Firestorm now available on SL Go!

Tags

"second life", firestorm, onlive, SLGo, viewer

For months the people at Onlive have been secretly working together with Jessica Lyon to build a version of Firestorm that works in SL Go!

In a press release Onlive says that an update to SL Go now allows its users to choose between the official Linden Lab viewer or the Firestorm one.

It works for both PC and Mac but not yet on mobile devices, development for that starts in the new year.

When you launch SL Go you will be presented with a choice between the two viewers.

You should have access to the full Firestorm interface, the edit menus, preference settings, etc.
All customizations are saved from session to session, even if you played on a different device.

The best thing about SL Go, for me, is that it allows me to run SL at ultra graphics settings on pretty much any computer.
You get to enjoy SL the way it should be enjoyed without having to use a top of the range device.
Even my 5 year old macbook can now be used to enjoy SL with shadows and more.

However, I don’t just use Firestorm because I just prefer it to the official viewer, I use it because I need all the extra options it offers.
Yes, I really do need them.
When building and managing a busy roleplaying community, I depend on the building tools, the radar, etc.
I’ve written about why I prefer Firestorm to the official viewer in detail here.

So although I really like SL Go and the ability to see SL at ultra settings again (I blew up my graphics card on the Alienware laptop), I didn’t use it very much because once in SL, I wasn’t really able to do very much as I missed all the Firestorm options I needed.

Unfortunately, for this first version, according to Jessica Lyon, some of the featuresI love a lot have been disabled, for now.
For instance, the contact sets you may have been keeping (like I do) won’t be found in SLGO because there is no access to the contact sets you’ve already created as the SLGo server is not connected to wherever your contact sets are stored normally.
You can start from scratch and make new contact sets in SLGo and those will be remembered.
You will probably also have to reset a few of the settings.

Nevertheless for me it is the difference between running around hopelessly not quite knowing how to do things, not having a proper radar and not being able to instantly see who is visiting my sim and if they are wearing proper 1920s clothes or a latex miniskirt with a Viking horned helmet (Vikings didn’t have horns on their helmets!).

This new option will make me use SL Go a lot more, now I no longer have to carry my Macbook (for RL work) and heavy massive Alienware Laptop (for SL and gaming) with me when I leave my home for a few days, I just use the Macbook for both.

If you aren’t using SL Go yet, you can sign up for a free 7-day trial by clicking here.
A monthly subscription costs $9.95 (£6.95) per month for unlimited access.

Yes, SLGo allowed me to explore SL at ultra settings on my 5 year old macbook!

Oculus DK2 viewer for SL now available

Tags

oculus rift, viewer

Linden Lab has announced that the Second Life Oculus DK2 viewer is now available.

I quote from their announcement;

A few months ago, we released a Project Viewer that made it possible to use the first generation Oculus Rift development kit (DK1) anywhere in Second Life.

Since then, Oculus Rift has released a second generation development kit, DK2. The new hardware offers an even more immersive experience when used with Second Life – there’s less likelihood of feeling motion sick thanks to the motion-tracking features, and less of the “screen-door effect” on the visuals, thanks to higher resolution and brighter display.

We’ve integrated the DK2 with Second Life, and today are releasing a new Project Viewer so that virtual reality enthusiasts with the DK2 can use it anywhere in Second Life, just as DK1 users can.

Unfortunately, though, there are still some bugs impacting the experience, which we won’t be able to fix until we receive the next SDK from Oculus Rift. Because Second Life uses OpenGL in its browser, we cannot support direct mode in the Rift until Oculus releases a version of the SDK that supports that.

In addition, juddering is an issue (as it is with most DK2 demos).This can be significantly improved on Windows by turning off Aero, which allows the Rift to use its full refresh rate rather than being limited to the refresh rate of the primary monitor. This refresh rate is a major factor in the judder and turning off Aero can significantly improve your experience.

We’ll continue to fix bugs and improve the experience as quickly as we can once we get the next SDK, but in the meantime, we wanted to get this Project Viewer out into testers’ hands. If you have an Oculus Rift development kit, you can download the new Project Viewer here.

Ebbe confirms; SL will get Oculus Rift DK2 support

Tags

"second life", dk2, ocolus rift, viewer, virtual reality

Some time ago Oculus Rift released the Developers Kit v2 of their VR headset, better than their DK1 but still not the commercial version.

David Rowe’s CtrlAltStudio released a Preliminary Rift DK2 Support viewer on the 19th but it remained unclear if Linden Lab was going to upgrade their viewer to work with DK2.

The work that had to be done was not trivial and they only got their DK2 headsets roughly two weeks ago and who knows, the public Oculus Viewer release could be around the corner, although insiders seem to think it won’t be till 2015.

But even though we don’t know when the Second Life official DK2 viewer arrives, we do have some confirmation from mr Ebbe Altberg himself via Twitter;