I'd like to make a couple of points regarding a recent complaint about lag issues which was very misleading in a number of ways
i run a below average video card which one year ago was hardly adequate even at the very lowest settings and now runs just great on medium with everything fully enabled and rezzed to 90-120m in nor
i have noticed a small general increase in lag over the past few weeks which follows me even outside of nor so is probably related to sl server bandwidth issues and not something that changed in nor
i have heard the "sound assets cause me to lag" complaint before and it was also from someone who insisted on running around nor rezzed out to 512m
someone who is rezzed out to 256m (this is radius) within a sim cluster gets sound assets from up to 64 parcels from up to 9 sims. someone like the complainant who is rezzed to 512m sees everything and hears everything in all of nor and are probably part of the reason that sl server bandwidth gets taxed. .
my point is that its ridiculous to be rezzed out that far because there is no roleplay reason to be able to see that far to begin with,
its ridiculous to want to see in a 512m radius distance but complain about hearing every sound from that same distance,
and even more ridiculous to blame sound users or the division of land for a failing of improperly setup personal preferences or sl's inability to buffer enough sound from the extreme limit of distance options.
again these are client side issues that only effect the rest of us when too many of the 512m rezzing players hog the sl resources available for themselves
the lag in nor has never been better than now in my experience
dasein
Tolerance is for the wise ...
Acceptance is for fools
Edited by DaSein on 18-01-2010 21:47
Also, depending on the viewer used there are some additional lag problems.
With Emerald, S18, Snowglobe and probably some others there is something going on that is not happening in Imprudence and the SL viewer. Emerald and its cousins seem to run into lag problems on the client side after about an hour and definitely within 2 hours. FPS can drop to 3 for a few minutes and recover. Turning left or right can put the FPS back down to 0.5 to 3 FPS. A relog clears up the problem. Reducing draw distance helps too. Setting the draw to 32m in Emerald (type dd 32 in chat) for a minute and then bring it back up slowly (64m for a couple minutes then 96 or 128) can save a relog. Moving to a new sim helps for a short time. Clearing the cache before entering NoR seems to give one more time before slow downs start.
The SL and similar age viewers do not seem to have the problem.
Using Emerald ver 1101 and engaging in a fight can get one killed. The problem seems to be in the code in beta version of the next SL viewer. Its unclear if it is solely a viewer issue or viewer-nVidia problem.
One can open the Fast Timers to see where the problem is. (Ctrl-Shift-9 - its a toggle). Click the screen to freeze the readings and examine the numbers. There are some definite rez problems in the new viewers. They can hit 50 to 70 FPS but slow downs to 0.5 to 2 or 3 FPS are a real drag.
In Evil (or is it Good?) turning off the sky shaders can clear the slow down problems. I'm not sure why that works as it does not seem to make any difference if one is inside or outside.
None of these problems are unique to NoR. They happen in other sims too.
I'm not sure lag in NoR is better... no doubt there is less... I just have not seen a 40 person battle since DCS has been tweaked for better play to make a comparison. The lower population makes for a predictable reduction in lag. I think DCS has reduced lag problems. I certainly have not seen the meter freeze ups I had with XRPS. The fast changes (not Biz's) and development in DCS are frustrating. But, it does seem to be getting better. The death timers along with wounded states along with more balanced healing seems to have stopped the day long battles and that certainly helps lag.
There is a post on the SL blog about the new network components LL is using and the change over to MySQL 5. We should have more network capacity in the LL inner loops and less lag. Having the main DB in MySQL 5 should also help. Those improvements should reduce the impact of a 512m Draw Distance on the rest of us. 512m dd doesn't help anyone... well may be a snipper. I am once again starting to see a lot more rubber banding. Even when down to a fighting 64m dd and some shaders turned off.
Over all I think things are better. The new build in Rem with shorter lines of site and the space station's short lines of sight should help reduce lag too.
