And that is indeed a million dollar question! Lag is pervasive in SL, and there is no such thing as a “lag free SIM” - except one that is completely empty.

Before this can be answered, it is first vital to understand what lag is exactly, so please refer to this page for an explanation of the 3 forms of lag.

If you find yourself being badly lagged, there are things you can do to reduce the effects of two of the three types: client and network. You can only reduce server side lag if you own or rent the parcel or region being affected by it.

This is the most common of lag you will experience in SL. And you can do a great deal about it, without requiring that others do anything, and all of it simply entails reducing your graphics settings. Try these one at a time; sometimes just one or two will be enough to make things significantly better. Also, they are not given in order: in different situations, some will be preferable solutions than others.

• Set your graphics to Low: Preferences→ Graphics -> General→ Quality and speed.
• Ensure that anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing are both disabled: Preferences → Graphics → Hardware Settings tab.
• Reduce your draw distance.
• Turn on avatar impostors (this makes drawing of distant avatars much faster): Preferences → Graphics → General.
• Reduce your Maximum Complexity value.
• Disable atmospheric shaders (which serves to drastically reduce how much your computer has to render, as the sky alone is very graphics-intensive).
• If need be, inhibit the rendering of other avatars: Advanced → Rendering Types → Avatar.
• Alternately, you can derender avatars one by one, by right clicking on them and selecting Derender.
• You can also derender objects, the same way.
• If there are many particle effects around you, turn particles off: Advanced → Rendering Types → Hide Particles.
• If you have a dual graphic card laptop then see here.
• Make sure your anti-virus software is not scanning the viewer cache folders; this has been known to have a huge impact on viewer performance. BitDefender is apparently one that is particularly bad in this respect. Whitelist the viewer and the cache folder to prevent this from happening. Webroot is known to cause serious problems; see this special Webroot page.

These things will reduce the “quality” of your SL experience, but they may be required if you find that your movement is badly impaired by client side lag.

If you own or rent a home, or a public venue, there are things you can do to reduce client lag for yourself and others without overly sacrificing the “feel” of the location. For example:

• Use small textures on all structures, 512×512 or smaller.
• Avoid using prims that change textures if possible; if you need them, again, try to keep the textures small.
• Avoid using textures with alpha channels if none are needed (a solid brick wall texture doesn't need an alpha channel).
• Make enclosed spaces that do not give too large a view of the exterior, especially the sky.
• Use particles and animated textures sparingly.

Another common cause of lag is your network connection. You may even have a high speed connection, but if you have set your bandwidth too low or too high in Firestorm, you will be causing lag for yourself.

Determining the optimal value for bandwidth in Firestorm is explained on on this page.

Other things that are known to affect connection speeds are firewalls and anti-virus software. So if you still experience network-related lag, you can try disabling these, temporarily, and seeing if things improve. If they do, then you may want to consider replacing firewall and/or anti-virus software.

In SL, you can reduce bandwidth usage (and thus network lag), by looking for and identifying items which cause frequent updates between client (the viewer) and SL servers. Many objects cause such updates; some you will need or want to keep, but you may be able to eliminate others.

To get a visual indication of what objects cause updates, go to top menu, Develop → Show info → Show Updates to Objects. (Press Ctrl-Alt-Q to enable Develop on the top menu, if it isn't.) This will enable colored trails above objects that are updating. Each color has a different meaning¹⁾:

• Red: Indicates a full update, such as the creation of a prim. This is a relatively large data packet sent to your computer. If you see objects that are showing a constant stream of red, they're contending for your bandwidth, which may cause other things in the area (like textures) to load slower. If the object is made up of many pieces, the packet is larger.
• Blue: Indicates a partial update, such as a change of position or color for a prim. These are always smaller than full updates. However, the same rules apply as for the full updates. If you are creating content, it's a good habit to make sure it's not updating many times per second. Changing colors, textures, shape, or particle parameters several times per second causes partial updates that contend for your bandwidth.
• Green: Indicates an ending update, such as the deletion of a prim. If this packet gets lost on the way from the server to your computer, the object becomes a “ghost” – your viewer still renders it, but you can walk through it, and when you edit it, the Creator field is blank because the object no longer exists on the server.

You can disable showing of updates by unchecking the setting mentioned above: Develop → Show info → Show Updates.

Objects that update are generally (but not always) scripted. However, many scripted objects do not constantly generate updates. For example, a scripted chair that is not in use, is “idle”. It does nothing, and therefore isn't generating netwrok traffic.

NOTE: Some effects are in-world only; they cause things to change visually but are handled entirely by the client, thus do not create any network (or region) lag. These include: particles, texture animation, client-side rotation.

If you own or rent a parcel or region, then there are many things you can do to help reduce server lag. Here is a partial, incomplete list:

• Remove all unnecessary scripts.
• Remove all items that rez temporary objects (temp rez creates a lot of lag on a SIM).
• If you host events, consider providing seating for avatars and ask them to make use of it.
• Similarly, for events, request that attendees detach scripted attachments before they arrive (NOTE: asking people to reduce their ARC does not alleviate server lag in a noticeable way).
• For large parcels, provide easy ways for people to teleport about, saving them walking (avatars moving creates physics lag).

These classes are based on our official Firestorm release and are conducted in voice and text except when otherwise noted. There's no need to talk, but you may want to be able to hear. We also usually have help available to answer questions in text. This schedule is subject to change.

Note that it is best if you are on Firestorm for the classes.

Locations are indicated in the far right column as follows:

• FS: Firestorm Support region classroom, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Firestorm%20Social%20Island/250/6/4001
• JU: Junkyard University, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Junkyard%20Blues%20South/68/124/22

Class times and days change regularly. Classes may be held any day of the week, with start times from 8am to 7pm SLT. Nonetheless, if the class times are still inconvenient you may prefer to watch recorded versions of some of these classes on YouTube.

*All times SLT*

Key = Key Sequence

If this occurs, chance are good that the inventory cache is corrupt. Deleting it should solve the problem.

• Locate your cache folder. You will probably need to do this manually, if you are unable to log in. Use a file manager (like Windows Explorer for Windows system, Dolphin, or some such) to locate the cache folder. In its default location, the cache folder is hidden on most OSs. To find it, you will need to show hidden folders. Default cache locations are:
  • Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Local Settings\Application Data\Firestorm
  • Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Firestorm
  • Mac: ~/Library/Caches/Firestorm
  • linux: ~/.firestorm/cache
• In this folder, locate the files named data.db2.x.* and index.db2.x.* (where * is a digit: 0, 1, 2, etc; you may have more than one of each type of file)
• Delete all files that match these two names.
• Log back into SL, to a quiet region (try Hippo Hollow, Aich or Hatton). Allow your inventory to repopulate fully.

Windows only: If the above doesn't work, then click the speaker icon in the system tray, then touch the volume slider, just enough to change the volume slightly. It may be that the Windows sound system has stalled; this should “give it a kick”.

If the above fails, then try doing a full wipe of all settings.

This indicates that a debug setting (a control) is missing a comment. It is unclear which comment is missing, but the fix is to reinstall Firestorm using the Clean Install procedures.

Ref. FIRE-12339

This is almost always caused by the MemoryPrivatePoolEnabled being set to TRUE. It should never be set to TRUE. But before you try to fix this, we could really use a copy of your crash logs to help us work on a fix. See here for steps to collect your crash logs, then attach those logs to FIRE-12339.

Then, do the following:

• Make sure hidden files/folders are set to show - see here for steps.
• Browse to your user_settings folder. This is located at -
  • Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings [USERNAME] \Application Data\Firestorm\user_settings
  • Windows Vista, 7, or 8, 8.1, and 10: C:\Users [USERNAME] \AppData\Roaming\Firestorm\user_settings
  • Mac: User/Library/Application Support/Firestorm/user_settings
  • Linux: ~/.firestorm/user_settings
• In the user_settings folder, find the file named “settings.xml”
• Open settings.xml in a text editor - For Windows, Notepad++ is ideal for this
• Search settings.xml for the term MemoryPrivatePoolEnabled
  You will see a block of text like so:

<key>MemoryPrivatePoolEnabled</key>
<map>
<key>Backup</key>
<boolean>0</boolean>
<key>Comment</key>
<string>Enable the private memory pool management</string>
<key>Type</key>
<string>Boolean</string>
<key>Value</key>
<boolean>1</boolean>
</map>

• Near the bottom there, change the “<boolean>1</boolean>” line just above </map> to “<boolean>0</boolean>”
• Save changes to settings.xml and edit the text editor.
• Login.
• Profit.

Issues outside of Firestorm can, and often do, result in viewer crashes….

• Make sure your file system is not corrupt by running chkdsk or equivalent for your OS.
• On Windows, ensure that your registry isn't messed up by running CCleaner or similar.
• Reboot your PC and moder/router.
• Ensure that video drivers are current, as well as your OS.
• Do a Reinstall of Firestorm.

• If the installer does not run at all, try the following steps (this solution was described for Vista SP1; it has not been confirmed for other Windows versions):
  • Right click the installer .exe
  • Click Properties
  • On the bottom of the general tab is a message “This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer”
  • Click Unblock
  • Installer should run.
• You may have corrupt registry information; refer to this page. This is especially common for those rolling back from Win10 to an older version of Windows.
• If you crash at startup with an error like: “failed to initialise properly code (0x0150002)”, or you get an error that the “side-by-side” configuration is incorrect, or“Firestorm failed to start because the application configuration was incorrect. Reinstalling the application may correct the problem”, please download this and install it, as your system is likely incompatible with the Visual Studio C++ 2005 SDK DLLs: AppFix.exe
• Open the Firestorm install folder and search for any files named .config - delete any you find.
• Note that some anti-virus software will result in errors during installation; more information is here.
• If you are using an ATI (AMD) graphics card, then please refer here for known problems with these cards.
  For nVidia issues, plese refer to this page.

If you are using Windows 10, and have an Intel 2000/3000 or older graphics card, please refer to this page if you cannot start Firestorm without crashing.

If you crash during login, then try setting Firestorm to XP compatibility:

• Locate your desktop shortcut for Firestorm
• Right click on the icon and select Properties
• Select the Compatibility tab
• Check the “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” and select Windows XP from the drop down
• Click Apply.

If you get a User Account Control security popup, then please see this page.

If you have just installed Firestorm on a linux system and it will not start, it is highly likely that you are missing some required libraries. You need to verify if this is the case.

You need to open Terminal and cd to the Firestorm install directory. If you are unsure how to locate it, use your linux file manager to find it first; it will help you locate the install directory. Useful shorcuts:

• ~/ - is your home directory
• ~/Desktop - is your desktop directory

so for example, from terminal, you would do something like this:

cd ~/Firestorm

Assuming that Firestorm is installed in the directory called Firestorm, in your home.

Once there, copy the following into Terminal:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH="./lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}" ldd bin/do-not-directly-run-firestorm-bin 

This will spit out a long list of libraries. Check to see if any are marked as “not found”. If so, you will need to install these with your package manager.

If you find that you are crashing when uploading images, or doing anything that opens a file picker, then read on.

When you open a Finder window from SL, if you are in either Icon mode or Coverflow, and switch to either List or Columns mode the viewer will still crash. You need to do the following to work around this:

• Log into the viewer
• Go to Build menu in top menu bar → Upload → Image
• When Finder opens, change the view mode to List
• Cancel the Finder
• Exit the SL Viewer
• Relaunch

You should now be able to upload - and perform operations with the file picker in general - without crashing. You can even switch between List and Columns. But, you can never switch to the Icon or Coverflow.

• Login
• Open Inventory
• Go to Build menu in top menu bar → Upload → Image
• Switch view mode to either List or Columns
• Cancel the Finder window
• Exit the viewer
• Relaunch the viewer

This section covers issues related to audio, video and some aspects of search.

