Tips to make low bandwidth bearable

[Jenzels]

Hi all,

Just helping a friend who’s on a 512K connection (and of course that’s not true speed, probably be 75% of that), who will be stuck on this connection speed for some months.  I know sacrifices will have to be made.

She’s told me she’s turned graphics down, but I’m not sure if that’ll help with bandwidth, or simply give the GPU some relief.

Anyhow I thought up of some which should help with low speeds.

-decrease draw distance

-decrease LOD factor

-decrease max avi’s

- Aim for copper modem connection rather than wireless.  (overheads with wireless, error correction if badly set up, etc)

-all back ground net app’s off! (skype, etc)

 

Anyhow else have any ideas, it would be much appreciated.  Thanks!

[Ry0ta Exonar]

• Turn off the media
• Don't use voice chat
• Avoid crowded places
• Avoid high resolution textures (places where high resolution textures are used, attachments/clothing/skins for which high resolution textures are used etc.)

 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

When at the bottom of the heap I'm not sure this applies like it does when you are around 1,000 kbps download but if your tested speed is, in fact about 75% of the advertised speed for the connection, then in preferences set the bandwidth  to not more than the tested speed.  Ideally, you'd want to set it to 75 - 80% of the tested speed to allow overhead for media and voice but as RyOta mentioned, you need to turn that off anyway.  Unless your ISP is experiencing problems or you live more than about 3 miles (in cable distance) from your ISP's servers you should test out closer to about 90% or your advertised speed (that will vary with neighoring users usuage).  That will slow the data delivery from the LL servers to that your connection does not get overloaded with a flood it can't handle.........hopefully, anyway.

No matter what you do though, it's going to be difficult to maintain a connection.......you'll get lots of disconnects from the servers.

[Ceka Cianci]

i remember a few years back having to be stuck on dialup for like a week or two..they were working on a waterline on our road or someting so they set us up with temp net lol

anyways a friend told me to turn down my bandwidth in the viewer..that alone had it to where i could move around a lot better..

i even tried going some places that were pretty crowded..like 90 people in the sim..and i still got in..i didn't last long there..but i got in lol

the viewer has changed alot since then..so i don't know if that helps now or not..but it did for a couple of weeks for me..

also maybe have them on one of the better performing viewers like a snowglobe if they have it..i think there are still some downloads around for it..infact i think i may have a link someplace for  them still if you don't..

they should do ok on that viewer..

[MoiselleErin Teardrop]

All that and do not be logged into FB (or crap like youtube). Reading about what your friend ate for dinner the moment it happened is probably not worth the extra lag it will create in SL.

[lucagrabacr]

I've been playing with 500k connection all this time. Well, like others said, turn off background apps, voice chat, music streaming, etc. But if your friend's PC can handle it, set the draw distance to 200 or higher, never set it to 64 except you're planning to just sit on one spot all the time! I usually set it to 200, let everything rezzed (it could takes a minute or two depending on how many people are around) and after everything's rezzed, I can move around almost lag free and if everything has been rezzed, I can handle a quite crowdy place (Around 25+ people) without any problem

 

Btw, I put almost all graphics settings on max. I suggest your friend to do this as well if his / her PC can handle it, since they don't affect bandwidth usage that much

 

And even though I say my connection speed is 500k-ish, when I check my speed from the viewer's advanced menu, it never been higher than 250k, and I live far away from the server (Southeast Asia) so tell your friend that SL is pretty much playable with his / her current internet speed

[161488303349]

---

lucagrabacr wrote:

 

And even though I say my connection speed is 500k-ish, when I check my speed from the viewer's advanced menu, it never been higher than 250k, and I live far away from the server

(Southeast Asia) so tell your friend that SL is pretty much playable with his / her current internet speed

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^^ that

 

 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

A connection that is tested at somewhere near 500 kbps will work with mostly okay results (long rez times with some textures and objects never completely rezzing).  Chat lag can sometimes be a minor problem, voice will not work satisfactorily nor will streaming media (that presents problems in most clubs with DJ's and live music events).  In busy areas the problems will be greater........up to frequent disconnects.  If you are okay with that then 500 kbps is fine.........it will work (just not very well). 

That 250 kbps download on the bandwidth meter is a direct result of your bandwidth setting.  If you have your bandwidth set at or below 500 kbps (as you should if that is your tested speed), the LL servers will only send up to the maximum you told them to send (your viewer does that by what you set the bandwidth to).  The servers are going to send you all the information for what is surrounding you where you are located on the grid........but it's going to send the information is smaller packets so that it will never exceed your viewer setting (that's the theory anyway).  The servers have to send the same information to every avatar in the area too....with a low setting you're going to get less each time it comes your turn for information and it will take longer for everything to be sent to you.  If, there are 25 avatars in the area with arrivals and departures the servers are gong to be pretty busy sending all those data requests to everyone.  That would mean you are very likely going to be recieving much less than what you have set in your preferences........250 kbps seems pretty be about right to me.  I have a pretty fast connection (30 mbps plus [or 30,000 kbps] tested on a consistant basis).  I have my bandwidth set at 1200 kbps since I don't think the servers will ever send more than about 1200 to 1500 kbps even under ideal conditions.  I see my bandwidth spike up to about 900 kbps with a normal bouncing around at about 500 to 700 kbps (hard to get an average but I'd say about 650 or so......just an educated guess).  Once I'm in an area and everything has been sent and rezzed for me that bandwidth will settle at something like 100 kbps with little jumps when someone comes into my draw distance (256 meters) or leaves.

The problem is, as far as I can see, that the OP has a DSL line rated at 500 kbps.  It's very unlikely that he/she actually gets that speed.  If the distance to the ISP is less than about 2 miles (at the cable lenght distance) then I would think the actual speed would be near 400 or slightly above......but at peak Internet times that will drop.  If the distance is greater than about 2 miles then, again, the speed will be less.  I'm not sure 350 to 400 kbps will work at all.......and if so, I think there's going to be a lot of disconnects from the servers (especially in busy sims and areas).  I'm sure you can fudge around and make it work......but how well, is the question.  I don't think very well at all.

[161488303349]

you pretty much spot on

i have adsl. am on the long end of a copper wire. only thing south of me in the whole world are penguins. adsl have a theoretical speed 700k up and 14m down

300-400k up to the USA is about right. 600k-1m down. sometimes can achieve more but hardly ever

setting SL to 400-500 is ok most times. like you say i get donked off SL quite a lot when the connection times out. i just learn to live with it  bc i cant do anything about it

[Kennylex Luckless]

WiFi just give up to 2ms extra ping time so it is a myth that TP cables are so much better, but if there is many other WiFi in the area it can be good to config the router so it uses a channel that fewre do use.

Another way to test to reduce load lag may to disable HTTP texture load, this can depend on the ISP if it is faster or not, another thing you can do it to disable clouds, it can give a FPS gain on older computers, also thest to disable some functions in the Hardware section in preferences, I think the info do say what things there can make the system instabile or slower.

Another tip can be to lower the resolution in the operating system and look so you not can start the programs with a GFX optimized setting by right click on the SL icon and see what start options you has.

[Jack42 Meredith]

Hi Kenny ...