Unoptimized engine ? GPU at 12% usage, CPU about 20% => very bad frame rate

[Theresa Tennyson]

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M0rdresh wrote:

It's quite arrogant to state that, I have respect for those that are in any business for that long and I think twice before lecturing them on very basic elements such as rendering frames. I don’t go by the notion you can properly asses my knowledge so no offense taken, I enjoy this debate and written words sound harsh and often lack the appropriate connotation.

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I didn't say that you didn't know what you're talking about, did I?

Now here's the source code; make yourself useful.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Get_source_and_compile

[Sassy Romano]

You don't know what I think, you don't know what I do, you don't know what my experience is... Nor in what field it is but no need to attempt to brief me on development life cycle.

 

End of conversation.

 

Rift as a standalone product is dead before release, in my opinion.

[Perrie Juran]

Perhaps this will help you understand a little better why SL runs the way that it does and why it sometimes gives the impression of not being "optimised" from a Linden Dev's point of view:

 

"Monty Linden added a comment - 17/Oct/14 11:32 AM - edited

So, in something like game development where one hierarchical team would make resource decisions, a resource target would be set (say 256MB resident textures) and content would be adapted to fit in it. Doesn't work for us where content is designed without foreknowledge of its target environment. Better tools for the content creators is certainly desperately needed. Has been, is now, will be tomorrow.

But it's not enough. That centralized feedback loop within a design team doesn't have a direct analog in SL. Instead, there are many independent possible feedback loops. Estate owners/managers and event/build organizers might want the resource allocation and enforcement role. Renters, visitors, fabricators, etc. are directly and indirectly consuming it. The piece that is missing is the communication/advice/enforcement/review network so that everything can be brought into balance. Prim/rendering cost doesn't quite cover it.

Recent changes are probably going to aggravate it. Mesh and texture behavior just became a whole lot more permissive. I'm expecting overbuilding to become more common.

 

Torley Linden added a comment - 17/Oct/14 4:07 PM - edited

That's a great way to put it, Monty — the "communication/advice/enforcement/review network" is the social-cultural piece of the puzzle. I have always advocated for this in SL and am more than happy to help if we (Linden Lab) are going to raise awareness, especially at a broad level that sets a good example of content creation practices. It's incredibly important to teach our community how to get the most out of any tools and to be aware that resource usage needs to be balanced for optimized experiences."

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-2514?

 

So they do have a target that they aim for but it has to in SL take into account many, many issues that generally speaking other massive multiplayer platforms do not have to take into account, the biggest being that the world/environment is fixed and static and designed by professionals.  In SL, everything is being calculated in Real Time and that comes with a huge processing cost.

 

[Penny Patton]

The sad part is, the lack of content optimization in SL could have been curtailed before it was ever a problem just by better thought out Land Impact limits, and similar limits for avatars. Said limits would not have negatively impacted the visual quality of SL because if you have the skills to create content, you already have the skills to optimize said content.

As time went on, LL could have even raised those limits to reflect the natural progression of hardware.

Hopefully LL understands that as they develop their new virtual world. Otherwise, it will suffer the same problems.

[M0rdresh]

Indeed, I don't know what you think, do or what your experience is, I can only react on what you write and that was, sorry for being direct, flawed. That is my option and yes indeed, end of that conversation.

[arton Rotaru]

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M0rdresh wrote:

Indeed, I don't know what you think, do or what your experience is, I can only react on what you write and that was, sorry for being direct, flawed. That is my option and yes indeed, end of that conversation.

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Right, it's getting boring anyway. The engine isn't the best for sure. For several reasons people have pointed out to you several times. So what does it help when you say for a tenth time that the engine isn't the most effective to date? Nothiiiiiing! We actually know it since a decade.

So my recommendation is, if you can't handle the quirks of Second Life, just move along to something else.

[M0rdresh]

For your information the part you quoted was a spin off discussion about the Oculus Rift feasibility and future and not about the 3D engine performance. Futhermore I think it's only fair and respectful that I respond to people's input, and yes sometimes that goes hand in hand with repeating statements. I don't force anyone to read this thread, I do sense that some people seem to take my critiism on the 3D engine quite personal and appear to be responding very defensivly.

[arton Rotaru]

No, you just don't get it, that's all. This has nothing to do with the rift. You just don't get that Second Life is way different in many aspects as what you call "a game".

Also your attitude of "I'm a know it all, so don't tell me anything" is pretty annoying as well.

The performance isn't what you would like it to be. We worked that out already. So cope with it, or move along.

[M0rdresh]

In this whole thread I called SL 'a game' once, in my opening sentence no less where I said 'I installed this game'. I choose that wording out of lack of a better term at that very moment in a split second writing my toughts down. So what? Yes, I did not choose 'I installed this online virtual world' or 'this software'. So here I am, the one who had it all wrong calling SL a game with the crazy proposterous expectation of a 3D engine decently using the potential of his computer, even if it were atleast some degree instead of a very small fraction.