• For situations where you cannot hear audio, be it streaming music, or the audio from a movie/video, the first thing to do is check that:
  • streaming music and/or media are enabled in Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Sounds;
  • volumes for music and media are not at minimum;
  • audio is configured correctly in your operating system (ie, Windows, linux, OSX), that sounds is going to the correct device (ie, speakers or headset), and so on;
  • You have not blocked the stream/video; check Preferences → Sound & Media → Media → Manage Media Sites.
  • for streaming music, test the music URL in your external web browser, to make sure that the URL actually works.

• HTTP fetching may be overloading your router; please try the suggestions given here; if they do not help, revert the changes made then return to this page and continue.

• In Preferences → Sound & Media → Sounds, make sure the “Enabled” checkbox to the right of the “Media” slider is checked
  (For audio, check “Streaming Music”)
• In Preferences → Sound & Media → Media, check “Allow inworld scripts to play media”
• Make sure the issue is not with the specific television you are using, by attempting to view videos on a television that plays video normally for other Firestorm users.
• Make sure that “Enable plugins” is ticked in Preferences → Network & Files -> Connection, else Flash Player or Quicktime can not be executed, and you may see a message saying: Adobe Flash Player or an HTML5 supported browser is required for video playback.

• Relog Firestorm and open the Search window
• Go to your computer processes and look for “slplugin.exe”
  • For Windows users, go to Task Manager → Processes Tab
  • For Mac users, go to Activity Monitor → My Processes (usually by default, but you can check top right drop down)
  • For Linux users, go to Command Terminal, and type “ps aux”
  • You may see four instances of the slplugin running (that is normal behavior)
  • If you do not see any instances of slplugin running, that is the cause of media failing
• If slplugin is not running, disable all firewall and virus protection (including anti-virus software and windows or other operating system firewalls)
• Relog and attempt video playback again
• If it works, you will need to stop your firewall/virus protection from blocking the slplugin file by granting it appropriate permissions in your firewall/virus protection software
• NOTE: If you have several viewers installed, you will have to allow to each one access through your firewall, as well as to SLPlugin for each one.
• If all of the above does not resolve the issue, you can try downloading the latest SL Viewer 2 viewer and replacing your Firestorm slplugin file with the one from Viewer 2.

• Windows users:
  • In order to play Flash format videos (e.g., YouTube videos), you must have the Opera & Chromium version of the Adobe Flash plugin installed. Unless you already have this specific version of Flash installed already, you will need to get the Opera & Chromium Flash plugin from Adobe.

• Linux users
  • You need to have the pepperflash plugin installed, which can be satisfied by installing pepperflashplugin-nonfree for Chromium

• Mac users
  • Mac users currently need the Safari & Firefox version of Adobe Flash plugin installed. Download it from Adobe.

• NOTE: If you experience graphics driver crashes on nVidia cards when viewing Flash media (for example Youtube) both in-world and on a website and/or severe drops in your GPU clock mhz on any card then you will need to disable hardware acceleration on Flash Player. To do this, go to Youtube and Pick any video. Right click the video play area to bring up the options and follow the instructions here.

• The Quicktime plugin is bundled along with CEF in this version of Firestorm.
• You also must have Quicktime installed on your computer for the plugin to work in the viewer. Please note, however, that due to security issues with Quicktime (see this security alert), it is NOT advised for Windows users to have Quicktime installed.
• We expect that Linden Labs will soon be removing all support for Quicktime media.

If you are still using Quicktime media and you have issues watching movies (as opposed to YouTube videos) it might help to clear your QuickTime cache:

• Open the QuickTime player
• Click on Edit → Preferences → QuickTime Preferences → Advanced Tab → Empty cache
• Click on Apply then Ok and reboot your computer

• If YouTube videos suddenly will not play, and you just get a white screen, go to Preferences→ Privacy -> General, and click on Clear History, then try again.
• See also the Flash section, above.

Go to Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Sounds and make sure the volume sliders for streaming music and media are not all to the left and that there is no mute symbol (red no entry sign) on the speaker icon next to those. Make sure the Master Volume is not all to the left.

Check that Sound Source rolloff distance (Media tab) is correct; set back to default, if you changed it (5m and 30 respectively for min and max).

Go to Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Sounds and check that you have the Sounds and UI sliders up high enough and that there is no mute symbol (red no entry sign) on the speaker icon next to those.

Go to the top menu bar→ Advanced → Use Plugin Read Thread, and disable it, if it is enabled - or vice versa. (If you cannot see Advanced on the top menu, press Ctrl-Alt-D.)

If that doesn't help, first ensure that you have your bandwidth set correctly. Also, test the audio stream in your regular media player, and/or try a different audio stream in-world.

Please ensure that you have the most recent version of Flash for Safari installed. You can get this via the normal update process, or from Adobe.

For streaming music on OS X 10.9 Mavericks, please refer to this page.

For users on Sierra, there are reports of scripts on media devices working more slowly. Ref. BUG-40552.

Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Firestorm for Linux require 32-bit libraries to function. See this page for a link to your Linux flavor to verify you have all the needed audio-related packages installed and to troubleshoot stream issues.

There are some known issues with the Firestorm bridge:

• If you log in and find yourself wearing a rock, detach it from yourself. To do this:
  • Go to Preferences→ Firestorm → Extras and disable the bridge
  • open top menu → Advanced → Debug Settings, and type in: ProtectBridgeFolder; set to FALSE, close the Debug Settings window.
  • open the #Firestorm folder in your inventory, and in that, the #LSL Bridge folder
  • detach the #Firestorm LSL Bridge, then delete it
  • search your inventory for any other copies of the bridge and delete them all, including any links to bridges
  • empty your trash
  • relog
  • re-enable ProtectBridgeFolder
  • re-enable the bridge
  • generate a new one bridge: use the top menu bar, go to Avatar → Avatar Health → Recreate LSL Bridge.

• If you have the bridge recreating on each log in or each TP, this is likely related to your connection. So, please make sure your bandwidth is set correctly, per this page - and please follow the steps exactly.
  If you need to get rid of excess bridges that may have accumulated due to this frequent recreation, proceed as above.

• If you find that your hair suddenly appears to be attached to a place other than your head, even after a relog, then proceed as described above.

• Attempting to wear the bridge manually while it is being created can “break” it. When bridge creation begins, you will see a message in local chat; when creation is complete, you will see another message. During this period, do not attempt to do anything with the bridge; allow it to finish.

• If you use another viewer after Firestorm, the Firestorm bridge will display a message to local chat. It should, however, recognize that a different viewer is being used, and not repeat this message again. Should it happen that the message repeats, simply detach the bridge while in the other viewer.

• If you are wearing a bridge from an older version of Firestorm, the bridge will (correctly) detach but a new one will not be made. To have a new one generated, use the top menu bar, go to Avatar → Avatar Health → Recreate LSL Bridge. This will “clean up” any old bridges and make a new one.

Ce problème peut se produire après que vous ayez minimé le viewer ou utilisé un autre programme pendant que l'exécution du viewer. Il s'agit d'un problème consécutif à plusieurs mises à jour de Windows 10 : KB3176938, KB3189866, et KB3193494 - uniquement pour ceux et celles qui ont installé la version mise à jour anniversaire de windows 10 (Build 1607)

• Pour désinstaller ces mises à jour, allez dans le Panneau de configuration Programmes et fonctionnalités > Afficher les mises à jour > cliquez et désinstallez. Attention, c'est à vos risques et périls que vous désinstallez une mise à jour de sécurité.
• Pour empêcher Window de re-télécharger la mise à jour, utilisez cet outil et exécutez-le pour “masquer” la mise à jour https://support.microsoft.com/fr-fr/kb/3073930?utm_source=twitter#bookmark-1607.
• Attention : “Masquer” une mise à jour n'empêchera pas l'installation de mises à jour ultérieures à l'occasion desquelles le problème de performance peut se reproduire, jusqu'à ce que Microsoft résolve le problème.

Ceux qui comprennent l'anglais peuvent consulter ce JIRA pour plus de détails.

Si votre voix devient tout à coup semblable à celle d'un homme (et que vous n'en êtes pas un ! :D, ou que la voix de votre ami(e) ressemble à celle d'un “démon”, ou bien si vous entendez les voix déformées, essayez ceci :

1. Faites un clic droit sur l'icône haut parleur en bas de votre écran dans la zone de notification et sélectionnez Matériel d'Enregistrement
2. Faites un clic droit sur le microhone et sélectionnez Propriétés
3. Allez dans l'onglet Avancé
4. Dans le menu déroulant Format par défaut, sélectionnez : Canal 2, 16 bits, 44100 Hz (Qualité CD).
5. Décochez“Activer les Améliorations Audio”
6. Cliquer OK et OK.
7. Reconnectez-vous si nécessaire.

Si vous n'entendez plus les sons, comme les sons d'interface ou les sons porvenant d'objets, il est possible que votre format de sortie audio par défaut soit en cause. Essayez ceci :

1. Faites un clic droit sur l'icône haut parleur de la zone de notification Windows et sélectionnez Périphérique de lecture.
2. Faites un clic droit sur la sortie audio choisie et sélectionnez Propriétés.
3. Allez dans l'onglet Avancé.
4. Dans le menu déroulant Format par défaut, sélectionnez : 16 bit, 44100 Hz (CD quality).
5. Cliquez Appliquer et OK.
6. Déconnectez-vous, et reconnectez-vous dans SL si nécessaire

Si à la place de certains caractères s'affichent des rectangles, vous devrez réinstaller les modules linguistiques Windows. Ceux qui manquent la plupart du temps sont le chinois, le japonais et le coréen; si vous avez installé ces modules et que vous voyez encore des rectangles, il vous faudra demander à ceux qui les utilisent à quelles langues correspondent les caractères utilisés pour pouvoir installer les modules appropriés.

1. Déconnectez-vous de Firestorm
2. Suivez les instructions ici
3. Reconnectez-vous avec Firestorm

Erreur 0xc000007b au démarrage de Firestorm 64-bit:

Essayez les étapes suivantes pour que l'installeur Firestorm réinstalle le redistribuable Visual C++ :

1. Tout d'abord assurez-vous que vous avez l'installeur Firestorm sous la main, facile à trouver. Vous pouvez le télécharger ici pour la version courante du viewer, ou ici s'il vous faut une version plus ancienne
2. Allez dans le menu Démarrer de Windows et choisissez Paramètres
3. Dans la fenêtre qui s'ouvre, cliquez sur “Affichage, notifications, applications, alimentation”.
4. Dans la fenêtre suivante choisissez “Applications et Fonctionnalités”.
5. Descendez dans la liste jusqu'à “Redistribuable Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 x86”. Sélectionnez-le, et choisissez “Désinstaller”
6. Cliquer de nouveau sur “Redistribuable Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 x64” et de nouveau, choisissez “Désinstaller”
7. Fermer la fenêtre
8. exécutez de nouvau l'installeur Firestorm. La fenêtre d'installation va maintenant vous proposer “Modify Setup” et vous donnera “ options : “Repair”, “Uninstall” et “Close.” Cliquer sur “Repair.”. Firestorm réinstallera le Redistribuable Microsoft Visual C++ qu'il contient.
9. Redémarrez votre ordinateur. Firestorm devrait maintenant s'ouvrir sans message d'erreur.

Si vous commencez à constater des problèmes graphiques après une mise à jour Windows 10, comme des crashes de pilote graphique, ou simplement une mauvaise performance, la rpemirèe chose à faire est de redémarrer votre ordinateur.

Si le probème est toujours là; réinstallez le pilote graphique à partir du site de la marque de votre carte graphique : - NVidia - AMD ou - Intel

Si vous avez une carte Intel HD, référez-vous à cette page.

La raison la plus courante est une valeur DPI des fontes (polices) différente de celle par défaut dans les paramètres du système d'exploitation Windows, ou changement d'échelle de l'écran.

1. Windows 10: Faites un clic droit sur votre bureau → Personnalisation → Paramètres d'affichage → Changer la taille du texte, applications et autres → Assurez-vous aue ce paramètre est réglé sur 100%
2. Windows 8: Faites un clic droit sur votre bureau → Personnalisation → Paramètres d'affichage → Ajuster la taille de la police (DPI) → Assurez-vous que la valeur est de 96.

