Time for a Coffee! - codename Hradr

 

With Magn wrapped up at build 3500, it's time to kick off another round of snapshot builds and experimentation.

Say hello to Hradr (cool name ) — S24 version 8. As mentioned before in the blog, this is a dual-purpose build:

1. Keep pace with Viewer development — staying in sync with upstream while layering in Kirsten's own code refinements and feature set.
2. The long-term "art of the possible" goal — replicating the render engine for DirectX.

Stage 2, which meant rewriting all the shaders, is nearly done. The next piece of the puzzle is replicating the llrender code, and that's going to take some time. There are tactics and choices still to be decided, but ultimately, it all has to behave exactly like the current client — no shortcuts on that front.

I won't lie to you: this is fraught with challenges. I could pour months into this and come up empty-handed, or it could be a massive win. And let's be honest — we're looking at peak OpenGL. It's not going anywhere, but it's not evolving further either. It's a graphical cul-de-sac.

And as if that weren't enough on the plate, LUA looms on the horizon too. Honestly, cloning a few copies of myself might be the easier project at this point!

But let's end on a high note: recent testing has shown that, under identical load conditions, frame times in certain scenarios are running at nearly half of the stock client. In a use case like SL, where every millisecond of smoothness counts, that's a genuinely big deal.

Let's continue the journey. :)

Much Love,

KL