Which is the best viewer for SL?

[Rolig Loon]

That's not the viewer's fault.  You have a flaky Internet connection, so you're likely to have the same problem with any viewer.  That "walking like a drunk" behavior happens when the real-time link between your computer and SL's servers is irregular.  It doesn't have anything to do with bandwidth.  It's about the stability and quality of the connection.  If there is interference or data loss along the way, you'll find that your avatar lurches along, moving in hops and jumps instead of smoothly.  Usually the problem is very close to home.  If you've been using wireless, that's one possibility.  Don't do that.  Use a LAN cable to connect your computer to the router.  If you haven't been rebooting your router periodically to clear its RAM, that could be another cause.  Just unplug it from the power for a few minutes, then plug it back in and restart your computer.

In the end, the "best" viewer for SL is the one that has features you like the most.  Everyone has a favorite.  Just don't let connection issues be your reason for changing to a different one.

[Rolig Loon]

That's not the viewer's fault.  You have a flaky Internet connection, so you're likely to have the same problem with any viewer.  That "walking like a drunk" behavior happens when the real-time link between your computer and SL's servers is irregular.  It doesn't have anything to do with bandwidth.  It's about the stability and quality of the connection.  If there is interference or data loss along the way, you'll find that your avatar lurches along, moving in hops and jumps instead of smoothly.  Usually the problem is very close to home.  If you've been using wireless, that's one possibility.  Don't do that.  Use a LAN cable to connect your computer to the router.  If you haven't been rebooting your router periodically to clear its RAM, that could be another cause.  Just unplug it from the power for a few minutes, then plug it back in and restart your computer.

In the end, the "best" viewer for SL is the one that has features you like the most.  Everyone has a favorite.  Just don't let connection issues be your reason for changing to a different one.

[Innula Zenovka]

As Rolig says, it sounds like a problem with your connection rather than anything else.

"What's the best viewer?" is one of those "How long is a piece of string?" questions.  It depends so much on your machine and your connection, and what you want to do in SL.  

[steph Arnott]

@ Innula Zenowka: One end to the middle x 2.

[BLUExANGEL]

It doesn't matter which viewer you are using if you don't learn how to properly adjust the settings so it works well with your computer, None of the viewers will work correctly for you. At least with your Firestorm viewer there are classes you can take and live chat from the Firestorm support to help you get things running smooth. None of the other viewers offer that. Also, with the outdated graphics in all the other viewers you will never see or be seen as anything but grey colored. So stick with Firestorm and go learn everything there is to know about it. I did it. It wasn't easy. I did not know one thing about sl or firestorm. If I can do it you can too.

[Nalates Urriah]

A good Internet Connection is not the same as a good connection to SL.

Read through Troubleshoot Your #SL Connection and make sure you have a good connection to SL. It also will guide you in making settings that work for your computer. Once you have eliminated a connection problem you can ask the FS Support people for help.

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When you ask a tech question include information about your computer and viewer. If the viewer will at least show the login screen, get the info from the viewer's Help-About... and paste that into your post with your question. Help->About... provides all the version numbers we need.  To add your info to an existing question use OPTIONS->EDIT. It’s in the upper right of your post.

It also helps to know if you are using a laptop or a desktop and a wired or wireless connection.

Without that information all we can do is guess. That means you have to try all our bad guesses and eliminate them one by one. This is easier for all of us, if you give us good information to start with.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

BLUExANGEL wrote:

Also, with the outdated graphics in all the other viewers you will never see or be seen as anything but grey colored. So stick with Firestorm and go learn everything there is to know about it. I did it. It wasn't easy. I did not know one thing about sl or firestorm. If I can do it you can too.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Clearly, you still have much to learn if you believe the graphics in other viewers is outdated compared to Firestorm and that you will never see or be seen as anything but grey coloured. The LL viewer and all the other TPVs were updated in line with the requirements of Project Sunshine, just the same as Firestorm was. Do you really think all those using other viewers are still wandering around in a grey avatar world since July? Seriously?

Those who use Firestorm choose it for its features not for its graphics.

[steph Arnott]

"Those who use Firestorm choose it for its features not for its graphics."

The official veiwer is too demanding on the graphics card such as mine, so alot do choose it for that reason.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Oh ok Steph. Would Singularity be a better option as it's said to be less demanding on computer systems but I have to say the time it takes to rez scenes drives me crazy and its Outfits system is not as good as V3 based viewers. Soon as my fibre broadband arrives tomorrow (hopefully) I'll be back to my usual Niran's Black Dragon, although it's more like the LL viewer than his previous viewer, which graphically was way ahead of anything else.

[steph Arnott]

The SL official veiwer is very high demand on graphics cards, mine can not cope. Firestorm works ok, but as i am using a WIFI it has problems with the bandwith. As in all cases of veiwers it is fundemenal in removeing all previouse veiwers in case of pass over corrupted files. A clean install is essental. Sorry about the bad spelling.

My comment was to disspell this notion that most used Pheonix becouse of its functions, when 90 odd percent moved to it becouse owwer comps crashed with the overload. I have never tried Singularity so i can not comment, if you getting fibre Firestorm should work well.

[Huraina Valiant]

As everyone states, it is likely your internet connection. There are a few thing syou can do to help out though like cleaning up you  computer ie: Disk Cleanup. You can also try clearing out your cache by going into Preferences>Network&Cache>Cache Location>Clear Cache.

This is sometimes helpful. You also want to go through your Graphic tab and turn things down. Turn your Draw Distance down to about 100 or less, drag down all the Level of Detail sliders, uncheck some of the Shaders. You can also press ctl>alt>D and it will give you the Advanced tab at the top of the screen. Choose Rendering Types and uncheck Tree, Water, Ground, Grass, Clouds, and Particles. This has to be repeated every time you log in. Then again go to the Advanced tab and choose Rendering Features. Un check Foot Shadows and Fog. Once you've done that, it will help a lot with your laging issues. 

Basically the less you see the less hard it is on your bandwith. Hope this helps. Otherwise contact your internet provider for help strengthening your connection.

[Rolig Loon]

Clearing cache won't help your Internet connection. In fact, you are usually much better off with a large cache than with an empty one. The only times that you should be clearing cache are

When textures are not rezzing properly, you may choose to clear your texture cache.
When your inventory is not loading fully, you may choose to clear your inventory cache.
When you toggle the HTTP Get Textures setting in your viewer, texture cache needs to be cleared.
A cache clear is part of performing a clean install.

[Mysticist]

Am I the only one thats gonna throw this out there, theres a good chance that its neither the viewer or your internet speed.  I use this software on a high level Cable internet connection, using very high end hardware with FireStorm and still experience similar situations that you speak of.  But you can normally target the problem in on 2 factors.   Amount of users in a given area and which given area.  This tells me that SL is not running servers with sufficient capacity to handle the influx of traffic.  Although if you do have a bad internet connection or insufficient harware to push the software then your gonna have experience issues.  but if you lets say (tap forward) and 3 second later your guy decides to move then you're having a latency issue.  I feel like the way people talk about lag in SL is like how people talk about the weather in RL.  Im sure it will get better with time, they just need to start expanding their capacity with the growth of the software.