Your Experiences with the New Server SSA Roll-Out Week

[Perrie Juran]

---

Ceka Cianci wrote:

any idea when this will be grid wide completed?

---

Generally the restarts are finished around 11:00AM SLT.

But they never post a "we'll be done by" time.

 

 

ETA, I mis-read your question.  Cerise's opinion below is probably the accurate answer although they had stated they were using a lot of caution rolling it out.

[Cerise Sorbet]

---

Ceka Cianci wrote:

any idea when this will be grid wide completed?

---

They have three different RCs in the mix this week, so they are hedging their bets for when SSA will be ready for the entire grid. It could happen as soon as next week, if no ugly surprises appear.

[Porky Gorky]

---

Cerise Sorbet wrote:

It could happen as soon as next week, if no ugly surprises appear.

---

I do hope you had a tongue in cheek when made this comment given LL's rollout history over the last decade.

[Cerise Sorbet]

Nah, the edgy jaded perpetual negativity schick got boring.

[Porky Gorky]

---

Cerise Sorbet wrote:

Nah, the edgy jaded perpetual negativity schick got boring.

---

Actually that is very true, Mine peaked at the end of last year when I started this thread Second Life in 2014 but I am actually allot more optimistic now. I shall give the Lab the benefit of the doubt :matte-motes-big-grin:

[Crim Mip]

My initial findings from this morning are that AV changes happen faster and far more smoothly. A friend with me noticed the same. When they switched it also happened more smoothly with the new shape showing up very quickly. Clothing layers loaded faster though are far from instant. They were completely reliable though even with those that I traditionally have had issues with.

The other thing I noticed was after baking in a LeTigre sim, crossing sim borders was virtually seamless. Walking or flying accross had zero pause at the crossing and this was into sims that weren't cached previously. The pauses I'm used to while using certain vehicles were noticeably shorter as my AV information was apparently already on the server side and took far less time to hand off to the new sim.

I didn't notice that anything was broken and was able to freely travel between the LeTigre sims and those on other channels without any issue with mesh clothing and vehicles. It appears that the thorough (for LL) beta testing of SSA has paid off and we perhaps will be spared the months of broken grid that we got with Pathfinding.

I'd certainly encourage as many as possible to go to Letigre sims to try this out so LL can get some stats on this under as high a load as possible. Unlike mesh or pathfinding, this update completely relies on the LL servers being able to handle the load even on days the grid is busy. If they can't, LL needs to know before it gets rolled to the whole grid.

[Hoshi Kenin]

In a word - crap.

Worse than client side, even my av - let alone the others - was grey for considerably longer than was the norm prior to the 9th, and textures and objects rezzed slowly.

[Coby Foden]

---

Hoshi Kenin wrote:

 

Worse than client side, even my av - let alone the others - was grey for considerably longer than was the norm prior to the 9th, and textures and objects rezzed slowly.

---

Objects rezzing speed and textures on objects have nothing to do with SSA.

SSA handles only avatar textures, nothing else.

[Kenbro Utu]

---

Hoshi Kenin wrote:

In a word - crap.

Worse than client side, even my av - let alone the others - was grey for considerably longer than was the norm prior to the 9th, and textures and objects rezzed slowly.

---

Did you verify you were on a LeTigre region?  

[Darla Hadisson]

Train wreck. That's all I gotta say.

Wish they could do better with the lag issue.

[Qie Niangao]

---

Darla Hadisson wrote:

Train wreck. That's all I gotta say.

---

All I gotta say: Derp.

[KarenMichelle Lane]

Today I visited a number of LeTigre regions and overall the TPing experience to each was uneventful. I was able to find one region with 6 avatars on it and they rezzed for me pretty much immediately. But this is pretty much my normal experience with SL and this few avatars. If any of these avatars was on a PC with limited internet speed which would have affected my view of their rendering I was unable to determine.,

Usually in a large crowd you can safely assume that a few of the avatars present are on PCs connected to SL via a slow link and thus may be subject to avatar resolution issues to my POV as the communications to their PC to obtain Avatar texture information would be the normal lag prone communication issue.

Since I was unable to find any LeTigre Region with more than 5 avatars this morning I feel my observations are non-deterministic.

My general perception however is that TPs were feeling fast and general object rendering & rezzing was operating as good as if nit better than the expected norm. Region to Region transitions on ajoined LeTigre Regions seemed to be working seamlessly. Region to Region transitions on LeTigre / non-LeTigre Regions hesitated only for a few seconds but was otherwise not an issue.

I'll continue my search for a crowed non-Gor LeTigre region later today.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Note to other posters: This release of server code with supporting viewer code will not fix the components of lag that people see and feel [ Network & Client ] due to:

1) Poor or Slow Internet Connections

2) Slow PCs - Processing power is so important for non-Graphics Card GPU activities.

3) PCs lacking modern Graphic Subsystems

4) PC's lacking enough main memory.

