[BUG-234150] Apple Silicon (arm64) Native Viewer

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How would you like the feature to work?

The feature I'd love to see is the viewer running natively on Apple Silicon processors under macOS, instead of the current emulated Rosetta 2 version. But I can’t find any information on the plans for development of a native version, so I thought I’d ask here if there is any ongoing effort and if there is a way to assist. I do have macOS programming experience.

Also, I realise that a fully native bundle is a complex task, but perhaps some of the processes running in parallel to the viewer - such as SLVoice or Dullahan - could be made native independently of the main application as a first step?

Why is this feature important to you? How would it benefit the community?

The emulation, while fairly efficient, uses a lot of overhead and overcoming this would benefit both me and others who feel that the viewer sometimes is sluggish compared to when we had an Intel machine, and who fear that in 1-2 years we have to choose between updating our OS and running Second Life :)

Links

Duplicates

• [ ] https://github.com/secondlife/jira-archive/issues/11278

Original Jira Fields

| Field | Value | | ------------- | ------------- | | Issue | BUG-234150 | | Summary | Apple Silicon (arm64) Native Viewer | | Type | New Feature Request | | Priority | Unset | | Status | Accepted | | Resolution | Unresolved | | Created at | 2023-07-19T14:50:17Z | | Updated at | 2024-01-10T13:28:19Z | ``` { 'Build Id': 'unset', 'Business Unit': ['Platform'], 'Date of First Response': '2023-07-19T12:46:12.949-0500', 'How would you like the feature to work?': "The feature I'd love to see is the viewer running natively on Apple Silicon processors under macOS, instead of the current emulated Rosetta 2 version. \r\nI have read up on the forums about the complex situation regarding OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal, MoltenVK and so on. I know this is not an easy task.\r\n\r\nBut I can’t find any information on the plans for development of a native version, so I thought I’d ask here if there is any ongoing effort and if there is a way to assist. I do have macOS programming experience, but sadly not in Vulkan/OpenGL.\r\n\r\nAlso, I realise that a fully native bundle is is complex task, but perhaps some of the processes running in parallel to the viewer - such as SLVoice or Dullahan - could be made native independently of the main application as a first step?\r\n", 'ReOpened Count': 0.0, 'Severity': 'Unset', 'Target Viewer Version': 'viewer-development', 'Why is this feature important to you? How would it benefit the community?': 'The emulation, while fairly efficient, uses a lot of overhead and overcoming this would benefit both me and others who feel that the viewer sometimes is sluggish compared to when we had an Intel machine, and who fear that in 1-2 years we have to choose between updating or OS and running Second Life :-)', } ```

[sl-service-account]

Spidey Linden commented at 2023-07-19T17:46:13Z

Issue accepted. We have no estimate when it may be implemented. Please see future release notes for this fix.

[sl-service-account]

JIRAUSER341891 commented at 2023-07-23T20:47:56Z

Thank you for the promising response. If there will be an effort on GitHub to port and test, I'd like to help.

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JIRAUSER341891 commented at 2024-01-10T13:04:31Z, updated at 2024-01-10T13:04:41Z

Would it be possible to - as a start - distribute Universal 2 binaries for the helper programs? The BugSplat framework exists in such a version.