am sure this be a next thing tackled by the team to a wonder full and stable version. As lest face it, in end; We keep using it ^^

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  27. I think its been time for it and its a good thing to do that so Firestorm gets the attention it needs and for all who really want a v1 Style Viewer give Singularity a Try. I have not a super Gaming PC but Firestorm runs good for me. The current release has some issues but i think they will work hard to fix that.

    Firestorm is a very comfortable way to enjoy SL. A bit overloaded with Features but the point is if you ask everyone will see it different what you will need and what not.

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  28. I hope any of the folks who can't get their rig to run right with FS, or can't get comfortable with the UI find something suited. I am happy about this end to Phoenix though becauser of the few self centered whiners who have been filling the forum with their incessant accusations and demands as if the Devs were beholden to them in some way. Thank you Devs and all you other fine folk who have suported Firestorm. For those of you (aside from those who may be substantially disabled or otherwise hampered) who complain that you cant afford to upgrade your rig I say set 10 dollars a week aside for a year and you'd have 520 to do a little hot rodding to your gear. If you cant afford 10 dollars a week you might be better off finding a part time job rather than spending that time mucking about in SL and expecting everyone to slow the ship down for you.

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  29. In parts this has turned into sort of an “I want my money back!”-forum. Silly.

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  30. Does Microsoft still offer support for Windows 95, Mac still support G2? Things move on. It has been rather impressive that a bunch of volunteers in their free time have offered so much support both for the old phoenix project as well as their main current viewer

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  31. Kudos to the Firestrm team for finally burying Phoenix. It was fine in its day but we all have to move on. I'm lookin forward to next year and appreciate all the hard work The team does to make SL an enjoyable experience. As for the whiners, they can take a hike.

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  32. Those who think they can’t afford a computer which can handle Second Life’s current and upcoming requirements sufficiently well might wish to take a look at Ener Hax’s blog where she describes in detail how she has put together a low-cost PC all by herself last summer: http://iliveisl.com/pc-rebates-for-do-it-yourselfers/

    (Table of related posts at the bottom.)

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  33. Thank you Phoenix-Firestorm Team for giving back to community. Looking forward to use to Firestorm.

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  34. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  35. … *after taking a breath* … I’ve got shocked hearing the bad news in a clear voice, letting no doubt anymore where the journey is going. One more time it has become clear who dictates. Who else if not the Phoenix-Firestorm team with its huge fan community is able to stop them?

    I’m not talking about the server-based rebake solution in general. Such things should have been done years ago. I’m talking about its unconditional implementation that FORCES TO BREAK any V1 based viewer. Why not maintaining both options? (I leave the answer up to the reader?)

    Well, should I laugh or should I cry? Believe me, for me it’s time to leave Secondlife! It’s overdue! A big THANK YOU LINDEN LAB for making that decision easier. But after 5½ years it’s really a question how. I’ve got friends here. Like Jessica said, it’s much more than a game.

    So leaving within 2 months is not an option either! Giving up the sim? Drop any contribution? Stop spending money for this silly game? This is quite an interesting thought as I could buy a wonderful new computer if I had done so this year.

    Thinking about money… ouch, stupid I. Do I really want to drop that inventory, if there even isn’t a flea market where I can sell some of my stuff? In RL I can do so and move to where I want, either taking the things with me or selling them and using the money to reinvest in my home. Not here, where most of my things are non-transferable and can never be sold nor taken into another grid anyway.

    Well, there is not much left to say. For me, Phoenix, in its latest version before mesh support, was the best Secondlife viewer I ever had. I was a big fan of Emerald, but finally Phoenix got even better. After all, I still believe in the Phoenix-Firestorm team and I’m convinced that nobody can do it better and Firestorm becomes my next favorite from the first day I’ve got a new computer. But until that happens I need a lot of patience as things really get worse, sometimes from one week to the other.

    I promise, this was my last negative sounding comment in this blog for a long time and it’s time to thank Jessica as well as the Phoenix-Firestorm Development AND Support team for the great work they do. Jessica’s open words about volunteered Open Source development were quite impressive to me. We must have had similar dreams when we were children: the dream of staying in the middle of a circus with a bunch of Lyons, Tigers and black Panthers around! Jessica got that dream more than fulfilled. Keep up the good work!

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  36. Actually, Shy, there are good technical reasons for removing client-side baking from Second Life, from LL's viewpoint:

    1) This does away with bake fail. (At least, that's the idea, and the promise.) That's been an issue LL has fought for years, unsuccessfully; it may well be, given the limitations of the real world of networking, that this is the only possible solution that will actually work.
    2) It does away with temporary texture uploading. LL considers this an abuse of the system.
    3) It lets them remove code from the viewer. That lowers the bug rate...after all, code that's not there can't have bugs.
    4) It lowers the load on their support team.

    Making it mandatory makes perfect sense, looking at it from LL's viewpoint. Complain about it all you want, but it's going to happen.

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    1. It does, if I understand correctly, also reduce the ease with which copybots can copy clothing. There will always be ways around that I am sure but if the underlying textures are no longer sent to the client the copybots will have to rethink.

      If I am in any sense correct here then this is a big win for content creators.

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  37. @Shy Server side baking will break ALL viewers currently out. Any that don't release an update with the server side baking support code simply won't render AV's. It's entirely possible that A few of the V1 based TPV's will be able to hack that code in. As Jessica said during the office hour, probably Singularity and Cool VL will give that a go.

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  38. Thanks to the whole team behind Firestorm! You did, and do, a great job!
    May be now it is time to optimize Firestorm. :) What I mean is, not to bring in new features again and again and again. Of course this is more fun than optimizing. But things like streaming problems, notifications, reliable performance and so on should be addressed now.

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  39. June, you are not the only one who hates the top right hand corner notifications. And I've heard a lot of people say "Oh, you can make FS look just like Phoenix just use the Phoenix skin when you first sign in" I've done that and it looks nothing like Phoenix! I myself can't stand Firestorm. Things don't rez correctly for me and the search is FS sucks! I do realize that they have now implemented the search as "Legacy" or something in the new version of Firestorm but I really can't stand FS!!

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    1. A look at the preferences tab “User Interface” would have taught you that you can uncheck the option to show group notices at the top right. Seems you didn’t care to take that look. Seems as well you are of the RTFM type. It is just as well that you can’t stand Firestorm and won’t, as I shrewdly suspect, use it. The Firestorm support will appreciate that, no doubt.

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  40. Raymond, I assure you I am not a noob and know my way around a viewer. I've been through the settings of FS and yep, still hate it.

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  41. I really enjoy Firestorm, I been on it since it was Beta and have never been disappointed with it actually. I always sat patiently when the bugs had to be fixed but didn't find it annoying just something to work through. I was using mesh with Firestorm before it was fashionable. I did use Emerald, and Phoenix at one time but I wouldn't go back cause I have a viewer that I have customized for myself, and could use it blindfolded. Keep up the good work FS team :)

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  42. @Tonya & Karl: You are both right and I know it. I even understand the reasons.

