Category Archives: NEWS

WiFi 6 Is Coming Early 2019

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If your like me you use WiFi most of the time to access Second Life on a Laptop with sometimes slower than normal speed. So you move around to get the best possible signal only to crash and end up having to connect  the Ethernet cable back in to navigate through Second Life normally. Good news WiFi 6 is a coming!

When the first standard for wireless networking was released in 1997, it supported a maximum data speed of only 2 Mbps. Subsequent advances brought us new WiFi standards known as IEEE 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g. In 2009, devices using the 802.11n standard achieved 600 Mbps. The latest standard, 802.11ac, can hit 1,200 Mbps over short distances, but in early 2019, eye-watering WiFi speeds of 4,800 Mbps will become available. Along with that blazing speed will come other changes to wireless network naming and features. Here’s what you need to know…

What is WiFi 6 (and why is it called that)?

Instead of another unwieldy version of “IEEE 802.11whatever.” the new Wi-Fi standard will be known simply as “Wi-Fi 6,” denoting the sixth generation of wireless networking technology. Retroactively, older standards will be renamed W-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 4, and so on. New logos will make it easy to tell at a glance what standard you are buying. (Wi-Fi 6 is technically IEEE 802.11ax, if you prefer the old naming convention.)

Like earlier versions, Wi-Fi 6 will have two frequency bands available to it, starting at 2.4 and 5.0 GHz. The 2.4 GHz band will support up to 1,100 Mbps via 4 data streams. The 5.0 GHz band will support at least 4,800 Mbps via 8 data streams, enough throughput to make 8K video a reality. The Wi-Fi 6 standard is still being improved ahead of its launch next year; in lab tests it has reached up to 10,000 Mbps – 10 Gigabits of data transmitted every second! It’s safe to say we will see data speeds 4 to 10 times faster than today’s fastest.

There will be several bottlenecks that will constrain the actual throughput that you see in your home network. First, your ISP may not let you have access to gigabit-speed Internet connections, or charge too much for it.

You can still achieve top speeds between components of your home network, such as the TV monitor and a media server, but only if both ends of a connection are equipped with Wi-Fi 6 technology. Otherwise, you’ll be constrained to the fastest speed supported by the slower device.

As always, the environment in which your home wireless network operates will influence the network’s throughput. Thick walls, ceilings, and floors between nodes will degrade throughput, especially on the faster but more interference-sensitive 5.0 GHz band. Sources of radio frequency interference (RFI) such as microwave ovens, electric motors, and so on will degrade throughput. Longer distances between nodes yield slower speeds.

WiFi 6 promises greater energy efficiency, so batteries should last longer and household electricity bills may be somewhat lower. It’s hard to quantify what the energy savings will be until after the launch of WiFi 6 products next year, but I suspect the amount of electricity consumed by your WiFi router and phone charger is not a major contributor to the monthly bill.

Plane, Trains and Coffee Shops

Refinements in firmware should produce better performance in crowded environments such as coffee shops and airport lounges. It may be easier to get a strong signal; only time will tell.

And just so there’s no confusion on this point, this is for wifi networking only. The WiFi 6 standard won’t help to boost mobile data speeds on your smartphone or tablet. The mobile data network (currently known as 4G) is entirely separate from your home (or coffee shop) WiFi network, and speed depends on other factors, such as how close you are to a cell tower, the terrain, and the weather.

Top average download speeds for mobile phones range from 30 to 50 Mbps, but 5G networking is also coming in 2019. Check with your carrier to find out if it will happen any time soon in your neighborhood.

There’s not much consumers need to do right now to prepare for WiFi 6. Just be aware that it’s coming in the first half of 2019, and consider postponing any hardware upgrades until it debuts. Those would include laptops, routers, WiFi adapters, streaming devices, and anything else that connects to the Internet via wireless networking.

Have a great week from all of us on the Zi Staff

The 10 Best Graphics Cards For VR

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Wiki ezvid spent 43 hours on research, videography, and editing, to review the top selections for this post. Virtual reality computing is the next evolution in gaming, healthcare, and the workplace, but it takes a significant amount of processing ability to use effectively. These high-end graphics cards provide the power you’ll need to approach or maintain 90 frames per second while avoiding screen tearing and juddering, thus keeping your VR experience fun and mostly free of dizziness. With the up and coming Sansar and High Fidelity as well as present second life and Firestorm Viewer’s We felt the need to update you all on whats what in the best GPU.