Si le système vous le demande, redémarrez l'ordinateur.

Certains utilisateurs Windows 10 ont eu des difficultés pour installer la version actuelle de Quicktime sur leurs systèmes. Il a été confirmé que la version 7.7.6. de Quicktime s'installe correctement sur les systèmes Windows 10. Téléchargez la version 7.7.6 à partir du lien ci-dessous :

Quicktime 7.7.6 (ce lien vous mène à la page de téléchargement de la version 7.7.6 d'Apple Quicktime).

Notez bien qu'Apple a cessé de fournir des mises à jour Quicktime pour Windows depuis avril 2016 et que des failles de sécurité ont déjà éét rapportées. Il n'est donc pas sûr de continuer à l'utiliser sur PC.

Commencez par essayer de modifier Preferences → User Interface → Font → Font size adjustment. Si le problème persiste :

1. Quittez Firestorm.
2. Faites un clic droit sur le raccourci Firestorm sur votre bureau et sélectionnez Propriétés
3. Dans l'onglet Raccourci, trouvez la ligne “Cible” et ajoutez un espace et --noprobeà la fin. Par exemple :

  (32-bit version)
  "C:\Program Files\Firestorm-Release\Firestorm-Release.exe" --set InstallLanguage en --noprobe
   
  (64-bit version)
  "C:\Program Files\Firestorm-Releasex64\Firestorm-bin.exe" --noprobe

4. Dans l'onglet “Compatibilité”, trouvez et décochez l'option “Désactiver la mise à l'échelle de l'affichage pour les résolutions élevées”
5. Cliquez Appliquer et OK puis lancer Firestorm comme d'habitude.

NB :

• Vous devrez probablement refaire cette manip après les mises à jour de Firestorm.
• N'ouvrez pas l'option Help → About Firestorm ou vous devrez refaire les étapes 1, 2, 4 et 5 ci-dessus. Idem si vous démarrez le viewer à partir du tableau de bord du site SL.

Il existe un Jira LL à ce sujet BUG-11024.))

Si Firestorm vous retourne une erreur ”Failed to Decode Login Credentials“, la meilleure façon de régler le problème est de supprimer le fichier dans lequel sont sauvergardées vos informations de connexion:

1- Pour trouver ce fichier, ouvrir Firestorm et allez dans les Préférences > Network & Files > Directories. Cliquez Open Settings Folder. 2- Fermer Firestorm 3- Trouver et supprimer le fichier bin_conf.dat.

Bien sûr, vous devrez entrer manuellement votre nom d'utilisateur et votre mot de passe pour chacun de vos avatars SL pour la première reconnexion.

Si le problème persiste bien que vous ayez supprimé ce fichier, votre certificat racine Windows a sans doute besoin d'être mis à jour Dans ce cas, voir cet article Microsoft KB. Le mieux est encore de rechercher sur Google la solution pour votre version de Windows.

(Texture Rejetée pour Insuffisance Mémoire“)

Cette erreur est suivie d'un nombre, qui indique combien de textures ont été rejetées. Une fois que le message est apparu vous verrez que d'autres texture ne pourront pas charger, et bien souvent, le viewer crashera peu de temps après.

Le message signifie que vous avez utilisé toute la mémoire disponible - la mémoire graphique plus spécifiquement. Certaisn diront “mais j'ai 2GB, ça devrait suffire”. En fait non, puisque de toutes manières aucun viewer n'utilise plus que 512MB ¹⁾.

Il se peut également que cette erreur vous arrive si votre mémoire graphique dédiée est basse.Consultez le mode d'emploi de votre ordinateur pour savoir combien de mémoire graphique dédiée vou avez; moins de 512MB sera très probablement source d'ennuis. Moins vous avez de mémoire graphique dédiée, plus vous avez de chances d'avoir cette erreur.

Certains consateront que d'anciennes versions de Firestorm n'avaient jamais ce problème, qu'ils n'avaient jamais vu ce message d'erreur avant et qu'il doit donc s'agir d'un nouveau bug. S'il est vrai que les anciennes versions ne délivraient jamais ce message d'erreur, cela ne eut pas dire que le problème n'existait pas, mais plutôt qu'aucun message n'était délivré et aue vous crashiez toutt simplement sans savoir pourquoi. Au moins, l'ajout de ce massage d'erreur a au moins la vertu d'indiquer où e situe le problème, et par conséquent permet de résoudre le problème plus facilement : au lieu d'essayer tout un tas de solutions qui pourraient être sans rapport, il n'en reste que quelques unes.

Cela dépend …

Si vous avez utilisé Firestorm pendant un moment, et que vous n'avez eu cette erreur qu'une seule fois ou rarement, c'est probablement parce que vous vous trouvez dans un endroit très intensif graphiquement. La solution est donc de réduire la distance d'affichage avant d'aller dans de tels endroits, et de la garder relativement basse jusqu'à ce que vous repartiez.

Soyez conscients que le message, une fois qu'il est apparu, ne partira pas tout seul. Il faudra vous reconnecter. C'est préférable de toutes façons, puisque de nouvelles texture ne pourront pas charger.

Dans ce cas, Firestorm essaie d'utiliser plus de mémoire graphique que ce que vous avez de disponible (rappelez-vous la limite de 512MB mentionnée ci-dessus). Il faut que réduisiez votre utilisation de mémoire graphique. Par exemple :

• Préférences→ Graphiques -> Hardware Settings→ Viewer Texture Memory Buffer - réduisez de 128MB.
  c'est-à-dire, si c'est actuellement réglé sur 512, réduisez à 384; si c'est sur 384, réduisez à 256, etc.
  Ne descendez pas au-dessous de 128.

• Reduisez votre distance d'affichage.

• Préférences → Graphiques → Hardware Settings → Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects - Désactivez ceci.

• IMPORTANT Ne faites pas ceci si vous avez un système d'exploitaion 64-bit !
  Si vous n'avez activé pas le menu Avancé, activez-le en pressant Ctrl-Alt-D. Puis allez dans Avancé → Afficher les Paramètres de Débogage. Tapez FSDestroyGLTexturesImmediately et cochez TRUE.
  Vous utiliserez probablement plus de bande passante et cela signifie que les textures qui ont déjà été chargées deviendront grises quand vous vous détournez , mais cela devrait réduire la fréquence des crashes.

There are different kinds of problems with missing inventory that can take place; those that are controllable at the viewer or computer end are generally reversible. Problems caused by the Second Life asset server are not always fixable.

If items that you rezzed out in-world are missing, then refer to this page instead.

• If the number of items appears correct, but not everything is showing, reset your inventory filters. On most viewer skins, this means clicking the Gear menu at the bottom of your inventory and selecting “Reset Filters.” On Vintage skin (this is what you're using if you logged in with Phoenix Mode) or Ansastorm skin, click Inventory → Reset Filters in the inventory menu.
  Note: if you are looking for Marketplace items using Inventory search, and they are not showing, ensure that you have the Received items folder shown in inventory, rather than as a button: Preferences → User Interface → Interface Windows → Show the Received Items folder in normal inventory. Or, click the Received button to see what items are in there.

• In your inventory, type letters into the search filter. It doesn't matter what letters; the purpose is to prod the search into finding more items. If the fetch stalls again, pick a different letter.

• For any/all folders that appear to be missing inventory, try creating a new item, of the appropriate type, in the folder. So for example, if you appear to be missing things in the Clothing folder, right-click the folder name → New Clothes → New Shirt. Then relog.

• Try clearing your inventory cache.
  • On recent versions of Firestorm, open Preferences -> Network & Files -> Directories, then click the Clear Inventory Cache button, then relog.
  • On older versions, you will have to clear inventory cache manually, as follows:
    • Go to Preferences → Network & Files; beside Cache Location, click on Open. A window opens showing the contexts of the cache folder.
    • Leave that window open, and log out of Firestorm.
    • Make sure the folder is set to show file extensions.
    • Locate the file whose name ends in .inv.gz, and delete that file.
    • Log back in - preferably to one of the locations given above: at the log in screen, you can select log in location; type in one of the region names indicated above.
  • Additional notes: If clearing inventory cache does not fix the problem the first time you try it, then it probably won't work on additional attempts, so don't keep doing it (though multiple relogs without cache clears may help).

If your inventory is still not loading fully, then the issue may be a network or connection problem. General suggestions for problems that may be connection-related are:

• If you are on a wireless connection and are able to wire it in, do so.

• Reboot your router/modem, leaving it unplugged and unpowered for a minimum of two minutes before powering it back up again.
  • If you have access to a different connection, try connecting your computer to it temporarily.

• If the inventory is still not fetching all the way, view our page on bandwidth and speedtests to make sure your bandwidth is set optimally in the viewer. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, we have found that lower bandwidth settings usually allow for more reliable inventory loading than higher settings.

• HTTP fetching may be overloading your router; please try the suggestions given here; if they do not help, revert the changes made then return to this page and continue.

• Please download the official SL viewer, install it, log in on it and see if the items show up there. If they do, then the problem is probably either loading or caching in Firestorm, and you can follow the set of suggestions below under “Advanced Method: Inventory Copy from SL Viewer.” If the items don't show up in any viewer, then there is a good chance they're missing from the asset server, which means the problem may not be fixable.
  

Back on Firestorm, if your inventory count still looks lower than it should be or stalls in the middle of fetching items, then:

• If the above steps have not worked for you, continue on to the next step:

Start by finding your avatar key while logged into Firestorm or another viewer that displays it - see the figure to the right; the UUID is highlighted in green.

It is a string of letters and numbers that appears in your legacy-style profile, though the exact location will vary because different skin options display it differently. If you use web profiles, you will need to switch into the legacy profile to find it. (In Firestorm, this is in Preferences -> User Interface -> Interface Windows→ Use web profiles by default.) You can return to the web profile style afterward. When you find your key, just copy it down somewhere.

Now you will need the latest release version of the SL viewer, so if you don't have it installed yet, download and install it. Then, log into the SL Viewer and get your inventory loaded in that viewer. This might work with any other viewer, as well, but the SL Viewer is the only one we've tested with. Once your inventory is loaded there, log out.

Locate your Second Life cache folder and your Firestorm cache folder on your hard drive. Our clearing cache page will help you locate where that is (just replace “Firestorm” with “SecondLife” in the path name. Don't clear either cache! Just use the paths shown to find the folders.

In the Second Life cache folder, find the file named with your avatar key and ending in “inv.gz”. Drop or copy this file into your Firestorm cache folder. Allow it to replace the one there.

Log into Firestorm and check to see if your inventory is there.

Avoid clearing cache or you may need to do this process again.

Please note: Under normal circumstances, you should not share cache between viewers because it can cause other weird problems. This suggestion should not be read as an indication that setting your cache in different viewers to the same place would be useful. It won't be.

For additional ideas, also refer to the Second Life wiki page on Inventory Loss.

Please note: Viewers play a minor part in voice functionality. The bulk of voice support is given by the external application called SLVoice, which is made by the SL voice provider, Vivox. Voice failures are almost always due to one of the following reasons:

• Your ISP is throttling or blocking the voice service;
• failure of the Vivox service;
• voice issues on the region you are on;
• voice being throttled by bandwidth set incorrectly - please check it by following the instructions here;
• voice hardware (mic, headset) not configured correctly in your operating system settings;
• voice hardware not configured correctly in the viewer;
• another application has your voice hardware in use (example, Skype);
• your anti virus software has “mangled” the voice application; see here.
• your firewall is blocking slvoice. Add slvoice to your firewall's exclusion/allow list.

Since 4.7.9, voice has not always connected to the voice servers. This is due to some coding issues that we inherited from the official SL viewer and that code's interaction with the latest voice files. The issue is documented on LL's Jira. A workaround is to disable and then re-enable voice. But if you're presented with the voice connection failure message that tells you “Voice communications will not be available”, you may need to disable voice and then relog before voice will try to reconnect.