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  43. It costs to get used!
    I did tried several times and ended returning to good old pre mesh phoenix, even when mesh was all around!
    But i did 1 big move, i just choose to go for a completly new interface that was easy to understand for some so used to the v1 gui!
    Yes i have the hardware to run it, so i moved to the best graphics viewer avaiable and cant regret it:)
    But to bad its not firestorm, not for me but for so many that are not seing the world as i do:)
    Check Niran, make sure you can run it and move on,thats the future!

    ReplyDelete
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    1. NiranV's viewer is great if you have a really good cpu and video card; check his blog for recommended hardware before you try his viewer. And if you report an issue on his viewer do NOT expect the kind of sympathy and assistance you get from the Firestorm devs lol

      Delete
  44. a. No one hates a viewer, they hate having to learn a new viewer. Maybe now you'll have a little more sympathy for your (grand)children when they struggle with something new.
    b. No one is leaving SL because of a viewer change. Everyone said the same thing when Emerald was banned and again when V1 debuted, but lo-and-behold SLife goes on.
    c. No one viewer is best at everything. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Find one you like (or dislike the least) and move on.
    d. No V1 viewer will continue indefinitely ... in fact not for very much longer regardless the assurances from a Dev. SL improvements will keep coming and there are hard limits to what can be successfully shoe-horned into ANY piece of software. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shyte.
    e. Someday (in the not too too distant future) there will be a V4 viewer and after that a V5 viewer.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Imagine if there were still people out there who still wanted to keep using those gigantic cell phones from the 80's (yanno, when the technology was first introduced?) It would be ridiculous. Phoenix and all V1 based viewers are no different thank ancient, out-of-date cellphones. Either keep up with the technology, or you will get left behind. The Firestorm team volunteer their own free time so we all can have a better Second Life experience. The only thing anyone accomplishes by abusing, name calling the staff is shine a huge light on their own asshole-isness and announce to the world how truly stupid and ignorant they are.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Except that the new viewers have gotten bigger like the giant old cell phones...

      Delete
  46. Phoenix was a remarkable accomplishment; you should all be very proud of a job well done. It was clearly and quite remarkably better than the all the LL viewers I tried. Congrads and thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Until I figure out why Firestorm only gives me 5 fps at best, when I get 50-100 fps with Phoenix 1691 with the same sim and scene, I will be forced to stay with Phoenix or another v1 viewer. At least in the SL viewer I can get 15 fps - why is Firestorm worse than SL3 and Phoenix?

    Oh yea, AMD Phenom II 3.6 Ghz 4-core, EVGA GTX550ti w/2GB video memory, MSI gaming board less than 1 year old etc - don't tell me to upgrade my system! Latest NVidia drivers too.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It might help to compare settings between the LL viewer and Firestorm. Obviously something is dragging down your fps because I get comparable fps across all viewers when I make sure settings are pretty equal.

      Delete
    2. Yeah... You noticed that too? FS is slow to resolve and tp fails etc etc. I have switched to PH1185 just to tp away on more than one occasion.
      Also I dislike, when I make skins and shapes, how it changes the items in the current outfit when I only want to add the item to inventory. It so difficult to change items in outfits. Not user friendly for making shapes and skins.

      Delete
  48. Support ended December 15, 2012, as you can see here:
    http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/PHOE

    Close unresolved issues and forget them even they still exists in Firestorm.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When I read through the Jira I see few issues that are obviously a problem with the viewer. Most issues look like the user needs to adjust their settings, move from wifi to ethernet, or doesn't have the computing power to run the viewer. No one can make a viewer that fixes those problems.

      Delete
  49. @Shamu

    There is something strange going on in your system, you really should be able to run Firestorm well with your rig. For comparison I have:

    CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz (3411.14 MHz)
    Memory: 8169 MB
    OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
    Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
    Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 560 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
    Windows Graphics Driver Version: 9.18.0013.0697

    With high graphics settings I get very good fps in the latest Firestorm. I cannot see much difference between the latest Phoenix and the latest Firestorm in performance.

    For Firestorm team: You guys you are doing amazing job. The decision to stop developing Phoenix was a very good sensible decision. Thank you from a very happy user.

    ReplyDelete
  50. @Shamu: it's seems to be something that is out of control.

    In my case V1 based viewers like Phoenix and Singularity perform about the same and the V3 based Firestorm and Linden Lab viewer perform about the same.

    Under normal conditions my fps is about twice as much for V1 viewers compared to V3 viewers.

    In the sky or under water (e.g. Hahne) Firestorm is faster than any other on my computer, but under laggy conditions of almost any kind my fps with Firestorm drops to death. Well there is nothing to do, that's the way of life.

    If you really experience such big differences I'd suggest to file the issue in the jira.

    ReplyDelete
  51. @shy Jiras for Phoenix and Firestorm are two different jiras. You never could just file one for the same issue in both. If it's an issue in Firestorm, file a Firestorm jira.

    ReplyDelete
  52. If this info helps anybody I have been using FS since the first release and have had various incarnations run smoothly or with difficulty. Each time I ran into troubles I could usually get to bearable operability by trying a few different versions of my graphics driver. My set up was built for $550 including the OEM win 7 using existing hard drives : 1 x MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
    1 x G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBNQ
    1 x AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Callisto 3.2GHz Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Desktop Processor - C3 Revision HDZ555WFGMBOX
    1 x EVGA 01G-P3-1464-KR GeForce GTX 560 SE (Fermi) 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support
    1 x Antec earthwatts EA500 500W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.2 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC "Compatible with Core i7/Core ...
    1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM
    With this set up I am currently standing in the Adult Safe Hub @ Arapaima and after standing there for 3 mins letting all the garbage flying about rez I am currently getting 17 fps plus amidst the particle deluge and My graphics are running Ultra. I normally get 28-45 fps in a normal environment
    Try working with your graphics drivers and trying different tweaks to your settings. You may be having difficulties due to one or two graphics feature settings that may not even be important to you. I do a lot of photography so please understand I am not getting these numbers while being indifferent to the graphics quality. Since the latest FS release I have not crashed once inworld.

    Bon chance,

    Georgie T

    ReplyDelete
  53. Thanks to Jessica and the team for all they have done. For the rest of you reading this, I am asking you to step out of the box (or the viewer) for a moment and look at the bigger picture. In rl I am a rf engineer and 25 years ago I remember a conversation between some coworkers and I about this new “world wide web” and we were looking at ways to make old cable tv systems work using something new called “broadband”. At that time those that could afford it were using a phone cradle modem to get online and web speeds were in the dirt, barely a fraction of what we have today, back when you could cook a meal waiting for the loading of one email to the next

    Today the world web grid is straining to its antique capacity which creates a lot of the problems viewers, Linden Labs and other things get blamed for. The bottom line is this—as the hardware has to evolve, so does the code, and the way we do things now will be outdated just as phone cradle modems became ethernet modems, routers and wireless, as we speak there are whole towns testing all fiber based grids.