10. Radeon R9 Nano

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9. Aorus Gaming Box

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8. Radeon RX Vega 64

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7. Radeon Pro Duo

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6. GeForce GTX 1070 TI

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5. Zotac GeForce GTX Mini

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4. Radeon Pro WX9100

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3. GeForce GTX 1060 SC

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2. XFX RX 580 Black Edition

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1. GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

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The VR Revolution

We have a lot of ways that we choose to escape from our everyday lives.

We have a lot of ways that we choose to escape from our everyday lives. For millennia, we’ve told stories around the campfire that have taken us away from our daily troubles and transported us to other worlds and experiences. We’ve developed painting, theater, fiction, photography, and, more recently, the cinema, not just as a means of artistic expression, but also as a way to forget ourselves and our circumstances, if only for a moment.

It makes sense. Life is tough. Whether you were a cave dweller foraging and hunting for your daily survival, or you’re an office worker struggling to navigate through the choppy waters of intra-office politics, there’s an inherent difficulty to our quotidian existence.

Our modem computer technology has given us a new piece of hardware that can bring us deeper into other worlds than ever before: virtual reality.

If you’re unfamiliar with how VR works, we can simplify it for you. Essentially, a headset projects a stereoscopic image before your eyes while cutting out any other light source, filling both your central and peripheral vision. As you move your head, sensors in the unit move the image in conjunction, with worlds rendered in 360 degrees of reality.

In order for virtual reality to work, it has to constantly keep that entire world ready on demand, so if you suddenly flip your head around, there won’t be any lag in your view. This makes for an engrossing game play or movie going experience, but it also demands a certain baseline of computing power. That’s why, if you want to get the most out of your virtual reality setup, you’re going to need a high quality graphics card.

How To Choose The Best VR Graphics Card For You

Whether you’re your putting together your first PC capable of creating interactive VR environments or you’re looking to upgrade your current setup to keep up with the demands of the latest software, you’ll likely want to get the best graphics card that you can afford.

Realistically, your budget is a great place to start, as a lot of computer hardware gets better as it gets more expensive. That’s not quite the whole story, however, as your specific needs may exceed your budget, or even allow you to save a little money on your purchase. So, how do you evaluate one card over another?

Larger, faster, and closer to an exhaust vent within your tower will be best.

Practically speaking, you’ll want to make sure that the card you’ve got your eye on will actually fit into your tower. Depending on what else you’ve got crammed in there, you might find that you’ll need to upgrade your tower before picking a card.

After that, you’ll want to dig into the other specs that each card has to offer. This level of computing needs a certain temperature range to keep up optimal performance, so many graphics cards will have their own cooling systems. Generally speaking, more fans will result in a cooler card, but the speed, size, and placement of those fans makes a difference as well. Larger, faster, and closer to an exhaust vent within your tower will be best.

Graphics cards also have their own RAM independent from the RAM in your computer, and more RAM in a VR graphics card will help ensure a lag-free feed with less tearing and potentially less induced nausea.

The other number that you generally want as large as you can afford is clock speed. This specification is measured in GHz, and, like RAM, it goes a long way toward determining the speed and quality of the card’s performance. That said, if a card’s overall architecture is superior, it might outperform a comparable card with higher clock speeds, so if you’re torn between two cards with similar clock speeds, you can probably get away with saving a little money.

Some virtual reality graphics cards also have aesthetic value that you may or may not have any interest in. These often come in the form of colored lights that add a little ambience to your gaming area. This is entirely a matter of personal preference, though it’s worth noting that, with a VR headset on, you won’t be able to enjoy any extra lighting.

A Brief History Of Virtual Reality

As we mentioned above, virtual reality headsets that we use today create a stereoscopic image much like the one that originated in the early 1800s. Not long after the advent of photography, the stereoscope hit the scene, utilizing a pair of twin mirrors to project a single image simultaneously into each eye. The result often created a sense of three dimensionality, giving users the feeling that they were looking at the scene in front of them, not just picture.

As we mentioned above, virtual reality headsets that we use today create a stereoscopic image much like the one that originated in the early 1800s.

Virtual reality has been a staple of science fiction for many decades, and researchers have been delving into the means and materials required to bring the technology to life since at least the 1950s. However, it wasn’t until the mid-1980s that the term virtual reality entered the common vernacular. Around this time, NASA begin to utilize virtual reality like devices in their astronaut training.

