We could all go back to prim avatars made out of boxes, if framerate is the be-all, end-all criteria to performance.

Seriously, that's what I do when I hit an event with a ton of people, I take all the mesh attachments off, put on a full body alpha, and wear a big box with my profile pic on opposite sides. Doesn't do much for MY framerate, but at least I'm not making other people's systems lag...

OK, all snark aside. The argument to keep using outdated, likely-not-to-be-supported rendering code simply to retain users is shooting ourselves in the foot. We're trying to encourage MORE people to join Second Life, right? So given the choice between the new shiny Call of Duty or Age of Conan, and a 20-year-old amalgam of user-built structures and furnishings and old rendering methods, what do you think people will choose?

VRChat is attractive because it is a recent development, without all the cruft of decades. That's what we're competing with.

So what the Lindens need to do, is cut out all the old onion-skin 'stuff' that most people hardly ever use, but still makes up the basic building blocks in the SL toolkits. And yes, doing so will break anything USING those things. And people will complain when their flexies look wonky or their bling particles stop working. They'll complain when their resizer scripts lock them out of sims because of script memory. They'll complain when their sculpt complexity makes them look like shapeless mannequins to everyone else. Well? Update things so you aren't affected.

PBR is a big shift in rendering, one that will allow developers who work in the industry NOW to leverage their skills and create beautiful things, without having to reinvent an ancient wood-spoked wheel to do so. Don't like it because your computer can't handle it? Perhaps it's time to upgrade, then.

I'm a pragmatist, I have zero expectations that even a 10 year old system will continue to run any game or social platform that is updated to reflect modern capabilities. That's why when PBR was put into beta, I tried it, noticed it made my old Gen3 I5/1080ti get cranky, and cut funds loose to build a new 12th gen I7/4070ti based system. I saw where things were going, and arranged to be able to handle it.

SL relies heavily on its visuals as it is in fact a metaverse. PBR is not a new technology and has existed for over 10 years. Although bumpy SL needs to update itself to keep being attractive to current and future users otherwise we would be stuck with premesh avatars.

The drop of FPS is not intentional and with the ExtraFPS update you will see a meaningful improvement but the update to newer hardware is something any software requires from time to time. Please, take it into account.

I'd like to add my voice to those saying what a bad idea it would be to do this.

When Henri added this to Cool VL viewer he specifically stated it was a transitional step that he expected to remove.

PBR wasn't the cause of the performance problems. It was other code that happened to be bundled with the PBR release (as per LL themselves). And as of the DeltaFPS viewer (and all 3rd-party viewers based on the LL code) the performance is already back to pre-PBR levels, and there's a third round of optimizations incoming ("ExtraFPS"). And to give an example of how potent these optimizations are: I have one of those mini-PCs with a celeron processor and an Intel-chipset graphics setup. It could NOT run Firestorm v6.x at ALL. Freeze/crash before the world even loaded. But Firestorm 7.1.11 - the version with the DeltaFPS code - runs with fully loaded textures and mesh. Not ...about 10-12 FPS. But 10-12FPS is better than zero followed by a freeze/crash. Barring edge cases with unique parameters, it seems more and more like anyone not updating to the latest viewers are inflicting this pain on themselves

From a comment above :"a small group of users that can't. or won't, upgrade, always get left behind" not sure it is a "small group". Really think someone with a lower end machine is going to do all this Linux stuff when just working around a firewall for an update throws them? There is a basic question I have not heard answered - is a VIABLE financial future of SL going to be in glossy oooo lookie fancy skies world where people communicate out of world in voice or Discord etc or is it going to BE a world where people connect in text and voice when in smaller groups but don't need or want the best images. Looks or connections? Most long time residents are here for the community, the connections. Creators don't want to 'dumb' down their stuff - but will SL be viable if the tech lower end crowd is pushed out? If you only log in a few times a year why decorate a house or ever change your clothes? Folks who make a long term commitment to learning about SL are a small subset of the tech users in the world. Really want to turn off even more of them?

coolvl should be the gold standard in how viewers should be developed it is the only viewer to properly support linux, it is the only viewer that runs great, it does not have features i would like to have, the point is though that the work that its developer puts into it actualy makes a difference, and creates a working viewer i have had to go from singularity to it because v3 viewers are lagy bloated pieces of trash, and singularity is no longer being updated, before you mention genesis it does not have linux support, and i know one of the devs on genesis they arent happy with pbr at the moment either, i have been enjoying seeing shadows and mirrors and afew things that have changed with PBR however it does not feel ready there are still major lag points, and i run Dell T7400

OS: Artix Linux x86_64

Host: Precision WorkStation T7400

Kernel: 6.11.3-artix1-1

Uptime: 2 days, 26 mins

Packages: 993 (pacman)

Shell: bash 5.2.37

Resolution: 1920x1080, 1920x1080, 10

WM: i3

Theme: odrTech-Purple [GTK2/3]

Icons: BlackoutIcons [GTK2/3]

Terminal: xterm

CPU x2: Intel Xeon X5450 (8) @ 3.000GHz

GPU: AMD ATI Radeon RX 470/480/570/5

Memory: 6664MiB / 32095MiB

the gpu is actualy arn rx 580 OC 8Gb and i am lucky to get frames above 20fps on good days, i play vulkan compatible games, the only ones i cant do is avx2, as for those saying why not buy a new computer because some people can't afford one so easily as you who are priviledged enough to either have a job or be born into wealth, just because the news lies about there being low unimployment does nto make it true, the reality is alot of people are living either paycheck to paycheck or trying to find work in a job market that has to high of standards or is flooded with slave labor already.

I tend to agree here. My video graphics are apparently up to date. I am still having issues with the PBR. Although I occasionally do gaming combat, I mostly rp in SL. Visuals play a role but mostly for posting images in Deviantart. I would have liked an option. Also consider that many other rp'ers I play with in SL are actually elderly in rl. They are hesitant when it comes to the cost of upgrading their computers. I can afford but I am reluctant.

Second Life runs on the creators. They rely on the direction will go in the future. In all new technology, a small group of users that can't. or won't, upgrade, always get left behind

I think it's great that third party viewers can accomodate some audiences that Second life may not be practical to focus on. I do think for those who see these issues, they should use an alternative like Cool VL Viewer. Henri Beauchamp does a fantastic job in catering to some of these users.

Equally, I am very excited and happy that Second life is focusing on modernising the platform and look forward to seeing the new work on keeping Second life an up to date competitor against the other virtual world platforms.

If it also means restoring shadows intensity I'd probably keep it in Fallback mode as much as possible.