Second Life

[Tracker]

O.K, so I know that Second Life isn't a game per se.. with no goals or objectives, or for the most part rules!

But.. I was wondering if anyone still actually uses it nowadays? From the furore surrounding it's launch years ago things have certainly gone quiet, but it's alive and kicking today and recently I've found myself drawn back into it, playing with a mixture of Scripting, 3-d Sculpting, texturing and simple Lego-style building..

So yeah.. anyone still actually kicking around there? or is it done and dusted, I realise it doesn't have quite the same appeal as minecraft but at least it doesn't have that blackened feeling of despair as you watch all your items burn in a stream of lava for the umpteenth time! x3

 

[Starry]

Hello Tracker I use Second Life, love it to be honest with you I use it mainly for meeting up with friends, racing, combat and when in a creative mood texture and modify stuff I have bought.

Now I am waiting for my new PC to be completed, hopefully to get rid of that lag, lol. Then the guys better watch out on the race tracks, cause there will be a new girl in town

 

[NilSatis]

Ahh, my girlfriend is on this all the time; she has a few friends on there that are on it all the time too; in no danger of dying out just yet. I will see if i can get her to reply to the thread! It looks very nice on max graphics settings etc and runs smoothly on her new laptop which keeps her happy! There is all sorts you can do on it and even though im not interested in it, i can see how it is fun; looks a good package!

 

[Schnook]

Yus, I use it often. I go on there with my American friends who I met through another chat site called IMVU. It's alot more relaxed and fun to use than IMVU is as you can walk around and do all the above. We're constantly messing around in sandboxes with our huds, driving around on stuff and riding the various animals we have lol it keeps me entertained for hours


Starry, it's alot better on high/ultra graphics. I know how you feel about the lag, my last laptop couldn't handle it and it would crash the graphics card constantly. It still lags sometimes on this new gaming laptop, but that's mainly when there's alot of people around so probably more internet lag than anything else ^^

 

[Starry]

Hi Schnook The only time I use ultra is when I'm taking pictures, though for everyday stuff on there I keep it at high, or medium for racing and similar activities. Like you said when there are a lot of people around such as clubs it is laggy but worse for me I am sure hehe. My PC at the moment is very stable but for some unknown reason I can no longer use shadows, a year back I could. Really looking forward to my new PC so I can use Second Life to its fullest, though I am yet to hear anybody saying how the GTX 680 performs.

 

[Corfate]

Hi Schnook The only time I use ultra is when I'm taking pictures, though for everyday stuff on there I keep it at high, or medium for racing and similar activities. Like you said when there are a lot of people around such as clubs it is laggy but worse for me I am sure hehe. My PC at the moment is very stable but for some unknown reason I can no longer use shadows, a year back I could. Really looking forward to my new PC so I can use Second Life to its fullest, though I am yet to hear anybody saying how the GTX 680 performs.

I'd imagine the 680 to blitz it, seems it's doing that for anything people throw at it

 

[Starry]

I am sure it will be a shock to me, going from mediocre to mind blowing unk:

 

[Schnook]

Hi Schnook The only time I use ultra is when I'm taking pictures, though for everyday stuff on there I keep it at high, or medium for racing and similar activities. Like you said when there are a lot of people around such as clubs it is laggy but worse for me I am sure hehe. My PC at the moment is very stable but for some unknown reason I can no longer use shadows, a year back I could. Really looking forward to my new PC so I can use Second Life to its fullest, though I am yet to hear anybody saying how the GTX 680 performs.

I've heard people say they have problems with shadows. I'm using the Firestorm viewer and the shadows work fine on that. I can't remember if I even bothered with them on the Phoenix viewer. I recently changed to Firestorm as a friend told me the graphics look better and they do, the edges are much smoother when you take a picture

I just went from an integrated graphics card to this new gaming laptop and I was just like WOW on everything cos of how good the graphics are etc.

 

[Tracker]

My pc would normally blow this away when it comes to graphical settings.. but I find that I still cling to only medium or so settings due to my abysmal Internet connection ( Darn you talktalk!) textures and such just take far too long to load, and I can sit and have a full conversation with someone in the time it takes to render a area if I've not been there before, that and issues with my harddrives seeming to semi freeze at times means I'd rather take a quicker, if less pretty, view. (Though hopefully, we'll be getting fibre optic broadband from Virgin in a few weeks time!)

I've discovered the fps side of it, and I'm always visiting the various ranges around the worlds to teach the young guns a thing or two x3 But haven't gotten into driving yet aside from visiting the track sims, I've yet to afford a proper vehicle and my efforts to craft my own are.. less successful than I'd initially hoped, even the damned kart 1.0 in the inventory Library doesn't seem to work properly!

Are there any notable differences between the viewers? I'm still using the official Linden labs version.. Anything that might offer improved performance & Stability would be something I'd look into.

 

[Starry]

I use Exodus viewer, it gets lots of good comments. It was first released for combat use, but now has ventured into normal SL use. Has some great options. Popular one is Firestorm, but I never got on with that one and didn't find it so stable, maybe its changed, but now I have used Exodus I won't be changing any time soon.

As for the connection its a good idea to play around with the bandwidth settings in preferences. Mine is set at 1500kbps and seems to be best for me.

 

[Schnook]

Firestorm works great for me and I find the graphics are alot smoother too. I have the settings on high and my bandwidth was on 5000kbps, but Pete (NilSatis) just told me to put it on 2000kbps and now everything loads alot quicker. My internet connection at home can be slow at times and can take ages to load textures etc. but at Pete's it's alot faster and I have no problems.

I've never tried Exodus or even heard of it, but I might give it ago.