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Second Life Going So Slow


AemonCadfael
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Hello all!

 

  I'm very new here and excited about getting involved in second life.  However, after installing the viewer today I logged in and began to look around- Have to say, looks like an awesome place, but it is SO hard to interact with.  Everything is so very slow and takes a long time to load.  Then, after I turn away from it, it will take its time to reload again when I turn back to it.

  I lowered my graphics settings a bit, but I thought I had a pretty decent rig.  Is my PC just not cut out for Second Life or am I doing something wrong here?

  Also, I saw some comments on a Phoenix viewer or something, will that one run better and make this easier to use?

 

  Thanks in advance, and sorry to be a bother.  I hope I am posting this in the correct place, and I appreciate any help/advice you can give.

 

-Aemon

System Specs:

HP Laptop with:

Intel Core2 Duo at 2.13MHz

4096 MB RAM

GEFORCE 9600m GT

Running Windows 7 64-bit

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Me too.     I and many others rezz as balls of smoke and then for a long time a naked grey.   As I recall this did not happen  2 years ago .. or did it.  Are we getting value for money.. no. We  thought the new CEO would sort this out.  Is the problem if there r too many residents and we need a RL style war to kill some off to give us space?

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A few things:

1. The default bandwidth setting is total bull**bleep**. In Preferences, go to Setup, then raise the bandwidth to ~2000kbps. SL's servers don't seem to go higher than that anyway.

2. Render distance makes a HUGE difference in how fast things load. I typically keep mine at 64m, but in busy venues I often go as low as 32m until everything's loaded, then raise it to 64m. With your laptop, 64m should work fine. 128m for scenic shots or in non-shopping sims. Large groups of avis will generally be problematic, regardless of viewer, setting or anything.

3. While you're at it, raise cache size to 1GB - it'll help with places you frequently hang out at, though it makes no difference with any other place or with avis.

There are third party viewers, which can be grouped into two categories: Version 1 based viewers and Version 2 based viewers. Typically, people are rabid about which one is better. Plenty of people threatening to leave SL whenever older viewers will be unable to connect. Always same **bleep**, different day. Using LLs viewer is the safe choice. Trusting a TPV is a lot like playing russian roulette, which may or may not be ok with you. The TPV directory is here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory

Which viewer works best for you? Only one way to know - try them out. Just make sure you do not share the cache directory between viewers... that's just asking for trouble.

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Hi AemonCadfael, and welcome to Second Life and Second Life forums.

To try and balance this rather negative thread out a little bit, you'll probably find performance varies from week to week, as the people at LL make adjustments (this happens usually every Tuesday, while the grid still stays open -quite a complicated business modifying a running program!).

My specifications are not dissimilar to yours; I run the same graphics card, but am on Windows Vista rather than Windows 7, and I run using the default settings that come with the installation of all the viewers, flitting between Second Life main 1.23 viewer, Viewer 2.5, and the Phoenix Third Party Viewer (908 version).  I am not having serious performance issues this week, although have had a few more crashes than normal. Having said that, I was logged in for six hours earlier, teleporting around the grid from busy to non-busy locations, with just the usual Sunday lag (Aemon, lag seems to be worse at the weekends).

I believe Phoenix Firestorm is a very user friendly viewer, which I have yet to try, and if you are already familiar with the interface that comes with Viewer 2.5, you might wish to instal that. And there are support groups inworld who will give you further advice regarding Phoenix (please take a look at my profile, at the groups list for the Phoenix Viewer Support; click on that and you can opt to join, its open enrolment).

There is a handy tutorial made by Torley Linden, which shows you how to improve performance/reduce lag.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Secondlife#p/u/29/ktRW0q_JuM8

Good luck to you!

 

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im new to secondlife also..my sister has been playing for years and talks about how great it is...well it sucks ..i keep getting signed out..cant move or even pull up the search..i cant believe she put so much money into this game..ill give it another try and but when people pay to play a game you would think they would have it running smoothly. instead of changing things everyday and adding more things that they have no clue how to fix....im very unhappy with this game right now

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Fareyn Babii wrote:

we are all having problems.... seriously.

 

Not really. I don't.

If "all users" had such problems, there would be hundreds of new topics like this one every day.

"All" is such an abused word.

 

AemonCadfael: trying different viewers MAY help - or not. You should be more specific and give more details about SL being slow.

As an example, some new users find that SL is slower if compared to MMORPGS or online games even when SL is actually performing well. SL is different from online games (you have to constantly download new content) and under some aspects it always will be "slower" than them.

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Marigold Devin wrote:

I believe Phoenix Firestorm is a very user friendly viewer, which I have yet to try, and if you are already familiar with the interface that comes with Viewer 2.5, you might wish to instal that. And there are support groups inworld who will give you further advice regarding Phoenix (please take a look at my profile, at the groups list for the Phoenix Viewer Support; click on that and you can opt to join, its open enrolment).

Please note that Firestorm is currently in the early stages of development, and still has many more bugs than any of the official viewers or other TPVs and should only be used by users willing to accept that.

 

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No one is implying that your computer is bad... though I've seen a few "awesome" computers that would even make grandma yawn. There's many factors influencing how well SL runs, or how badly it runs. For me, it runs smooth. No rez problems, no crashing, no major problems.

Sorry it's not working well for you, but it's not everyone who's having problems. Not even close.