Due to the many different versions of each operating system (Windows, linux distros, Mac OSx's), it is very difficult to give specifics for each one. Nonetheless, make sure that your operating system is correctly configured for voice: that voice is going to your headset (or speakers, as you prefer), and that your mic is enabled and configured.

• Go to Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Sounds. Find the Voice Chat slider and make sure it is not all to the left. Try increasing the volume.
• Make sure that Voice chat is enabled on that preferences tab.
• go to Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice. Click on Audio Device Settings. For Input and Output, use the dropdowns to select your voice devices (headset, microphone, whatever you use). It is best not to leave these at Default.
• Close Preferences and locate the Mic button on the button bar. Click the Lock checkbox then the actual button, and try speaking (hopefully, you went to Voice Echo Canyon so you can test).

If voice still does not work, then continue working through this page.

If you find that voice cuts in and out, particularly right after a TP, and at the same time, you notice that things are not rezzing in for you very well (avatars, objects, etc), then the likely cause is that your router is being “overwhelmed” with texture transfers. So reboot your router/modem, and then your computer, and see if the problem is solved.

You can also try adjusting your bandwidth as explained here.

If that does not help, then proceed with the section below.

Chances are good that the problem lies with the SL servers or the voice provider, Vivox. Still, there are things you can try:

• Open Preferences, and go to Sound & Media → Voice, and click Reset (circular arrow).

• Shut down all applications that use, or can use, voice - like Skype, etc. Then relog.

• What sometimes helps to get voice working is disabling voice in Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice, hitting apply, waiting a minute and then enabling voice and hitting apply. When these methods fail (assuming voice usually works for you) it is usually the Vivox voice servers that are the problem.

• If this does not work at your current location, go to a region where other people are able to use voice at this time. One possibility is Firestorm Social, but any region where voice is known to be functioning is fine. Disable voice in Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice. Relog, using the last location selection on your login screen. Wait a couple of minutes. Reenable voice. Wait another couple of minutes (in other words, give the connection time to be established). If voice comes on, then the problem may have been the region you were in before. Was voice disabled there? If not, a region restart might solve the problem.

• Go to Preferences → Network & Files -> Connection and reduce your bandwidth setting to 500 (if it is not already set there). Repeat the above step to toggle voice off and back on. See here for more information on setting your bandwidth properly, but bear in mind that lower levels than those calculated there may be necessary for troubleshooting purposes.

• Try a relog, or even a reboot of the computer.

• Sometimes device settings can reset, so check in Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice→ Audio Device Settings, to be sure that the input and output are set correctly.

• HTTP fetching may be overloading your router; please try the suggestions given here; if they do not help, revert the changes made then return to this page and continue.

• Does your headset/microphone work outside of SL? ie when using Skype, Yahoo or MSN

• Does your headset/microphone work in Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice→ Audio Device Settings?

• Is your voice chat volume turned up and not muted?

• Is the SLVoice.exe (simply SLVoice on Mac) that is in the Firestorm folder in the exceptions/allowed list for your firewall? If your firewall is turned off, turn it on and add the SLVoice.exe (or SLVoice) anyway.

• Check the bandwidth you are actually getting and what you have set in Preferences → Network & Files → Connection. Please refer to this page for specifics.

• Go to top menu, Advanced → Debug Settings, and in the window that opens, type: Cmdlinedisablevoice - then ensure this is set to FALSE. (Use Crtl-Alt-D to enable the Advanced menu, if it isn't.)

Some have issues with voice on Firestorm - specifically, “stuttering”, or SLVoice crashing when you unplug a USB device. The only work-around currently is to swap out the voice files.

• Method One:
  To this end, download this file; save it to your hard drive. Make sure you do not have Firestorm running. Then extract the files to your Firestorm install folder. (For Firestorm 32-bit viewer, this is typically located at C:\Program Files\Firestorm on 32 bit Windows, and C:\Program Files (x86)\Firestorm on Windows 64-bit. For Firestorm 64-bit Viewer, this is typically located at C:\Program Files\Firestorm.) When prompted, allow the replacement of existing files.

• Method 2 - Firestorm 4.7.3 Only:
  Download Firestorm 4.6.9 from here. If you current have FS 64-bit, get FS 4.6.9 32-bit - and vice versa. Go into your “computer” and find the the 4.6.9 Version Firestorm you downloaded.
  Copy the files below and replace them in your 4.7.3 Firestorm install folder:
  ca-bundle.crt
  ortp.dll
  SLVoice.exe
  vivoxoal.dll
  vivoxplatform.dll
  vivoxsdk.dll

Try disabling compatibility mode, if enabled:

• Locate your desktop shortcut for Firestorm
• Right click on the icon and select Properties
• Select the Compatibility tab
• Find “Run this program in compatibility mode for:” if it is set then disable this
• Make sure “Run as Administrator” is enabled (if this is greyed out, then you're probably already running as administrator, so you can ignore this step).
• Click Apply.
• Now log back into the viewer, and see if voice works (do you have the white dot over your head?). If not, go to Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice and disable voice; wait a few moments, then re-enable. ¹⁾

On Windows 7, if you find yourself being able to talk but not hear what others say, then a possible solution is to use the sound drivers from Vista. (This needs further confirmation.)

Check that slvoice.exe is not muted in the speaker/headphones icon (located in the notification area) → mixer.

Every linux distro is different; and each distro may have more than one window manager to further complicate things. So tips can't be “absolute”; you will need to experiment and see what works for you. The following have been suggested by some as effective. But first….

In the Firestorm install directory, there's a text file (originally from LL) with tips on getting voice to work in linux. If you haven't read that, then you can try to see if it helps.

• Make sure you have ALSA and/or FMODEX available. FMODEX is supplied with Firestorm, normally. If you look at Help → About Firestorm, you should see a line that resembles this:
  Audio Driver Version: OpenAL, version 1.1 ALSOFT 1.11.753 / OpenAL Community / OpenAL Soft: PulseAudio Software
  If that says “none” then you have no audio driver available to Firestorm and need to install one.

• Edit the firestorm shell script and remove the #. That will force LL to use FMOD rather than ALSA. Some say this is how to get voice working.

#export LL_BAD_OPENAL_DRIVER=x

• Some swear that the problem is PulseAudio, so you can try to remove that from your system. Be warned, however, that this could cause more problems than it solves. Make sure you remove only Pulse and not half the OS.
• Be sure to have the correct devices select in Firestorm for voice:
  
  Preferences → Sound & Media → Voice → Audio Device Settings (button) … input and output may not work if left at default; they may need to go to a specific device like “ALSA Capture on [device name]”.

Below are results for selected linux distros, based on input from Phoenix and Firestorm users. This will be updated as more information becomes available.

• ubuntu 16.04 64 bit + FS64: The following command installs a few 32-bit libs and voice works after. Maybe you need fewer 32-bit libs but that needs further investigation.
  Apparently, arch requires these as well - or some of them - though the exact lib name may be different.

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio:i386 libidn11:i386 libuuid1:i386 libstdc++6:i386

• A new option in Firestorm 4.7.9 is a debug setting, FSLinuxEnableWin32VoiceProxy, which when enabled will cause Firestorm to launch the Windows version of SLVoice.exe via WINE. To use this, you need to ensure that WINE is installed; install WINE with your package manager. An existing WINE profile/prefix is not needed, but will be used if present. Depending on your system, it may take several seconds before voice comes up.
  NOTES:
  * If you disable voice and then re-enable too quickly, WINE may not successfully restart and voice may fail to re-enable. If you get the warning that there was a problem connecting, you will need to relog before voice will re-enable. Thirty seconds between disable and enable should be enough.
  * There is a known related issue here
  * To speed up the initial loading of voice, use

  wine-preloader $HOME/path/to/firestorm/bin/win32/SLVoice.exe

  before launching Firestorm

If you are unable to connect to voice and you are also having problems with teleporting and/or loading your friends list, perhaps along with other things, then see the “Mac-specific” section of this page for instructions and more explanation.

Some Mountain Lion users experience a problem with voice output, while input works fine (that is, you can hear but you can't speak). To fix this, open the voice preferences for your viewer (Preferences→ Sound & Media -> Voice in Firestorm). Click the device settings button and select “built-in microph” as the audio input device and click OK. (OK is important, Apply doesn't work.) Reopen Preferences and go back to the device settings button to ensure you're getting sound in on the mic.

Index Général

• Téléchargements
• Firestorm Release Notes

• Information de base pour obtenir de l'aide
• Questions & Réponses
• Diagnostic et solutions rapides
• Comment déposer un JIRA
• Comment contacter le Support
• Mon viewer est-il sûr ?
• Questions courantes

• Cours Firestorm (en anglais)

• Ecran d'accueil
• Modes du viewer
• Mise en page du viewer

• Chat
• Inventaire
• Profils
• Tenues vestimentaires
• Gestures
• Mouselook
• Modifier les shapes ou autres parties du corps
• Bouton Personnes on peut accéder à “Près de Vous” (Radar), “Mes Amis” et “Mes groupes” à partir d'ici
• Utiliser la Recherche
• Managing Groups
• Diffusion Audio et Video
• Voix

• Sauvegarder ses paramètres
• Préférences
• Quick Preferences
• Le Cache - Ce que c'est
• Raccourcis clavier

• Paramètres de Complexité de l'avatar
• Préréglages graphiques personnalisés

• Effets physiques de l'avatar
• AO intégré
• Le Bridge LSL
• Windlight

• Debug Settings
• Comprendre le lag
• Phototools

• Informations de base pour obtenir de l'aide
• How to Contact Support

• Firestorm In-World Groups
• Firestorm Classes
• Phoenix Hour Archive

• Firestorm Preview Interface Customization Tutorial Vid

The following videos are about the Firestorm AO:

• Import to AO part 1
• Customize your AO part 2
• Options in AO part 3

• Firestorm Licenses
• Firestorm Privacy Policy
• Firestorm Credits
• Firestorm Source repository
• Main website

This is a powerful set of tools for SL photographers and machinima makers. It combines a large number of settings from many places, into a single, multi-tabbed window.

This is accessed via a button on the button bar. If you do not have the button visible, right click any button on the button bar, and select Toolbar Buttons; the Toolbar Buttons window opens. Locate the Phototools button there, and drag it onto any of the button bars (bottom, left or right). Alternately, you can access via top menu, World → Photo and Video → Phototools.

This tab controls many windlight features.

• Basic Shaders: This should always be left on, unless you have a very low end computer or specifically need it disabled for some other reason.
• Enable Atmospheric Shaders: Enables full Windlight features. This needs to be on to take full advantage of the settings on this tab.
  If this is greyed out, make sure you have Basic Shaders enabled (bottom of the tab).
• Use Region Windlight: Force the use of the region's windlight settings.
  Same as top menu, World→ Environment Editor → Environment Settings → Use region settings.

• WL Sky: A drop down menu from which you can select a different Windlight sky preset. Much like the one available in the QuickPrefs window.
• WL Water: You can select a different preset to apply to water.
• Day Cycle: Here you can select from one of several different day cycles. These use winlight settings that are different from the default.

Below these is a time of day slider. However, this slider will revert to Windlight Sky to Default. Currently, to change the time of day for a specific sky preset, you need to edit the preset.

• Quick Windlights: An easy way to select default time of day. Same as going to the top menu -> World→ Sun Position.

• Windlight Presets: Quick access to creating or editing sky presets, or water presets.

• Type: This drop down allows you to select what water will reflect. Note that the more you enable, the lower the viewer performance (ie, the higher the client lag).
  This setting can also be accessed via Preferences→ Graphics -> General.

• Resolution: Select the quality of water reflections. Note that anything above “Good” requires that Lighting and Shadows be enabled in the Light tab. If you change setting here, then toggle the Basic Shaders setting off, then back on, for the change to take effect.
  As above, increasing quality results in lower performance.

• Transparent Water: If disabled, water will always be opaque.

