@AMD_Vik So I have a fix for all the issues with flickering etc with AMD in Second Life, and its a good one too
I have a long time friend in Second Life who has developed his own SL Viewer over the years, since around 2007. A very talented coder!
So Second Life has always ran on OpenGL since it was born around 2003 and Linden Labs just keep prolonging the pain with plasters and stuff instead of actually moving to a different API.
This is where my friend will hopefully make a difference to the way Linden Lab have been doing things for over 20 years.
The viewer in question is called Kirsten's Viewer and has been registered as a third party viewer developer for years and he has started working on a DirectX 11 version of the viewer, it is currently in pre-alpha.
I have been testing this and all the flickering woes are gone, I just dont see them anymore. Yes there are some alpha issues and other things to be ironed out but this particular flickering issue is completely gone now.
Here is the best part of all this, by dropping a couple of dll files into the installed viewer folder it will also run using the Vulkan API
Vulkan actually runs smoother but the fps is lower than DX11 but its still good fps anyway.
With both DX11 and Vulkan I can log in, see everything as I could see if using OpenGL, I guess with the odd little glitch that will be fixed down the road. I can use voice and do everything else in-world as I would normally do and the viewer is pretty solid (like 3 hours in a heavy scene of over 90 avatars in a club), only crashed on me once and that was probably because I was zooming around too much trying to take pictures in a crowded club
Basically, OpenGL is a broken pile of garbage at this point and I cant understand why they have not made the change but for now I will be using Kirsten's Viewer running the Vulkan API from now on, its runs better than the OpenGL version anyway, higher fps, renders much faster, next to no texture thrashing, uses a RamCache, better lighting etc.
I cant give Kirsten enough props for what he is doing right now, its a love of his for years and right now this looks like a game changer for Second Life and I just hope that Linden Labs take this, use this and change API asap.. it will make all Second Life users have a much better experience, especially those on lower end systems and with what can be done in DX and Vulkan that isnt possible with OpenGL will also make SL look much better too!
All aboard!
www.overclockers.co.uk
