Low FPS...

[Zuriel Bedlam]

I recently had a problem with textures loading and was told to check a texture menu option in the Develope menu.  Since then my Viewer from V2 to Phoenix has run at a constant 3-4 fps and barely rising.  I've uninstalled and reinstalled, the problem hasn't gone away.  It's not my internet connection that I can tell and its not related to my graphics card which by the card list for FPS should be running in the 15-25 FPS range easily.  What am I doing wrong to fix this problem?  My graphics are set to low, my bandwith is not the problem can ANYONE please give me some insight?  I'm even running a bare bones Operating system with SecondLife and WoW being my only big things on my computer and WoW while not as graphically intense as SL is running a high 50's 60 FPS constantly.

[Cinnamon Lohner]

Zuriel Bedlam wrote:

I recently had a problem with textures loading and was told to check a texture menu option in the Develope menu.  Since then my Viewer from V2 to Phoenix has run at a constant 3-4 fps and barely rising.  I've uninstalled and reinstalled, the problem hasn't gone away.  It's not my internet connection that I can tell and its not related to my graphics card which by the card list for FPS should be running in the 15-25 FPS range easily.  What am I doing wrong to fix this problem?  My graphics are set to low, my bandwith is not the problem can ANYONE please give me some insight?  I'm even running a bare bones Operating system with SecondLife and WoW being my only big things on my computer and WoW while not as graphically intense as SL is running a high 50's 60 FPS constantly.

The only texture option in the Develop menu that I can think of is HTTP Textures.  Try turning it back off and see if that makes a difference.

--Cinn

[Zuriel Bedlam]

I've already turned it back off at the first sign of trouble, and nothing has improved.  In fact my frames seem to get worse each time I login and yes my cache is cleared.

[Iellwen Nirvana]

I too have been having issues with low FPS. Actually started months ago, and got to the point I ended up not logging into SL out of frustration. Though for me the issue occurs about 10 to 15 mins after logging, then the low FPS lasts for about 4 minutes and repeats every 8 mins.

I tried everything I could think of, everything people suggested, different viewers (I have phoenix) but nothing made it stop till I finally broke down and took it in to have professionals work on it. When I got it back it worked for about 3 weeks, and then last week started the issue again just as bad if not worse.

I submitted a ticket, and am going to call my cable provider to see if the connection is the problem... but I saw this post and had to add my two cents in case anyone can help fix this problem or has suggestions.  

[Nya Raymaker]

could you maybe provide some system info? like which bare bone OS exactly, graphic card, core, and peripheral stuff like internet connection speed?

Unless it's a known issue with some hardware component or driver it might be something starting to fail as well. Especially since you say "it seems to be getting worse". But that's groping around in the dark.

[Zuriel Bedlam]

When I say bare bones I am referring to only having a Windows OS and two other main programs being SecondLife and World of Warcraft, I have a virus program and thats about it on my computer.  I have it simply to run SL and WoW and it was system cleaned before I got it and started doing nerdy things like saving pictures and whatnot.

I have 2 gigs of ram

A Raedeon 7700 graphics card

AMD Athalon 3200+

Nice to see though I'm not the only one suffering in the FPS department, the truly frustrating thing is that no one has yet to give me a reason, a lead or even a hint on what to do to fix it and I am a five year SL players come next month.  I've been here forever and no tricks I know is making this work better or resolving the issue so I can interact in world without fear of sitting still for ten minutes while my camera moves a half inch on the screen and nothing rezzes properly.  Still searching for a nugget of advice that from what I can see at least one other person needs help with as well.

[Nya Raymaker]

uhm. not all sure as i can't find any specs on it but isn't the Radeon 7700 about... 6 or 7 years old?

so my guess is it is probably a 256 MB RAM card, which isn't much.

you  could try disabling VBO in preferences, graphics, hardware, and you  could also try to disable http-get for textures in Advanced menu, debug settings, ImagePipelineUseHTTP (and set to FALSE), which I think you already did though in Phoenix if I read that correctly.

if i am right though with my age guess i'd assume a new graphic card is overdue no matter how much you tweak settings.

[Peewee Musytari]

As a fellow sufferer of low FPS I have found it to be Graphics Card related too. I agree with the previous poster about disabling VBO with ATI graphics cards, though I hafta say when I had eventually tried everything else and switched my Graphics card to NVidia it made a huge difference. I then bought a new puter with way more power and sadly another ATI card and the problem came back lol

Out of interest, if you cam up so that there is nothing on your screen except for clear sky (by nothing I mean not even clouds, you can switch those off in Advanced >> Rendering on one of the sub-menus) does your FPS then shoot up to 30-50 fps? If so, you can safely say it is definately related to the Graphics card.

