Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Got another quick update from Firestorm project leader Beq, on reports that the Alpha version of the viewer integrating PBR is displaying objects too brightly. Beq says the problem is being addressed by the Lindens:

"Visuals are still being tuned upstream (Linden Lab); ultimately, the Lab is going to drive that agenda because it would make no sense at all for one viewer to render a scene differently; the poor creators would have kittens." (I.E., panic.)

"The current release notes have a standing 'Known issue' that states something along the lines of 'Yes it's too blue, we're working on it'. Any difference between Linden Lab and Firestorm, in terms of lighting, when examined side by side, same settings on the same hardware should vanish once the upstream changes stabilize and flow down to us."

I.E., PBR will run well in Firestorm once the Lindens nail down that known issue. 

Speaking of which, longtime SLer Estelle Pienaar comments that the addition of PBR may create a divide with established Second Life users who can afford to upgrade/buy new devices, and those who cannot:

(1) It will not be possible to turn PBR off like advanced lighting. It is PBR or nothing.

(2) I think that turning off all bells and whistles of the new graphics settings still gives a much better experience than before for low end PCs.

(3) In earlier versions of PBR, it was running much faster on all PCs that I tested it with. The current LL version seems to bloated and not optimized as it suddenly runs slower than before. Hopefully this is one of the things that get repaired with the next update.

(4) The points 2 & 3 should largely solve the issues for lower memory PCs but for a lot of older laptops there is also the possibility to buy additional ram for very cheap.

(5)I believe that development can't be put off because a subset of users want to continue using their 15+ year old set-ups. Maybe these people will be able to use the mobile viewer in the future.  

That sounds right! I can see many veteran SLers transitioning to mobile for these reasons!