[sldev] branches/shadow-draft missing llrender.cpp

[Matthew Dowd]

> Matthew, even though I share your opinion that the original posting was > not quite diplomatic, I think you're a bit out of line here. I know some > "technically challenged" people who managed to replace computer hardware > with no problems.
OK, a little harsh, and stereotypical - on the other hand I know some very technical programmers who couldn't upgrade a graphics card!
 
What I was trying to illustrate that just because the component is only a few $$ doesn't mean the upgrade is simple or within the capability of everyone who runs SL. There are plenty of examples on hardware forums where an upgrade to a graphics card has resulted in an unstable system due to leftover software from a previous card, inadequate power supply, inadequate cooling etc. and what started as a graphics card replacement turned into a PSU and case replacement too! Then there are slimline desktops- slimline because the graphics is built into the motherboard and there isn't enough room to house full height or full width cards. Then there are situations where the new card requires two slots whereas the previous required one etc.
 
I do realise that SL has no particular target audience or rather tries to target all audiences, and I do realise that SL will not run identically on all hardware. However, I would argue that if we were to draw a graph with hardware capability as the x axis and effort from LL into ensuring that SL runs well on that hardware we should get a bell curve (on the basis that should reflect what hardware people will have). The perception outside of LL is that this graph is closer to an exponential curve! I suspect the truth is closer to the bell curve but we do have that perceptual gap.
 
An illustration of that perceptual gap is WL performance - LL seem clearly convinced that WL performance is as good as if not better than pre-WL performance on the same hardware with the same quality settings and the new stuff switched off. Outside of LL, many people seem fairly convinced of the opposite! That some of the examples now coming to light on this list haven't done so before is probably due to fear that any such reports would be dismissed on the basis the reporter should just upgrade their hardware (or possibly reports *have* been so dismissed).
 
An interesting statistic - although perhaps difficult to collect - would be how many people would be using SL but stopped using it (or indeed never managed to use it at all) due to hardware related issues - e.g. given the choice of upgrade hardware or leave SL, chose the latter!
 
Matthew
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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