I am curious to know what viewer you are using since there is now a vast number of so called third party viewers available on the internet - some are officially recognized by LL, some are not.

I think this discussion might be very helpful in finding new and better solutions how to deal with lag - as every viewer seems to have an individual focus.

Now that I received my new laptop - with some fantastic graphics card - I was able to test some viewers more extensively using shadows.

I personally think that Kirstens s17 is probably best for gaming and graphics junkies as it is the most demanding viewer in terms of hardware, but offers the best texture rendering and most importantly gorgeous shadows.

I also like Phoenix Firestorm; for some reason it is less laggy for me to use and the shadows look nice as well....in addition to that it offers better features and design than LL's standard/beta viewer.

So what do you think? Do you rely on LL's viewers or do you trust in some third party viewers too? The emerald viewer used be all the rage 1 year ago...after that incident with all those hacked accounts however it disappeared.

p.s. I personally use LL's viewer 1...its probably best if you dont want to crash or lag.

updated by @anne-comtesse-de-noailles: 19 Apr 2019 06:46:47AM

I switch between Kirstens, and the main SL Viewer. I only use Phoenix for taking photos,as it has some wonderful sky presets,but is too laggy for everyday use.

I use both firestorm, which is very good, but crashes a lot and a older sl viewer.The newer sl viewer 7.8 causes textures to turn pitch black and knocks you off sl faster than an ejection from a sim..lol. Linden has no fix for this as of yet and i tried the beta 7.8.1 which is no better and still have the black texture issues.

By the way, the Firestorm Phoenix will be replacing the Phoenix viewer, as you know it, soon. You can make this viewer look like the old viewer sl started with including the pie menu, smiling.

I admit it! *cries* I... use.. VIEWER ONE! It's just so nice and simple to use. I do use viewer 2 more lately though.

Mostly I use 2.0 and occasionally Phoenix (when I go places and want to see where people are looking). Just tried Kirstens S21 but it didn't like my graphics card

Viewer 2 and Firestorm

But Viewer 2 is the best.

(for mac)

I think Madame the latest SL viewer is the work of the devil I will certainly try one of the third party ones

That did happen to me, but you have to turn the graphics all the way down in preferences, otherwise it will just stay black - apparently because the new viewer 2.8 is far more demanding then previous viewers

And I use Viewer 2, btw :P

I use standard LL viewer 2.7 But the updates have been troublesome. As mentioned below invisi-prims... and I have noticed some animated textures in attached prims appear to be broken. I may just revert to the original 2.0 beta because although a lot of the issues are logged they are mostly unresolved.

Firestorm. I used to be a serious Emerald user, then Phoenix user; I've been transitioning to Firestorm since it was in alpha and it gets better and better, the latest beta is finally good enough for building (I was keeping Phoenix around for that) and of course I can "dial it up" from my regular settings to take nice pictures. I have Firestorm all customized and I can't bear the idea of using LL's standard Viewer 2, it makes me cry (boo hoo hoo). I don't get crashes so much except on the weekend, which I got on Emerald and Phoenix as well ... and in crowded sims ... well you know.

What with mesh coming to the grid in another month (or so), it's highly advisable to find *some* viewer-2-based viewer you like, I started using Firestorm slowly, over a period of a month, getting used to it and going back into Phoenix when I got "annoyed" with the Viewer-2 interface bits ... I recommend something like this to any Viewer-1 holdouts out there, because the Viewer-1 code viewers are going to be disabled sooner rather than later. Find a Viewer-2 code viewer you can live with, there are several choices, as you can see.

I had horrendous issues a month or so ago so deleted all viewers except Phoenix (as someone said that's what you had to do) - but I'm glad to hear other people have additional viewers!!

I can't make head nor tail of viewer 2. It totally confuses and distresses me. Right now I'm on Phoenix - I like that it's viewer 1-based but has some extra features I find super-useful. I tried Firestorm but had issues with that (le sigh) and didn't know how to use it properly (le grander sigh).

I'm probably going to download Viewer 1 again now, just as a back-up.

ah! I have downloaded on your recommendation and it isn't half as clunky as I remember - although you need to teach me how to customise!