Posts: 110 Location: Probing through code Joined: 08.05.09
Posted on 07-02-2010 05:00
Nailtees wrote:
Over all I think things are better. The new build in Rem with shorter lines of site and the space station's short lines of sight should help reduce lag too.
Not entirely true, most of the stuff that isn't seen is stored in memory in the texture buffer of your graphics card waiting for you to turn and see it. The drop in frame per second (fps) you see in turning is a result of this.
The easy way to understand this concept is to go to Remembrance Mall and find a store and just stare at one wall. Let wait for about 5 minutes to ensure everything is loaded up in your card's memory and then turn to look at the wall to your side that you don't have drawn. For my systems and even my laptop that can barely play Second Life, you can still see those walls without having the same lag that you had initially of drawing them.
Thus, shorter draw distances don't improve graphics lag unless you set it in the graphics settings of the Second Life client or similar client that you are using.
The biggest lag producer of graphics lag, is drawing of avatars and sculpty prims. This is because much of the sculpty prim is invisible and most hair styles and objects like shoes on an avatar are invisible. They are still drawn, but have to be drawn more times over to ensure the background of whatever the prim is in front of is what it should be. This error is only in Second Life, not necessarily in other games.
Hope this helps to elaborate on the graphical lag issue.
Posts: 110 Location: Probing through code Joined: 08.05.09
Posted on 07-02-2010 05:11
ADDED SIDE-NOTE:
For the issues of those that use the official SL client, you can limit the max number of avatars drawn by doing the following
- Ctrl + Alt + D, activates the Advanced menu setting
- click Advanced, Debug Settings...
- type in the following
RenderAvatarMaxVisible
set this to anything under 30, I actually set mine higher 50, but then I can handle the lag
RenderGlow
set this to FALSE helps to decrease graphics lag of SL items that glow
RenderMaxVBOSize
set to the amount of memory your card has generally helps, but I have 1GB and have noticed that this setting doesn't go beyond 512 KB in the official client
RenderObjectBump
turn this off if you are really laggy, I recommend not.
Of all these commands, the RenderGlow and RenderAvatarMaxVisible are the most potent of the advanced commands of the Debug Settings in the 'Second Life' official viewer.
sl has been progressively laggier for me the last couple of weeks
as usual when everything is going well they go and "upgrade" something
some of the advanced menu selections and some debug menu selections don't "Stick" through a reboot ...i wonder if anyone knows a secret to making non-sticky preferences stay and not have to eb readjsuted everytime i log on?
das
Tolerance is for the wise ...
Acceptance is for fools
Posts: 110 Location: Probing through code Joined: 08.05.09
Posted on 08-02-2010 18:31
DaSein wrote:
sl has been progressively laggier for me the last couple of weeks
as usual when everything is going well they go and "upgrade" something
some of the advanced menu selections and some debug menu selections don't "Stick" through a reboot ...i wonder if anyone knows a secret to making non-sticky preferences stay and not have to eb readjsuted everytime i log on?
das
First, LL doesn't get that "if something isn't broke, don't fix it." ROFLMAO, I have that issue from time to time, I log on and what laggy, check all my settings, and its not me. Turn around and ask some friends and they say, yeah SL had a rolling restart just a few days or weeks ago. I'm like great.
Anyways, I usually check things like 'RenderGlow' and 'RenderAvatarsMax', but notice they don't change. The 'RenderMaxVBOSize' changes with log on or when you open up preferences. It only changes on log on if you tell it anything greater than 512 KB, because the official SL client can't take any value larger than 512 KB. Many of the preferences in Edit - Preferences on the menu bar, are debug settings also or affect debug setting variables like 'RenderMapBump' or something like that is also under Edit - Preferences - Graphics Tab - Custom section. If you press OK or press the X for close on the Preferences window, you should check back to the debug settings in the advanced menu just to make sure the key settings are still kept.
The only other time I have a problem with this, is the perodic update of the SL client, which for me always seems to reset everything. Wish they learn to keep the old settings and stuff from resetting.
Birthday(s):
I have a kick-ass video card that has issues so I think the settings will help.
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