This thread can be split up by some people clearly being stepped on their toes and responding in condescending fashion letting that SL noob know he has no idea about SL and has a wrong expectation on the 3D engine. Luckily the majority were friendly and even acknowledged the poor optimization and gave tips.

So yes I do understand the nature of the 3D engine and the complexity of it compared to a confined appliance found in different 3D worlds. I only replied, in adjacent undertone of what I received, to those people that implied my understanding of the game is somehow the problem over the matter of an unoptimized 3D engine, for whatever reason that may be, I never denied nor criticised those very reasons.

And talking about attitude, your first and only reply to my original call for help was " its a game! " Never read beyond my fourth word 'game' did you and even now four thread pages later my usage of 'game' is again your focal point; my in your eyes 'freshmen error' runs deep with you it seems.

 

 

 

 

[Sassy Romano]

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M0rdresh wrote:

 I can only react on what you write and that was, sorry for being direct, flawed.

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Bugger... I tried.  In *your* opinion what I wrote was flawed.

In my greater experience, I could explain why it's not but you wouldn't get it and even if you did, I don't believe that you would accept it since evidence in this thread is that you believe you have all the answers,  thus i'll not attempt it.  There's no point arguing on the internet where anyone can be a cardboard box... no wait, that's in SL right?

[M0rdresh]

Of course it's my opinion, did I say it was anyone elses? So you basically don't want to bother countering my previous arguments and reasoning on the Oculus Rift, but nonetheless you throw in the notion I'm wrong, that I don't get it and even if I did I would not accept it? That's rather cheap I'd say, either you commit by your previous post that this conversation was over and look away or you react and share your rebuttel with counterarguments.

I do accept your opinion on the Rift, but more in a 'agree to disagree' fashion, I was not the one that brought the feasibility of the Rift to this thread, that was you. 

About the 3D engine and this is mainly directed to others:

I admit I come across very direct and straight-forwardness and honesty can easily come across as arrogant, mea culpa (*), but at all times I believe I have backed up with given reasoning and arguments, although in a more aggresive manner then called for I admit.

I do not want to claim I know it all, eventhough I understand I came across this way because I sticked to my belief in this thread that my desire for better optimization and criticism due to lack of it is not ungrounded. I still stand by that belief, I more regret my approach starting with how I composed my original post even.

(*) reading back some of my earlier replies here, especially to Theresa Tennyson, I can only admit and offer my apology as granted I came across way to direct and some wordings could have been done far better and less jumpy. Sorry. I guess I really wanted to let SL work for my intended use and expected some obvious fix I missed somewhere to let it use my hardware and was kind of appalled it seemed the community found this a very normal acceptable thing and it's all ignorant me expecting fantasy.

[Sassy Romano]

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M0rdresh wrote:

Of course it's my opinion, did I say it was anyone elses?

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You wrote a statement, I was just correcting it to make it clear that it was only opinion.  Just as I uphold mine.  There's no need to continue as clearly, we're both right in our opinion.  However, there's nothing to gain from debate here as with arguing on the internet, there's nothing to win, no points to score and it's largely a waste of time.  I've also summed up SL in one sentence there!

What I will add is "Welcome to SL, many of us share the same frustrations, I hope you stick around long enough to share many of mine, both past and present!" :matte-motes-wink-tongue:

(We'd all love a wonderful rendering engine but we haven't got one)

[Perrie Juran]

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M0rdresh wrote:

it seemed the community found this a very normal acceptable thing

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Normal?  Yes.

Acceptable?  Well, sometimes we just tolerate some things in SL.

What's amazing sometimes is that it actually all works together as well as it does, that it has scaled as far as it has.

We do know comparing SL to any other MMPORG is fairly fruitless because more happens in real time than what other platforms (i.e. games) deal with.

[Paul Hexem]

I love threads like this.

Someone comes along and says "Why does this game run so terrible? I have a ton of horsepower, the software should be trying to use it to render all this crap."

And the replies are always "It's not a game, you can't compare it to an MMO, it's supposed to be a miserable experience visually!"

Penny's the only voice of reason around here.

[arton Rotaru]

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Gadget Portal wrote:

I love threads like this.

Someone comes along and says "Why does this game run so terrible? I have a ton of horsepower, the software should be trying to use it to render all this crap."

And the replies are always "It's not a game, you can't compare it to an MMO, it's supposed to be a miserable experience visually!"

Penny's the only voice of reason around here.

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Pretty much any of the replies are reasonable.

Would have, could have, should have,  doesn't answer any questions at all.

 

[Paul Hexem]

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arton Rotaru wrote:

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Gadget Portal wrote:

I love threads like this.

