Time for change?....

Well, a series of coincidences led me to the discovery of a new (?) viewer called Exodus. Part of it was on the recommendation of one of the Bloch clan, Cessy, who I have been talking to OOC (she wanted me to guninee pig a Valentines heart she is making) I have only met her brother so far IC, but they are good fun from talking to them ooc and reading their adventures (though it takes me forever to figure out what they are saying) anyway, she persuaded me that it was worth trying if nothing else....


I must admit that I was not convinced at first, the details for it were pretty similar to firestorm, and firestorm to be honest of late has been less and less impressive, to the point that their latest update got removed from my computer and I went back to the beta version.

I have to confess... I was actually impresses straight away, the time taken to log in was a lot quicker, and the time taken to rezz in was impressive considering it was it's first time loading in.

So, to test it out, went ooc and ran around a bit, and did some side by side comparisons, both are on graphics low setting, particles set to 2000 and draw distance set to 200.

So, first things first, out side our house on Exodus. Pretty much the whole lot had loaded which was good, water effect and land textures are there even on low setting. I also discovered that it has a really nice interface for adding and removing buttons, a lot less cumbersome than firestorm and V2, and you can chose as to whether the button(s) are on the side, bottom or top of your screen, or you can even place them on different sections.

Now the same on Firestorm :

Despite standing around for a while to give it some time you will see some of the stuff still had not loaded (yes, I know the other photo does not show the houses, but they had loaded, you will have to take my word for that one).

Ok, so next, back into the house. And random Meeroo shot :
Exodus :

Firestorm:

So, did a bit of a run to the local swamp to see how it did on an area that has a lot of scripts and particles.

I think this one really demonstrated the difference between the two "low" settings, Exodus so far is waaay in the lead. Not only is low a lot crisper on exodus (I normal only that sort of graphics on "high" or more) but I could really feel the difference in running - usually running is a bit juddery, half the time I cant see where I am going, and if I am running a lot I can feel my laptop pushing out the heat (there has been at least one bow practice session with my Master and brother when I have had to ask to stop because I could even feel the heat from where my hands where on the keyboard) in Exodus there was no judder for normal running, some of the higher textured items take a moment to load but I can see well as I run, and my computer does not really seem to be putting out any more heat than it does in SL generally.



Next I tested sim boundaries, ran from tropics in fields, back into tropics, then into highlands. Cant say there was a huge difference, so that I think is either a weak point for both, or just an LL issue.. I can pretty much guess its LL :D

So, random highlands house :

Interestingly Exodus did not do so well on this one, but perhaps that is why it loads quicker for the foreground stuff... though I believe the castle is temp rez to save on prims, so it could also have been an issue with the castle itself that rectified between swapping viewers- will have to check that out another time.


Ok, on to the dreaded Isle of Tabor, I must admit I don't rp there much, partially due to weapons laws meaning slave are at risk there, but mainly because I can hear my fan straining the second I cross the sim barrier, I lagg like mad, and its not so much juddering as making leaps, it can be like watching the old black and white silent films where you seem to miss half the frames. So, Exodus really impressed me here, there was
a little of the judder I got from normal running on Firestorm, but nothing like the issues I normally have.

I tried an experiment here. The slavery normally takes forever to load, so I did a random test. Exodus took about 40 seconds, Firestorm just over a minute.

 

From here I tried one more experiment, tping back to "home" Which is our kitchen in Gor, and counting the difference in rez times, Exodus managed it in about 30 seconds, firestorm in over a minute 

So, think for now I am going to try out Exodus, and experiment with the settings for a while.

In term of what is going on, sorry I have not blogged in a while, please check out River's blog for the latest information about what has been going on (RIVER THINKS I'M FAT!!!!!)