Is Kirsten's Latest SL Viewer The Best Evar? (Updated)

Behold the S16 (note the performance meter metrics at top right)

Update, 1/15: Ms. Cinquetti replies to reader questions at the bottom of this post.

Of all the people tinkering with Second Life's source code to create a new unofficial version of the SL viewer, Kirstenlee Cinquetti is among the most admired; her "Shadowdraft" client, for example, came with dynamic lighting, a feature the Lindens have yet to implement (if they ever will.)  So when she describes her latest version of the Second Life viewer as superior on several fronts, it's a claim to take seriously.

According to her, "the S16" build is "The Fastest Rendering Viewer". Not just for new systems with the latest 3D cards: "Runs well on old latops (even the Intel Atom-based ultra portables.)" Along with some nifty new features delineated below, she says it also happens to be near impervious to crashing.  "Basically the only reason this would crash is if a server dies or the users connection gets dropped."

See for yourself: go here to download the S16 executable.  As with any open source program, of course, caveat clicker.

She developed it, she says, mainly because she's been spending more time in Second Life lately, and "was less than impressed by the current crop of viewers... You should try it," she suggests modestly.  "I think you would find it quite satisfactory."

If the results are as spectacular as she suggests, one lone programmer will have managed to revamp a program that numerous Linden staffers have been agonizing over for years.  It's always fascinating when an open source developer beats corporate programmers at their own game, so I wanted to know a bit more about her real life background.

"Honestly you don't wanna know what I do in real life," she tells me, emotically winking.  "I work for whoever pays, live in a loft somewhere in Europe (originally from the UK)... Like good ole Cory I'm an ex-nuke submariner (weapons specialist)."  As for her motivation building this viewer, she calls that entirely selfish as well. "They were originally just for me," she notes, grinning. "Then my partner wanted to use it, then SL friends, before you know it... well that's how it happened."

More developer notes on the S16 below.  Meantime, I put the question to NWN readers who've tried it out, or are planning to do so now: is it as good as currently billed?

KirstenLee Notes on S16

"1) The Fastest Rendering Viewer in SL, and it's really quick both on start up and rendering in world even in laggy sims, the comments from users have ranged from 'wow' to 'bloody hell!'  It uses a mixture of code from various viewers, bit of a hybrid really.

2) New UI skins, with clearer Fonts (and no licensing issues.)

 The scanner in action

3) Avatar Scanner - Scan up to 500 meters and across sim borders, brings up names and distance. Allows viewing of profiles and teleporting of friends.

 Asset browserr interface

4) Asset Browser - View every texture and photo in your inventory preview, or use the asset browser to apply the textures directly to builds via drag and drop.

5) More Prim manipulation different ways to cut prims in SL, and on opengrids micro and monster prim creation.

6) Some severe modification to what information is sent by the viewer when active - no sending of stats to a grid, such as FPS, Lang and version etc.

7) Modified network system viewerside.

8) Very low memory footprint runs much better on marginal hardware (older laptops) even runs on the Intel Atom-based Ultra Portables - Great for running multiple clients if needed.

9) Stable - Incorporated fixes that were either not used by Linden Lab or have come from sources not working directly on SL viewers such as RealXtend."

Update, 1/15:  Addressing reader comments about S16's source code and GPL, a Mac and Linux version, Kirsten posted this reply in Comments.  Typepad is having trouble processing her reply into the Comment thread, so I'm reposting here:

"Ello all :) yus the source code is available, just drop me a line to [email protected].

Will post to who ever wants a DVD with the entire build as it's a pretty big mish mash of GPL, Closed Source and BSD bits n 'pieces.Basically this was just a bit of fun throwing together all sorts of code to see what would happen. But it also means its a fairly large and untidy lump of code, see I tend to just write code into the viewer pretty much adhoc not organised into patches as such. So I can send the entire build if anyone is so inclined.

