Owners of private estates in Second Life can opt to run preview versions of the Havok 4 physics engine on any of their simulators. Bear in mind that this is a beta and things won't work right - at least not right away.
Exactly what things won't work right? Well the whole point of this is to find out - or in other words, if there was a good answer to that question then there wouldn't be any need for the early-adopter program.
Havok 4 in Second Life adds exactly no new features (by design), unless you count not getting confused, stuck, overloaded or crashing quite so easily as features. At least that's the plan.
All sorts of things could go wrong with this, but by putting the code on the real grid with real workloads and real numbers of avatars, the plan is to see how it really goes wrong when it does. The beta grid makes a good starting point, but just doesn't provide the realistic workloads and circumstances that you get on the main grid.
Sidewinder Linden provides all the information you need to sign up for the Havok 4 Early Adopter program, and reminds you how to file Havok 4 preview bugs - something you will likely need to do in practice.
If it all goes horribly wrong, Linden Lab can switch you back to Havok 1, but it is unlikely that the process to go either way will be a quick one, so be sure about what you want to do before you commit to a course of action.