    The benefits are numerous as metal corrodes and is a problem in weather—fiber does not and don’t care if its underwater. Antique web systems will be upgrading heavily over this decade and the hardware we see today like “broadband cable modems” will be a thing of the past soon, just as it was with cradle phone modems and so on.

    Likewise when SL was first launched, it was the only thing of its kind. As I write this there are now 80+ virtual worlds and Google and Microsoft have virtual worlds of their own in development. They will be based built on newer hardware and not have some of the v1 code trappings we have to deal with. This will also add to the bandwidth burden the web shares. Hopefully your starting to see the picture.

    As older systems age and are replaced by newer ones , the software HAS to change and the reverse compatibility HAS to be left behind in order to improve things. By this time next year most of the v1 code will be gone and things that run on v1 code won’t work AT ALL anymore so keeping a viewer around as a backup will be nothing more than an icon on your desktop as it will not run.

    In order for SL to remain competitive and change with the hardware, the Lindens will have to advance with the times just as within this decade you will be dealing with fiber based routers and modems and most of what we are buying for Christmas today will be out of use by 2020.

    So for those of you running your millennium based XP upgraded machines clinging to your v1 viewer for dear life, the bug on the sim may be you and your computer that the Firestorm team had to spend weeks writing reverse compatibility code for. I will miss Phoenix as it was the first viewer I ever knew, but in order for the world we know as SL to survive, it must adapt. Start saving your pennies now. This year alone will bring huge changes, not only to SL, but to the web as well as new equipment evolves and old systems are upgraded.

    The longer we try to hang on to the old, the longer and more unstable it will be and the longer it will take to progress forward. I am still getting used to firestorm myself and like any viewer, upgrades require bugs to be worked out—at least we know this team will stick to task and make it right. The rest like corner chiclets and all that rot is cosmetic- it has to be able to run first.

    Hats off to the team, and to the future.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Word of truth! Well said.

      Delete
    2. Yes. Well said. Very. Thank you!

      (Some people will keep having fits like a five-year-old at the supermarket. For not getting the candy. Oh well...)

      Delete
  54. To John Stevens,

    Thank you for your great explanation of why people must transition to a newer viewer. Up until last week, I was a die-hard Phoenix user, for my own reasons. I tried Firestorm on multiple occasional, but in all honesty, it didn't offer anything that enhanced my roleplay in SL. Maybe it does for others, but to me, all the super wiz-bang stuff is more than I need, and Firestorm crashes my laptop hard, sometimes for several hours. While another user well above you posted that only lazy people continue to use Phoenix, and that if her computer can handle Firestorm, so, shouldn't everyone elses... (paraphrased in my own words), well, one size does not fit all in how we use our computers (multi-tasking) or what we do in SL. I do appreciate you taking the time to explain how things have to move on, without making us diehard Phoenix fans, who are trying to make the transition to Firestorm, feel stupid or lazy.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Everyone knew Phoenix wasn't going to last forever and the devs have done an outstanding job and gone far above and beyond in keeping it going as long as they have. Remember, Phoenix wasn't even supposed to survive the mesh rollout. Any complaints against Phoenix-Firestorm devs are absurd as they are doing fantastic work with LL tying one hand behind their backs with their codebase. I chose to get onboard with the first FS beta, knowing it was only a matter of time and now I would never switch back to plain old vanilla Phoenix. And my 4 yr old Office Depot PC handles FS just fine. Most complaints I've heard so far can be solved with viewer settings that already exist.

    Stop complaining. You could be stuck with the SL Viewer y'know.

    ReplyDelete
  56. You foxed what was never broke. You went along with LL and bought what they were selling. I like Phoenix, it does what i want it to do. I am not a fan of firestorm and never will be. You can make it look like Phoenix all you want but it isn't.

    I am really disappointed that you chose to do end support.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We didn't so much choose to end support as LL chose to implement serverside baking. Remember when we told you that putting mesh in phoenix was like putting an 9 liter diesel in a vw bug? Well, what we now would have to do would amount to changing all what is left of the old vw bug except for the turnkey.

      We won't do that. Our developers (bless them) are volunteers. Phoenix is open source. Want to keep it so much? Learn to code and use it as a base for your own viewer.

      Delete
  57. Hi i'm a skin creator since 5 years and with Firestorm or Linden Viewer is very very very IMPOSSIBLE to make skins fast, bc the new APPEARANCE in the new V3 based viewers is VERY BUT VERY BAD!!!

    Please at least put the old apperance in the firestorm!!
    thanks

    ReplyDelete
  58. As someone that is visually handicapped I have written time and again about the "newer viewers." Those tiny icons aren't just annoying they are to small, the viewer's skins are mostly dark and my eyes can not handle that. I've tried firestorm and keep trying but then there is the way search is setup and the groups. I'm sorry but these viewers are not good for those of us dealing with visual issues. Then we can add the fact that trying to have other applications open at the same time on a Brand New Gaming Computer makes things freeze and crash.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Yo. Hire more people..Or sell the viewer to someone who cares. You said that mesh couldnt be integrated into a V1 Viewer..and look, it was. Dont say its impossible to upgrade a V1 viewer with these new changes LL will be doing, cause while your saying that...other viewers are going to be making those upgrades
    You think you have these tons of people that p[refer to use Firestorm....wait until 1/2 or more of your users moves to other viewers that care what their users want

    ReplyDelete
  60. Thanks for keeping us updated, Jessica.
    A word of encouragement to all the Phoenix diehards out there: I too thought I could never be weaned from Phoenix. I tried Firestorm; hated it, and ran sobbing back to the sanctuary of Phoenix. But with the last few releases of FS, I have become a total convert. I LOVE FS.
    @June - you don't have to have IMs etc in the top right - I hated that too. In FS go into Prefs> User Interface>General and uncheck "Group Notices and Chiclets in Top Right".

    ReplyDelete
  61. @the Phoenix-Firestorm team: Thanks so much!

    I resisted the change when V2 went out, however i saw immediately that the change was unavoidable. So i just man up and early adopted firestorm. I'm so used to it I would ever go back to phoenix again.
    I left SL some months ago, now I use it on Open Grid, where it works very very well.
    Thanks so much for the effort and the time you dedicate to this, I greatly appreciate it.

    @Jason Dickey: Hire more people? which part of volunteer, unpaid people you didn't get?
    Sell it? which part of it's open source so you can get a copy and modify it as you wish you didn't get? Did you even listen to the office hour?
    Or are you just trolling?

    If you find this so offensive, get your copy of Phoenix and code all the new features yourself.

    Yo.

    ReplyDelete
  62. @ Aaack. No I am not trolling and volunteer or not, you have to hire people. Are you telling me that they cannot find anyone to volunteer to work on phoenix? i would like to see Jessica say so. As for myself, I am not a programmer and would not know the first thing to do, but there are plenty of people in sl that are, that can and would love to.