"To answer some other points, yeah I guess I can make it PST again, that's not too much of a problem, just more of a pain reverting just for SL's sake, but if its really a huge issue to add or take away a few hours I can fix that. Actually thats just gave me an idea , I could code the offset into the debug menus... :)

"The asset browser is a work in progress and will probably feature in a clean room coding of a totally non- LL coded viewer (if you have alot of textures expect a long wait for textures to all cache )

"As for a Mac build... maby, possibly. If I DID, please bear in mind it will take me upwards of an entire day of my life to get it done. Never a flat NO.... just if I can.

"Same rules apply to Linux, but the motivation to spend a very long time fighting with GCC to supply a binary to less than 1% of the market don't really enthuse me at all. Besides, most of the users would hate my use of FMOD or KDU.  Or are quite capable of building their own clients. I'm sure I will have many vocal replies from the community on this stance.

"Shadowdraft, all I do is hack it to get the thing to work.... but probably it will see the light of day in a 1-23 SL client. Expect much gnashing of teeth and wailing on that day :)

"And as for copyright violations, no if you seriously want the code drop me a line. I much rather spend my time in coding for fun than worrying about it otherwise.  If its really a HUGE issue I can just take the downloads offline, besides not even my ftp site.

"If people actually spent time looking at what they were coding as opposed to what others were doing they might actually get somewhere.

"Right! offski to have a ciggie break and the 3rd cup of coffee of the morning!

"Peace All! 

Kirsten XXX"

Comments

[Via]

"Fastest Rendering Viewer", "Lowest memory footprint"?

Maybe this is hype, maybe it's a real deal.

Either way, M. Linden ought to RUN and test the code behind her claims NOW, and if true, implement YESTERDAY.

The silly SL homepage is a distraction. It is FIDDLING while SL burns --

It's the Lag, Stupid!

But I don't suppose he reads this little ol' blog.

[Ann Otoole]

Linden Lab needs to assign a team to acquire the source code for these open source viewers and test them. If not a security problem then give a stamp of approval. But don't stop there. Find out why everyone else seems to be able to code a better viewer and take the action necessary to cause Linden Lab's viewer to be the compelling viewer of choice. No matter what it takes to do so. Not everyone would be real happy with the ramifications of that. But the customers would be happy and that exceeds personal friendship alliances.

[Concerned non-Windows User]

Where's the source? The Linden code is released as GPL, so if Kirstenlee is distributing a binary, she also needs to distribute the source.

Is her browser Windows-only? That's all that appears to be there in the directory you link to.

[Opensource Obscure]

"The Best SL Viewer Evar" should be available for the same platforms the official viewer is, IMHO.

I don't mean that Kirsten should do this by herself - I'd be glad to pay some money to developers that will port this viewer to Mac AND Linux.

BTW, is anyone aware of a recent Linux build that supports shadows? I compiled one myself a couple of months ago, but it was quite crashy.

[Ren Austinmer]

Echoing previous comments, it's Windows only so Mac/Linux users can't say if it's the best evar.

As part of their Stability improvements I hope they take a look at these viewers and use them if approved.

[Mm Alder]

"dynamic lighting, a feature the Lindens have yet to implement (if they ever will.)"

I think it's important to give credit where it is due. Kirstenlee is using the dynamic lighting code written by Linden Lab. I believe that many of the other improvements are also not the work of "one lone programmer" but rather are taken from patches on the Linden JIRA.

The real praise that Kirstenlee does deserve is for the effort spent integrating all of the patches together, which is something that Linden has trouble with.

However, as someone else mentioned, the GPL does require that Kirstenlee provide the source code, so it should be made available somewhere. This might make it a bit easier for Linden to incorporate the patches into their production viewer.

[Knusper]

Clearly a GPL Violation... Redistributing GPLed software in binary form is forbidden!

