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

[Matthew Dowd]

> 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. 
 
You might want to read what *I* actually said before *you* mispresent *me*!
 
I fully agree (and stated so) with the intent of Dave's mail - that this sort of high end feature would require a high end graphics card (and have even defended this position on the related SL forum thread - http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=2007317), and I fully agree that high end graphics programmers (such as Dave0 working on high end graphics features should be making the benefit of the new hardware features. However, Dave's e-mail was not particularly diplomatic - for instance he did imply that anyone running anything less that a GeForce8 was a "cheapskate".
 
I didn't say that Dave said that you were targetting high end game machines - I *said* that there was a perception that SL only runs well on high end gaming machines (read the forums - no-one running a machine older than 6 months seems to manage an average framerate above 10-20fps or at least will admit to it - even pushing the setting to the minimum) - this maybe due to bugs rather than intention; LL may not have enough hard evidence about different hardware configurations to judge or resolve this; it may be purely perceptional with no basis in fact - but when even a Gartner report indicates that the stability and performance on the typical machines found in a company is not adequate, unless companies to upgrade to higher end gaming class machines - then you *do* have a problem, even if it is purely a marketing problem, at attracting and retaining those not running higher end gaming class machines. What I did say was that some of Dave's comments, such as "I'm not going to pander to people who think a 3 year old architecture should receive as much support and attention as current offerings", do not help in a climate where people think you are concentrating *all* your effort on supporting only those running up to minute hardware configurations (although I do understand Dave's frustration if having clearly stated that this is an experimental feature using the features of the modern cards, if he got inundated with e-mails about it not working on  GeForce7 or lower).
 
Matthew
 
 
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