    As for the sell it part. There are other viewers that have used the code...but phonix team owns the name....if your not willign to get people to work on it, then give the whole thing to someone who is and will...name and all

    ReplyDelete
  63. I guess many people will just switch to Singularity, that's it. Because the Phoenix don't care so much of the customers, they care of themselves like linden lab does.
    Why to doing Phoenix Viewer, if you give up and let everyone on the mess rofl.

    ReplyDelete
  64. @ Jason
    No, there are NOT plenty of people in SL (or even outside of SL) with the necessary programming skills to back-port new features into Phoneix FOR FREE. That's why there are so few TPVs.

    @ Stephanie
    Users of Phoenix are NOT customers ... they haven't "bought" anything. They got a viewer for free.

    ReplyDelete
  65. I use the phoenix v1 viewer because firestorm crashes on me. There's way too much going on with it. I use a laptop that's almost 3 years old and firestorm is too clunky and uses way too many resources for my taste.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have friends that say the same thing.. I have a powerful desk top and it obvious that PH runs faster than FS by a good bit. I really think it is partly a server side issue. I agree that newer Mesh enabled viewers are resource hogs..

      Delete
  66. @ Cincia, since, as far as i know, you do not work for Jessica Lyon or LL, lets hear her say that...publically.

    2nd. You dont have to buy to be a customer..and if that word offends you, lets change it to users. and if your a viewer without any users...or dont care about your users...your not much of a viewer at all

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @ Jason:

      Customers or not misses the point completely. Entities like the Phoenix Project, be they open source or commercial, are legally under no obligation to contract. Which means they can refuse to give you their goods if they don't want your business. Doesn’t matter what you want. Legally.

      Delete
  67. If you would just put OTR Chat in Firestorm, everyone would get off your back and start using it. Come on... Really!

    ReplyDelete
  68. @ Jason Dickey

    I said everything that needs to be said during the Office Hour, which you obviously haven't bothered to watch, for if you had you wouldn't be saying the things you have said. You’re making a fool out of yourself here.

    Furthermore, the Phoenix viewer code is opensource, available and has been since day one. ANYONE can come along and grab that source code and create their own version of Phoenix, they can just rename it. They would stand to gain a LOT of users, so there is certainly plenty of motive by your way of thinking. But do notice that NO ONE has done this, not in the two years Phoenix has been going, not in the year and a half that we have been stating loudly and visibly that Phoenix has a shelf life and will end, NO ONE has forked it. Do you know why? Because keeping it going with upstream changes is more work than it is worth. As stated in the Office hour.. ALL our time would be spent just trying to keep Phoenix compatible and dealing with all the epic bugs showing up as a result of incompatibility. Phoenix would become a horribly buggy viewer. That is not in our interest or yours.

    Notice that out of ALL the third party viewers out there, only TWO are V1 based and planning to try to maintain. Two Jason... there is a reason for that.

    Also, there is no 'Hiring' of developers here. This is a volunteer outfit, developers interested in working for this project come to me and if they are suitable I bring them on the team. By the way, you're welcome for having provided you Phoenix viewer for the last 2 years free of charge. There are very few viewer developers left in SL who are not already tied up in V2/3 TPV projects already. I do have one or two very good developers who would love to keep Phoenix going, but even they know it's more work than it is worth.

    To your statement about more than half of our users will leave and go to another viewer. Well actually 70% of our users are now happily on Firestorm. Phoenix usage is dropping very quickly. Furthermore, If folks are happier on another viewer I encourage them to use another viewer. We do not gain anything by having you as a user Jason. Please… go use something else… no really.. please!

    Anyway, watch the Office Hour video. You do not have the right to complain until you understand the reasons behind the decision, period. Watch the office hour recording, then come back and complain. Then come back and argue the logic behind the decision.


    Thanks and have a very Merry Christmas!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I picked up the code via Tortoise HG. As soon as I am able to gather programmers who know what they're doing, Phoenix Viewer will rise again under a different name. And unlike you, we won't lie to our users or dismiss their problems with the unworkable user interface or the many glitches and bugs by telling them to get new computers.

      Oh, and people have every right to complain about whatever they want. It's you who doesn't have the right to dictate what people can and cannot express.

      Delete
    2. My answer to this is far too long to fit here. Check it out at http://secondden.blogspot.com/2013/01/go-ahead-fork-phoenix.html .

      Delete
  69. Something we should all keep in mind, viewer development is a work in progress. In some ways Firestorm will always be a beta viewer because it gets massive improvements on each release. We're not done developing the viewer, not by a long shot.

    Those of you who don't like the chiclets, I can tell you that they will be made optional in an upcoming release. Don't like how inventory and group and other type panels open up? That too will be an option. Don't like that you have to remove something from the blacklist to re-render it? Temporary is going to be an option.

    The developers really do listen to their users, they add features as they can. Certainly the ones that can be coded fairly easy get done first, but even the more complex, like import/export, is being actively developed and has had considerable progress as of this writing. That means our developers will be able to code in other features, like default build textures instead of plywood.

    The way to let developers know what you want is to added it to the official wish list. Mentioning it here or at a class or in the support group will do nothing. Go to http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/ and see if what you want is already requested. If not, create a feature request. If you're halfway decent at coding, whether it's html, xml or C, and you want to push this feature through, by all means create a patch and contribute it to the viewer.

    The bottom line here is that our developers do what they do because they enjoy doing it. They're volunteers, contributing their personal time to Firestorm. They aren't paid, except in the praise they get from users, and trust me the support team DOES pass on your compliments from the group.

    It would be wonderful if there was a program that would do the expected job and work on every computer, new and old, but the reality is quite different, and it's not limited to any one industry: Analog TVs, rotary phones, VHS players, record players, analog cell phones ... these things can't work in today's state of the art without some help, and some not at all. Your computer, if it's old, is kind of like that rotary phone. It will work, but you can't "Press 1 for English". Your computer will work, but it won't have the horsepower necessary to do all that is required of our viewer.

    So you have a choice: Use software that does work, and suffer the lack of "official" support and development (at least until and unless someone else picks it up), or upgrade. Savings accounts may not pay much at all in interest, but they do provide a way of putting your pennies aside for use later, like when you need to upgrade your computer.

    ReplyDelete
  70. For those singing the praises of Firestorm and how great it is. What about those poor souls that for no fault of their own, can not run Firestorm. They either don't have the speed or the ram to do so. They can't afford to upgrade.

    They will be tossed to the wayside and they will have to endure the lag that they get from firestorm. No one thought of that now did they.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please come off of it! All 3-D computer-games are quite demanding what with the hardware. This is even more so with a dynamic platform like Second Life.

      If your hardware doesn’t meet the minimum requirements, you have exactly two appropriate options: Upgrade your hardware or quit Second Life.

      And, let’s face it: The possibility to play Second Life totally for free is already a bonus which should be strongly appreciated. Keep in mind that we are neither being pestered by ads here nor does Linden Lab sell our data, at least as to my knowledge. And, as we are on a TPV forum here, all TPVs offer you alternatives to Linden Lab’s free Second Life Viewer at no cost. This, too, should be strongly appreciated.