[Knusper]

i have to add: without the sourcecode, as in this case

[Veeyawn Spoonhammer]

I'll echo the Linux comments and I would only assume she's making the code available so LL can work it into their official viewer.

[Loki Eliot]

im a mac user

[soror nishi]

please...... help us Mac users toooo....:))) smiles sweetly at Kirsten

[MK]

Sigh... also a Mac user. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it would be extremely helpful if you, Hamlet, would specify in your articles whether an awesome new development like this is Windows-only. Would save us time and spare us disappointment. Arg.

[Chris Hart]

Nice piece of work! some great little usability features in there that make life a lot easier. Question though - there's an option to integrate with Skype in the menu, but despite allowing the viewer to access Skype, I'm not getting any results here. Is this a complete feature?

[Jadzia Vasser]

As a big fan of KirstenLee's work, I have used several of her viewers over the past several months. The S16 Second Life viewer is by far the best I've come across. What started out as trying to improve her own experience has improved countless SL experiences. I don't care about source code, I just care about results. SL has never run faster or more efficiently, rendered faster, or been so stable. Thank you KirstenLee for your hard work. I know I'm happy to test and use any new viewer you make.

[Ari Blackthorne]

Two words: HOLY F...

Okay, just one word: WOW.

[LoneWolf Rhode]

Kirstens viewer the best,fastest, and most stable SL viewer I have found anywhere.
I have tried them all and this is the first one I have found that I have no problems with whatsoever.
It's just a shame that someone with her talents for writing code isn't working for Linden Labs!

WTG Kirsten and thank you so very much for making my SL experience just that much better!!!!

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Congratulations, Kirsten :) That's the way to go, indeed!

Sadly, like all Mac users, I can only type comments on blogs :) , but not use most of the alternate viewers, except for the first release of Imprudence and some old tweaked Nicholaz-patched versions :)

Oh, and I have compiled the Mac version from LL's source code once (during the period of time when LL dropped Windlight from its main series and I wanted it back!), but I'm no expert, and sadly, and more important, I have no time left to do that or I would...

Poor Mac users. After all, we're supposed to be about 30% of all SL regular users, since SL is really the only virtual world with user-content that runs on a Mac (well, except for OpenCroquet...) and thus SL has far more Mac users than it should, statistically speaking...

[Dedric Mauriac]

Cross out number 9. I got the client and had it running ... for about 5 minutes. After that, it crashed. The asset browser is nice, but i was mostly waiting for textures to load. I didn't notice any shadows.

[Tateru Nino]

I've been considering trying this viewer series out, but without accompanying source code to match the binaries, it's a copyright violation and I can't really support that.

Unless Kirsten's obtained the rights by some alternative licensing agreement anyway.

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

As has been pointed out: no Linux version shows up at the link, and as Clara Peller would say if she were RMS, "Where's the source?"

[Simeon Beresford]

could not do any land searches using this viewer.

[Hamlet Au]

I'll ask Ms. Cinquetti about the open source issue with her viewer and invite her to reply here.

[Connie Sec]

I will have to try this as my day to day viewer.
I've used her SD2 R7 and SD4 R1 that does shadows. They ran like a snail onvalium when i had a 8500 nvidia card but are fine now with a 9800 series Nvidia. SD2 R7 has issues with some sculptys refusing to "pop" and some prim attachments not rezzing (eg parts of glasses and earrings) yet the shadows from it is rendered. SD4 R1 seems to have solved these issues but when you take a pic, the pic has none of the shadows. So unless I'm doing something terribly wrong, it's of no use to me as a SL Photographer. Or can someone enlighten me on this??
Licensing and all that..I'm not au fait with , all I want is something more stable and if possible, rendering shadows as well.

