Some time ago Torley posted breathlessly about the ability to render shadows in Second Life, which fed a broad discussion about the computing power needed to do this and whether its inclusion in the SL viewer would cut off those whose machines couldn’t handle it.

Regardless, I could never find a compiled viewer - I found the instructions for how to compile one but that’s beyond my pay grade.

But I stumbled across a blog with some pretty sharp looking photos showing rendered shadows, and a link to a compiled viewer.

Kirsten also invited Residents to join her in-world group for updates (Kirstens Official Viewer Group).

The viewer can be downloaded here.

To run:
* Start the client and press CTRL-ALT-D to access the Advanced menu.
* Click on debug settings.
* In the new pop-up type RenderUseFBO and set it to True.
* and then type RenderDeferred and set it to True.
* Set your graphics settings under Edit >> Preferences to Ultra and give it a few seconds.