      Delete
  71. @ Cincia
    Users of Phoenix are NOT customers ... they haven't "bought" anything. They got a viewer for free.

    Really, I'm a client, so it's the same dude.

    By the way, I am ready to pay to get something stable.
    Actually NONE viewer are good.
    I regret the time of Emerald team.
    And why to let Phoenix in download, this viewer is a big crap now, to crash all times, with a tons of bugs. To made the people to being stressful and mad ?

    Like everyone say, Without users Phoenix or Firestorm is nothing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Far as I recall Firestorm has about 300,000 users. If a couple of thousands of Second Life residents can’t run it, then, sorry, this really doesn’t matter. Firestorm seems to be running fine on a lot of hard- and software configurations. Good enough.

      Delete
  72. You count the people forced to migrated on Firestorm. And what "work" mean to you ? To open a software ?
    I'm sorry, but I run on a Mac Pro Quad Core, and every viewer should work fine on my computer lol
    That doesn't matter if 300 K of user open it.
    How many has open it, and has give up, you have counted that, on your statistic ? :)

    And Happy Xmas

    ReplyDelete
  73. I’m on a Mac Pro early 2008 (3,1), Mac OS X 10.8.2. No issues.

    ReplyDelete
  74. @Pyscho Puppy I'm sure there was thought given to those in your situation, but neither LL or the Phoenix team can hold back the march of progress forever. I'm using a 4 year old system and the only thing I've done to it was upgrade the video card which cost around $40. It runs SL just fine. Seriously, SL takes far less of a system to run decently than many other current 3d games. You will likely have two other v1 based viewers to choose from once server side baking is rolled out. Maybe one of those will work for you.

    ReplyDelete
  75. Shame, tho since SL has turned into a bot loaded spamfest then i can understand wanting to do less work towards this dying game.

    Would the dev team not be better just abandoning SL all together and put their minds towards something that isnt on its last legs?

    All these new changes in the new year have came too late and main (potential revenue generating) audience has been and gone.

    All thats left now is a barren wasteland of empty sims and a few holders on not willing to jump from a sinking ship.

    ReplyDelete
  76. You know.. I have read all the comments here.. And it's good to see everyone so passionate.. But to everyone asking us to abandon V1 please stop... We need a lightweight viewer without all the bells and whistles period... If that is too much for you to understand or accept then there is no way for me to make you understand, just accept it and enjoy your v3 viewer.

    Firestorm is slow, bloated and on most standard rigs a resource hog (like some of the other v3 viewers out there). So what to do? Abandon SL?

    We may be hanging on as some have said to a empty dying game.. But I still enjoy it after all this time.. to each his own..

    I'll stick to phoenix until such time as it isn't possible to do so anymore.

    It is just a shame that they have decided to abandon us along with the viewer...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What are you trying to do here? Force a guilt complex down someone’s throat? Won’t work. Insolence never does.

      Btw, a “standard rig”, as you so shrewdly call it, is mainly meant to let you run office applications and browse the net. That’s it. If you can’t keep your equipment up-to-date in order to run current software, you can’t. Don’t blame anybody else.

      Delete
    2. Well, there is always Singularity and Cool VL Viewer if you like stable viewers with higher frame rates and working uder interfaces you don't have to spend hours of class time trying to learn. Like it or not, the Viewer 1 user interface was always much more intuitive than Viewer 2 and Viewer 3, and the Firestorm peeps made a huge mistake by lying to peeps about how and why Phoenix was going away. It was never Linden Lab's intention to pull the plug on Phoenix and other viewers that use the Viewer 1 interface, it was always the Firestorm devs' decision to make and now they have made it.

      Give Singularity and Cool VL Viewer a try, see what they do for you. I was able to get the code for Phoenix and I plan to gather programmers who know what they are doing to help me revive it under a different name.

      Delete
    3. I have today given Singularity and Cool VL both a try both only run a couple of minutes or so and my Nvidia GT320 graphic card crashes.
      "Nvidia Open GL driver lost connection with display driver due to exceeding Windows time-out limit"
      " Error code 7"
      Never had that before with any Viewer, so I'm going to have a better replacement for Phoenix.
      Before the crashes I did note a lot less FPS than Phoenix about 25% of Phoenix.

      Delete
  77. I actually would be willing to pay for Phoenix if it was maintained. I have a good computer and have no problems running firestorm, but no matter how much you try to make it look and feel like phoenix, it is still nothing like it. So yes..keep updating Phoenix, charge me, and ill still be happier then using firestorm or LL's V2 or 3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Open-source coding is about attitude, not about money. As far as I understand, the Phoenix Firestorm Project does not even accept donations (which I would be gladly willing to make).

      If you want a V1-based Third Party Viewer, you'll be certainly better off if you’ll turn to Cool VL or Singularity and let them know what you wish to see in their viewers. As far as I learned, they say they will keep their projects up and running, and I trust that they have what it takes to achieve their aims. Which is something I do very much appreciate. I’m all for options and alternatives by way of principle.

      This has nothing to do with Firestorm being my viewer of choice.

      Delete
    2. If you want to pay, then there is nothing stopping you from paying someone to import the phoenix features you need into an existing V1 viewer as Raymond suggests. You could even setup a kickstarter project to fund a V1 based implementation of server side baking and other features that can be re-used in any V1 based viewer.

      Delete
  78. Raymond do these 2 viewers you recomend handle people wearing mess clothes ok?
    Also do they show when Spacenavigator is in Flycam mode?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don’t recommend them in the sense of an evaluation for the simple reason that I haven’t done any. But they have a sound reputation both, as to my knowledge. Cool VL and Singularity are the two V1-based viewers I know of their makers say they will continue working on. For detailed information on their offerings, please consult their respective sites:

      http://sldev.free.fr/
      http://www.singularityviewer.org/

      Delete
    2. Cool and Singularity definitely support mesh. I can't vouch for SpaceNav. But neither as far as I can tell have any update on how they plan to support server side rendering. As per the various Linden Lab updates and the blog the was linked to from this post, the implementation of server side baking requires "scary re-architecting" of the viewer code. That is developer speak for serous amounts of changes. For a V2 based viewer this is not quite so scary, they share a common base to the Lab. It is a case of taking the new features and interleaving them with all the value add stuff that the TPV developers have contributed.

      For V1 however, its a whole other story. The V1 viewer will need to implement the new features pretty much from the ground up. This is not impossible by any means but it is a serious amount of work for an ever diminishing user base. The fact that the viewers are open source is their strength and I would not put it beyond the realm of possibility that someone out there is beavering away as I type....For all those who cling to V1, I certainly hope so cos in about 6 weeks time your SL experience will begin to crumble without it.

      Delete
  79. I'd be happy to use Firestorm if I could but on my few months old $4000 Retina Macbook Pro it simply doesnt work for me. I have no friends but worse no groups which renders it useless, nor music or voice. Yes I have changed the DNS to Google.