[Nimil]

i was pretty blown away by this client, it worked so well on my crappy laptop! but the time being stuck in UTC format is a pain and i cannot convert time very well so that was a real turn off for me...

another turn off was that i and another person both requested that the time be changed to standard SLT and i even suggested making an option for it so if you liked utc you could keep it like that, and her response was pretty much a big fat "no". she also said no to making mac clients..

so sadly i will not be using this client. which is very disappointing as i really loved the asset browser feature.. i've been wanting thumbnails for textures for a long time.. but though it works for SL it doesn't seem to actually be ment for SL.

[Fenoe]

The old version works perfectly but the last 2 shadowdraft versions isnt working at all on my laptop, probably a driver issue or something, i havent taken a deep look into it.
would love to get it to work cause sl looks so much better with shadows turned on ^_^

[Tinsel Silvera]

I had the same experience as Dedric however it looked cool with what I saw of it.

[GoSpeed Racer]

"No Mac or Linux version" blah blah blah... She's one person you know, cut her some slack. Hopefully her improvements get implemented into the main viewer at some point.

As far as stability goes it's kinda iffy. R16 and R14 would crash on startup on an older machine of mine. On my newer, faster machine it ran fine for 2.5 hours until it locked up hard and I had to kill it with my task manager. Didn't have time to play with the new features but I'll give them a look see next time I log in.

[Kirstenlee]

Ello all :) yus the source code is available, just drop me a line to [email protected]

Will post to who ever wants a DVD with the entire build as its a pretty big mish mash of GPL, Closed Source and BSD bits n pieces.Basically this was just a bit of fun throwing together all sorts of code to see what would happen. But it also means its a fairly large and untidy lump of code, see I tend to just write code into the viewer pretty much adhoc not organised into patches as such. So I can send the entire build if anyone is so inclined.

To answer some other points yeah I guess I can make it PST again,thats not too much of a problem,just more of a pain reverting just for SL's sake but if its really a huge issue to add or take away a few hours I can fix that.
Actually thats just gave me an idea , I could code the offset into the debug menus... :)

The asset browser is a work in progress and will probably feature in a clean room coding of a totally non LL coded viewer (if you have alot of textures expect a long wait for textures to all cache )

As for a Mac build... maby, possibly. If I DID please bear in mind it will take me upwards of an entire day of my life to get it done.
Never a flat NO.... just if I can.

Same Rules apply to Linux, but the motivation to spend a very long time fighting with GCC to supply a binary to less than 1% of the market don't really enthuse me at all. Besides most of the users would hate my use of FMOD or KDU.
Or are quite capable of building there own clients. Im sure I will have many vocal replies from the community on this stance.

Shadowdraft , all I do is hack it to get the thing to work.... but probably it will see the light of day in a 1-23 SL client. Expect much nashing of teeth and wailing on that day :)

And as for copyright violations no if you seriously want the code drop me a line.
I much rather spend my time in coding for fun than worrying about it otherwise.

If its really a HUGE issue I can just take the downloads offline, besides not even my ftp site.

If people actually spent time looking at what they were coding as opposed to what others were doing they might actually get somewhere.

Right! offski to have a ciggie break and the 3rd cup of coffee of the morning!
Peace All! Kirsten XXX

[Dawny Daviau]

You know what I dont get? The fact that there has been so much negativity on any viewer someone makes (not only Kirstens).
They all try to make something better than LL does. In their spare time. They dont get payed for it.
Bless your countings that there are people willing to make something that runs better than the LL viewer does. These people are being treated like you own them with 'demands' and if they say no then your mad. I've seen it happen with Nicholaz, Boy Lane etc. Its volunterary work they do, dont forget that. And I am glad they are making my SecondLife expierence better......

[Buggie Breda]

Ok, first to say I'm old school and don't like to try 'New' things. I'm ok with what I start with, but this viewer is awesome. I'm not into all the fancy frills and hot keys, but what I see here, she is to be commended for putting forth the effort to make our S/L experience fun again. Keep up the great work Kristen, and don't let them rip you to much! After all it was a project for your pleasure and yours to share as you wish! Thanks again!!!!