Often, virtual reality headsets were accompanied by some kind of controller, most often in the form of a glove or joystick that would allow the user to manipulate aspects of the environment they perceived. Today’s virtual reality systems are no different, relying on remote-control-like devices or actual video game controllers to give users the opportunity to interact with their environment.

That doesn’t mean that virtual reality is confined to the sphere of gaming, however. NASA, for example, continues its virtual reality experiments, allowing people to slap on the headset and walk along the surface of Mars. The technology is also becoming more common place in the field of medicine, where the ability to enter and interact with a simulation of the human body can at times feel like an episode of the Magic School Bus or a potentially hilarious science-fiction comedy, albeit one with potentially life saving benefits.

Have a great week from all of us on the ZI Staff

Black Dragon Second Life Viewer Adds Full Animesh Support With Custom Animation Control – Great Tool For Machinima, Group Shots

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Credit

Black Dragon Animesh SL Viewer

Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer with a cult following among hardcore graphics fans, has a new update that will likely make it a favorite among machinima makers and screenshot photogrpahers who want to create group shots: Full support for animated mesh avatars, i.e. animesh. Being the brainchild of NiranV, Black Dragon’s version of animesh is unique among other SL viewers — direct control of animesh via a control UI he’s created:

Black Dragon Animesh SL Viewer Dancing“Any viewer with animesh can do it via scripts,” as Niran tells me, “but Black Dragon can also simply copy all animations playing on yourself to any animesh.” This is viewable only via the user’s perceptive, but that’s all you need when shooting machinima or screenshots. “I’m planning to use this for music videos,” he adds. “Who needs other people if you can just do it with yourself, a few times making copies of myself is possible now kinda.”

More about the Animation Control from Niranv’s blog, and future update plans:

SL Black Dragon Animesh controlYes you can stop, freeze, slow-down, speed-up and copy and paste animations from and onto them. Since they are just objects I see no reason LL would not allow me to allow you to do whatever the heck you want with them.

The poser however does not support animated mesh YET. This is the next thing I’m going to work on in addition to some nice extra features for animated mesh, such as copying your shape and attachments to them.

Animated mesh as it is right now does not support neither, they won’t have attachments and their shape cannot be changed, I plan on changing that.

Here’s a video of what this looks like in action, featuring Niran dancing with a copy of himself:

 

via Gfycat

You’ll see some attachments moving from the user to the controlled animesh avatar — another Niran addition:

“Animesh objects work like normal avatars, so while Linden Lab does not allow you to do it normally, I added a little something to move your attachments over. Attachments lag a bit behind but thats probably because animesh objects were never meant to have attachments and are updated slower in that regards, if I can fix this too we got full NPC avatars with attachments, at least locally.”

Group video! Yes, with furries. It’s an otherkin thing a furry thing, you wouldn’t understand.

Much more on Niran’s blog where there’s a link to download the viewer. He also has a Discord server with an active community of Black Dragon users. And if you’re using his viewer, consider going over to his Patreon page and putting in some donations.

Trouble Seeing Your Screen? Here’s Help

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Aging eyesight afflicts everyone eventually, diminishing the pleasure and productivity of computing and gaming. Various adaptive technologies are available to compensate for loss of visual acuity. Some are built into Windows. But these options all have limitations, and using them in certain combinations can actually make it more difficult to make sense of what’s before your eyes. Read on for a look at Windows’ display settings and how to use them to best advantage.

Getting Windows Display Settings Right

Before trying to improve the display it’s best to reset it to default values so you know how the manufacturer intended things to look. Defaults also provide a baseline against which tweaks can be compared.

Open the “Change Display Settings” desktop app by right-clicking anywhere on the desktop and selecting “Display settings” from the drop down menu, or by typing “display” in the search box and double-clicking on the app in the results. On Windows 10, you will see a page like the one below. (For Windows 7 display settings, see below.)

Set the following items to the values indicated to restore your display to its defaults:

  • Brightness: 50 or as close as you can get it with the finicky slide control
  • Night Light: Off
  • Size of text, apps, and other…: 100%
  • Resolution: “recommended,” the highest your display supports
  • Orientation: Landscape

If any advanced display settings are in effect you will see a red notice to that effect. If you do, follow the instructions to disable them. You will be logged out and will need to sign in again to see the default settings take effect.

