Be aware of landlords claiming their class 7 / 8 regions (and who knows which number they ll reach)

[Davide Wonder]

I was a bit curious about how to check the class of a sim, as so far i didn t found any way to do that, but some people claim to have class 6, 7, 8 regions,  so i ve opened the premium chat and asked a linden agent, here s the conversation, where xxxxx stay for the name of the linden agent, hidded to fit the forum rules about naming names:

 

xxxxxx L: Hello! I may be working with multiple issues already, so please explain your issue (including any ticket numbers we will be discussing) and I will be with you shortly.

Please note: Live Chat is unable to assist with abuse-related issues. Abuse reports can be submitted using the Second Life viewer's built-in tool under the Help menu.

You: May i know how to check which class is a region? some people claim to have a class 8 regions, how the hell is possible?

xxxxxx L: we have moved away from that sort of designation. Essentially, server class no longer matters, because we have created a system where each region is allocated the same amount of resources as others of its type (Full, Homestead, Openspace) grid wide.

xxxxxx L: There is a blog post on it here http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Land-and-Sea-General/Moving-away-from-server-Class/ba-p/650813

You: this article is 4 years old

You: so why people continue to claim their class 7 or class 8 regions?

xxxxxx L: I really don;t know. As I said it no longer matters.

You: but if they say that, and they can t check it, they are just lying trying to get more customers with false informations that they neither have?

xxxxxx L: We do not have any tools for them to check that information

You: so they are giving false advertising?

xxxxxx L: If you feel that they are you are welcome to file an abuse report

 

----- End of the conversation -----

 

Well, i didn t made any abuse report, but i thought was right let people know how things are, lying with false informations is not a fair way to make business.

Resuming, regions don t have a class since first months of 2010, all regions have the same performances when empty, so lag issues depends only on how the region is used (laggy scripts, physics, lot of avatars, etc)

A good way to check lag on a region is by pressing ctrl + shift + 1:

- Look on fps sim, the value should stay around 45 fps, if it drops too often down to 20-30 or lower the sim is lagging

- Look under time (ms), last value is free time, if this value is 0 or very close to it the sim could be lagging, as the server power is used at 100% so it cant handle all the requests in time to give full performances, if free time is around 1 ms or above the region is just running fine, as the server still has some power that is not using.

 

Use these little tricks to check the performance of a region instead of trusting people claiming class 1000 servers

 

 

[Cerise Sorbet]

The support person is right in a way. LL does not use server type as a selling point any more, server capacity is intended to be roughly the same for any region, and the tools they provide do not reveal the server type.

There are still internal server classes so LL can identify problems with each server type they buy now. This can be obtained using a third party client. For example, Radegast will show it with the //siminfo command and from this a sim owner could find a class 5, 7 or 8 to claim (6 was an experiment that was ultimately skipped).

Some regions actually do behave better on different servers, depending on the kind of content on them. This does not necessarily correspond to CPU type, physical location can make the difference too.

[Jack Jaehun]

you can find the server class in http://gridsurvey.com

for example: http://gridsurvey.com/display.php?id=15868  has Server Class 703

[Davide Wonder]

Went to the website you posted, no way to check classes, 703 class is sick, just a random number as if there still were classes for sure we didn t reach those numbers, also, about the one saying to look on 3rd party viewers, it doesn t matter what the viewer says, as since 2010 the architecture is changed, so there are not anymore classes, is sick saying class 6-7-8, if the new architecture is without classes you cant say a server is x class.

Also, i think that both the Linden agent and the blog he linked are very clear, there are no reasons to calssify servers with classes if the architecture has changed, who could knows things better than a Linden?

[Cerise Sorbet]

gridsurvey is not always current, but using third party clients you can check in real time using the exact same functions they do.

Yes the classes still exist. No, the numbers are not random. The first digit of the 503, 701 etc. is the server class and it does correspond to a specific type of server hardware.