[Ran Garrigus]

The rendering speed of this client is truly ridiculous. Basic Shaders and Atmospheric Lighting have a negligible effect on my system now, whereas before they generally cut FPS by half.

I don't know how Kirsten did it, but hats off! My only complaint is the apparent decision to go UTC rather than SL time -- having it as an option would be nice. And I don't do this out of any U.S.-centric bias, being +1 GMT; it's just easier to figure out event and meeting times when everyone's working on the same clock.

I wonder if a hover thing could be done over the UTC time, which will display SL time?

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

Even if Linux is less than one percent of the personal computer market, it doesn't necessarily follow that less than 1% of SL users use Linux, since SL users may not be a representative sample of personal computer users. (For example, if traditional gamers scorn SL, that's a segment of the population that highly leans towards Windows, since non-console game writers mostly write for Windows.) LL could easily keep statistics of that sort--do they?

[Macphisto Angelus]

Another rock solid viewer! I have been using KLee viewers for months and none that I have tried come close to the stability and speed offered in them.

Thanks KLee for another awesome viewer!

[stacy]

Yet another disappointed Mac user. Wish we had some options for more stable viewers.

[Robert2008 Jonson]

Hi Kirsten

Thanks for nice SL viewer. It is a little bit faster than standard viewer. I especially like Avatar scanner with longer range than 96m.

[Todd Borst]

I would like to sincerely thank Kirsten for releasing this client. It runs noticeably better on my netbook than the official client. It must have taken more work than most of us would realize and I thank you for it.

[EastTuesday]

The client seems to work well but like the Linden Viewer it does not work will with Laptops that use the Intel Graphics chips and this is an increasing number of new laptops. It grinds to a halt with zero FPS after a short time.

The only way out of this hole seems to be fiddling with some of the 3D graphics settings to Force Texture Compressions. I know that sounds complicated and I don't know why it works. Problem is, it stops Sculpties being rendered. That's bad in a world rich with a surprising amount of sculptured prims. The only program that works with the Intel Chips is the OnRez viewer. You still have to turn on the Texture Compression, but the Sculpties are visible.

So is it the best viewer ever? Not if you have a brand new laptop with the Intel Graphics chipset.

[Sasi Nexen]

Amazing viewer thought i'd test just too see what the whole hype was aboutand it's amzing, so much faster loading. Everything is rezzing in much quicker and it just looks so much nicer.

Thanks Kirsten

[QueenKellee Kuu]

Hyang did a mac build! yaaaaay

find it here:

http://hyangreflections.blogspot.com/2009/01/kirstens-viewer-builds.html

[Tateru Nino]

Ah, okay. So the viewer (as it stands) *is* a copyright violation. :(

Part of the requirements of building distributable binaries from the source code is making that code at least as readily available - otherwise the creators' rights are infringed. I would have thought the license was quite clear about that.

[Faerie]

I love the interface (except for the clock) but on my old 3ghz Pentium 4 with XP and a 7600GT graphics card I found this to be the slowest viewer ever. Every mouse click was "wait-two-three" before anything happened. So I am back to using Nicholaz Ec-h which is still the most stable and fastest viewer for my old PC.

One question though - does this incorporate the latest fix for how sculpty prims appear?

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Mac users, rejoice — this utterly amazing and fantastic SL viewer is also available for us too:

http://kirstenleecinquetti.blogspot.com/2009/01/s16-on-mac.html

You won't really believe how good it is... before you try it.

[James Foo]

Has anyone looked at the source to see what it's doing with username and password? I'm always a little nervous typing my password into a third party client....

[Aira]

the S16 is really cool, its fast and stable, though distancy-rendering sometimes quits (over 500m)...
my ISSUE is the S16 doesnt have the SLT anymore, that is very confusing to me. is there any way to change the clock back to slt-time?

[aangel braveheart]

I'm in the S16 browser now

I'm bloody impressed.