• Enable Lighting and Shadows: This allows a variety of additional features, beyond shadows, to be enabled and used, such as Depth of Field.
  This can also be accessed via Preferences→ Graphics -> General→ Lighting and Shadows.
• Enable All Local Lights: Enables light sources other than sun/moon.
  This can also be accessed via Preferences→ Graphics -> General→ Local Lights.
  • Enable attached Lights (Face Lights): With this on, you will also see local lights which are attached to avatars.
    Normally, this option would be accessed via the top menu -> Develop→ Rendering → Render Attached Lights.

• Shadow Types: Select what types of shadows you want to be cast. Point light (lights that do not have the projection feature enabled) will always create a sense of shadows, yet they will not cast them upon any surface. It is important to note that regardless of the setting you choose here, textures projected from projection lights will still be enabled.

• Shd. Res (Shadow Resolution): This determines the quality of the shadows. It also is very demanding of computer resources. It is a good idea to leave this setting as LOW as possible when you are not shooting. When you are shooting, set it to 1.0 while preparing your shot. When you are ready to take your shot, slowly raise the slider bar to the right. You need to be careful of your framerate while you raise this setting. It is helpful to turn on the Statistics Bar (under Aids) when you do this for the first few times so you can be familiar with the level of shadows that works best with your system.
  NOTE: Setting this too high or moving it too fast will cause viewer crashes.
• Shd Clarity: This is a VERY important setting. It essentially determines how clear the Sun/Moon shadows are drawn overall. This setting should be set first before adjusting the setting below. With the value of 'Shd. Res' above set to 1.0, slide the value for 'Shd. Clarity' until the sharpest possible result is achieved.
  Please note, the clarity of shadows is directly related to the position of the camera and Sun/Moon. Every time you move either the camera or the Sun/Moon, it is best to adjust this value again. In addition, in order to make adjusting this value easier, it is helpful to set 'Shd. Blur' to 0.0 first.
• Shd. Blur (Shadow Blur): The higher the number, the softer the shadow edges. Set to '0' for the sharpest shadows possible. This setting is directly related to the one below it as well. It allows you to set the overall possible amount of shadow blur. If set to 4.00, you can use Shadows Soften to adjust the shadow blur independent of the ambient occlusion. PLEASE NOTE: Ambient Occlusion must be enabled for this setting to work.
• Shd. Soften: Controls the softening effect of Sun/Moon shadows. One simple way to set this value for your specific needs is to first set the 'Shd. Blur' value above to around 3.0. Then the slider here to soften the AO to your liking. Please note, a value of 0.0 will effectively turn off all Sun/Moon shadows. In addition, this has no effect of shadows the caused by projector lights.
• Blur. Dist. (Blur Distance): This will determine the point at which the shadows will begin to blur relative to the camera. The lower the value the closer the point of shadow blur will begin.
  PLEASE NOTE: Ambient Oclussion must be enabled for this setting to work.
• FOV Cutoff: This determines the Field Of View cutoff at which the viewer will switch between ortho instead of perspective projection. If you are getting shadows that are 'jaggedy' try adjusting this setting for improvement. Also, adjusting the XYZ values for the debug setting RenderShadowSplitExponent can be very helpful.

• Show Bounding Boxes for All Lights in Scene: Will show wireframe boxes for all lights within a scene.
• Show Light Radius for Selection: Shows the circular light casting of any selected light(s).

• Enable Ambient Occlusion: Ambient Occlusion adds shading to all objects. It is most effective when the Effect and AO Soften settings below are used. It can add a high level of realism to the image. This is especially true when images are made at resolutions of 2048 pixels or above. For further details, see here.
  This can also be accessed via Preferences→ Graphics -> General→ Ambient Occlusion.

• Scale: Controls the sampling region; larger regions are more accurate. It can be helpful to set these values high and then add a bit of shadow blur to soften their effect.
• Max Scale: Controls the maximum screen radius from which to sample from, to avoid graphics card cache misses and associated large performance penalty. It can be helpful to set these values high and then add a bit of shadow blur to soften their effect.
• Factor: Scaling factor for the effect (larger is darker). It can be helpful to set these values high and then add a bit of shadow blur to soften their effect.
• Effect: Controls the overall darkening effect of Ambient Occlusion. The default value of 0.8 produces an almost imperceptible effect. Values of 0.0 and below provide a more realistic result. Please note that the Ambient Occlusion produces a noise like effect and this can be softened using the 'AO Soften' controls below. In addition, the standard mesh avatar can look less than appealing with high Effect values due to the low quality geometry of the avatar. Please Note: The lowest value you can set in the slider is 0, while in the spinner you can enter negative values of up to -10000.
• AO Soften: Controls the softening of the Ambient Occlusion effect. One simple way to set this value for your specific needs is to first set the 'Shd. Blur' value above to around 4.0. Then the slider here to soften the AO to your liking. Please note, a value of 0.0 will effectively turn off Ambient Occlusion rendering.

Depth of field simulates real life blurring that occurs when things are not in focus. For example, if you are taking a photo of a person, then typically, things in the background will be blurred; the futher away, the more blurred. If you shift your focus to a tree behind the person, then the person will, in turn, become blurred.

For more information, refer here.

Many of the settings below are also found in Preferences→ Graphics -> Depth of Field.

• Enable Depth of Field (DOF): Turns on the DoF feature. This function requires that Shadows and Local lights both be enabled in the Light tab.
• Show the Current FOV of Viewer Screen: This will show you the vertical field of view for the camera. In SL is possible to change the lens length just like in RL. The smaller the FOV the longer the camera lens. A 50mm lens has a FOV of 27.0 degrees. To adjust the FOV use the zoom slider bar below.
  Please see here for a table showing the relationship between FOV and Lens Focal Length (mm).
  Rember to disable this before taking pictures, or it will show in them.

• View angle: In real world terms this is a Zoom feature. This will change the field of view in you viewer window. It is the same as hitting Ctrl + 0 or Ctrl+8.
  NOTE: This will not function if you have flycam enabled (3D SpaceNavigator).
• FOV (Field of View): This tells the viewer what FOV you would like to simulate for the DOF effect. Higher values will produce a more narrow depth of field.
• f-number: Controls maximum screen radius from which to sample from. In real world terms this is the aperture setting for the lens and the lower the value the shorter the depth of field will be. The same applies to SL.
• Foc Length (Focal Length mm): This tells the viewer what Focal Length/Lens Length to simulate for the DOF effect. Higher numbers produce a narrower depth of field.
• Foc Time (Focus Time): This sets the time in seconds it take to the viewer to change focus from one object.
• CoC (Circle of Confusion): This is an important setting. It determines the strength of the blur itself. It does not change the depth of field, it adjusts how much those objects outside of it will be blurry. (This number can be negative, for some “odd” effects.)
• Resolution: This determines the quality of the DOF Effect. For non-photography uses '.25' is good. For setting up shots '.50' or '.70' is very nice. For shooting quality images '1.00' is best. Note that High values will slow down your FPS.
• Aspect Ratio: This is supposed to be aspect ratio of the camera you're modelling. For example, a 35mm camera has an aspect ratio of 3:2 (1.5). Second Life will use this as a frame of reference for how field of view and focal length must be adjusted depending on window size.
  Apparently, this currently has no effect.

• Quality: This will determine the quality of the glow effect, higher is better. There is little visual difference between 8 and 10.

• Iterations: The basic setting for how strong the glow will be. Equivalent to Preferences→ Graphics -> Rendering→ Render Glow - Strength.
• Strength: Additive strength of glow. Very low values are needed to see this effect. Start low.
• Luminance: Minimum luminance intensity necessary to consider an object bright enough to automatically glow.
• Warmth: Amount of warmth extraction to use (versus luminance extraction). 0 = lum, 1.0 = warmth.
  Often has little or no effect.
• Width: Glow sample size. Higher = wider and softer glow, but eventually it will become more pixelated.
• Alpha: Basically how bright the glow is allowed to get.

Many of these settings are also available via Preferences→ Graphics -> General.

• Draw Dist.: This sets the furthest distance the viewer will draw anything. High values will slow your FPS.
• Avi Count: Maximum number of non-impostor avatars to render in a scene. Very helpful for situations where many avatars are slowing your FPS.
• Avi Detail: Sets the render quality of the avatars. Higher is better quality.
• Avi Physics: Controls level of detail of avatar physics (such as chest physics). Higher is better.
• Particle Cnt.: Sets the maximum number of particles to render.
• Terr. Scale: Sets the quality of the default Linden Labs ground (terrain) texture. Requires a restart if changed.
• Terrain Qal: Sets the quality of terrain. High numbers mean more detailed terrain in the distance.
• Obj. Detail: Controls the detail of prims. Higher values produce greater detail for objects.
• Flexiprims: Controls level of detail of flexible objects. Higher means more detail.
• Tree Detail: Controls level of detail of vegetation. Higher numbers produce greater detail.
• Sky Detail: Controls vertex detail on the WindLight sky. Lower numbers will give better performance and less than lovely skies.

• Vig. Amount: Amount of vignette to apply. Please refer to this page for more info on the vignette feature.
• Vig. Power: Power of the vignette.
• Vig. Multiply: Multiply factor.

• Enable Draw Distance: If you disable this feature the Viewer will render past your set draw distance.
• Dynamically adjust level of detail: This enables the feature that allows the viewer to dynamically adjust the level of detail in scene as you move further away from objects. It helps improve performance, it also can reduce the quality of the objects in the scene.
• Render only Objects Visible to the Camera: This allows the viewer only to process/draw those objects that are within the camera field of view and not hidden behind anything else. Usually this is a performance booster. Sometimes it can actually reduce performance especially when the scene/sim has few objects. Toggle to see if it helps or not.
• Anisotropic Filtering: Enables anisotropic filtering to improve texture quality. This setting may reduce your viewer's performance. For more information see this wikipedia page.
• Render Particles Attached to other Avatars: Enables the viewer to render any and all particles attached to/coming from other avatars.

• Anti-aliasing: Determines how sharp and smooth the edges of objects will be. On top level graphics cards, higher values have virtually no performance impact. On lower graphics cards, higher values can slow performance significantly.

• Texture Bumpiness: Controls the strength and resolution of normal and bump maps. You must toggle to check box below for changes to take effect.

The settings here are, as the name suggests, user interface aids. Some of the options are normally only accessible via the Advanced or Develop menus.

• Show Bounding Boxed for All Lights in Scene: Displays colored bounding boxes around all objects in your view which emit light.
• Show Light Radius for Selected Light(s): If you enable this, and then edit one or more objects which emit light, an orange shpere will show, indicating the radius for the light(s).
• Show Bounding Boxes for Objects in the Scene: Displays colored bounding boxes around all objects in your view.
• Show the Statistics Bar: Opens the Stats bar, where you can get detailed info about viewer and region performance.
• Show Detailed Camera Position Data: Display camera info in the lower right of the screen, in white text.
• Show Detail Texture Loading Information: Shows details about texture load and texture memory use, in the upper portion of the screen.
• Show RGB-I Color Values Under Cursor: Displays the Red, Green, Blue and Alpha values for whatever is under your mouse cursor. Note that the color of the light affects the color of objects; if you are trying to match colors, make sure you sure a pure white WL setting.
• Hightlight Transparent Objects in Red: Any objects with transparency will be highlighted. Can also be activated with Ctrl-Alt-T.
• Show the Scene as Wireframe: Switches the view to wireframe display mode; disable to switch back.
• Show the HUD attached to your avatar: If this is disabled, any worn HUDs will not be visible. Useful for doing screen capture.
• Slow-mo Your Avatar: Makes your movements go in slow motion (visible to you only).

• Force Appearance Update: Rebakes your avatar; useful in cases of bake fail.
• Set Window Viewer Size: Change the size of the viewer window.
• Show Debug Settings Menu: Opens the Debug Settings window.

This portion of the window gives a partial view of rendering statstics. It is a subset of the information shown in the Stats bar.

