Frame Rate Drops - KB3194496 Windows update released today

Issue: Frame rate drops to around 3FPS when any SL Viewer tries to regain focus after another Windows 10 application has been run in the the foreground or after the viewer has been minimized.

Microsoft update patch  KB3194496  is again a cumulative patch which includes the OpenGL bug.

So if you previously removed KB3193494, KB3176938 and KB3189866 for this problem you will also need to block this update.

Details on how to block an update are included in the original story here

Presidential Debates, Round One

A lively debate was enjoyed last night by those who gathered in London City to see the first presidential head-to-head.

Hillary Clinton, somewhat reminiscent of a Cheshire cat, with a permanent broad smile, was effective.  Far from coughing, wobbling and falling off the stage into the audience, she delivered a well rehearsed message and remained calm.

The consensus of those watching form London City, was that she left  Mr Trump somewhat on the hop, unable to answer questions without a convoluted preamble, and forcing him to adopt a defensive position throughout, without much if any opportunity to attack.

There will be a 2nd debate on 9th October and a third and final head-to-head on 29th October.

The first Presidential Debate - Have your Say!

As the first head-to-head debate gets underway between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, come and have your say about how you think it's going.

You can use Voice or Text to express your views, your opinion matters!

The live debate begins at Starts at 6pm SL time on Monday which is 2am (Tuesday) in the UK

Location: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/London%20City/81/185/23

Tickled Pink

Thank you to everyone who visited the weekend concerts through September and helped celebrate London City's 7th Birthday.   We hope you enjoyed the festivities as much as we enjoyed bringing them to you.

Last night the London City Players presented Pink in Concert to a full house.  Next week is the beginning of the Autumn season which of course, at the end of the month, includes our Halloween shows featuring Michael Jackson and also The War Of The Worlds.

Oktoberfest special today at Madame Lala's 1pm SLT (9pm UK)

Join us for a special event at Madame Lala's today as the club celebrates Oktoberfest.

Lots of scantily clad men and women in Lederhosen, dancing like a German band, drinking beer and making a spectacle of themselves.

Party starts at 1pm SLT (9pm UK)
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/London%20City/235/44/27

This event runs directly after Bar Soho 11am to 1pm SLT.

Frame Rate Drops KB3193494

Issue: Frame rate drops to around 3FPS when any SL Viewer tries to regain focus after another Windows 10 application has been run in the the foreground or after the viewer has been minimized.

Microsoft update patch KB3193494 is again a cumulative patch which includes the OpenGL bug.

So if you previously removed KB3176938 and KB3189866 for this problem you will also need to block this update.

Details on how to block an update are included in the original story here

Come as you Were, the video

Last night as part of our 7th Birthday celebrations, we invited guests to come as they would have looked 7 years ago in Second Life (pre-mesh).  Enjoy the video!

Come as you Were

Sunday's come as you WERE party, celebrating 7 years of London City, held on our original sim on the mainland.   Thanks everyone for your excellent company.  A truly enjoyable event!

Birthday Party on the Mainland. Come as you WERE

Come as you WERE party about to begin.  Dress how you looked 7 years ago.   Celebrating seven years of London City.  

On the Mainland!  Location:   http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mephilo%20Tor/75/230/80

Come as you were 7 years ago! (Sunday at 11am SLT)

The Carpenters show last night in London City

Gore-juss!

London City is 7 years old and to celebrate, today at 11am SL time (7pm UK) we invite you to a party on our original mainland sim on Mephilo Tor dressed as you looked 7 years ago!

If you are less than 7 years old you can use your imagination, or your first avatar.  Mesh avatars will be chased around the little parcel with a stick.

Music is provided by Bailey and Coffee.  Looking forward to seeing you all.

Location: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Mephilo%20Tor/75/230/80

Best early film comedy

Not all our straw-polls are of paramount importance.  

Stan Laurel was originally Charlie Chaplin's understudy and Laurel and Hardy were said to have capitalized on many of Chaplin's slapstick routines in their own films.

