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

Eric M. Tulla (BigPapi Linden) tulla at lindenlab.com
Wed May 28 08:51:04 PDT 2008


I want to stop this tangent before it gets too much momentum.  You're 
completely misrepresenting what Dave *actually* said.  We have one of 
the most generous hardware requirements for a current 3d application and 
will continue to do so (like he mentioned, we still support GeForce 
2's).  Now, for this particular feature (experimental per-pixel lighting 
and shadowing) you need a high end card to see it, because older 
hardware simply does not support the functionality required to actually 
implement it.  At no point did he mention that our target is the high 
end gaming community or that we are concentrating our effort on high end 
machines.  However, for the best experience in SL and if you want to see 
the world at its prettiest, then you need modern, high-performing 
hardware (including a graphics card that is good for gaming).  This is 
simply inescapable fact. 

We do a LOT of work to ensure that older or business hardware that was 
never meant to run 3d applications can run Second Life.  Yes, we support 
LOTS of hardware never designed to actually run 3d applications well.  
This will not change.

-Eric

Matthew Dowd wrote:
> 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
> > _______________________________________________
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-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eric M. Tulla
tulla at lindenlab.com
Graphics Programmer
Linden Lab
1 Broadway Street, 14th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02142
cell: 617.388.7971



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