On a Windows 7 system, there are fewer controls. Click Start, enter “display settings” and then click the item “Change display settings”. Set your screen resolution to the highest your display supports, then click Apply. Next, click the “Make text and other items larger or smaller” link. Choose the “Smaller – 100%” option. Finally, click “Adjust ClearType text” and follow the instructions to get the sharpest-looking text on your display.

Some monitors have a physical menu button on the front, side or underneath, that lets you fine tune the brightness, hue, scaling, and other aspects of the display. If yours does, check those settings and set them to default values as well.

Moving Beyond Default Display Settings

Most likely, things will look smaller, crisper, and move faster. Using default display settings has a positive effect on overall system performance because few resources are diverted to accommodating custom display settings.

But default display settings may be hard on your unique eyesight. So now let’s see what we can tweak to make the screen easier to view and navigate.

One of my favorite tweaks is very easy. Hold down the Ctrl key while rolling the mouse wheel forward, away from you. All text in browsers, word processors, PDF readers, and other document display apps gets bigger! Reverse the wheel’s motion and everything gets smaller. A page’s left and right edges will expand or contract accordingly. This trick gives you pretty fine control over text size, and text size can be different from one window to another.

If you don’t have a mouse with a wheel, you can do the same thing by pressing Ctrl and the “+” or “-” keys. I prefer this method, because I can quickly return to the default magnification setting by pressing Ctrl and “0” (zero).

But you will notice that parts of the screen do not change size. Menu bars and other fixed objects that surround text remain the same size. In some apps, the window that confines text will not change size and enlarged text overflows the edges of the window, getting lost from sight.

More Tweaking the Windows Display Settings

To avoid this problem, return to the Windows 10 “Change Display Settings” app. (For Windows 7, use the “Make text and other items larger or smaller” option described above.) In the “Scale and Layout” section you will find the option to “Change the size of text, apps, and other items.” The dropdown menu allows settings of 100% of the default (recommended), 125%,and 150%. Play with those, logging out and back in after each change.

Notice that as you enlarge things they may no longer fit on your screen entirely. The bottom of the display settings page drops down out of sight beneath the edge of the screen. You will need to PgDn to see what you are missing, which may include important options for the app you are using.

The menu bars and text on them still remain at their tiny default sizes. In early versions of Windows 10, there was an “advanced sizing of text and other items” option that allowed you to change the size of the menu bars, text in title bars, icons and other fine tunings. That option was removed in the April 2017 Creators Update. I’ve read that if you start your computer in Safe Mode this option becomes available, and any changes you make will still be in effect when you exit Safe Mode. I’ve not tried that, so I can’t verify that it works.

The brightness and “night light” options on the display settings page change the hue of light, mostly by adding or removing some of the blue spectrum. A warmer, less-blue hue is often easier on the eyes and can help prepare your body for sleep, so try the “night light” toggle switch. Click on “Night light settings” to see how finely you can control the warmth of light.

Back up under “Scale and Layout” you see “Advanced scaling settings”. Toggle on the switch that promises to “Fix scaling for apps”. It can make text look less blurry when it’s enlarged or shrunk. Custom scaling percentages can also be set on this page; they will be indicated back on the main page when they are in effect. Don’t neglect to click on the “Apply” button at the very bottom of this page or your custom settings will not take effect.

The resolution of your display should be left at its recommended maximum. If it’s changed, there will be fewer pixels available and everything will look less sharp, blurry. The advantage of using a coarser resolution is that those tiny border items will look bigger, but blurrier. Leave “orientation” alone unless you switch to a monitor that is taller than it is wide.

The multiple displays section is mainly for gamers who keep a general-purpose monitor and a high-performance graphics monitor. You can control the settings of both types, and even specify an app to be used to test graphics settings.

I want to mention one more option that can help if you are visually impaired. The Magnifier (on Windows 7/8/10) can make any part of the screen larger. Press and hold the Start key and the plus (+) sign to activate the Magnifier. Move the mouse to the portion of the screen you want to magnify. You can adjust the magnification level if desired.

These are the basics of Windows display settings. Things get more complicated when you begin using display settings built into apps such as Chrome, in addition to the Windows settings. I recommend avoiding that. Do the best you can using Windows display settings alone.

Have a great week

Zi Staff

SL Photography Tricks and Tips, AnyPose, LeLutka Axis & Windlight List

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Cassie’s Clips: How To Give Second Life Avatar Pics More Fluidity & Realism

Many or even most Second Life fashion pics seem stiff and mannequin-like, but New World Notes video correspondent Cassie Middles is here to help: This tutorial shows you how to use the AnyPose app in combination with other avatar pose systems.

