SL Target Audience (was RE: [sldev] branches/shadow-draft missing llrender.cpp)

[Matthew Dowd]

I'm changing the title of this thread since I have no problem with DaveL restricting himself to high-end graphics hardware for what is, let's face it, an early preview of an experimental feature in an experimental source code branch which isn't even scheduled to go into the release branch yet (and may turn out never to be released!)
 
I do have issue with the "if you machine is older than a few years, stop being a skinflint and buy a new one" implication of the e-mail though!
 
There is a perception that LL is concentrating on fancy features which require top end, up to date machines at the expense of working on improving the stability and performance of SL on mid-range/older machines. DaveL's comments, and observations such as below about SL's performance on lower end machines (and there seems to be some controversy as to whether WL with all the shaders turned off runs better or worse than pre-WL on older hardware), only re-inforces this perception.
 
To be honest, there is no problem with LL concentrating effort on high-end machines *if* their target audience is just the high end gaming community. However, if the target audience are typical home users (who are likely to buy mid-range machines which may even today come with the sort of hardware DaveL would regard as dead; and unlikely to be replacing them as frequently as 3-4 years), educational users (again buying mid-range machines, and typically laptops with embedded graphics), business users (typically embedded graphics and typically laptops) then needs to put most of its effort into getting it running well on the hardware such audiences will typically have - not berating them for not having the latest and greatest (but this shouldn't stop a few programmers doing high end stuff in experimental branches....).
 
This is very much the essence of the Gartner report earlier this year - the typical business user does not run SL well - and for LL to say "tough - upgrade all your machines", is a little like the tail wagging the dog if LL wants to make inroads into that market, and they'll supply respond "fine - we'll use something else". That would be fine if LL has no interest in that market - however, the whole secondlifegrid thing suggest that they *do* wish to attract those users!
 
Matthew
 
 



> Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 07:36:27 -0400> From: tongb at ohio.edu> To: sldev at lists.secondlife.com> Subject: Re: [sldev] branches/shadow-draft missing llrender.cpp> > I'm sure LL is trying its best to keep older hardware supported and> people in the game. I very much appreciate this effort because in the> education market, many college students and some> instructors/professors don't have the resources to be up to date.> > Though I must say after having just upgraded to a newer machine, SL is> far more stable than on my older. (Old was ATI 9550, new is Nvidia> GeForce 9600 GT.) In a busy sim on the older machine, SL would crash> about every 10 minutes. When alone in a sim, SL would crash about> every hour.> > On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 7:04 AM, Tateru Nino <tateru.nino at gmail.com> wrote:> > Considering how poorly SL can perform at quite a bit better than the minimum> > spec, I think that 2% figure could well be achieved by people departing in> > frustration. My last system was a solid gaming machine in its day - but> > could barely chug along in single-digit frame-rates on minimum settings once> > Windlight came along. Thank heavens for new hardware.> > -- > Bruce Tong> Software Engineer> Office of Information Technology> Ohio University> _______________________________________________> Click here to unsubscribe or manage your list subscription:> /index.html
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