Havok4 introduction completed

It's done. It's finished. It's there. The physics engine, this vital part of the server-side software that Linden Lab uses to control everything in Second Life has been upgraded from version 1 to 4.

Today the last rolling restarts made it happen. The upgrade project was started behind the scenes over a year ago and has been available for testing for everyone on the Beta grid for months and more recently in the early adaptor program. And now it's gone public. Today the last sims were updated and restarted.

So is this the promised milestone that will make everything better? Or is it the introduction of more problems? I've done some research and to be honest, I'm not sure. Time will have to tell.

Two months ago I was in a wild mood and tried the Havok4 Beta. I went out, rezzed about 100 go-karts on a nearly empty Beta sim and made them all physical. Now, you must know that under the old Havok1, this would almost certainly bring everything on that region to a near stop, if not crash the sim completely. I've seen it happen. But I must say, this first try with Havok4 really made me smile! Holy moly, what a big step this would mean. I won't say this test went as smooth as it would be in real life, but the go-karts actually fell down and tumbled down the hill. I could see it happen, and I even could still walk around!

But ... is this really an improvement? Or will it just turn out as one of those things where things get more complicated, and get more buggy? Will it make everything run more smoothly, or will it cause more lag? Again, my first experiences with Havok4, even now that I've seen it on the SL grid, is very positive.

But if you consider that this introduction has been done during a number of other performance problems (specifically this weekend was very bad), one might wonder if they're really doing a smart thing there.

Let's wait and see. For now I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt.

Further reading and explanation on Havok4 can be found in the new Barbwire section, if you're interested. It'll tell you what Havok is and why they were upgrading it.

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