Also what speed is your connection?

[Zuriel Bedlam]

you   could try disabling VBO in preferences, graphics, hardware, and you   could also try to disable http-get for textures in Advanced menu, debug  settings, ImagePipelineUseHTTP (and set to FALSE), which I think you  already did though in Phoenix if I read that correctly.

 

Actually doing this tweaked my FPS to it's normal rate and I can somewhat interact again with a bit more ease and not so much terrible lag between typing.  I went back to V2 I love my saved outfits feature.  The only trouble now is my frames dropping back to the 10-15 range with a possible cause stating too many images in memory.  Is there anything else that may help this a tad more?  Getting this handled would push me well above normal I imagine and thank you guys so very much for giving me back some SL freedom!  *BIG HUGS*

[Peewee Musytari]

Glad it helped a bit, it is obviouly a Graphics card issue, other than keeping all your graphics settings on basic with no bells & whistles there is little else that will really help. Making your avatar as basic as possible will help that to load faster too. But all these things do put a dampner on the overall enjoyment of SL. In the long run, investing in a new card is probably your best bet.

[Mysty Saunders]

I have a feeling youre using an AGP video card as well wish has long since gone the way of the Dodo. Time to invest in a new computer if possible, then you can really see the beauty that is SL.

[Baloo Uriza]

Can you post the complete contents of the top pane of "About (your viewer's name)" and a screenshot of your graphics preferences?  That would go a long way in troubleshooting this.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Zuriel Bedlam wrote:

When I say bare bones I am referring to only having a Windows OS and two other main programs being SecondLife and World of Warcraft, I have a virus program and thats about it on my computer.  I have it simply to run SL and WoW and it was system cleaned before I got it and started doing nerdy things like saving pictures and whatnot.

I have 2 gigs of ram

A Raedeon 7700 graphics card

AMD Athalon 3200+

Nice to see though I'm not the only one suffering in the FPS department, the truly frustrating thing is that no one has yet to give me a reason, a lead or even a hint on what to do to fix it and I am a five year SL players come next month.  I've been here forever and no tricks I know is making this work better or resolving the issue so I can interact in world without fear of sitting still for ten minutes while my camera moves a half inch on the screen and nothing rezzes properly.  Still searching for a nugget of advice that from what I can see at least one other person needs help with as well.

 

Could you please clarify what graphics card you have. I never heard of a Radeon 7700 so I checked Google and it can't find one either. There is a Radeon 7500, Radeon 7000 or FireGL V7700. All are very old apart from the V7700 and if your card is a V7700, note SL does not support FireGL cards as performance is uncertain. Open SL to login screen > select Help > About Second Life and copy/paste the computer details into a reply here.

What graphics card list were you referring to in your first post? If the one linked below, which card are you looking at as yours? Bear in mind that this list is years out of date and has little relevance to current viewers.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Typical_Frame_Rate_Performance_by_Graphics_Card/GPU

On the subject of VBO, I ran some tests a couple of days ago in a Linden water sim and disabling this in Preferences actually reduced FPS by around 3 FPS. I re-ran the tests this morning in the exact same sim and disabling VBO resulted in an increase of 20 FPS. Teleporting to an infohub reversed that effect with VBO enabled giving an increase of 10 FPS but 15 minutes, the same setting showed a reduction of 5 FPS. The results are so unpredictable, it's difficult to make any recommendations one way or the other on VBO. I'll do some more tests over the next few weeks. I have a Radeon HD 5850. I used to disable VBO on an old ATI card I once had because that was the recommended solution for the onscreen artifacts created when enabled. Can't recall what enabling or disabling VBO did for FPS if anything at the time.

The AMD 3200+ was released in 2003 so is probably struggling with Second Life which is very CPU intensive. You could install Open Hardware Monitor and see what your CPU is up to when running Second Life. The program will show GPU performance as well.  http://openhardwaremonitor.org/

If you have Voice enabled and don't use it, switch it off. It has a noticeable effect on CPU performance.

Also, play around with your Bandwith setting. There is a very good article on Bandwith here: http://joelfoner.com/2010/03/understanding-the-maximum-bandwidth-option-in-the-second-life-viewer/

Nyll

[leliel Mirihi]

Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

 

Could you please clarify what graphics card you have. I never heard of a Radeon 7700 so I checked Google and it can't find one either. There is a Radeon 7500, Radeon 7000 or FireGL V7700. All are very old apart from the V7700 and if your card is a V7700, note SL does not support FireGL cards as performance is uncertain. Open SL to login screen > select Help > About Second Life and copy/paste the computer details into a reply here.

Given the age of his CPU I think he most likely has a Radeon 9700 and just miss typed the number.

