

The old code will not support the basic improvements that are in the new design. In a week or two (or three?), though, anyone using Phoenix will see all avatars as gray, pasty-looking people. Last winter, as LL was finally getting close to the deadline for the Server Side Appearance project, Phoenix developers finally pulled the plug on their old code.įor now, Phoenix still works. Some third party developers kept the old code base as long as they could, so that residents would have that option during the transition. LL abandoned the original code when they retired the 1.23 viewer 4 years ago. Making major changes like that means giving up some features of the old code that created all those problems. Avatars should rez much faster and more reliably, and many clothing problems should vanish. When LL throws thje final switch to activate the last pieces, we will never again have to worry about wandering around looking like fluffy clouds. Perhaps the most significant improvement is the Server Side Appearance project, which is now almost complete. Some involved support for mesh, which has made new types of clothing and buildings possible in SL and (more important) has reduced server load significantly so performance is much better than it was years ago. Almost two years ago, Linden Lab began developing some major upgrades to their original viewer code.
Second life phoenix viewer mac os#
So long as you have the current Mac OS (or at least something better than OS X 10.6), your Mac ought to be able to handle any of the current viewers. There are major server upgrades coming within a few months that will break many V1 functions, so Phoenix will behave worse and worse. Phoenix is based on an obsolete viewer code (V1) that is increasingly difficult to keep compatible with current versions of the SL server code.

The Phoenix/Firestorm developers announced over a year ago that they would not be doing further development of the Phoenix viewer, and many of us were surprised that it took them this long to make the final announcement that they are no longer providing support. They should probably switch to one of the few remaining old-style viewers. Residents with older, less powerful computers that can only handle Phoenix's old-style viewer code may have trouble running it. Its only disadvantage for some SL residents is that it has a larger, more complex code. You can configure Firestorm to look and behave like Phoenix in many ways. Your best option is Firestorm, which was created by the same development crew as Phoenix.
