EOL of Phoenix

The once famous Third Party Viewer - Phoenix is finally coming to the end of life. It's not that I hate it for any reason, but I had been preaching for people to upgrade to Firestorm because Phoenix totally ruined SL because it will display avatars with bald head and single color outfit where people had spend $L buying the beautifully MESH accessories. OK, maybe I hate Phoenix. :) But at least I have a valid reason to.

While Phoenix had served the public for years in the past, technology had finally caught up with it and they support team finally made the decision to drop all support for it from 1st Jan 2013 onwards including the download links from the main page. It will however be still downloadable from their wiki. Of course you can still change to another viewer besides than Firestorm.

See other 3rd Party Viewer:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory

Here is their official statement:

To be clear
-We are ending support for the Phoenix Viewer on Dec 31st, 2012.
-If you are a Phoenix user we recommend you migrate to a peer-to-peer help group created for Phoenix users:“Phoenix Viewer Self Help.”

- We are NOT forcing you to use Firestorm! If you don't want to use Firestorm, there are a few V1 alternatives out there. Check out theLL Third Party Viewer Directory.
- We are NOT telling you not to use Phoenix Viewer.
- We are NOT blocking Phoenix Viewer from logging in.
- We are NOT breaking Phoenix!
- You MAY continue to use Phoenix as long as you want, but be aware.. it will become more and more deprecated over time.
- LL is not intentionally killing Phoenix but be aware, there are changes coming in the new year that will break some key aspects of its usability.

I would like to stress that the last point links to a Avatar Baking service will be rolling out in 2 months time. While this feature will improve the baking of avatars for everyone else, it is likely for Phoenix that avatar will no longer bake properly or even bake at all! This is a might good reason to dump Phoenix for good.

While Firestorm has its cons too, it seems like a might great reason to upgrade your PC too. Currently on Windows 8, I can assure you that Firestorm works properly on it. In terms of graphics requirement, I found that a ATI HD 6670 is a really good buy because not only is it great for SL, it is also able to handle all the features (not extreme graphics though) on graphically intensive games such as Guild Wars 2 etc.

Read about the ATI Radeon HD 6670 here:
http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/DESKTOP/GRAPHICS/AMD-RADEON-HD-6000/HD-6670/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6670-overview.aspx

I do not know about the exact price, but it seems from NewEgg that this card is available from USD$69.90 onwards. Of course if you can afford more, go for the HD 7770 or a even higher card! Yes, crazy Kitty spend a LOT on her HD 6970...