S24 DX Pre Alpha 0.4
Welcome to 0.4 This test release marks another milestone, as the DirectX version now has all the same rendering features as the old GL client. :)
The biggest highlight — apart from fantastic‑looking SSR and mirrors — is the inclusion of a new texture compression system. Gone is the GL era, replaced with an async, compute‑shader‑based BC7 compressor. This essentially means you can render Second Life while saving around 60% of your VRAM with little, if any, loss of detail.
The system has been tested in some really heavy situations. The example above was Warehouse 21 — 92 avatars on an 8 GB VRAM GPU — and this resulted in near‑zero texture thrash.
Obviously, if you want all of that, it does come at a cost. Max detail, shadows, 92 avatars, unlimited animation, and unlimited complexity can push system RAM usage to nearly 32 GB, with around 30–40 FPS. But hey, it’s an extreme test!
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| Peaking on Peak :) |
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| Lookin Good KL :) |
At the current rate, we might even make it out of pre‑alpha by mid‑October. It also pleases me to say that the first sections of GL drawpools and legacy code have started to be removed.
Anyway, I love the feedback and the general positive messages — I appreciate your kind words and support.
Hope you enjoy testing 0.4 this week!
OMG this is so much faster on my machine! OpenGL is horrid on Intel Arc video cards, but I get 4x the framerates with your viewer at better settings. Is there any intention of supporting RLV? Too much of my daily life in SL requires it, I'm not willing to give that up even with vastly superior performance.
ReplyDeleteResearching actively considering a new higher performance design possibly late beta / but please bear with me if im going to invoke the RLV gods I want to do it better / faster and with less impact on the client in general but yes to answer the question its a very strong candidate before christmas :)
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