On the subject of VBO, I ran some tests a couple of days ago in a Linden water sim and disabling this in Preferences actually reduced FPS by around 3 FPS. I re-ran the tests this morning in the exact same sim and disabling VBO resulted in an increase of 20 FPS. Teleporting to an infohub reversed that effect with VBO enabled giving an increase of 10 FPS but 15 minutes, the same setting showed a reduction of 5 FPS. The results are so unpredictable, it's difficult to make any recommendations one way or the other on VBO. I'll do some more tests over the next few weeks. I have a Radeon HD 5850. I used to disable VBO on an old ATI card I once had because that was the recommended solution for the onscreen artifacts created when enabled. Can't recall what enabling or disabling VBO did for FPS if anything at the time.

This I find very weird. VBO should be giving you a rather large boost in FPS since the render pipeline no longer has to upload geometry data to the GPU every frame. This makes me very curious to know what the viewer is doing that cause ATI cards to barf when Nvidia cards don't seem to have a problem with it.

The AMD 3200+ was released in 2003 so is probably struggling with Second Life which is very CPU intensive.

And LL will be dropping support for this CPU when mesh rolls out.

[Peewee Musytari]

leliel Mirihi wrote:

This I find very weird. VBO should be giving you a rather large boost in FPS since the render pipeline no longer has to upload geometry data to the GPU every frame. This makes me very curious to know what the viewer is doing that cause ATI cards to barf when Nvidia cards don't seem to have a problem with it.

 

I would love to know that too, my first experince of ATI card problems was just after the introduction of Windlight, I had graphics breaking up into large triangular sections that would fly around the screen, they all seemed to be textured with various textures that were around at the time & prims (such as building walls) would have triangular sections cut out of them....I assume the pieces and the holes matched up but there were too many to actually confirm that & they wouldn`t stay still lol. Switching off VBO instantly fixed it.

[Zuriel Bedlam]

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2200.07 MHz)
Memory: 2048 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 (Build 2600) compatibility mode. real ver: 6.0 (Build 2900)

Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.

Graphics Card: RADEON 9600 SERIES

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6925
OpenGL Version: 2.1.8545 Release

 

libcurl Version: libcurl/7.20.1 OpenSSL/0.9.8j zlib/1.2.3
J2C Decoder Version: KDU
Audio Driver Version: FMOD version 3.750000
Qt Webkit Version: 4.6 (version number hard-coded)
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Built with MSVC version 1400

I did the copy paste thing and suppose these are my specs, I'm at a loss because the problem has now returned and no offense but I'm not very computer literate.  I just want an easy fix because I would like my SL to run like it once did and I need to know if I need to replace my graphics card to enjoy it once again or if there is something I'm not doing.  Thank you.

[leliel Mirihi]

To be honest I think you should buy a new machine. Even a $400 laptop would out perform what you have now. And as I said above, LL will be dropping support for your CPU in a few months.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

leliel Mirihi wrote:

 

This I find very weird. VBO should be giving you a rather large boost in FPS since the render pipeline no longer has to upload geometry data to the GPU every frame. This makes me very curious to know what the viewer is doing that cause ATI cards to barf when Nvidia cards don't seem to have a problem with it.

And LL will be dropping support for this CPU when mesh rolls out.

Yes, it should give me a nice boost and usually does. I don't know what to make of the results. I re-tested in Smith (a low lag water Linden 90% water sim) yesterday under High and Ultra settings and got mixed results although with much closer figures, either showing a nice boost or similar figures on or off. With High I got a maximum of 100 FPS with VBO on and 101 FPS off.

Below figures at High setting:

Today, at an info hub, VBO behaved correctly producing an increase of about 12/15 FPS when on.

At Paroo, a low lag Linden water sim, VBO on resulted in a drop of -7 FPS, around 85 FPS on to 92 FPS off

At Dance Island, results were ambivalent, on and off both around the 40 FPS mark.

At Casablanca Boulevard (a resource hogging sim although well managed and very stable), VBO on again produced an increase of 2/3 FPS, 25/26 FPS on to 23/24 FPS off.

I suspect on balance when there are few textures, VBO on is ambivalent or worse for some peculiar reason but when in high textured sims, VBO on is better which is expected behaviour.

Nyll

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Zuriel Bedlam wrote:

I did the copy paste thing and suppose these are my specs, I'm at a loss because the problem has now returned and no offense but I'm not very computer literate.  I just want an easy fix because I would like my SL to run like it once did and I need to know if I need to replace my graphics card to enjoy it once again or if there is something I'm not doing.  Thank you.

Thanks for posting the specs and I see the GPU is actually a 9600, a 2003 graphics card too. This has 128MB DDR memory compared to most modern cards which have 512MB/1GB with DDR3 or DDR5 memory.