• Frames Per Second:The number of times per second your computer is redrawing (or refreshing) what's on the screen. Higher values mean a smoother experience.
• Bandwidth: How much data is being transferred between your computer and the Second Life world. This number varies wildly depending on what bandwidth settings you've used, where you are inworld, what's going on, and whether you're still loading some things (objects/textures/etc) that are in your field of view. If bandwidth is 0kbps, something may be wrong (you may be partially disconnected).
• KTris Drawn per Frame: Computer-generated 3D objects are built out of triangles (the basic geometric shape). This is a count of the number of triangles, or “tris”, in each frame of the current scene.
• KTris Drawn per Sec: This is a count of the number of triangles ('tris') drawn every second.
• Total Objects: The number of objects currently in view, which includes: prims, avatars, terrain patches, trees, particle groups, and water patches.
• New Objects: The number of objects being downloaded per second.
• Texture Count: The number of unique textures loaded by the viewer.

Many of the settings here duplicate those found in the Phototools Camera window. However, there are also some here which are not present in that window.

Some of the more requently needed settings from the Joytsick settings window, accessed from Preferences→ Move & View -> Movement.

• Left/Right: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Left/Right movement. If you find it difficult to move with precision, use lower scale values.
• Up/Down: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Up/Down movement.
• In/Out: Adjusts the sensitivity of the In/Out movement.
• Pitch: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Tilt movement.
• Yaw: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Spin movement.
• Roll: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Roll movement.
• Zoom Speed: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Zoom speed.
• Feathering: Setting the slider all the way to the right will make the camera very rigid, giving complete control to the joystick. Setting the slider all the way to the left will make the camera very fluid like the camera weighs a lot; good for fly-by shots, not good for framing.

• Zoom Axis Mapping: Controls which mouse axis the zooming function is mapped to (set to work with).
• Enable 3D Mouse: This turns on the 3D Mouse.
• Enable Zoom Control: In order for the zooming control to work, you must set the 'Zoom Mapping' above to '4'.
• Enable Auto Levelling: When enabled, the camera will always remain level.
• Use the 3D Mouse to move the avatar: The mouse will move your avatar.
• Use the 3D Mouse to move objects (building): Uses the 3D mouse to move objects when building and editing.
• Show the Current FOV of Viewer Screen: This will show you the vertical field of view for the camera. In SL is possible to change the lens length just like in RL. The smaller the FOV the longer the camera lens. A 50mm lens has a FOV of 27.0 degrees. To adjust the FOV use the zoom slider bar below.
  Please see here for a table showing the relationship between FOV and Lens Focal Length (mm).
  Rember to disable this before taking pictures, or it will show in them.
• Show Detailed Camera Position Data: Display camera info in the lower right of the screen, in white text.

This tab is, in turn, divided into 3 sub tabs, as follows:

• View Angle: In real world terms this is a Zoom feature. This will change the field of view in you viewer window. It is the same as hitting Ctrl + 0 or Ctrl+8.
  NOTE: This will not function if you have flycam enabled (3D SpacenNavigator).
• Zoom Speed: Controls how fast/slow the camera will zoom in and out. Higher values produce slower and smother zoom.
• Camera Lag: Amount camera lags behind avatar motion (0 = none, 30 = avatar velocity).
• Camera Offset: Controls how far the camera is offset/distance from the default point of view.
• Cam. Smoothing: Controls how smoothly the camera starts and stops. Higher values produce smoother (and somewhat slower) movement.

• Mouse Sensitivity: Controls responsiveness of mouse when in mouselook mode.
• Display avatar & attachments in mouselook: Display avatar and attachments below neck while in mouselook. Default is OFF.
• Smooth Mouselook Movements: Smooths out motion of mouse when in mouselook mode.

• Clicking your avatar keeps camera position: Normally, clicking on your avatar resets the camera position. This option removes this behavior.
• Reset camera position after teleport: Normally, the camera position gets reset when teleporting (within a region). This option prevents this behavior.
• Disable minimum camera zoom distance: Disable the constraint on the closest distance the camera is allowed to get to an object.
• Allow the camera to move w/o constraints: Ignores the 'push' the simulator applies to your camera to keep it out of objects.
  Requires a restart to take effect.
• Reset camera position on avatar movement: If this is disabled and you move your avatar, the camera will not follow it.

Phototools est un outil très utile pour ceux qui aiment faire de la photo ou de la vidéo SL. C'est le concentré d'un grand nomdre de paramètres dans une seule fenêtre.

On y accède par un bouton sur la barre d'outils. Si le bouton n'est pas visible, faites un clic droit sur votre barre d'outils, et sélectionnez Toolbar Buttons; dans la fenêtre Toolbar Buttons trouvez le bouton Phototools et faites-le glisser sur votre barre d'outils. Vos pouvez aussi y accéder par le menu World en haut de votre écran → Photo and video > Phototools.

Cet onglet contrôle beaucoup de fonctions windlight.

• Basic Shaders: Ce paramètre devrait toujours être coché, à moins que vous ne soyez sur un ordinateur bas de gamme ou que vous n'ayez besoin de le désactiver pour une raison très précise.
• Enable Atmospheric Shaders: Active toutes les fonctions Windlight. Cette case doit être cochée pour que vous puissiez bénéficier de tous les avantages offerts par les paramètres de cet onglet.
  Si la case est grisée, assurez-vous que “Basic Shaders” est coché.
• Use Region Windlight: Force l'utilisation des réglages windlight de la région.
  Identique à Barre de menus, World→ Environment Editor → Environment Settings → Use region settings.
• WL Sky: C'est un menu déroulant à partir duquel vous pouvez sélectionner l'un de nombreux pré-réglages de ciel windlight. Similaire à celui qui se trouve dans la fenêtre Quick Preferences.
• WL Water: Pour sélectionner un pré-réglage windlight applicable à l'eau Linden.
• Day Cycle: Vous permet de sélectionner différents cycles de jour. Ils utilisent des paramètres windlight différents du cycle de jour par défaut.

Au-dessous de ces menus se trouve un slider pour l'heure du jour.

• Quick Windlights: Un moyen très facile de sélectionner l'heure par défaut. Identique à Barre de menus -> World→ Sun Position.

• Windlight Presets: Accès rapide à la création ou modification de pré-réglages windlight, que ce soit pour le ciel ou pour l'eau.

• Type: Ce menu déroulant permet de sélectionner ce que l'eau Linden reflètera. Attention, plus vous en activez, moins la performance du viewer sera bonne (lag).
  Ce réglage est aussi accessible à partir des Préférences → Graphics > General.

• Resolution: Pour sélectionner la qualité des refets dans l'eau. Veuillez noter qu'au-dessus de “Good”, il vous faudra activer “Advanced Lighting Model” dans l'onglet Light. Si vous changez ce paramètre, désactivez puis réactivez Basic Shaders pour que le changement soit effectif.
  Comme ci-dessus, augmenter la qualité provoquera une perte de performance.

• Transparent Water: Si cette case est décochée, l'eau sera toujours opaque.

• Enable Lighting and Shadows(Activer la lumière et les ombres) : Permet d'utiliser - en plus des ombres - une grande variété de fonctions, comme la profondeur de champ.
  Ce paramètre est également accessible par les Préférences → Graphics → General → Lighting and Shadows.
• Enable All Local Lights(Activer les lumières locales): Active les sources lumineuses autres que celles du soleil et de la lune.
  Egalement accessible par les Préférences → Graphics → General - Local lights.
  • Enable attached Lights (Face Lights) (Activer les lumières attachées) : si vous activez cette option vous verrez aussi les sources lumineuses attachées des avatars (comme les face lights).
    Cette option est aussi accessible par les Préférences → Graphics → Rendering → Enable attached lights (face lights).

• Shadow Types(Types d'ombres): Pour sélectionner le type d'ombres que vous souhaitez : None (aucune); Sun/Moon (soleil et lune); Sun/moon + projectors (soleil/lune + projecteurs). Il est important de noter que quel que soit le type d'ombres choisi ici, les textures projetées par le biais de la fonction projecteur reste encore active.
• Avatar Shadows(Ombre de l'avatar): Sert à régler la définition des ombres de l'avatar. De même que pour les types d'ombres, plus vous la définition est haute, plus vous perdrez en performance.

• Shd. Res (Shadow Resolution)(Résolution des ombres): Détermine la qualité des ombres, mais est ausi très exigeant au niveau des ressources de l'ordinateur. Il est conseillé de garder ce paramètre réglez-le sur 1.0 pendantque vous vous préparez. Lorsque vous êtes prêt à prendre la photo, remontez légèrement le slider vers la droite avec précaution. Vous devrez bien surveiller vos FPS pendant que vous changez ce paramètre. Pour ce faire, la Barre de statistiques sera d'une grande utilité ( sous l'onglet Aids) surtout les premières fois, le temps de vous familiariser avec le niveau d'ombres que votre système peut supporter.
  ATTENTION: Régler ce paramètre trop haut ou le bouger trop vite fera crasher le viewer.
• Shd Clarity(netteté des ombres) : Ceci est un paramètre TRES important. Il détermine essentiellement la netteté des ombres Sun/Moon (soleil/lune). Il doit théoriquement être réglé avant le paramètre suivant. Lorsque la valeur de “Shd. Res” ci-dessus est sur 1.0, faites glisser le slider de “Shd. Clarity” jusqu'à ce que le résultat le plu snet possible soit atteint.
  Notez bien que la netteté des ombres est directement liée à la position de la caméra et du soleil ou de la lune. Chaque fois que vous bougez la caméra ou le soleil/lune, il vaut mieux réajuster cette valeur. De plus, afin de faciliter l'ajustement de cete valeur, il est utile de régler “Shd. Blur” sur 0.0 avant tout.
• Shd. Blur (Shadow Blur) (Floutage des ombres) : Plus la valeur est haute, plus les contours des ombres seront adoucis. Réglez sur 0 pour des ombres les plus nettes possibles. Ce paramètre est directement lié au paramètre suivant également. Il vous permet de régler de manière générale le floutage des ombres. Si la valeur est de 4.00, vou pouvez utiliser “Shadows Soften” pour ajuster le floutage indépendamment de l'occultation ambiante. ATTENTION : “Ambient occlusion” doit être coché poru que ce paramètre fonctionne.
• Shd. Soften (Adoucissementdes ombres) : Contrôle l'adoucissement des ombres Soleil/Lune. Pour régler cette valeur pour un besoin spécifique, le plus facile est de d'abord régler la valeur de “Shd. Blur” juste au-dessus aux alentours de 3.0, puis le slider “Shd. Soften” pour adoucir l'Occultation Ambiante à votre goût. Notez bien qu'une valeur de 0.0 supprimera toutes les ombres Soleil/Lune. De plus, ceci n'a aucun effet sur les ombre de projecteurs.
• Blur. Dist. (Blur Distance) (Distance de floutage) : Ceci détermine le point à partir duquel les ombres commenceront à devenir floues par rapport à la caméra. Plus la valeur est faible, plus le point de floutage commencera près de la caméra.
  NOTEZ BIEN : “Ambient Occlusion” (Occultation ambiante) doit être active pour que ce paramètre fonctionne.
• FOV Cutoff (Limites du cham visuel) : Détermine la limite du champ visuel à laquelle le viewer changera entre la projection orthographique et la projection en perspective. Si vous obtenez des ombres en “dents de scie”, essayez d'ajuster ce paramètre pour le améliorer. Egalement, ajuster les valeurs XYZ de RenderShadowSplitExponent dans le menu Avancé → Show Debug Settings (paramètres de débogage) peut être très utile.

• Show Bounding Boxes for All Lights in Scene (Montrer les boîtes d'encombrement des sources lumineuses) : Affichera toutes les boîtes d'encombrement de toutes les sources lumineuses dans la scène.

• Show Light Radius for Selection (Afficher la zone éclairée par la sélection) : Affiche une sphère représentant la zone éclairée par une source lumineuse sélectionnée.

• Enable Ambient Occlusion (Activer l'Occultation Ambiante) : L'Occultation Ambiante ajoute des ombres sur tous les objets. Elle est plus efficace lorsque les paramètres “Effect” et “AO Soften” plus bas sont utilisés. Elle peut ajouter un excellent niveau de réalisme à l'image. C'est particulièrement vrai quand les images sont prises à une résulution de 2048 pixels ou plus. Pour plus de détails, voir ici.
  Ce paramètre est aussi accessible dans Préférences → Graphics → General → Ambient Occlusion.

