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Readers Review the Alchemy Viewer for SL

Demo video by Pepe Kuno, who notes: "Finally smooth. Firestorm was killing me with the lag.

Last week's most socially shared post by far is this one on the third party SL viewer known as Alchemy, which suggests to me that many are looking for an alternative to the popular Firestorm viewer. Readers weigh in on the pros and cons:

I decided to give the Alchemy beta release a try-out after watching Luca's [demo] video. (I'm on a 2017 iMac 27".) It is definitely more responsive in large areas, as texture loading seems to be handled better compared to Firestorm. And my FPS have been higher in the areas I usually visit. While it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Firestorm – and is missing some Firestorm features like parcel-level WindLights and the built-in pose stand – overall I've had no problems using it as my primary viewer for Second Life. Sadly, there are fewer options for Mac users these days, with Kokua being the only other relatively up-to-date option besides Firestorm and the official SL Viewer. – Posted by: Spiffy Voxel 

Contrary to that, a reader named "Lemmy" reports: "I tried using my recent MacBook Pro, and I’m getting half the framerate I would using Firestorm." So apparently Mac mileage may vary.

Another reader has some tips on using Alchemy on a PC:

Alchemy SL viewer user opinion

Worth pointing out that this requires a CPU with "AVX" extentions – i.e. something relatively modern, manufactured in 2011 or later.

Yes, I have an older processor (AMD Phenon 2) paired with a 1050Ti and I can run Sansar and many other games on high settings. Second Life makes this setup struggle, though.

According to Wikipedia; Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) are extensions to the x86 instruction set architecture from Intel and AMD first supported by Intel with the Sandy Bridge processor shipping in Q1 2011 and later on by AMD with the Bulldozer processor shipping in Q3 2011. AVX provides new features, new instructions and a new coding scheme.

 I built my PC in 2011 and have upgraded it only twice. Doubled RAM from 8 to 16Gb (because Firestorm had a memory leak in Linux) and added a 1050Ti. As I said, it's fine with games i play (GTA V, Deliver Us the Moon) and Sansar in high settings.

I only ever have issues with Second Life.

Posted by: Fed Up 

That last line, though! Imagine a PC that's powerful enough to play an open world sandbox AAA game released 7 years ago like Grand Theft Auto V but struggles to run an open world sandbox game from 17 years ago!

On the other hand, Deliver Us the Moon looks pretty damn cool.

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2 responses to “Readers Review the Alchemy Viewer for SL”

  1. Alicia Avatar
    Alicia

    Second Life was developed with prims in mind, rather than mesh. So all the overly high poly/vertice mesh, all the high resolution textures, etc. on viewers that aren’t developed to work off the GPU will cause a person to lag, regardless of connection, because of how SL was developed in the first place.
    Thank about it. Games such as GTA5 were developed to work with your GPU, whereas Second Life was not. It never was. In fact, games that were developed to work with your GPU will always run more smoothly. Games like World of Warcraft, that was released in 2004, will always run smoothly with your GPU because Blizzard knows how games are supposed to work. Remember, SL was reverse engineered much like EverQuest was, so their graphics are more closely related to one another. Awhile back, I mentioned this. The reason games like EverQuest never updated their graphics was because the developers knew what would happen. Phillip simply never listened to Cody when he most likely explained this, time… and time again. Since SL was never optimized, this is the end result of years… and years of not listening nor paying attention. In fact, it actually is costing LL more money to keep SL alive. The prim avis, etc., will still be there no matter what. LL can cover them up to their hearts content, but they will still be there.

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  2. Noel Loordes Avatar
    Noel Loordes

    In reply to “Fed Up”: Games are designed around known constraints, with performance vs optics being a conscious trade-off.
    In SL, everyone can create content, in disregard of performance/optics trade-offs, and the dynamic nature in itself prevents optimizations to some degree. Plus, being a living platform rather than a more-or-less static release, hardware requirements have been growing over the years.
    This makes calling SL a “software from 17 years ago” inherently unfair. It is not. Neither the content, nor the client feature set, is from 17 years ago. Run a client limited to the feature-set of the original release, with content created around the time, and performance will likely be great.

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