With Linden Labs hyping the Windlight First Look Viewer so much that I finally gave in to my curiosity. I downloaded, installed and logged on to Second Life with it.

But first, I think they’ve resolved some issues with Second Life because my computer hasn’t freeze for 2 days now.

Now back to Windlight, I did feel that the Windlight Viewer is a little bit better than the regular viewer and I’m not talking about graphics quality or the new environment enhancements. No, I’m talking about performance. It renders and draws objects faster and the choppiness that I’ve always experienced was greatly reduced. So, if they were able to improve Second Life’s performance with the first look viewer then why can’t they apply this improvements (less the enhanced environment and other eye candies) to the regular/non-windlight viewer? I guess we’ll just have to wait for the next update and I’m sure that many residents will be happy if the regular viewer’s performance improves.

My windlight viewer setting wasn’t at Ultra because my video card won’t be able to handle it but except for the great looking environment, I didn’t notice anything different (graphics wise) with it. The graphics of the objects, avatars, etc. look the same with the regular viewer and I’m pretty sure that my settings for both viewers are the same. I guess, the difference will be noticeable if both viewers were set to high or in windlight’s case ULTRA but performance wise, the windlight viewer feels better.

Now for those having performance issues with their viewers, regular or windlight, Torley Linden has posted a Video Tutorial on How to easily boost viewer performance. Again, the tip applies to both regular and windlight viewers.

The video tutorial mostly covers the use of a new feature which is the Lag Meter and to how to monitor performance using the Statistic Bar. An additional to windlight is how to tweak the settings for better performance and the use of the feature called Avatar Impostor where avatars are transformed to animated cutouts to improve viewer performance.

Residents also suggested that the small red and green bar located at the top right corner of the viewer that measures bandwidth and packet loss be returned. I do agree with this because those little bars have always helped me determine how bad my current viewer situation is. The Lag Meter is great but you’ll have to open and close it to use it or, if they don’t like bringing those little bars back, they can add a Hot Key for the Lag Meter. This will enable users to easily bring up the window.

Right now, I may use the Windlight First Look viewer more because of better performance than the regular viewer but if the regular viewer’s performance improves then I will switch back to it.