And once again we are back to talking about the really cool project Zero that Linden Labs has been wotking on. This time the firestorm version! Yup you heard that right THAT Firestorm.
So as announced already at the Second Life Blog project Zero is getting a roadmap and exciting news were shared with some of us in the Project Zero Focus Group on Tuesday. The news? Firestorm Web Access Browser is coming!
So let us talk about that for a bit more:
Before I shared the general idea of what Project Zero is and what is to be expected as time moves forward with this. In case you need a reminder: Access to Second Life through a web browser. And no I do not mean text/chat only I mean FULL ON Second Life viewer being accessed from any web browser.
So before it goes live the Linden Labs team allowed us a sneak peak and I have been trying it on and off for some time. Here are some of the things I decided to test this on:
✨The Bunny experiences Le Chateau with Project Zero✨
If you are not aware Le Chateau is a 80s inspired community that encompasses 16+ sims on the grid. It includes a motel, mall, suburban area, trailer park, airport, corporate building and many other residential landscaped areas where people live and visit. This means of course an insane amount of textures that in a normal viewer would be taxing on the graphic card’s performance.
Loading in was approximately 2 minutes when arriving to Le Chateau’s main landing point aka the motel. When moving around it took around 30 seconds to load new textures as I moved through the sims, and yes I mean I did actual sim crossing. FPS was between 6 and 19 FPS. Lag was non-existent after loading was done. I ran through this sim, crossing borders with 0 lag, 0 sim crossing issues and running it on ULTRA. so 10/10 recommend.
✨The Bunny experiences Clubs with Project Zero✨
Same as the last experience I chose to go to heavily textured and busy clubs while on the viewer. There were two main ones. 7th House and Dirty City.
Loading time was seconds, around 45-50 seconds to load the entire venue while on Ultra. FPS remained solidly around 12 in both locations, 7th house had around 15 people with complexities between 92,000 to 300,000+. At Dirty City there was around 45 people all with complexities above 200,000 and much like 7th house it took seconds to load. No lag and a FPS of 12.
Both locations I stayed around 10-15 minutes while on the Project Zero FS viewer. Took some snapshots that were only able to be uploaded to my inventory as transfer/shareable pictures are not enabled at the moment.
✨What is just right for me in Project Zero✨
Lag reduction will bring in a lot of people that in the past were not able or did not feel like running Second Life in their computers. For as good as this virtual world is it is VERY heavy for low-end computers, it takes a LOT from the graphics card and puts a lot of stress on it. Project Zero would free up that space and allow for it to be more widely used and shared with people that have in the past left SL because of computer issues. Plus it is just WONDERFUL!
✨What is missing for me in Project Zero✨
As someone who is into recording content and machinima the fact that UI and HUD Screen cannot be removed or hidden is a big deterrent. I would love for them to work on a way for this to be something anyone can do, because it would allow machinima creators and bloggers like me to use this wonderful tool to record and take pictures without having to rely on over editing. At this stage this is not available I am not able to remove it and therefore i cannot even record anything without getting all names and UI visible and if you know me… you know I have like 14000 HUDs to take one pic so I do not edit too much out of SL.
✨What is next for Project Zero✨
There is a full on plan to be announced on Friday’s Townhall session with Phillip Rosedale that I won’t ruin for any of you before hand, but know it will allow for access to a few people for a VERY fair price.
Join the Community Roundtable: Enhancing Project Zero and the 2025 Roadmap with Philip Rosedale. Read here.
｡:•. ☽ come down the rabbit hole ☾ .•:｡
MiwaBunny 