Someone comes along and says "Why does this game run so terrible? I have a ton of horsepower, the software should be trying to use it to render all this crap."

And the replies are always "It's not a game, you can't compare it to an MMO, it's supposed to be a miserable experience visually!"

Penny's the only voice of reason around here.

---

Pretty much any of the replies are reasonable.

Would have, could have, should have,  doesn't answer any questions at all.

 

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"It's not a game, it's supposed to be terrible" isn't an answer to the question either, though.

[arton Rotaru]

Nobody said it's supposed to be terrible. And it certainly isn't terrible. You are just putting it all out of context, and I'm certain you know you do. So I leave it at that.

[DKTitan]

I just wanted to say to the op, I feel your pain. I started here 3 years ago. Before I had tried 3d worlds. I tried sl probably a good 5 times before I finally stayed. What caused me to leave was sl's poor rez speed on my computer and overall confusing interface on the v1 viewer. The poor rez speed was do to my computer at that time.

 

When I decided to stay I had disabled most of sl's shinny features. I was then getting 10 fps... In 2012 when I upgraded to my asus g73 gaming laptop I was then able to see the most pretty aspects of sl. I had never seen the shadows before, it was glorious. That started the craving!

 

I wanted more eye candy at a higher fps because shadows caused me to drop down to 8 to 9 fps. With that I ended up replacing my laptop after 2 years. I bought a custom pc from a friend in which I upgraded some of the pc parts. I replaced the motherboard, cpu, gpu and added a ssd and a another 8gb of ram.

 

To my dismay I still do not get amazing fps even though I do in games like far cry, assasins Creed, watch dogs. The reason why I mention these games is because I understand the level of performance the op expects.

 

 

Op it's just one of the many things about sl. People with high end. Machines are the minority. Linden labs isn't concerned with bring sl up to speed and it shows. So I get you, and I came found that I enjoy other games where the tdp gets pushed on my graphics card. Maybe you should too.

[Cincia Singh]

Actually Linden Labs can't "bring SL up to speed" because it's the user created content that slows computers to low FPS. If you take away the user created content there's no SL because Linden Labs provides pretty much just the land - everything else is made by the residents not Linden Labs (amateurs). You can improve your FPS if you take the time to adjust your viewer preferences and tweak your graphics card settings.

[arton Rotaru]

I wonder what would happen when someone would throw the content of a fullsim as is, with lets say 30 usual SL Avatars into a Game Engine like Unreal, Unity, CryEngine, Ubisofts Disrupt engine,  you name it? I guess they'll explode already when pushing the play button. :matte-motes-silly:

[DKTitan]

I guess we will find out when they stop delaying  Gta 5 for pc.  

 

But seriously, I just merely stating the dismay and the understanding of the op. I really didnt realize he had gtx Titan. Now I feel for them.

[Jackson Redstar]

well, i recently built a new machine with a i7, 16g ram and a GTX970. I do photography in world. Honestly, i was expectly slightly better fps, but, it works, I do alot of widdings with 'everything on' and often 30 or 40 people, and can usualy get a fps of around 10-20. that still allows me to walk if I need to, and freely move the cam around as needed. And the GTX970 barely breaks a sweat. It is the shadows and alphas that drag everything down

[DKTitan]

I agree with this. My only issue is why is my gpu usage only 49 percent if the shadows drag it down.

[arton Rotaru]

The problem with SL is Draw Calls. There are simply to many objects with to many different textures around. The drastic overuse of alpha blending textures which require multipass shaders (same with shadows) which increase the draw calls even more.

Draw Calls are issued by the CPU. Modern GPUs are only good at drawing alot of things in one go. But if there are a ton of draw calls to be issued by the CPU, the GPU only gets small chunks to render, wich it does effortless, because it's so little to do for them.

It's like when you coping 1000 one MB files from one HDD to another HDD. That's pretty slow compared to when a single one GB file is copied.

A nice explanation of how a render pipeline works can be found here.

http://simonschreibt.de/gat/renderhell/

Obviously professinal game studios have a couple of methods at hand with which they keep draw calls to a minimum. In such games you rarely see alpha blending materials. All the foliage is usually alpha test. Shadows are pre baked and only moving objects get dynamic shadows. Usage of texture atlases to combine multiple textures into a single material, combining multiple objects into one object, etc pp.

They also rarely use main character models like we see in SL. Avatars with mesh bodys wich have multiple layers of that mesh for clothing and such. With hair attachments which are tremendously inefficient etc. pp..

Just take a look at some SL avatars and compare those with the triangle count of Solid Snake: Ground Zeros for example.

[DKTitan]

Artor Rotaru, I agree with you. After going to my bg feline avi from my Mesh projects male body the frame rates are consistant.  Its sad fact but  it is what is. Gotta find a way to deal.