Besides the other general improvements in stability this release will speed up the rendering of avatars when you encounter them because the avatar appearance information is now stored on rendering servers under Linden Lab's control and in their data centers. Your PC no longer needs to be contacted 1st when someone comes into view of your Avatar. To be sure your PC is contacted with all the needed communication and transaction information stating that a avatar has also wandered into your view. But "Your" information does not need to be re-downloaded to the arriving avatar as it was in the past. It is now available "locally" in the Linden Research Data Center.

If you could also do a comparative analysis of what you are experiencing when navigating in a LeTigre Region versus a normal Region, that would be helpful to this threads purpose.

Thank you.

 

[Vania Chaplin]

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Nelsonia/131/171/22 is a Info Hub with LeTigre. I was not very impressed with the velocity of avatar rezzing, but all rezzed completely with time.

[KarenMichelle Lane]

Vania,

Oh thank you for that recommendation for the LeTigre InfoHub. I did a comparison of InfoHub arrivals in a few non-LeTigre Regions and this InfoHub. Here are my observations.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Nelsonia/131/171/22

Second Life 3.6.1 (278007) Jun 27 2013 12:41:07 (Second Life Release) Release Notes

You are at 464,255.0, 307,371.0, 21.6 in Nelsonia located at sim10366.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.51.16:13021) Second Life RC LeTigre 13.07.03.278295 Error fetching server release notes URL.

On arrival, grey avatar placeholders showed immediately and about 1/2 of the 17 avatars there colored up within 10 or so seconds for me, The reminder colored up within 25 seconds. Watching new arrivals was interesting, the grey avatar place holder showed up immediately and prim and texturing rendering occurred usually with the skin & avatar layer clothing rendered 1st then in no particular order, attached prims, sculpties & mesh afterwards. Pretty much without fail new arrivals were rendered within 20 seconds which is a huge increase in performance from my usual InfoHub POV experience.

As expected, my Client Performance indicator started to flash yellow and red as the number of avatars rose to over 25 during my stay here.

As a comparison I visited the Murray InfoHub:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Murray/125/33/30

Second Life 3.6.1 (278007) Jun 27 2013 12:41:07 (Second Life Release) Release Notes

You are at 255,613.0, 256,033.0, 30.5 in Murray located at sim10220.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.49.142:13007) Second Life RC BlueSteel 13.07.03.278277 Error fetching server release notes URL.

With only 3 avatars here it took...... 60+ seconds for the 2 avatars to fully  render for me.  The grey avatar place holders did appear immediately which is a nice improvement in the pre SAA turned-up server/viewer code.

I also visited the Boardroom InfoHub:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Boardroom/119/93/23

Second Life 3.6.1 (278007) Jun 27 2013 12:41:07 (Second Life Release) Release Notes

You are at 262,775.0, 250,461.0, 22.7 in Boardroom located at sim10041.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.48.51:13005) Second Life RC Magnum 13.07.08.278357 Error fetching server release notes URL.

With only 11 avatars here it took...... 30+ seconds for the 6 avatars located close to me to fully render for me.  The grey avatar place holders did appear immediately. This region is in a different RC Project so these performance numbers may be affected by that project code base.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bottom Line is I'm definitely seeing improvement in avatar rendering speeds.

 

P.S. - On a lark I also visited the Linden Lab Iris Region:

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Iris/202/122/30

Second Life 3.6.1 (278007) Jun 27 2013 12:41:07 (Second Life Release) Release Notes

You are at 257,481.0, 261,497.0, 29.6 in Iris located at sim10311.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.50.33:13009) Second Life Server 13.06.21.277682 Release Notes

11 avatars were on this InfoHub. This is a region with a very old code base on it and Ta Da - I experienced lots of white cloud avatars for over 3 minutes. After that time, only about 1/2 of the avatars rendered for me so I ended my visit there.

As you can see I'm using the current SL Viewer viewer so to be sure the server code base is very important in supporting the instant display of the grey avatar place-holder avatars.

 

[Rahkis Andel]

---

Vania Chaplin wrote:

...I was not very impressed with the

velocity

of avatar rezzing...

---

You use that word -- I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Kenbro Utu]

---

Rahkis Andel wrote:

---

Vania Chaplin wrote:

...I was not very impressed with the velocity of avatar rezzing...

---

You use that word -- I do not think it means what you think it means.

---

I count 11 words, care to be specific?  BTW, I understood the meaning of the sentence in its entirety, so meaning for me was clear.

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

Kenbro Utu wrote:

---

Rahkis Andel wrote:

---

Vania Chaplin wrote:

...I was not very impressed with the velocity of avatar rezzing...

---

You use that word -- I do not think it means what you think it means.

---

I count 11 words, care to be specific?  BTW, I understood the meaning of the sentence in its entirety, so meaning for me was clear.

