Black Dragon Dev Reports Update to SL Viewer Getting Up to 100 FPS

Yesterday's post on the Black Dragon SL viewer's spectacular graphics generated a lot of interest and traffic, so it's worth pointing to the latest blog post from its creator, NiranV Dean, who claims that the latest update has been updated to get spectacular frame rates:

Framerate stability should be massively improved and you might even see some FPS gains. I went up from 40 to 60 on my place and for the first time since Nirans Viewer i managed to get 100 FPS again in the sky and even up to 180 FPS if I took off my Avatar.

40-60 FPS is already quite good and on par with typical high-end computer game performance, while average FPS in SL is more like 10-20 FPS.  So getting anything like 100 FPS would be quite impressive. Caveat SLer and all that -- might be fun giving Black Dragon a whirl and reporting your own FPS in Comments below.

Oh yeah, here's the Dragon's Recommended System Requirements:

• CPU:  Quad Core with at least 3.000 mhz
• GPU: NVidia Geforce GTX 660 or higher.
• Memory: 6+ Gb (DDR3)
• OS:  Windows 7 64bit Edition
• Brain:  A functioning one.

So your machine better be pretty damn studly to even try running this thing.

Comments

[Trap]

What graphic settings are you using cause im using default and im not getting but 24 fps at best and im running N Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050

[Mandy]

Since the max server frame rate is 45, how much difference do frame rates higher than that really make?

[NiranV Dean]

@Trap
Your framerate is highly dependent on your surroundings and your own Avatar. Those values came from my place which is the place shown in the gfycat loop. Given you got a decent CPU you should be able to get much more FPS if your surroundings aren't a mess.

@Mandy
I don't want to go too much into detail but the gist of it is, the server framerate is irrelevant to your own clientside framerate. The difference between having 15,20,25,30,45 and 60 FPS is big. 15 FPS is on the verge of annoying, 20-25 FPS are okay but "slow", 30 FPS is what most people consider a relatively smooth experience, 45 FPS is where its really smooth and 60 FPS is a perfectly smooth picture to the human eye. Everything beyond 60 FPS is just buffer.

@Article
Please take the FPS values with a grain of salt, they are from my own hardware and from a place that isn't busy nor filled with the usual interior crap you'd expect. They were made with 99% stock settings just like the Viewer is right out of the box, minus Motion Blur. Disabling Motion Blur might net you a good decent FPS gain even with no one around. FPS in SL are highly unstable and fluctuate all the time depending on the level of optimization of your own avatar as well as others and the surroundings. Don't expect these framerates everywhere.

The recommended hardware is almost my own hardware, which is why it's recommended, i know that this hardware CAN run at these framerates (not that it necessarily will at all times, see above). You can use the Viewer with far less, given your CPU is no less than a quad core and your GPU is no Intel HD card or older than the Nvidia GTX series. These are extremely low sys spec requirements, really. You can get a decent PC for less than 300 bucks.

[Chic Aeon]

I have seen anything between OMG 11fps at a sim where I have a free home (not sure WHY it is so laggy) to 140 at "my place" -- this on Firestorm. I agree that it really dosen't matter once you get to a respectable rate (like 40) and you can film machinima at anything over 15 with smooth cams.

FPS is SO dependent on where you are and what is in your view that unless you are testing one place -- looking in the same direction with the exact same settings -- it is pretty much NOT a test.

at the same time, congrats for improving the framerates. Always good.

Even though I always use Firestorm and am mostly on my building pad, the framerates vary dramatically from one day to anyother, so there has to be something going on server side :D.

[NiranV Dean]

Having textures download and decode in the background will dramatically lower your framerate, make sure they are done downloading, also make sure there really is no one being rendered other than you. Also make sure your inventory is not fetching either.

I chose my place for this test because i got 100% control over the area i'm looking at as well as 100% control over my own avatar and its optimization and seeing i can get 60 fps easily there now is a decent measurement for how crap everything else can be.

[ümraniye kurye]

Thanks for your marvelous posting! I certainly enjoyed reading it, you can be a great author.I will make sure to bookmark your blog and may come back down the road. I want to encourage continue your great job, have a nice evening!

[Melissa Yeuxdoux]

Can it run under WINE?

[NiranV Dean]

@Melissa

Linux is not supported either. You could however run it in a VM but that would be just worse than running it with the correct OS in most cases.

[Just Say'n]

I would love to use it, but it's not optimized for AMD Graphics Like Vega or Ryzen CPU's.

[NiranV Dean]

It's just not optimized for AMD GPU's which which means essentially nothing. As far as i can tell all shaders and thus all graphics effects work on AMD GPU's just as good as they do on NVidia.

I'm using an AMD CPU myself, you shouldn't have any problems with a Ryzen CPU, infact you should have a much much better performance even, similar to that of Intel CPU's.

[Chic Aeon]

I just wanted to add an addendum here. After posting a few days ago I noticed that I am getting much better framerates --- well over 220 up on my work platform. Numbers which I have never seen. Since I have not changed viewers or made any software or hardware changes I can only assume this is a server side process.

That was AFTER this report of course. Just seems odd. I have never seen those framerates in nine plus years on any machine with any viewer :D.

[NiranV Dean]

Nothing they changed serverside. That's simply you having less performance wasting avatars and stuff around you and all textures/inventory fully loaded. At which the Viewer should reach its maximum framerate.

[poliüretan]

Having textures download and decode in the background will dramatically lower your framerate, make sure they are done downloading, also make sure there really is no one being rendered other than you. Also make sure your inventory is not fetching either.