    Others on this machine seem to have no problems so I guess I'll have to try in these last few days to solve mine.

    ReplyDelete
  80. Singularity is pretty stable now.
    Firestorm, ok nice, but I won't spend 1 hour to find 1 button, or to have a tons of stuff I don't use, to suck my processors as well for nothing.
    Firestorm is just a viewers full of gadgets.
    I don't got it, tons of peep has choose to being on Phoenix because SL was complicated to use, to why, Firestorm Team do the same BS ?
    The V3 viewer is simply AWFUL lol
    I can't imagine a new user, to use that. They will just give up.
    And for Raymond Martinek what do you wish, to have comments of nice things only, ? Then if they won't having bad feedbacks, they should close the comments, that's all.
    I think Firestorm, should think to a viewer, for everyone, and not the programmers only.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. No. Jessica Lyon has explained in a comprehensible way and in detail why the Phoenix Project will discontinue the support and development of Phoenix, why they will focus on Firestorm, and why this decision is final.

      Angry comments are in so far out of line as Phoenix and Firestorm are open-source viewers and thus free for everyone to use. But the team doesn’t owe anybody anything beside what they are doing anyway: sharing feature-rich, malware-free software with as few bugs as possible and providing great support.

      I think I owe them some gratitude and respect in return. They get them both.

      Delete
  81. After promising this 1-2 years ago, I am glad to see that action is finally being taken. Firestorm is every bit as good as Phoenix and there is NO reason anyone should be using Phoenix any longer.
    If Firestorm runs too slow on your machine, it is time to upgrade. And if you can't afford to, then maybe it is time for another hobby. I hear Chess on Yahoo games is free.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alex strange you are glad to see Phoenix to be unsupported when you use Firestorm and the Phoenix does not effect you.
      I have a good computer and Firestorm does run slower than Phoenix, not slow but slower, so it not that perfect.
      As I have said before the main reason I not like Firestorm is the silly small Notifications in the top right corner which if I see them I have to click to read.
      The Team might at some piont address these two pionts of mine of really make Firestorm equal to Phoenix, untill such time as Phoenix breaks down I will continue.
      Then I will use Singularity which does the Mesh and my SpaceNavigator correctly, or one of the other alternatives.

      Delete
    2. Just because you are rich Alex does not mean you should cut others down ... you like it and that is great but we don't have to because you do -----

      i have used both and find the ease of use much better with phoenix and will find another viewer that is supported -- and not such a pain to use
      just a girl from texas

      Delete
    3. @June

      "Silly small notifications", aka chiclets WILL be removable in the next release. Only two icons will remain - notifications envelope and small "cloud", IM counter. Like this: http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/FIRE-2371 - look at the screen.

      About the speed... Firestorm team is doing anything is possible to make the viewer run faster, but you can't compare apples to oranges. Different rendering engines, different functionality. Miracles are not possible. I was running Firestorm on fairly old machine (bought in 2005), it was not high end (Celeron 2,4 + 2GB RAM, old GF video card with 256 MB memory) and on mid details it was about 15 FPS. Fine enough for me. Now I'm running on one year old laptop, again no high-end (Lenovo Z570, version with 4GB RAM, if you're interested) and on high details I have ~50 FPS without Lightining and Shadows. I was saving for it for all these years, not buying not needed stuff and working in job, I'm not a rich person.

      Delete
  82. I keep wondering why I have hardly any issues with Firestorm on my Mac Pro early 2008 which I bought in February of that year. Okay, I’ve replaced the graphics card by an ATI HD 5870, but that isn’t top-notch, either.

    By the way: I’ve just compared the performance of Phoenix 1185 against the current Firestorm release. There is a difference in FPS, but a moderate one. Not enough to make me grumpy.

    ReplyDelete
  83. you can paint it however you wish but i have used both and i hate firestorm it is a pain to keep moving things - i have used phoenix a long time and i used firestorm for quite a while .... so your decision to stop supporting phoenix will cause me to find another view all together ... i am sorry too because i was totally happy and now i will have to look elsewhere, so paint it how you wish but i have used both and don't like firestorm - you made your choice and i made mine and i will take my friends with me.... thanks for listening

    ReplyDelete
  84. Well, knew this was coming but sorry to hear it anyway. Phoenix is a great viewer (I have been dabbling in Firestorm, but Phoenix is still my favourite!)

    Thanks for making such a great tool for us.

    ReplyDelete
  85. I have to agree. I hate the firestorm veiwer as well. its all waaaay more complicated then the phoenix veiwer and just a big pain in the but really. I'm not going to use it because i like thing simple and easy to understand. and not the 'oh you have to go here and here and here and here' bull... because after the forth here I'm already like @_@ type it out for me please No thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Will always hate Viewer 2.
    I grown to the simplisitie of the viewer 1.
    The UI of viewer 2 is a pain , even when using the Viewer 1 layout its still not as good.

    Browsing and searching is like having adds spam on my face.

    Viewer 2 can die in a fire. (firestorm)

    ReplyDelete
  87. @Pantera
    That will be awesome! No line of mini-icons when I know full well who is open on my IM tabs.

    ReplyDelete
  88. Why can’t the Phoenix afficionados just say “Bummer that the life-cycle of Phoenix is going to end. Thank you very much for the ride! I’ve enjoyed it. As I can’t warm up to Firestorm, I’m going to have a look at Cool VL and Singularity”.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is what we will be forced to do it seems.
      Of course if changes are made to Firestorm and to get them we did not have to uninstall it first and reinstall and try to rememember all the changes to Prefferences we had made that would help.
      I got Singularity yesterday and probably will get Cool later, so I ready for when Phoenix is switched off can switch to Sinularity.

      Delete
  89. DOES THE WORDS "GO TO THE CLASSES FOR FIRESTORM" MEAN ANYTHING TO PPL. IT IS ADVERTISED IN THE SUPPORT GROUP ALL THE TIME OR CHECK THE WIKI FOR TIMES OF CLASSES. THEY EXPLAIN EVERYTHING AND HAVE CLASS NOTES FOR PPL. JEEEZZZ PPL IF LOSING A V1 VIEWER IS UR MAJOR COMPLAINT MAYBE U NEED A LIFE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not deaf, no need to shout.
      Well not had to go to a class on any other viewer but of course asked the odd question or two along the way. Of course I'm only a player/user of a viewer to "play the game", I do not make or build things.

      Delete
    2. Why should people have to take hours' worth of classes just to learn how to use a viewer? That's stupid and asking peeps to do things they really should not have to do. People take to products that are easy to use and that work well. When they can't figure it out and the thing keeps crashing, they look elsewhere. The elitist attitude taken by Firestorm devs and supporters are a major contributor to the attitudes you are complaining about.

      Delete
    3. People don't, of course, have to take any classes simply to use Firestorm (or Phoenix or any other viewer). The classes are there, as they were for Phoenix, if you want them. The fact that LL, or Exodus or Niran, don't feel the need to offer classes in how to use their viewers doesn't, to my mind, necessarily prove that those viewers must be particularly easy to use.

