Frequently Asked Questions
When I start Virtual Messenger
I get a Port Test Failure and I am not allowed to get into any P2P
worlds. What do I have to do to correct this problem?
Virtual Messenger supports both peer-to-peer (P2P) and client/server
(C/S) based worlds. P2P worlds requires that your computer be able
to receive incoming connections based on values you set. If you
are behind a router, or a firewall you must set your accompanying
hardware and or software to to handle this configuration. See our
Technical Assistance page to learn how
to set up your computer and network to work with Virtual Messenger.
What is the Genesis3d?
Genesis 3D is the open-source 3D engine which the heart of our system is built over. As part of the license agreement, that logo must be displayed when the engine is first loaded. Unless you are a software developer or 3D artist this will probably have little significance but feel free to check out their website to learn more about it.
Are more levels and avatars going to be designed for VM, and how are we going to attain them?
VM is capable of automatically and manually downloading new worlds and avatars. It is even capable of upgrading itself when there are new releases. If a new level is created you will be asked if you would like to download it when you try and enter a world that uses it. Some data files such as avatars will be automatically downloaded when you start VM.
How are new files distributed throughout VM?
Virtual Messenger takes advantage of the P2P architecture for file distribution. When we create new worlds, levels, etc. we may occasionally ask your computer to send a file it has downloaded to another user. This is necessary to grow the community at an acceptable cost.
What are skins?
Skins are customized user interfaces which may dramatically change the appearance of the application from the standard Windows style. We provide several skins which you may select from the Display setup. New skins will be automatically distributed as they are created. Currently we will not let end-users design skins for the system.
Are end-users going to be allowed to design new worlds and avatars for the system?
If you are a world or character designer and you are already familiar with Genesis3d you may submit worlds or avatars for use with system. You may send these world to e-mail address supplied on our Contact page. Only high quality artistry will be considered. We reserve the right to alter anything you submit if we decide to use it.
What are the pros and cons of utilizing
peer-to-peer architecture?
P2P technology offers us a huge benefit as opposed to a typical Client-Server methodology because it relieves our servers from handling the traffic generated by end-users within the worlds. Under a Client/Server setup, the more people that use VM the more bandwidth and processing power we would need, dramatically increasing administrative cost.
P2P can prevent worldwide lag too. Only users with inferior connections would have this drop in performance while most people with good connections can interact without this issue. The cons of P2P architecture are mostly due to setup on the end-users side after it is first downloaded. Many people may be behind a firewall or router and may have to take extra steps to learn how to make Virtual Messenger work correctly. This process is far from difficult, but for inexperienced end-users this may present a small challenge.
Why are the worlds rendering so slowly?
There are a variety of factors which influence frame rate. Virtual Messenger is a very CPU intensive application. For best performance, it should be the only high resource consumer application running on your system when you enter a VM world or you may notice severe performance degradation. If you find that sometimes the program runs smoothly while other times it is choppy, you probably have another program competing for CPU time. You can find out if you have another program eating up your systems resources, you can use the Windows Task Manager (available on Windows 2000 and above) to identify the competing application. If you have an old computer and VM consistently runs slowly it is probably due to your hardware. Either your computer has a slow processor, or you have an out-of-date or incompatible video card. We recommend upgrading your hardware, a new video card would enhance the performance of Virtual Messenger and any other 3D applications on your system dramatically.
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