Ok, dumb question but... not all viewers are 'legal'.. are they?

welcome to the club

try phoenix firestorm...i still found it very practical compared to viewer 2

I had the Second Life Viewer 2, but it brings me a lot of troubles with the crashes.

I go back and forth. My university computer (used for educational purposes only of course) is a somewhat better computer than my home computer (which has -- gasp -- Vista).

I like the look of Kirstens, SL Viewer 2 (and have found the recent updates really are improvements), and Firestorm, probably in that order. Of these, I crash/freeze soonest in Kirstens. I can't use it at home. It definitely requires a good computer. I have a little better luck with lag problems in Firestorm, although Firestorm, Viewer 2, and even Imprudence are sometimes too much for my poor home computer.

Imprudence often produces slow rezzing but is the most stable for me on the university computer in high-lag areas once it has loaded -- even more so than Viewer 1. Unfortunately, at home, Viewer 1 is often the only one that I can use at all. I am very sad that the new world of mesh will eventually make Viewer 1 (and viewers based on V1) unusable.

Apparently the Second Life 3.0.0 is now available in beta and looks like it will become the official"mesh" viewer.

I'm still hanging on to Viewer 1.23.5 as I just couldn't be bothered upgrading to V2.x and helping LL to debug it.

As far as TPVs go I hate the thought of having to use one. The whole Emerald fiasco just reinforced my reservations about using software created by a group that has no accountability.

I really do want to take advantage of increased prim size that will be coming out at the same time that mesh is released grid wide so I guess I will have to make a decision to move soon.

--
Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

I always use official viewer 2, I only use phoenix to upload temporary textures.

Meshes dont like my graphic card.. everytime i use firestorm my screen goes black, and i hate viewer 2, so i'm using phoenix.. but it was weird when i sat on a mesh chair and i looked like in a cube lol, so.. i guess i'll have to use viewer 2.

:(

I've started using the Firestorm Mesh Beta. I have a few pieces of mesh clothing on my modern avatar and I have to say I like the way they move. However, the Firestorm team did not want to release this version yet, they felt it was far too buggy, and only did so because their user base was begging them to release it. I've had problems with avatars going invisible - except for the prims attached to them - which is an eerie sight believe me - but this resolves when I clear cache and restart.

Whichever viewer you use, I think this might be a very good time to upgrade your computer's RAM and also, if possible and/or needed, your video card. Giving your computer as much processing power as it can work with always enhances the SL experience, of course. Although it does not feel like a "game" in many ways, it helps to remember that, at least in the sense of computer graphics and configuration, it is indeed considered a "game" and therefore looking to "gamer" specs will enhance the user experience considerably.

BTW, Tat, re: Emerald/Phoenix/accountability, the Phoenix project people, many of whom worked on Emerald, have been keeping in touch with the Labs. They certainly don't want another Emerald situation. The head of the Phoenix project has a biweekly show on Metamix TV, which keeps the user base updated about what is going on with the coding and features, etc. I'll stop now before I start sounding like a serious fangirl - Firestorm is not perfect but I find it better and easier to work in than what else is out there. As old people on the intertubes say, "YMMV".

Yes, I finally bit the bullet and I'm using Phoenix so that I can build with the larger prims.

Being an old IT professional, my paranoia stretches waaaay beyond just Emerald/Phoenix - lol. I have to think long and hard before I download anything onto my machine. Viewed from this perspective, I barely trust LL as far as accountability goes so there is no way I would consider any TPV to be accountable. Having said that, I'm still taking an"educated risk" and hoping for the best

--
Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

Eeeeks. Your mileage definitely may vary - but I only put a minimum of programs on my machine *in general* and I would probably do less if I'd actually worked in IT. I'm on a Mac but it doesn't make me lazy ... umm, not too much, anyway. (rolls eyes at her lazy-Mac-self)

I use the LL one.

I alredy tried emerald,phoenix/firestorm but I didnt like it any.

I search about Kirsten's one,and it lookinteresting,where can Idownloadthe last one?it seems it will not be uploaded more.