With the initial release of mesh in August, Linden Lab introduced an entirely new way to measure the impact that objects have in Second Life. Since then, we’ve seen that providing customers with this additional insight has allowed them to design with more performance efficiency.

Now, with this new release of mesh, creators get a more detailed understanding of the actual impact of objects on the world around them. Being able to see Resource Weights, as well as how they drive Land Impact, helps creators more easily build responsive and low-lag locations, improving the overall resident experience.

To better show what effect an object will have inside Second Life, we have developed four weight values: Download, Physics, Server, and Display. Each of these values can be used by creators to determine the impact that a given object will have on performance from different perspectives (e.g. client vs. server) and under different circumstances.



Here’s how they break down:

• Download measures how much bandwidth we need to send out the information about an object so that everyone can see it.
• Physics is a value that shows how difficult the object is for the physics and Havok processes to create, track, and update the object.  
• Server is a value that shows you how difficult the object is for the server processes to create, track, and update the object.  
• Land Impact (formerly PE or Prim Equivalence) is the highest of the above server-side weights. It defines a theoretical limit under which performance remains acceptable for residents.

• Render is a value that shows you how difficult it is for the client renderer (your viewer) to draw the object. Because it’s related to the client, this is informational only. This is the same calculation used to create Avatar Rendering Weight.
  
  
  Knolwedge Base Article on Weights and Impact.

How you see it in the viewer:



We hope understanding the relationship between objects and performance will help land owners and creators make even more efficient content. As always, we welcome feedback to help us make this information even easier to understand.