---

Kenbro, that was a quote from a well known American movie and I'm sure the word was "velocity" - Vania used the fancier-sounding word rather than just saying what she meant with simpler terms when actually "velocity" doesn't apply to avatar rezzing because "velocity" involves an object changing position rather than being a measure of time..

[Jo Yardley]

Must admit I'm a little disappointed, just expected more I guess.

There is some improvement, I went to the hub at Nelsonia but with some visitors it still took 15 to 30 seconds for an avatar to rezz fully.

Others rezzed a little faster and there was no fuzzy textures that took ages to load.

My expectations were just to high, I hoped every single avatar would rez in a flash.

But after hanging around for a few minutes I realised that even when 5-6 avatars teleported in at the same time in the same spot... they still rezzed pretty fast.

So the longer I waited, the more obvious the improvements became.

Eventually I spotted avatars rezzing within 5 seconds and that is pretty good.

I think I will really notice the difference even better when this SSA comes to my sim.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Jo Yardley wrote:

Must admit I'm a little disappointed, just expected more I guess.

There is some improvement, I went to the hub at Nelsonia but with some visitors it still took 15 to 30 seconds for an avatar to rezz fully.

Others rezzed a little faster and there was no fuzzy textures that took ages to load.

My expectations were just to high, I hoped every single avatar would rez in a flash.

But after hanging around for a few minutes I realised that even when 5-6 avatars teleported in at the same time in the same spot... they still rezzed pretty fast.

So the longer I waited, the more obvious the improvements became.

Eventually I spotted avatars rezzing within 5 seconds and that is pretty good.

I think I will really notice the difference even better when this SSA comes to my sim.

---

I haven't really had an opportunity to test drive SSA yet.  Sometimes RL just gets in the way.

But your observations got me thinking.  Was the goal of SSA speed or to reduce failure?

Ideally from what I've read and from my limited understanding of all the technical mumbo jumbo, SSA should result in faster Ava rendering.  But the goal as I understood it was to eliminate rendering failure by removing the key causes of the problem from the equation..

[Jo Yardley]

Good question.

I haven't seen rez errors and when I returned to my own sim it took almost 40 seconds for a simple avatar to rez.

So comparing that to the 5-15 seconds at the SSA sims, makes it look even better.

And, perhaps just a coincidence, but I've been online for over an hour now and have not crashed once, lately that hasn't happened much.

I crashed a lot because of the running out of texture memory errors.

[Jo Yardley]

Ignore that last bit.

Just crashed.

llrender/llvertexbuffer.cpp(1695) : LLVertexBuffer::mapVertexBuffer: memory allocation for vertex data failed.

again.

[Innula Zenovka]

As with any change of any significance over the last 6 years, I think it will be "The End of SL As We Know It" ®

 

[Cerise Sorbet]

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

But your observations got me thinking.  Was the goal of SSA speed or to reduce failure?

---

Mostly it is about the failure reduction, and on that it is doing very, very well.

If there are 10 avatars around, the viewer still had to fetch 50 textures for them, but the rest of SL is still there. There are still zillions of attachments to load, and all the regular objects.

It is very noticeably faster if I'm already in a place and things have loaded; new arrivals pop in pretty quickly, instead of after several minutes or not at all. I've only seen a very few avatars stuck as clouds, those have been stuck/failed logins and primitive bots that don't do outfit folders. Unclouded avatars have been loading 100%, first time, every time. I haven't needed to mess with active group switches or other acrobatics to make avatars load at all.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Jo Yardley wrote:

Good question.

I haven't seen rez errors and when I returned to my own sim it took almost 40 seconds for a simple avatar to rez.

So comparing that to the 5-15 seconds at the SSA sims, makes it look even better.

And, perhaps just a coincidence, but I've been online for over an hour now and have not crashed once, lately that hasn't happened much.

I crashed a lot because of the running out of texture memory errors.

---

I really hope that somebody somewhere somehoo gets this texture memory problem figured out.

I am hearing more and more reports of it from more and more friends.

For me the frequency of it happenning has gone down, but the number of people that I know suffering from it keeps going up.

It just seems to be spreading like the objects failing to rez problem did.

That objects failing seems to be 99% solved other than after failed TP's I am having to toggle wireframe in order to snap everything back into view.

[Kenbro Utu]

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

---

Kenbro Utu wrote:

---

Rahkis Andel wrote:

---

Vania Chaplin wrote:

...I was not very impressed with the velocity of avatar rezzing...

---

You use that word -- I do not think it means what you think it means.

---

I count 11 words, care to be specific?  BTW, I understood the meaning of the sentence in its entirety, so meaning for me was clear.

---

Kenbro, that was a quote from a well known American movie and I'm sure the word was "velocity" - Vania used the fancier-sounding word rather than just saying what she meant with simpler terms when actually "velocity" doesn't apply to avatar rezzing because "velocity" involves an object changing position rather than being a measure of time..

---

Ah, mea culpa.  I have to say I am not familiar with the movie quote...