The class 5 servers have 4 core CPUs and thus support 4 regions each, or 16 homesteads. The class 7 and 8 hardware has 8 cores, so there are twice as many regions on a single box. Newer hardware can bring advantages, but in exchange there are twice as many regions contending for the same memory and disk.

The main advantage for this arrangement will be for LL, they can charge the same for these newer regions while spending less to run the machines. The server classes are in fact different, but there are not clear enough advantages to sell them that way. Support says what it says because that is the official response.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Cerise Sorbet wrote:

gridsurvey is not always current, but using third party clients you can check in real time using the exact same functions they do.

Yes the classes still exist. No, the numbers are not random. The first digit of the 503, 701 etc. is the server class and it does correspond to a specific type of server hardware.

The class 5 servers have 4 core CPUs and thus support 4 regions each, or 16 homesteads. The class 7 and 8 hardware has 8 cores, so there are twice as many regions on a single box. Newer hardware can bring advantages, but in exchange there are twice as many regions contending for the same memory and disk.

The main advantage for this arrangement will be for LL, they can charge the same for these newer regions while spending less to run the machines. The server classes are in fact different, but there are not clear enough advantages to sell them that way. Support says what it says because that is the official response.

---

Plus there is NO GUARANTEE that a SIM is going to stay on a particular server.  LL assigns SIMS to servers and supposedly there is an algorithm they are using to help balance the load.

Phaze Demesnes used to provide a tool so you could find what other SIMs were sharing a server with you but now refers you to Grid Survey Reports.

[Alicia Sautereau]

Indeed, the server assignment is trough an algorithm
I had to ask support to move a specific sim off it`s host as it kept crashing over and over, support staff gave it a good steady kick but couldn`t promise it would not be put back on the same host

Luckily it moved to a different host and the troubles went away

[jwenting]

As stated, server classes no longer exist. Land barons (especially smaller ones) however keep using it as a marketing ploy to get people to rent from them. The big established names don't need to employ such tactics and generally won't (maybe some old notecard might get parsed into an offering at times of course).

Not worthy of an AR, but I'd ask myself if it's a company I want to do business with if they use it all the time or claim all their land is on "class whatever" servers.

[Ciaran Laval]

Server classes do still exist, there are class 5,7 and 8 regions. What not longer exists, is being tied to a class, your sim could, in theory, be class 8 one day and class 5 the next.

[Lizard Howl]

More to the point, there is no way for an Estate Owner to verify that they have a certain server class for their sim.

We are at the mercy of Tyche Sheperd's independant, NOT LL OFFICIAL RESEARCH, to provide an answer to this question.

It has been my experience that it is larger estate owners not smaller ones who still insist on advertising server class, but it doesn't really matter who does it or why.

When we pay tier to LL we are paying for our sim to remain on the grid.  LL doesn't advertise, offer, or guarantee any particular server class.  Therefore it is (in my opinion) unethical for land barons to advertise that they have a given server class for their sims.  They can't verify it, or guarantee it, so they shouldn't sell it that way.

On the other hand, I guess that some people are taken in by those advertising claims.

So with my tongue firmly in cheek I will say this:

All Segarra Estates and Littleboots Land Company Sims Run on Class 10 Servers!

:matte-motes-tongue:

[SorrowDragon]

You can check classes of sims on www.gridsurvey.com

 

and if you see class 501, 502, 503, 701, 702, 703, etc.. those are Variations of the same class..  501-503 = class 5 just some verision differences or possibly different components. but you can read a little about that here:

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.secondlife.com%2Ft5%2Fmono2-performance%2FPerformance-comparisons-Class-5-vs-Class-7-amp-Mono-1-vs-Mono-2%2Ftd-p%2F870129&ei=QiILUurALaqsiAKvloGYBA&usg=AFQjCNEqsn08ekacVWUEx9vouP1nwQK_sA&sig2=sJpB0dMSp-sD96BQG7eNEg&bvm=bv.50723672,d.cGE