Kitely, a leading OpenSim grid, has announced a significant upgrade to its virtual world hosting service, implementing an enhanced version of OpenSim 0.9.2.2. This update comes on the heels of a recent system-wide upgrade that doubled world performance.
According to an announcement earlier this week, the new version of OpenSim includes hundreds of proprietary stability and performance improvements developed by the company over the years. One of the most notable enhancements is faster world startup times, which should improve user experience across the grid, and better compatibility with scripts imported from Second Life.
The most significant feature in OpenSim 0.9.2.2 is the transition from XEngine to YEngine for the scripting system. This change brings both benefits and challenges.
“YEngine is designed to more closely follow the LSL script syntax,” said Oren Hurvitz, Kitely’s co-founder and VP R&D, in the announcement. “This makes it easier to port scripts that were designed for Second Life into OpenSim.” However, he warned that this change may cause some scripts that worked on XEngine to break, requiring users to fix, replace, or remove affected scripts from their Kitely worlds.
The switch to YEngine has also reset all scripts to their initial state.
“That’s because the state files where OpenSim stores script state have changed their format, and YEngine can’t use state files that were created by XEngine,” Hurvitz said. As a result, users who have scripts needing configuration after being rezzed will need to reconfigure them.
It’s important to note that the transition to the new script engine requires the system to recompile all scripts in each world. According to Hurvitz, “This happens the first time each world is entered following today’s update. This means that each world will take longer than usual to start the first time anyone enters it after this update.”
However, Hurvitz said that this is a one-time delay, and subsequent entries to the world will be faster due to the scripts already being compiled.
This latest upgrade follows Kitely’s recent system-wide enhancement that doubled world performance, demonstrating the company’s ongoing commitment to improving its service without increasing costs to users.
Kitely, which opened to the public in March 2011, is one of the longest-running and most innovative OpenSim grids. With its unique on-demand region system and the popular Kitely Market, the grid is a significant player in the virtual world ecosystem.
For more information about the script changes and how they might affect users’ worlds, Kitely recommends checking the OpenSimulator wiki entry on YEngine.