So we asked our visitors, who do you prefer,  Laurel and Hardy, or Charlie Chaplin?  

A somewhat surprising result, considering Chaplin has historically always polled the greater of the vintage acts, but Laurel and Hardy scored 38 votes, and Chaplin 30.

Hillary Fit?

Last Sunday when Hillary Clinton collapsed at the 9/11 memorial day, people began to give a lot more credence to what had previously been considered outrageous conspiracy theories about her health.

Her team said after the incident, what was originally thought to be allergies was in fact pneumonia.

A Google of 'Hillary Clinton health'  reveals many thousands of theories from Parkinson's to Alzheimer's which largely began circulating after she suffered a fall which cause brain bleed back in  2012.

Last week Mrs Clinton suffered another prolonged coughing fit for the first 6 minutes of her speech in Cleveland Ohio, 3 days before the incident at the 9/11 memorial and she has previously, on more than one occasion exhibited symptoms akin to mini seizures.

Given that her health, or rather the transparency of her health issues, is one of the top news stories at this time, we asked visitors to London City over the past couple of days,  "Should Hillary Stand Down?"

As you can see, this question completely split those who answered the poll, with 42 saying Yes she should stand down and 41 saying she should not.

Mrs Clinton will be giving her first speech, since the incidents,  today at North Carolina, where no doubt she will have one of the biggest world audiences watching her every move.

Frame rate drops update

We have updated our story about the OpenGL problems causing sudden frame rate drops in Second Life, because this issue now spreads from KB3176938 released on 31st August, to KB3189866 which was released yesterday.

KB3189866 is a cumulative patch, so if you removed KB3176938 is adds the code your computer is 'missing', back into the system.

The update is towards the bottom of the story here: Frame Rate drops story

SL Enquirer blogs London City Birthday

Thank you to Lilya Luv of the SL Enquirer for the story about London City's 7th Birthday.

As the article mentions, this coming weekend we will be revisiting where it all started, the Mainland and be holding a party for avatars as they would have looked 7 years ago!

You can read the SL Enquirer here http://www.slenquirer.com/2016/09/seven-years-and-still-running-london.html

Celebrating 7 Years of London City

Here is a montage of pictures taken during the first 7 years of London City in Second Life. Enjoy!

Redeemed

As part of our 7th Birthday celebrations, on Saturday we premiered a new show. A tribute to Televangelism called "Jebus Revival".

Thanks to the Players for making it possible:
The Choir, Ian, Ando and Lucien.  The Happy Goodmans, With Bailey as Jessica Hahn, Katty as Saint Mother Teresa, CoffeeQueen as Howard 'Happy' Goodman, RubyB as Vestal, God as the voice of Kenneth Copeland and Tammy Faye Bakker and Jan Crouch appearing as themselves.

Thank you for making it a great show and adding so much comedy.

NVIDIA setting you might like to try

Have you tried this setting in your NVIDIA control panel?  It won't work for everyone, but might work for you.

Under program settings, create a profile for your SL viewer software, and try enabling "Vertical Sync".

You need to restart your viewer after this change.  On our computers, frame rate increased from an average of 28-30 to 40-50.  Every little helps!

It does not fix the issues with the Windows 10 KB3176938 problem, but was a tweak we found along the way whilst researching the causes.

Trash or Treasure

People are always throwing things away in the litter bins in London City.   You never know quite what you will find in there.  A useful gadget or even some cash.   By walking up to the bin a random gift will be given to you.

You can visit the litter bin in Regent's Park here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/London%20City/88/205/23

And the reason for this reminder?  Lovely new team member Elise has made a bespoke Umbrella with pose, especially for the rainy days here in London.  Visit the litter bin often for a chance to get this new gift!

Sudden Frame Rate Drops (KB3176938)

Updated 14th September (notes at bottom)

Finding your frame rate inexplicably goes from whatever is normal to about 2 frames a second?

Well you can relax to an extent, there is nothing wrong with your settings and you are not being griefed.