“I normally like to use AnyPose with poses I already own,” Cassie tells me. “Ooo studios, Infiniti poses, Fox city, and Ana are my favorite go-tos lately. AnyPose is great for small tweaks to your poses, and helps make stiff joints look more relaxed and natural. You can most definitely make your own with it as well, but I prefer a combination of poses, AnyPose, and now also the Lelutka Axis HUD.”

Cassie’s Clips: Previewing The Amazing New Lelutka Axis HUD For Customizing Highly Detailed SL Avatar Expressions

This week exclusive to New World Notes, SL YouTuber Cassie Middles demos the Lelutka Axis Heads Up Display, a Bento-based tool for modifying Second Life avatar facial expressions with incredible detail — an item Cassie loves quite a lot: “Seriously my favorite thing I’ve ever bought in Second Life.” Just watch the video to see why!

Along with her in-depth, three part video series, here’s some Cassie tips for using it:

“Definitely check out the website, they give amazing advice, and look at the HUD info button. It explains the HUD in amazing detail so that you should have no questions. I did notice that any bones for other HUDs that work with the head [Lelutka HUD and Anypose HUD] won’t work if touching the head as well. There is also a demo for this both in the in-world shop and on the Marketplace, with links included in the description.” Check Cassie’s video on YouTube for those links.

Another feature Cassie didn’t get to try out for these videos, but definitely worth playing with — shared group expressions: “You can control three other people near you, as long as they accept the permissions.”

Here’s some tips for using the HUD for taking highly expressive SL pics — and a special HUD giveaway offer from Cassie:

Second Life AXIS Hud avatar expression Bento

“Do the face before deciding the avatar pose, as the pose won’t reset the face HUD, but the pose can time out if it was done before. Also to note that other HUDs that might normally work for the face might not work when you use the Axis HUD, as the priority is much higher, but it still does the same, and actually much more then any of the other HUDs.”
Also, Cassie is giving away a free copy of this HUD — for a chance to win that, just post your SL avatar name on her YouTube page, or down below.
Here’s part two and three — don’t forget to Subscribe!

 

New Windlight Sets:

Crystal Windlights

Doutzen Joubert

Jay Battlescars

Juicybomb

Kirsten Corleone

Naminaeko

Satomi’s Windlights

Strawberry Singh

Steffy Ghost

Trinity Skytower

Xanthe

Sept 17th! Building Class @ ZoHa Islands Sandbox – hosted by DanelleDee and BlueVioletVixen Lorefield

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DanelleDee Art By DanelleDee Presents:

Making A Scrying Bowl

What:

Halloween is coming up, and spirits from the great beyond are attempting to communicate with us!  Here’s how you can learn how to make a beautiful scrying bowl with animated water, and when touched, gives random words of wisdom from the great beyond!

Where:

We will be meeting in Zamargad…http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zamargad/143/108/21

There will be a TPer with instructions here, as we will be taking a field trip to the exclusive ZoHa Islands Sandbox…

You will need to IM ℳαʝɨҟᐺɨӽڠɳ (bluevioletvixen.lorefield) to get a ZoHa Islands Sandbox group tag for entry

Once you are wearing your ZoHa Islands Sandbox tag, then you can walk into the TPer (remember to accept “Lochme” experiences), and you will be teleported to the classroom at ZoHa Islands

When you are done building, you may walk into the TPer to go back to Zamargad and explore our sim!

Monday, September 17th:

1st class is at 11AM SLT

2nd class is at 5PM SLT

DanelleDee is an artist with graphic design schooling.  She has formal training in both print and web design.  DanelleDee has been interested in the building menu and how things work in Second Life since she first joined in November 2014.  She is able to make complex builds with the Second Life building menu, and some simple things in Blender.

​When she’s not teaching, she’s taking classes from other great teachers and working on her own builds.  She has been playing video games since the Atari and the Apple II.  She grew up with all the classics, and Second Life is the next interactive platform to master.

​DanelleDee has been a Second Life building teacher since November 2015.  She teaches classes at every level.  You never know what you’ll learn in her classes.

​Some of the classes she has taught in the past are framing pictures, clothing attachment points, flapping prim wings, tree hideaways, and blinking caution signs.

To Visit Zamargad’s website with upcoming classes and information click here!