• Scale: Controls the sampling region; larger regions are more accurate. It can be helpful to set these values high and then add a bit of shadow blur to soften their effect.
• Max Scale: Controls the maximum screen radius from which to sample from, to avoid graphics card cache misses and associated large performance penalty. It can be helpful to set these values high and then add a bit of shadow blur to soften their effect.
• Factor: Scaling factor for the effect (larger is darker). It can be helpful to set these values high and then add a bit of shadow blur to soften their effect.
• Effect: Controls the overall darkening effect of Ambient Occlusion. The default value of 0.8 produces an almost imperceptible effect. Values of 0.0 and below provide a more realistic result. Please note that the Ambient Occlusion produces a noise like effect and this can be softened using the 'AO Soften' controls below. In addition, the standard mesh avatar can look less than appealing with high Effect values due to the low quality geometry of the avatar. Please Note: The lowest value you can set in the slider is 0, while in the spinner you can enter negative values of up to -10000.
• AO Soften: Controls the softening of the Ambient Occlusion effect. One simple way to set this value for your specific needs is to first set the 'Shd. Blur' value above to around 4.0. Then the slider here to soften the AO to your liking. Please note, a value of 0.0 will effectively turn off Ambient Occlusion rendering.

Depth of field simulates real life blurring that occurs when things are not in focus. For example, if you are taking a photo of a person, then typically, things in the background will be blurred; the futher away, the more blurred. If you shift your focus to a tree behind the person, then the person will, in turn, become blurred.

For more information, refer here.

Many of the settings below are also found in Preferences→ Graphics -> Depth of Field.

• Enable Depth of Field (DOF): Turns on the DoF feature. This function requires that Shadows and Local lights both be enabled in the Light tab.
• Show the Current FOV of Viewer Screen: This will show you the vertical field of view for the camera. In SL is possible to change the lens length just like in RL. The smaller the FOV the longer the camera lens. A 50mm lens has a FOV of 27.0 degrees. To adjust the FOV use the zoom slider bar below.
  Please see here for a table showing the relationship between FOV and Lens Focal Length (mm).
  Rember to disable this before taking pictures, or it will show in them.

• View angle: In real world terms this is a Zoom feature. This will change the field of view in you viewer window. It is the same as hitting Ctrl + 0 or Ctrl+8.
  NOTE: This will not function if you have flycam enabled (3D SpaceNavigator).
• FOV (Field of View): This tells the viewer what FOV you would like to simulate for the DOF effect. Higher values will produce a more narrow depth of field.
• f-number: Controls maximum screen radius from which to sample from. In real world terms this is the aperture setting for the lens and the lower the value the shorter the depth of field will be. The same applies to SL.
• Foc Length (Focal Length mm): This tells the viewer what Focal Length/Lens Length to simulate for the DOF effect. Higher numbers produce a narrower depth of field.
• Foc Time (Focus Time): This sets the time in seconds it take to the viewer to change focus from one object.
• CoC (Circle of Confusion): This is an important setting. It determines the strength of the blur itself. It does not change the depth of field, it adjusts how much those objects outside of it will be blurry. (This number can be negative, for some “odd” effects.)
• Resolution: This determines the quality of the DOF Effect. For non-photography uses '.25' is good. For setting up shots '.50' or '.70' is very nice. For shooting quality images '1.00' is best. Note that High values will slow down your FPS.
• Aspect Ratio: This is supposed to be aspect ratio of the camera you're modelling. For example, a 35mm camera has an aspect ratio of 3:2 (1.5). Second Life will use this as a frame of reference for how field of view and focal length must be adjusted depending on window size.
  Apparently, this currently has no effect.

• Quality: This will determine the quality of the glow effect, higher is better. There is little visual difference between 8 and 10.

• Iterations: The basic setting for how strong the glow will be. Equivalent to Preferences→ Graphics -> Rendering→ Render Glow - Strength.
• Strength: Additive strength of glow. Very low values are needed to see this effect. Start low.
• Luminance: Minimum luminance intensity necessary to consider an object bright enough to automatically glow.
• Warmth: Amount of warmth extraction to use (versus luminance extraction). 0 = lum, 1.0 = warmth.
  Often has little or no effect.
• Width: Glow sample size. Higher = wider and softer glow, but eventually it will become more pixelated.
• Alpha: Basically how bright the glow is allowed to get.

Many of these settings are also available via Preferences→ Graphics -> General.

• Draw Dist.: This sets the furthest distance the viewer will draw anything. High values will slow your FPS.
• Avi Count: Maximum number of non-impostor avatars to render in a scene. Very helpful for situations where many avatars are slowing your FPS.
• Avi Detail: Sets the render quality of the avatars. Higher is better quality.
• Avi Physics: Controls level of detail of avatar physics (such as chest physics). Higher is better.
• Particle Cnt.: Sets the maximum number of particles to render.
• Terr. Scale: Sets the quality of the default Linden Labs ground (terrain) texture. Requires a restart if changed.
• Terrain Qal: Sets the quality of terrain. High numbers mean more detailed terrain in the distance.
• Obj. Detail: Controls the detail of prims. Higher values produce greater detail for objects.
• Flexiprims: Controls level of detail of flexible objects. Higher means more detail.
• Tree Detail: Controls level of detail of vegetation. Higher numbers produce greater detail.
• Sky Detail: Controls vertex detail on the WindLight sky. Lower numbers will give better performance and less than lovely skies.

• Vig. Amount: Amount of vignette to apply. Please refer to this page for more info on the vignette feature.
• Vig. Power: Power of the vignette.
• Vig. Multiply: Multiply factor.

• Enable Draw Distance: If you disable this feature the Viewer will render past your set draw distance.
• Dynamically adjust level of detail: This enables the feature that allows the viewer to dynamically adjust the level of detail in scene as you move further away from objects. It helps improve performance, it also can reduce the quality of the objects in the scene.
• Render only Objects Visible to the Camera: This allows the viewer only to process/draw those objects that are within the camera field of view and not hidden behind anything else. Usually this is a performance booster. Sometimes it can actually reduce performance especially when the scene/sim has few objects. Toggle to see if it helps or not.
• Anisotropic Filtering: Enables anisotropic filtering to improve texture quality. This setting may reduce your viewer's performance. For more information see this wikipedia page.
• Render Particles Attached to other Avatars: Enables the viewer to render any and all particles attached to/coming from other avatars.

• Anti-aliasing: Determines how sharp and smooth the edges of objects will be. On top level graphics cards, higher values have virtually no performance impact. On lower graphics cards, higher values can slow performance significantly.

• Texture Bumpiness: Controls the strength and resolution of normal and bump maps. You must toggle to check box below for changes to take effect.

The settings here are, as the name suggests, user interface aids. Some of the options are normally only accessible via the Advanced or Develop menus.

• Show Bounding Boxed for All Lights in Scene: Displays colored bounding boxes around all objects in your view which emit light.
• Show Light Radius for Selected Light(s): If you enable this, and then edit one or more objects which emit light, an orange shpere will show, indicating the radius for the light(s).
• Show Bounding Boxes for Objects in the Scene: Displays colored bounding boxes around all objects in your view.
• Show the Statistics Bar: Opens the Stats bar, where you can get detailed info about viewer and region performance.
• Show Detailed Camera Position Data: Display camera info in the lower right of the screen, in white text.
• Show Detail Texture Loading Information: Shows details about texture load and texture memory use, in the upper portion of the screen.
• Show RGB-I Color Values Under Cursor: Displays the Red, Green, Blue and Alpha values for whatever is under your mouse cursor. Note that the color of the light affects the color of objects; if you are trying to match colors, make sure you sure a pure white WL setting.
• Hightlight Transparent Objects in Red: Any objects with transparency will be highlighted. Can also be activated with Ctrl-Alt-T.
• Show the Scene as Wireframe: Switches the view to wireframe display mode; disable to switch back.
• Show the HUD attached to your avatar: If this is disabled, any worn HUDs will not be visible. Useful for doing screen capture.
• Slow-mo Your Avatar: Makes your movements go in slow motion (visible to you only).

• Force Appearance Update: Rebakes your avatar; useful in cases of bake fail.
• Set Window Viewer Size: Change the size of the viewer window.
• Show Debug Settings Menu: Opens the Debug Settings window.

This portion of the window gives a partial view of rendering statstics. It is a subset of the information shown in the Stats bar.

• Frames Per Second:The number of times per second your computer is redrawing (or refreshing) what's on the screen. Higher values mean a smoother experience.
• Bandwidth: How much data is being transferred between your computer and the Second Life world. This number varies wildly depending on what bandwidth settings you've used, where you are inworld, what's going on, and whether you're still loading some things (objects/textures/etc) that are in your field of view. If bandwidth is 0kbps, something may be wrong (you may be partially disconnected).
• KTris Drawn per Frame: Computer-generated 3D objects are built out of triangles (the basic geometric shape). This is a count of the number of triangles, or “tris”, in each frame of the current scene.
• KTris Drawn per Sec: This is a count of the number of triangles ('tris') drawn every second.
• Total Objects: The number of objects currently in view, which includes: prims, avatars, terrain patches, trees, particle groups, and water patches.
• New Objects: The number of objects being downloaded per second.
• Texture Count: The number of unique textures loaded by the viewer.

Many of the settings here duplicate those found in the Phototools Camera window. However, there are also some here which are not present in that window.

Some of the more requently needed settings from the Joytsick settings window, accessed from Preferences→ Move & View -> Movement.

• Left/Right: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Left/Right movement. If you find it difficult to move with precision, use lower scale values.
• Up/Down: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Up/Down movement.
• In/Out: Adjusts the sensitivity of the In/Out movement.
• Pitch: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Tilt movement.
• Yaw: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Spin movement.
• Roll: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Roll movement.
• Zoom Speed: Adjusts the sensitivity of the Zoom speed.
• Feathering: Setting the slider all the way to the right will make the camera very rigid, giving complete control to the joystick. Setting the slider all the way to the left will make the camera very fluid like the camera weighs a lot; good for fly-by shots, not good for framing.

• Zoom Axis Mapping: Controls which mouse axis the zooming function is mapped to (set to work with).
• Enable 3D Mouse: This turns on the 3D Mouse.
• Enable Zoom Control: In order for the zooming control to work, you must set the 'Zoom Mapping' above to '4'.
• Enable Auto Levelling: When enabled, the camera will always remain level.
• Use the 3D Mouse to move the avatar: The mouse will move your avatar.
• Use the 3D Mouse to move objects (building): Uses the 3D mouse to move objects when building and editing.
• Show the Current FOV of Viewer Screen: This will show you the vertical field of view for the camera. In SL is possible to change the lens length just like in RL. The smaller the FOV the longer the camera lens. A 50mm lens has a FOV of 27.0 degrees. To adjust the FOV use the zoom slider bar below.
  Please see here for a table showing the relationship between FOV and Lens Focal Length (mm).
  Rember to disable this before taking pictures, or it will show in them.
• Show Detailed Camera Position Data: Display camera info in the lower right of the screen, in white text.

This tab is, in turn, divided into 3 sub tabs, as follows:

• View Angle: In real world terms this is a Zoom feature. This will change the field of view in you viewer window. It is the same as hitting Ctrl + 0 or Ctrl+8.
  NOTE: This will not function if you have flycam enabled (3D SpacenNavigator).
• Zoom Speed: Controls how fast/slow the camera will zoom in and out. Higher values produce slower and smother zoom.
• Camera Lag: Amount camera lags behind avatar motion (0 = none, 30 = avatar velocity).
• Camera Offset: Controls how far the camera is offset/distance from the default point of view.
• Cam. Smoothing: Controls how smoothly the camera starts and stops. Higher values produce smoother (and somewhat slower) movement.