But you are a Windows 10 Anniversary user, and you have the KB3176938 update and it installed around 1st September. This is the cause of your problems.

This is not simply a Second Life related problem, this issue is common to all OpenGL rendered applications, including D&D Online, Runescape, and Xplane, with emerging reports from the Minecraft community.

The problem occurs when any other application steals focus from your viewer such as a web browser or going to your desktop or minimizing the SL viewer.  The SL viewer then fails to regain foreground priority until your relog.   Sometimes it can take an hour for this problem to show itself, sometimes just a few minutes.

Linden Lab are aware of the issue, and their developers are actively pursuing a resolution for the problem.  However, at the time of writing this, the only workaround they can suggest is to consider uninstalling the hotfix patch from Microsoft.

If you cannot wait for a resolution to this, which now seems likely to be a further fix from Microsoft, and you are feeling brave, here is a guide to removing updates:  http://www.howtogeek.com/235474/how-to-roll-back-builds-and-uninstall-updates-on-windows-10/

There is also a thread to follow on the Microsoft site, specific to this issue.  Although it says it affects Firestorm, the Lab confirms it is all viewers with this update:  severe performance issues on Firestorm viewer

You can also follow the issue on the Firestorm Jira: http://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/FIRE-20034

There is now a LL JIRA for this issue.  https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-37795



extra note:
Please be aware that whilst the workaround of uninstalling KB3176938 does solve the framerate issue, if like me, you have always had Cortana disabled, the removal will of KB3176938 will  trigger it to become activated.

One of the 'features' of the Anniversary update was to remove the "off" switch for Cortana and once activated, it cannot be turned off again without hacking the registry.

14th September

If you removed KB3176938 alas the frame rate problem returns on the update KB3176938 released last night.  The patch is cumulative, meaning that it gives you all the updates to date.  If you are therefore missing KB3176938 because you removed it, it will be included in the patch from last night.

You can follow this direct link to the MS trouble-shooter which allows you to Show or Hide updates from your PC:   http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/2/2/F22D5FDB-59CD-4275-8C95-1BE17BF70B21/wushowhide.diagcab

You can run the troubleshooter and uninstall the patches as described here: http://www.howtogeek.com/235474/how-to-roll-back-builds-and-uninstall-updates-on-windows-10/

As previously explained, unrolling the updates will enable Cortana if you previously had it disabled, because a 'feature' of the Anniversary Update was to remove your ability to turn it off.

However by following this Registry Edit which I can confirm works as I have done it myself, will turn Cortana off in Windows 10 Anniversary.   Every caution should be taken when editing the registry.  Check and double check you have made any alterations correctly and back up your registry before meddling with it!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW1heCjMe3w

Birthday Blog roll

A couple of great stories covering London City's 7th Birthday

Daniel Voyager has written about London City many times over the years.  We thank him for all the coverage he has given us, including this story for London City's Birthday.

You can visit Daniel Voyagers blog here to see the story


Jude Walter has a backpacking blog where he continues a journey through various places on the grid.  He has also written about London's celebrations on his blog.

You can visit Jude Walter's SL Backpacker here for the story

Simply Red - Saturday

Simply Red the tribute takes to the stage this Saturday.

Simply Red is a British pop/soul group formed in 1985.  To date they have sold over 50 million albums.

Their most famous songs include, Money's Too Tight To Mention, Holding Back The Years, Every Time We Say Goodbye,  It's Only Love,  If You Don't Know Me By Now, Something Got Me Started, Stars, Your Mirror and Fairground.

The Party starts at 12pm SL (8pm UK) with the show and hour later at 1pm SL (9pm UK) at the concert area, located here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/London%20City/126/106/23

London City at 7

London City 7th Birthday

London City celebrates its 7th birthday in Second Life. Throughout September, you can enjoy live events and weekend concerts to celebrate. There's also a fun fair, vintage memorabilia hunt and themed collectables from London City's seven years in Second Life. Details at mainlandlondon.blogspot.co.uk.

Visit in Second Life