I like it, much simpler cleaner outlook
and it seems faster, or is it just me?

Appreciated.
Now -how do we get updates etc?

AAngel Braveheart

[puzzled]

Um. Where has she gone? Went to check out her blog today as was considering downloading the viewer and she's offski. What's the scoop mr au?

[a]

it crashes every time i try to open chat :(

[Hiroaki]

As of Feb. 2, Kirsten's Blog is deleted and the fileserver gone.
Did she gone missing?
Did "anyone" actually get a source code for it?
What has happened to her?

Questions go around and round.

[Disapointed]

It appears that Ms. Cinquetti has retired, unfortunately.

[aangel braveheart]

The links are NOT WORKING
to download S16 viewer!

I got it two weeks ago -wonderful and I want to share.

Pls fix, thankee Ms Kirsten

[Chris]

Link to download is broken. Does anyone still have this client? I cannot find it anywhere..

[Rob P]

Hi - thanks for all your great work. link to the executable above not working..

[Strewart]

Well it may render faster, but S17-2 (198) just crashes every minute or two, unstable. Also the S18 - 1 keeps telling it after installing it is is corrupted.
Even after redownloading it and trying to reinstall it a few times.

Guess I will try other viewers, been in SL for 3 years and SL standard viewer crashes less.

[Axaes Xandal]

Nice, but illegal.

Someone in an OpenSim Grid gave me screenshots based on this new viewer, and it looked very intense, almost photorealistic. Basically on a Nvidia 8x card he had far superior graphics than me with a N250GTS for 143 Euro. He also mentioned it works better in OpenSim Grids (like OSGrid) than in Second Life.

Unfortunately I'm unable to use it as I'm using Linux, it's also concerning that this viewer is illegal and Kirsten is basically using her talent and populartiy as a leverage against GPL, which is the base for her popularity nonetheless.

I can understand that Kirsten doesn't want to build Linux/Mac viewers, it's her time and she has no obligation whatsoever to offer a finished viewer for non-Microsoft platforms. On the other hand she's hindering the compilation for alternative viewers if she blocks access to the source. "Source upon request" is in violation of GPL, it needs to published.

When she justifies the blocking of access to the source with the argument that her style of coding is too unclean, that really doesn't fly.

I'm not sure if I understood this correctly, in this blog entry it seems she threatened to pull the viewer if source/copyright "is a problem".

Clearly this would be a political manipulation in which the happy Windows users are used as a force to cry foul if someone from the GPL community is going to be anal about it and say, "well Kirsten, publish the source or pull the best viewer evar from the web".

The GPL community however is threatened if the GPL is disregarded by people who see code published under GPL as their own code. It's not, it's code owned by the GENERAL PUBLIC, if anyone has a problem with that, they should avoid using GPL as the base of their work.

So yes, we do have a situation here, and if in the end it means that the best evar viewer needs to pulled then it needs to be pulled.

[alex engebos]

y cant it be downloaded i keep getting the 404 page

[Eric Livingston]

I'm pretty sure, though I haven't waded through the GPL in a few years, that all this stuff about providing source code applies when there's money being made. All open source licenses I'm aware of make it perfectly fine to me to alter and compile anything I want and just give out binaries, if in fact I'm just giving them away. It's only when you start charging money that you must legally provide the source code.

This makes sense, since the attitude of most open source is "sure, have it, use it, do whatever you want, but don't start making money off my labors without providing the world with your improvements"

[mando]

yup i like her viewer so much and there is also another cool even cooler viewer that i found in this site
http://inflife.net
they guys there r doing a very good job it goes beyond the viewers we r used to.

[phentermine]

Ofcourse, i dont mind a good, survey which will not be biased, if i didnt comment too much about meshes is because mainly the SL rayligthining is much more simple, you cannot cast real looking shadows unless a client modification will construct the responsible shadow prims IN the client, treated as the same as the particles.