• Mouse Sensitivity: Controls responsiveness of mouse when in mouselook mode.
• Display avatar & attachments in mouselook: Display avatar and attachments below neck while in mouselook. Default is OFF.
• Smooth Mouselook Movements: Smooths out motion of mouse when in mouselook mode.

• Clicking your avatar keeps camera position: Normally, clicking on your avatar resets the camera position. This option removes this behavior.
• Reset camera position after teleport: Normally, the camera position gets reset when teleporting (within a region). This option prevents this behavior.
• Disable minimum camera zoom distance: Disable the constraint on the closest distance the camera is allowed to get to an object.
• Allow the camera to move w/o constraints: Ignores the 'push' the simulator applies to your camera to keep it out of objects.
  Requires a restart to take effect.
• Reset camera position on avatar movement: If this is disabled and you move your avatar, the camera will not follow it.

There is no real fix for this crash (the fix will need to come from Apple); however, switching over to using the Nvidia web drivers may stop the crashes. There is a chance of the viewer running with poorer performance.

This problem affects other games, too; for example, see constant crashes - OS X 10.11 El Capitan and OSX El Capitan 10.11 Beta (15A21). The same workaround appears to fix the problem in other games also; that is, to switch over to using the Nvidia web drivers instead of the Nvidia driver that Apple provides.

Please note that this is not a viewer-specific crash. Refer to this Firestorm Jira: [BUG-10302] [Mac El Capitan] Firestorm crash/incompatibility with Mac OS 10.11 and this SL Jira: BUG-10302 Frequent Crashes in Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

• Find the list of Nvidia web drivers here, with download links directly from Nvidia: Nvidia Web Driver updates for macOS Sierra.
• Follow these instructions on how to install Nvidia web drivers: NVIDIA Releases Alternate Graphics Drivers for OS X 10.11.3. (These instructions are for El Capitan and have not been verified for Sierra.)
• You can switch between using the Apple Nvidia driver and the Nvidia web driver (needs a reboot after each change).

For an introduction to the basics of troubleshooting, please refer to this page.

Phoenix has some video tutorials on YouTube; you may want to visit and bookmark the Phoenix Viewer channel.

• Firestorm 64-bit

• Updating the viewer

• Crashing During Install or Startup

• Crashing While Running Firestorm

• Login Failures

• Texture Discarded Due to Insufficent Memory

• Graphics Glitches and Crashes

• How to Manually Clear Cache

• Clearing settings manually

• Full Clean Install of Firestorm

• Media Related

• Search Doesn't Work, Remains Black

• Voice Related

• Bridge Issues

• Camera is Pointing Wrong

• Friends/Groups Detached from Conversations

• Nearby Chat Detached from Conversations

• Firestorm Locks Up on "Initializing VFS"

• Hands Flickering

• I Can't See Worn Mesh

• I Cannot Log in Unless I Clear Cache First

• Clicking on a SLURL Doesn't Activate Firestorm

• AO Folder issues

• Finding a Missing Window

• My Friends List is Empty!

• The Viewer Seems to Freeze Every So Often

• How do I Get Rid of all this Debug Stuff?

• Issues Related to Shadows

• Large Flexi Prims, Like Tree Fronds, Vanish

• Objects Vanish

• Small Prims Vanish Even when Quite Close

• Making WindLight Setting Persist after Teleport

• How do I Derender/Re-render things?

• Restore to Last Position - Workaround

• My avatar won't move

• My saved outfit is empty

• My HUDs Aren't Working

• Attachments Detach then Reattach at Login

• Current Outfit Folder Corruption

• My feet are in the ground, or I'm floating

• I Am Missing Inventory

• Rezzed Items Have Vanished

• Help! I'm Wearing my Entire Inventory!

• Failed to Find Item in Database

• Fixing Avatar Issues - Cloud, Ruth, Clothing not rezzing

• I Can't Log In Because It Says I am Already Logged In

• Persistent Typing Animation

• Stuck Inventory Folders Work-Around

• I am Stuck Running

• Why Does Teleport Fail so Much?

• Worn Attachment not Showing as Worn in Inventory

• HTTP Inventory Issues

• Determining Optimal Bandwidth Setting

• HTTP Fetching Issues

• I See Everything Grey

• Why am I so Laggy?

• ATI Graphics Issues

• Intel Graphics Issues

• Nvidia Graphics Issues

• Everything is Black

• I See Things Like Stars in the Sky

• My CPU is Always at 100%

• Laptop Dual Graphic Card Issues

• Crashing While Editing or Wearing Mesh

• Edit Rotation Guides Missing

• Problems Navigating in Mouselook

• Windows 10 Issues

• Webroot and SL Viewers

• Viewer Not Responding - Vista/Win7 64-Bit

• "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" error in Windows

• I Get a User Account Control (Security) Pop-up

• Frame Load Interrupted by Policy Change

• Copy/Paste No Longer Works

• Clicking on a Link in Firestorm Causes a Crash

• Error Importing itdownload.dll

• Failed to Decode Login Credentials

• Firestorm Flagged as a Virus or Malware

• No Mouse Cursor - Vorpx Incompatibility

• Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Problems

• Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks Problems

• Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite

• Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan

• Mac Sierra (10.12) Issues

• Crash on Upload

• Linux: Left Mouse Button Stops Working

• Alt-Click Not Working on Ubuntu

• Linux: Wrong Browser being opened

• 32-bit Firestorm on 64-bit Linux

• How to Minimize Firestorm when Running Fullscreen in Linux

• Screen Tearing with Ubuntu 14.04 (or derived, like Mint 17)

• Chat Lag

• "Couldn't convert the image to jpeg2000"

• DNS Fail when Trying to Log in

• I Can't Sit on Things

• How to Get Inventory Back

• Logging in at 10,10,10

• The "ExDepart Virus"

• Offline Instant Messages not delivered to email

• Web Profiles Not Displaying Properly

• Deleting Stored Passwords

If you find that you are crashing frequently, then perhaps the suggestions here will be helpful. Please don't skim the page - read it carefully.

It is important to distinguish between two things….

If a small window appears, saying that you have been logged out of SL, this isn't a crash. Rather, SL is disconnecting you, for one of a number of reasons, including:

• The region you are in is going down;
• During teleport, the SL servers may fail to hand you over to your destination and so log you out; help on that is given here.
• Your network connection has gone down;
• Your network connection has become poor or unreliable and SL has lost contact with your avatar.

Things to try - in order:

• reboot your router/modem, then your computer;
• make sure your bandwidth is set correctly - follow the instructions hereexactly as given;
• shut down any other programs that are making heavy use of your network connection, such as torrents;
• If you use Mac with Yosemite, see if this might be your case.
• If the problems persist still, try changing your DNS to Google, as explained here.

If you are being logged out when you edit appearance, or edit shape, or use the Appearance toolbar button, did you drop items into the Outfits folder that were not created via the Outfits/Appearance window? If so, remove those items.

Firestorm itself has crashed. The remainder of this page offers possible solutions.

• Update your Operating System. See the advice from LL, and the reasons behind it, here.

• (Windows-only)
  • If you are using an ATI (AMD) graphics card, then please refer here for known problems with these cards.
  • For nVidia users, please refer to this page.
  • Also for nVidia: if you recently updated your drivers and are experiencing crashes, try reverting to an older driver that worked for you.

• (Mac-only)
  • If you have Sierra plus Nvidia graphics, see http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/mac_sierra
  • If you have El Capitan plus Nvidia graphics, see http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/mac_el_capitan
  • If you crash when uploading images to SL or when saving snapshots to your hard drive, see http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/mac_crash_upload

• In Preferences → Graphics → General, reduce Draw Distance by at least half (or more). Also reduce Max # non-impostor avatars.

• Disable VBO: Run Firestorm and before logging in, press Ctrl-P to bring up the Preferences window. Then click on Graphics → Hardware Settings tab. Make sure that “Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects” is not checked.

• Several creators recommend specific settings in order for you to be able to better see their products. Sadly, some of these recommendations will lead to many people crashing more. For example:
  • RenderVolumeLODFactor should never be set over 4; a good value is between 2 and 3.
  • TextureLoadFullRes should never be enabled.

• (Grids other than SL only!) Disable HTTP Get Textures: Open the preferences window, then click on Graphics → Rendering tab. Make sure “Use HTTP Textures” is not checked. Please clear your cache if you change this setting.

• It is possible that your graphics settings are set higher than your computer can handle. To see if this is the case, go to Preferences → Graphics, and click on Reset (the circular arrow to the right of the quality slider). After doing this, you may still need to reduce Draw Distance and Max # non-impostor avatars, as mentioned above.

• If you have Shadows turned on, try turning them off. See this page for more side effects of shadows.

• Another thing you can try is: Develop → World → Dump Region Object Cache, then relog. (The Develop menu is revealed with Ctrl-Alt-Q, if you cannot see it.) This sometimes also helps deal with odd texture issues; it may need to be done several times.

• If clicking on a link or SLURL in Firestorm causes an instant crash: do you have AVG 2011 installed? If so, it probably flagged SLPlugin as malware. See here for more on this.

• If you have Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus, see Webroot Issues.

• If you are crashing when you try to upload a texture, please try disabling VBO, as described above. Also, if you are on Windows and running Microsoft SkyDrive, prefer refer here. If you are on a Mac, this workaround may fix the problem.

• If the above tips do not help, you might benefit from a cache clear or viewer reinstall.

• If you find that a full manual cache clear allows you to log in, and you crash unless you do this, then there is a good chance that you have one or more problems with certain inventory items; please see this page for how to deal with this.

If you have eliminated all the possible causes for the crash and you are still crashing, it's time to submit a Support Request on our jira. In that request, you can include screenshots or videos, if they will help clarify your description, as well as your sysinfo and viewer event logs. Follow the steps in this link to create the request and add your logs.

There is no real fix for this crash (the fix will need to come from Apple); however, switching over to using the Nvidia web drivers will stop the crashes. There is a chance of the viewer running with poorer performance.

(This crash has continued on Sierra.)

This problem affects other games, too; for example, see constant crashes - OS X 10.11 El Capitan and OSX El Capitan 10.11 Beta (15A21). The same workaround appears to fix the problem in other games also; that is, to switch over to using the Nvidia web drivers instead of the Nvidia driver that Apple provides.

Please note that this is not a viewer-specific crash. Refer to this Firestorm Jira: [BUG-10302] [Mac El Capitan] Firestorm crash/incompatibility with Mac OS 10.11 and this SL Jira: BUG-10302 Frequent Crashes in Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

• Find the list of Nvidia web drivers here, with download links directly from Nvidia: Nvidia Web Driver updates for El Capitan.
• Follow these instructions on how to install Nvidia web drivers: NVIDIA Releases Alternate Graphics Drivers for OS X 10.11.3.
• You can switch between using the Apple Nvidia driver and the Nvidia web driver (needs a reboot after each change).

If some characters now display as boxes, you can edit the fonts.xml file within Firestorm to cause the characters to load properly.

• Log out of Firestorm.
• In a Finder window, go to your Applications folder.
• Right click on your Firestorm application and choose “Show Package Contents.”
• Navigate to Contents/Resources/fonts/fonts.xml.
• Open fonts.xml with Text Edit.
• From there, scroll down to the section where it shows hiragana.
• After the line <os name=“Mac”>, insert this line:
  <file>ヒラギノ角ゴシック W3.ttc</file>
  so that the page looks like this:

<os name="Mac">
<file>ヒラギノ角ゴシック W3.ttc</file> ///(only insert this line and leave everything else as is.)///
<file>ヒラギノ角ゴ Pro W3.otf</file>
<file>ヒラギノ角ゴ ProN W3.otf</file>
<file>AppleSDGothicNeo-Regular.otf</file>
<file>AppleGothic.dfont</file>
<file>AppleGothic.ttf</file>
<file>华文细黑.ttf</file>
</os>

• Be sure to save and exit.
• Open Firestorm and toggle to your Japanese keyboard or type in Japanese. It should now work as expected.

NOTE: This is only necessary for Firestorm versions 4.7.3 and older.