Updating your graphics card may not actually produce much benefit as the CPU will undoubtedly throttle it and you'll probably also have to upgrade your PSU (power unit) to handle an uprated GPU. Also, leliel says LL are dropping support for that CPU when mesh arrives.

To return to your immediate problem though, there is little information on the Performance Meter saying 'too many images in memory'.

What is your Texture Memory slider set at? It's under Preferences > Graphics > Hardware on the SL viewer, probably the same in Phoenix.

_______________________________________________________________

The slider in Preferences > General > Hardware Options > Texture Memory (MB) can be now be set only for values within a range of memory that Second Life can properly support. At this time, the texture memory requirements of Second Life are almost always below 512 MB. (Technical Note: the viewer will actually allow itself to use 1.5 times the value set in this slider, in some cases.)

In performance tests of the viewer, it can be counterproductive to allow textures to occupy too much memory, even when the GPU might support more. Too much allocated texture memory can cause memory to become occupied by unused textures, while other necessary textures have no memory left to use; this will routinely slow down the performance, or even crash, especially when some other large applications are running. Many residents who experience crashes have this value set at 512 MB, but find they can eliminate crashing by lowering the Texture Memory to a smaller value such as 256 MB.

Likewise, be aware that setting the Texture Memory too small can cause very frequent texture swapping, making inworld texture loading very slow. To mitigate this problem on some systems, the slider can only be set as low as 64 MB. Thus the detected video memory in Second Life supports a range from 32-512 MB, or 64-512 MB, depending on your system.

_______________________________________________________________

What is your GL Tot? CTRL+ALT+Q to access the Develop Menu. Activate Consoles > Texture Console. You'll see it top left.

Nyll

[Zuriel Bedlam]

I found the texture memory bar and lowered it from 128 which is what it was set at down to 64.  SL just seems choppy now but managable with typing and lag and my FPS handled at a constant 10-20 due to images loading.  I'm including a look at my GL Tot to further find the cause as you requested.

I am curious though, if LL will no longer support my CPU will it mean my machine is ready to go the way of the dinosaurs?

Just wondering as my ability to get a new one is hindered at the moment and replacing it will take time.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Zuriel Bedlam wrote:

 

I found the texture memory bar and lowered it from 128 which is what it was set at down to 64.  SL just seems choppy now but managable with typing and lag and my FPS handled at a constant 10-20 due to images loading.  I'm including a look at my GL Tot to further find the cause as you requested.

I am curious though, if LL will no longer support my CPU will it mean my machine is ready to go the way of the dinosaurs?

Just wondering as my ability to get a new one is hindered at the moment and replacing it will take time.

 

 

I've never seen textures exceed available texture memory before as shown in your GLTot and Memory Bound figures so I really don't know what's going on. Hope someone else can comment on that. The 96 MB is your 64MB + 50% which SL allows. You may as well up your slider to 128MB again I guess.

Open Debug Settings in Advanced Menu (CTRL+ALT+D) and type in rendertextureMemoryMultiple (will autofill after rendertex) and see what the value is at. It should be 1.0. If set at less, change to 1.0, press Enter and exit. This setting may not hold after a relog by the way. Check and if it holds, good. Otherwise reset each time. If the multiple was 0.5 before, is performance better now at 1.0? How about if you increase to 2.0?

Nyll

[Baloo Uriza]

I submitted a ticket, and am going to call my cable provider to see if the connection is the problem... but I saw this post and had to add my two cents in case anyone can help fix this problem or has suggestions.  

It's not your connection.  Your drivers or OpenGL implementation is buggy or configured wrong.

[Baloo Uriza]

The problem with VBO on ATI seems to be Windows-specific.

[Baloo Uriza]

And as I said above, LL will be dropping support for your CPU in a few months.

Cite source?

[leliel Mirihi]

CTS-284

[leliel Mirihi]

Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

 

I've never seen textures exceed available texture memory before as shown in your GLTot and Memory Bound figures so I really don't know what's going on. Hope someone else can comment on that.

This can happen when the draw distance is too high, or when a large number of objects suddenly come into view when the pipeline is already using most of the memory. It is most likely the cause of the sudden drop in FPS as the viewer would be desperately trying to free up resources since you'd be spilling over into system ram. This theory is supported by the fact that frame rates actually improved when the texture memory slider was lowered to 64MB because when you go over the limit it would still be in vram.

Since Zuriel is already running the graphics at low with the draw distance at 64m on a card that a few years ago could run on mid with windlight enabled I'd say it's time to upgrade. 128MB of vram is just not enough for sl these days when many sims are pushing 350MB+ worth of textures and avatars are hitting 20MB each.