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Are you using the default "Aero" theme?  If so, shut it off and go with something that's not going to waste all your GPU power on glassy window effects for a theme, and see if you still have the same problem.  If possible, try running the viewer under Linux and see if that makes a difference.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I see a bunch of replys arguing both ways but all I know for a fact is I have litrally not been able to leave my current location for over ten and a half months. I cant change clothing, I can't walk, I cant search, NOTHING.  I have tried diffrent computers and diffrent veiwers ill get maybe an inch or two forward then endlessley be walking even though I am not touching the buttons just to have my charecter snaped back to the exact location I was just in. I cant even chat. and every thing is grey.  For several weeks I tried to get on multiple times each day with the same results then I tryed a few times a month and now I will check once a month but it looks like it will never change. Im very sad about this. You would think it would work on someones laptop or desktop but no luck. Well I miss you SL I wish you missed me enough to fix this crap.

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  • 2 months later...

Version 2.5 to version 3.1 all within one year, don't give me that crap.  

I have all the problems many of have listed on here, on my desktop; which runs Windows Vista, Intel i7, 6Gb RAM tri-chanel, and two CrossFireX linked ASUS 6850 GPU with 2Gb of VRAM between the two of them.  A 3D rendering powerhouse. 

However, on my MacBook Pro with 8Gb of RAM and only a Core 2 Duo and an Nvidia Mobile chip with only 256Mb of VRAM; it prioritizes my avetar over the environment. So even though everthing is loading around me, I still get a great frame rate on the Mac. While walking the lag meter claims my fps is 10-15 yet the walking is smooth, the rendering is smooth, and my avitar moves freely with the environment loading around it. 

The desktop is a different story all together, with the EXACT SAME SETTINGS on the client it says 10-15 fps, and you better belive it means it. Can't move, only a cloude for an avitar, claims there is network lag of 600ms. It takes several min to load all the textures inside my little SL house vs the 15sec it takes on the Mac. 

Why is there this HUGE disparity between my Mac, and the Desktop with Windows? I don't know, I have a 20Mbps internet serivice that is always great. I think if anything my desktop is WAY overpowered for this task so I'm going with CRAPY CODE. Obviously they are using a junky compiler, or missing something in the port to Windows. Or the code just sucks. Overall SL Client for windows blows hardcore and it shows.  I think somebody is rushing development faster than the Windows coders can keep up with. Along with a probable destructive-pessimist in a high place clearing the realese of things that CLEARLY are not ready for release. Both have the same graphics settings, both bandwidths are maxed to 10Mbps. Yet one performs like a dream and one is an absolute NIGHTMARE! 

Something that can help on both though is to uncheck the box beside "Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects"  Me>Prefrences>Graphics>Hardware. Also disabling anti Ailiasing, and Anisotropic filtering can help too. 

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The Windows cient is usually better than the Mac version.  I think you may have to look at processes that are running and the resources they are using to figure out your problem.  Performance on Viewer 2 and 3 is generally worse than that on Viewer 1 and has become  poorer with recent releases, but with that level of kit you should have no trouble achieving better figures than you are getting.

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  • 1 month later...

Nothing's going fine....even I wanted to check out stuff...but it takes ages to do just anything.......it's slow that by the time, you've clicked 10 times, the first click works.....All you get to see is "loading" on such a good net connection, while doing nothing else on the lappy.....The log-in time is so longggg that one could even fall asleep..............and that is when I do get to log in!!!There is sometimes DNS error, sometimes simulator problem and what not!!

SL tells me to report in support..................But was SL always like this?? or is it just the SL 2 viewer whihc is so pathetic

 

 

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If I play on my laptop (samsung 2core 2.4ghz 6 gb ram 2gb GC Win7) no lag whatsoever like playing oblivion. If I play on my desktop I can't do anything it is so slow (AMD 2core 2.4 GH 4gb ram 1gb GC Vista) I suspect it has more to do with the computer than SL because my comp is much slower now than when new. I wish I could wipe the HDD and reinstall OS.

I've had min16 MS updates everyday since installing new 7 on laptop so I expect that will be pretty laggy in a few weeks. 

I' gona try settings as above but I think it has more to do with cookies and installed programs looking for updates every 5 secs, slowing the pc down  

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Yeah, SL is so slow these latter months (almost a year, now I realize), that I've been using it as screen saver, no more. Simply I can't do nothing: When I move my av is like a slow-motion movie. And well, concerning my system, it's not pentium definitely: A Sony Vaio 4GB Ram, ATI Radeon, etc.

A nonsense, fellows.

Somebody should fix this, because I can't visit my beloved Victorian places with dignity :P

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  • 4 weeks later...

Second life going so slow is definitely a major issue at the moment.

The question is if that is perceived as such. I updated LL viewer 2 and Firestorm and Phoenix too with the result that Phoenix doesnt start anymore ( the given fix doesnt install properly eiher) and that the other viewers are amazingly slow.

Any given advice here does not apply at all to my configuration or PC, because before the update whatever viewers I used or tried SL ran smoothly with graphics on high plus draw distance up to 1000 (one thousand). After the update now even the lowest configuration in graphics has still, amazing, unparalleled lag. Same on both desktop and laptop too, before the update fast no matter how high the settings, after the update terribly slow, no matter how low the settings.

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  • 2 months later...

Try this... and you can do this w/out having to log in.

1. Load up SL into the log in page, but don't log in yet.

2. Go to the "me" tab up at the top left.

3. Go to preferences.

4 Go to graphics.

5. In graphics, press the "hardware" tab on the lower right.

6. Uncheck the VBO (vertex buffer objects) settings.

7. Then press ok and log in to SL.

When I bought my new computer, I was having problems with severe sliggish movments, or not really moving at all until unchecking this one thing. Now I can move smoothly. Also, I keep my graphics settings on low and customize whatever I want from there. I have my draw distance at 216 w/out any probs when before it was causing a lot of lag with me at anything over 90. lol.  Not sure if this will solve everyones difficulty with slow movement, but it sounds like this may be the overall problem.

 

 

 

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