Fast, and smooth
A viewer that keeps up with you.
- Instant teleports within a region; the others show real progress
- Fewer hitches in a crowd, smoother avatars around you
- A full video memory no longer freezes the viewer
Version 0.7.3 is out
Release notes
Second Life,
Second Life,
beautifully fast.
A modern Second Life viewer, written from scratch in Rust. A Vulkan renderer, a calm interface, and the world you already know.
193 fps5.2 ms per frame, six windows open
Photos up to 8KDepth of field, free camera
≈ 5×
the frame rate of a classic viewer in a busy store
≈ ½
the video memory for the same textures
Instant
teleports within a region, with no loading screen
Vulkan
a renderer built for today's graphics cards
Performance
Hundreds of frames per second, right where it's crowded.
Your graphics card finally does the work. It decides what is visible and draws thousands of objects in a handful of calls, while a dedicated render thread keeps the frames coming.
Arrive without a freeze
Textures and meshes decode in the background, straight into GPU memory. What you look at downloads first.
Places you know, at once
Textures are cached on disk ready for the graphics card, in about half the video memory.
It holds on
A network blip no longer logs you out: Aurora reconnects you right where you were.
Features
Everything you know, rebuilt for today.
A sharper, richer picture
Modern light, without changing the look you know.
- Ambient occlusion (GTAO) and sun contact shadows
- Clean shadows and highlights that hold still as you move
- Graphics levels matched to your machine at first launch
The Second Life you know
Same world, same rules, nothing to relearn.
- PBR and legacy materials, EEP skies, mirrors, water and glow
- Voice with noise suppression, IMs, groups and a searchable history
- Shape editing, gestures, a built-in AO and your own sky and water
- RLVa, opt-in, for the experiences and outfits that rely on it
An interface made for today
Flat, calm and readable, arranged your way.
- Glass island bars and a notification center with history
- One search for residents, places, events, groups and classifieds
- An inventory that widens into an explorer, notecards in Markdown
Updates in one click
On Windows, at launch, Aurora offers the new version, downloads it in the background, installs it and restarts your session. Before you agree, it tells you whether your cache and settings are kept.
- Downloaded in the background
- Checked against its published hash
- Rolled back if anything goes wrong
Photo mode
A camera in your hands.
The photo mode opens full screen under a real viewfinder: autofocus that finds faces, lens rings for focal length, aperture and exposure, and a live histogram. Frame, focus, shoot.
Autofocus that finds faces
AF-S, AF-C or manual. On an avatar, the focus locks between the eyes and follows them.
Lens rings
Focal length, aperture and exposure on rings you drag, or on the mouse wheel.
Real depth of field
On by default, with focus peaking in manual focus to see exactly what is sharp.
Light under control
A live histogram, exposure lock, and a level to keep the horizon straight, or tilt it.
Up to 8K
4K by default, in PNG, JPEG or BMP, to your disk, your inventory or your profile feed.
Free camera, self-timer
Orbit, free or first person, and a 2 or 10 second timer to get into your pose.
Your way
New interface, or the one you know. Window by window.
Prefer the layout you know? Every redesigned window keeps its Legacy version one click away.
Preferences › Aurora: one choice per window, or all at once.
A closer look
Windows that feel like home.
Conversations like a messenger: bubbles, pictures, and teleport offers or gifts right in the thread.
A notification center that unrolls from the bell, with the history of everything you missed.
An inventory that widens into an explorer: folders, details, filters and each item's rights at a glance.
Favourites, landmarks and history in one list, with a preview of each place.
One search for residents, places, events, groups and classifieds, with the details beside the results.
A resource monitor that shows where every millisecond, megabyte and kilobit goes.
Roadmap
On the way.
Soon
AMD FSR upscaling
And its native anti-aliasing, on every brand of graphics card.
Soon
Clothing editors
Edit the textures and colours of your clothes, and make your own.
Soon
PBR terrain
Ground that matches the materials standing on it.
News
The latest from Aurora.
RLVa, when you want it
From the next version, Aurora understands RLVa: the restrictions, exceptions and commands that scripted outfits, furniture and experiences rely on. It stays off until you turn it on in Preferences › Protections, and turning it off releases everything at once.
Read more →Aurora on Linux
Every release now comes with a Linux build too, with its own install guide.
Read more →Your settings, safe
Back up your settings to a file and restore them in one click. After a crash, the crash window can send its report as a GitHub issue. And your Alchemy AO sets can now be imported into the built-in AO.
Open source
Built in the open, with its residents.
Free, under the GPLv3
Read the code, build it yourself, and keep it free for everyone.
Written in Rust
From scratch, on wgpu and Vulkan, while speaking to the servers exactly as they expect.
Shaped by testers
Report a bug in one click from the viewer, suggest a feature, or help translate it.
Early access · 0.x
Usable for exploring, chatting and testing. Some features still await validation on the main grid.
Join the Discord GitHub
Step into a smoother Second Life.
Free, open source, and ready for your next login.