      Generally, I think, the classes are most useful for people who want to explore features of Firestorm that are interesting and useful but by no means necessary to use it (contact lists, for example -- I don't really understand how they work, but I don't use them, so it's not an issue, and if I could be bothered to attend a class, I would know how they worked).

      For what it's worth, most people I know who've switched to Firestorm from Phoenix have found it remarkably simple (particularly if they use the Phoenix skin for Firestorm). Usually they have a few questions about, "where's such and such moved to?" but that's about all there is to it.

      Delete
  90. firestorm is not that hard to figure out, ill admit, the only reason i didnt use it when it first came out is because i like pheonix the way it was, same reason i liked the emerald viewer, however i have grown into likeing fire storm, it is easy and simple to use the more you use it..so really all it takes to learn the viewer is to sit down and actually go thru it.

    ReplyDelete
  91. Most older people dont want fancy Ui's and complex and useless fancy popup windows.

    Just like my ma&grandma stick with what works, simplisity is what people want.

    Not the Ooh's aah's so pretty and stuffs, and several unbearable popup notices.

    Keep it simpel, thats what most people want, techjunkies and the newage teenager like evrything complex.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Yep. I still want to use the Firestorm viewer, but am stuck with a low performing machine. Definitely I am working on getting a newer, more updated machine as soon as I can get it. Thx so much guys :-)

    ReplyDelete
  93. Firestorm doesn't work properly on my computuer, neither does any other viewer except for Phoenix. Without Phoenix I will have no access to Secondlife, no access to the work I need to do. Eventually I will be run out of the game due to being unable to use V2 viewers and their horrible functions, I still say you should have stuck with Phoenix its simple, its easy to use and it works on my computer. Firestorm even when made to look like Phoenix doesn't actually look like Phoenix at all, yes the interface is simplified to appear as V1 but it still ultimately acts like a V2.

    I will keep using Phoenix until it finally breaks enough I can't log in anymore, on that day it will be goodbye Secondlife and the friends I made there. Hello boredom.

    ReplyDelete
  94. hello my wife in this second life with a problem in her viewer logs and can not take this picture and that it works with this very bad for her could not take pictures of it drops the viewer when she takes a picture can help you guys wanted to know in it because she falls when she takes a photo if you guys can help I would be grateful

    ReplyDelete
  95. Once again: Please don’t ask for support or report problems on this blog. Using the appropriate channels for these purposes is much more promising.

    If you have specific issues setting up or running Firestorm, consult the Wiki: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/

    If that fails, join the Phoenix/Firestorm Viewer Support group inworld and ask the support people there. They are dedicated and have very good problem-solving competence.

    Or use the JIRA: http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/secure/Dashboard.jspa Create an account there, file a “Support Request” issue.

    If you have bug reports or suggestions for new features or improvements, create respective issues. Search the JIRA first with the appropriate keywords to make sure that you are not creating a duplicate issue. You can also vote on other people’s issues to support them.

    Hope that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Racheal I looked at the Virtual Highway web page and it makes it sound great and have things like SL but then I looked at the usage numbers and only 90 logins in a month! That means less than one person per region of the 123.
    Chances are you will be alone there.
    Yes a good idea to try another world but the other Worlds just do not have people in in big numbers that I have entered.
    I would love to be corrected.

    ReplyDelete
  97. @Wolfenstein
    Jessica didn't lie about Phoenix. The dev team don't want to work with it anymore, aren't fixing bugs or adding features, and when LL rolls out server side baking, Phoenix won't have the code to work with it. Even then you could still use it if you didn't need other AV's to render.

    Seems pretty straight forward to me. You may not like the result, but you were given the facts.

    Good luck if you decide to fork the code from Phoenix. At least then you'll be too busy to make false and accusatory statements here

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh yes she did. The decision to kill Phoenix was always that of the Firestorm developers, who decided an unworkable user interface, lower frame rate, and more bugs than a roach motel are preferable to something more people wanted. Linden Lab was never going to turn off access to Phoenix or any of the other viewers that use the V1 interface. They simply stopped offering support for those viewers, leaving it up to the third party developers to maintain their viewers. Lyin' and her merry band of suckups deliberately twisted LL's words and lied to people in order to get them to abandon using Phoenix and adopt Firestorm. The problem is that Firestorm hogs resources, doesn't even start up half the time on most people's computers, has a much lower frame rate, and an unworkable user interface that takes, literally countless hours just to figure out. Given all this, it's likely that people who still want to remain in SL will end up migrating to Singularity and Cool VL Viewer, rather than be forced to quit the grid or spend money they don't have on computers they can't afford.

      Delete
  98. Thank you for your very clear and informative Phoenix office hour explaining what will happen to Phoenix and why.

    I was very sad to hear that as I have been in SL since 2005 and I consider Phoenix Viewer 1.5.2 (1185) Jul 31 2011 18:58:23 (which I am still happily using) to be the best viewer I have ever used in SL.

    I do understand your reasoning though and thank your whole team of volunteers for all the work that you did to give us such a wonderful viewer for so long. Thank you also for the warning of what will happen when LL incorporates the bake fail "fix" and how it will break every viewer that does not have the new code.

    I will have to experiment to figure out what viewer to use now as I would really like to continue to use one that cannot see mesh properly. I am personally very against mesh and like being able to have my viewer tell me which businesses use it as to me that is a signal that these are businesses I do not wish to support. With the version of Phoenix I am using, when I go to a store that incorporates mesh, everything is a bunch of blobs which tells me this is not the place for me.

    I will begin to experiment on the side to be prepared for the day my beloved Phoenix viewer stops functioning. Again thank you for the explanation, the heads up and all of the work on Phoenix.

    ~Stumblinn Giles

    ReplyDelete
  99. Stumblinn, you're now in a tiny minority about mesh. Well over 95% of users on Second Life are running mesh-capable viewers. Further, every viewer that will be updated for server-side baking will be mesh-capable.

    Yes, we thought pretty highly of Phoenix 1185 too. In many ways, it's some of our best work. But its day is past.

    ReplyDelete
  100. As much I will miss using Phoenix Viewer do to the fact that it allowed me to use a lot of functions that other viewers do not, such as my personal wind light setting in my inventory. It's not a big loss to me. I'm sure the team that backed up Phoenix Viewer over the years has there reasons to no longer support it. I hold no grudges do to there are many other 3rd party viewers out there that are much like Phoenix was. Firestorm for example is a nice viewer that just takes time getting used to for those many who are used to the style of Phoenix. Again thank you Phoenix Viewer Team for making a great and useful viewer for all to use, though it is well known that all good things come to an end sooner or later.

    ~EvanConnell

    ReplyDelete
  101. For those of us who wish to use Phoenix untill it breaks or those of us who wish to use other Viewers in prefference to Firestorm is there a place we can go to and help each other?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.singularityviewer.org

      http://sldev.free.fr/

      These are the web sites for Singularity and Cool VL Viewer. They've incorporated most if not all of SL's current features and they're still being actively maintained. I've found Phoenix is better for building, but the user interfaces on Singularity and Cool VL Viewer are far superior and the viewers have higher frame rates and use fewer computer resources.

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  102. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Gosh Ripper!

    Your lack of understanding regarding the various means of handling the bake, inventory, textures etc. is genuinely epic.
    As to your assertion that LL is going to try to go to a browser based format, well evidence seems to say not. If they wanted to dumb it all down that is easy. They aren't paying their devs to work out new features because they have money to burn. They have a board of directors who would be looking at that sort of thing with displeasure.
    Your dream that they have announced the death of their own project seems a little weird considering that FS is the most used viewer on SL.
    I offer the following triptych

    Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq Mayan Calendar Apocalypse
    The End of SL

    all have one thing in common with you "the ripper"
    10 on a 1-10 FAIL SCALE

    With kind indulgence,

    Georgie T

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Karl said:

      “As to your assertion that LL is going to try to go to a browser based format, well evidence seems to say not. If they wanted to dumb it all down that is easy.”


      That’s what Mark Kingdon and his minions were aiming at with the introduction of the web-browser style Second Life Viewer 2 which was aiming at the Facebook clientele. Only that it didn’t work as planned. Hardly any new users that stayed and a very annoyed existing user base.

      Delete
  104. Firestorm is the most laggy thing I've used except the V2. I guess I'll stick to Pheonix until it doesn't work anymore then see what else i can find. Seems "If it works don't fix it" doesn't sink in around here or in LL.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Singularity and Cool VL Viewer are still being updated, and the developers know more about programming a stable viewer than the Firestorm developers ever did.

      Delete
    2. Thank you, got them now as backup for Phoenix.
      I do find I have to run them with High graphic setting to get good fps which I achieve on Phoenix at Ultra.
      Yes both seem to put updates out so being maintained, just one setting/feature I'm missing that I have and use in Phoenix is clicking ground then I walk to that spot.

      Delete
    3. The only problem i been noticing is with the latest firestorm it has started crashing like crazy.

      Delete
  105. I haven't been able to use Phoenix since I upgraded my computer, so I've been sort of forced to abandon it anyway. This does not mean I completely like Firestorm as it is, however. I'd like to see a theme which is more angular and minimalistic in color scheme, and I'd like to see the behavior of chiclets get merged into the conversations floater, so I don't get annoying overlaps in the UI. Teleport history also needs a lot of TLC, as it is only half the functionality of Phoenix's. And last, but certainly not least, the 'fixes' applied to Linden water actually broke the appearance of water for me on all but the most basic of windlight sky settings. This needs to be fixed. I am very concerned, however, about this idea that moving more of texture baking server side is going to fix anything. In fact.. what does one do in the event of a catastrophic bake fail under the new system? Abandon the account? I surely hope there is still a client-side override which will force the server to redo everything. Otherwise we'll all be grey anyway, regardless of what viewer we're using. :P

    ReplyDelete
  106. shame
    i guess thats the end of it
    i wont go to firestorm it kills the hud games i play oh well time to get a new one

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The hud games are working fine for me... i have none of the problems people keep complaining about.. i think people just dislike change and thus make excuses... that's just a theory though.. nothing more.

      Delete
  107. Mike yes I note that Firestorm now as its own Website and Downloads for Phoenix have gone.
    Also the way people can post as been restricted to its Coments, so think the way I coment as gone should I want to.
    A friend wants the Phoenix download do I assume he will not be able to?

    ReplyDelete
  108. Mybe at the end I will simply quit Second life
    as uncapable of delvering us good and working interfaces

    Tecnically I have no problem in using Firestorm, I just hate the interface, so much Vista Like

    I just hope some bright guy will ake over Phoenix development
    ?is it Open Source?
    can we put our hands in it?

    Shame on you!......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ummmmmm the interface in firestorm can be made to work and look just like phoenix's .. when's the last time you tried the latest firestorm?

      Delete
  109. Hola
    En el supuesto que se dejara de apoyar este visor los desarroyadores de este programa pensaron en que muchos ordenadores con los visores modernos funcionan mal???
    no todo el mundo tiene aceso a ordenadores modernos, este es mi caso, si este visor desaparece, con el Firestorm mi ordenador esta casi muerto no funciona.
    asi que tendre que dejar SL.
    lastima ya que me lo paso muy bien

    ReplyDelete
  110. Jesus.. why are all of you acting like it's the end of the world?
    Okay i admit i do have SOME problems.. for instance.. since the latest firestorm update i been getting an assload of crashes... but that's it.. all the other complaints about firestorm sound exagerated.. VERY exagerated..

    ReplyDelete
  111. Firestorm sucks its the worst viewer I ever seen after that crap of LL viewer, the interface and all the feathures sucks
    PHOENIX is teh Viewer we want and the Viewer we Love, if Phoenix Die I wont go use the firescrap Viewer I will use Singularity is the Viewer they keep working on it and have a friendly interface as Phoenix had based in snoglobe, I wont support Firestorm and will make my friends do not use it, simple as that

    ReplyDelete
  112. Would it be that difficult to add an option to Firestorm for choosing between the Firestorm UI and the Phoenix UI?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It depends on the talent, time, and effort put into it by the developers. They've made it clear they have no interest whatsoever providing users with what they actually want, so we'll all be migrating to Singularity or Cool VL Viewer full time. Maybe someone with more programming talent and a love for the Viewer 1 GUI will pick up the code for Phoenix and resurrect it under another name, but don't count on this bunch of elitist liars to pay attention to what their users want. They don't care.

      Delete
    2. 90% agree with you but I do have respect for the team who got Phoenix up and running up to this piont in time. Can see to maintain 2 Viewers may well be a tall order.
      For Firestorm I think they lost thier way with ordinary users like myself and thus those like me want Phoenix to continue.
      I do hope they would co-operate with someone who could continue to support Phoenix and sort of hand it over.
      As you say Singularity and Cool VL are continuing so to me it is possible for Phoenix to too.

      Delete
    3. First of all, replacing “I” by the majestic “we” is one of the cheapest and most dishonest rhetorical ploys I know. The majestic “we” is solely being used to spruce up a weak argument, thus taking people hostage which might not like it because they disagree. Two, as of now there have been over 255,000 downloads of Firestorm 4.3.1.31155 (Second Life version) since its release on December 2, 2012 — users who did so were no doubt so naïve as to download something they quickly found out is unusable.

      The residents of Second Life are being offered a fine viewer here. For free, mind you! Everybody may choose to gratefully accept that offer — or to decline it as inappropriate what with one’s specific needs and use another Third Party Viewer. Or maybe even the official Second Life Viewer.

      Delete
  113. How about you NOT block the Pheonix Download then? Some of us Don't want to sue your unintuitive piece of shit that chokes on itself in areas more crowded than 3 people

    ReplyDelete
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