Massive freezing problem.

[Iikeasir]

Hey there!

I would like to find out if someone else is struggling with same problem as me and eventually - how could I get rid of it, because it gets to the point lately where it's terribly annoying. I will post my specs in the first place in case if it helps while reading my post further, and my pc is quite old, but there it is:

Core2Duo E8400, 4GB DDR2 Ram, Radeon HD 7750, 500GB HDD

The thing is about massive freezes of my viewer while - for example - turning around. It's kinda related to number of objects and/or avatars- from what I've noticed. I understand I don't have the most top-notch PC, but it started few months ago, can't really remember if it was connected with any of Firestorm releases. I'm currently running on 4.2.2 and it's really a nightmare. Also - if that helps - it doesn't have anything to do with what settings I'm running on - it's kinda same on highest settings as on lowwest - just obviously slightly less FPS on high settings (depening on number of objects around), but even on the lowwest settings and LOD where everything turns into TRIANGLES it's still being tedious.

Every time I turn around objects seem to disappear and they probably are kept in cache, then when I'm turning around it's all nice and smooth, but when I'm trying to move my camera around it's freezing for a while untill all the objects pop up again and it's running smoothh again until...I move my camera again. Walking around some crowded places or/and with many objects rezzed around is just impossible, because I freeze and while I unfreeze I turns out that I've traveled like 1/4 sim lol.

I've tried reinstalling viewer, fresh instal, reinstalling drivers, defragging my HDD, reducing number of things on my pc to minimum , I always have free around 40% of my RAM memory.. I'm aware that new releases bring new features, but they kinda make me struggle really bad, and if there's any solution for that I would be really grateful for sharing it with me. Currently I would really like to avoid upgrading my pc and make it last thing to do. I've been  thinking it might have something to do with slow loading times from my hdd, and maybe SDD drive would solve the problem? Or can caching problem be related to processing speed?

I'd really love to hear from you guys, I know I've been always getting lots of feedback from here.
Regards, Lukey

 

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

Try reducing your draw-distance to something like 96 m, possibly less. and if you haven't already done it, turn on speed-rezzing via draw distance stepping. It sounds as though your graphics card just cannot handle too much at a time. There are also suggestions from people thagt turning off http textures helps with some card/viewer combinations, you will have to experiment with this.

[Iikeasir]

Thanks for response Profaitchikenz!

But as I've said above, I've done that already - I've put all the settings completely to minimum and it still runs the same as on maximum...really smooth, except these turn-around loading objects thing.

I've had other issues with old drivers, but they've been fixed to work just fine with Second Life, and changing drivers back in time weren't time when this issue happened.

[Sonja Smedley]

I had the same problem with freezing since the latest update of firestorm viewer.

I asked for help at the support but in the end nothing did help.

Then a friend gave me the tipp to install singularity viewer and now everything is fine again.

With firestorm it was only a pain...everytime I moved fast or camed around or even clicked on an item the viewer got frozen for nearly a minute or more.

This was no fun playing anymore.

Since I have singularity I love to play SL again...it is similar to the old phoenix viewer but you get used to it very fast.

Here is the link If you need it:

http://www.singularityviewer.org/

[Eric Castanea]

Make you cache as large as it will allow and clear it. See if it goes away. Also, turn off streamed VBO's. 

[Iikeasir]

So I've tried Singularity viewer and - in fact, it runs much smoother and without freezes.

 

On the other hand - I've tried switching HTTP textures in Firestorm and somehow it runs way smoother as well.

I'll keep it for further testing and let You know if in more mesh-crowded place issue is gone for me. That would be really amazing as I'm really used to Firestorm looks and features.

Thank You so much for help, and I am really hoping that it will solve the problem.

Luke

[Shelby Silverspar]

are you wearing any scripted or high-prim items? also, your internet connection can be a factor as well. I'd also physically check your graphics card, see if it has a fan and if it's moving freely or possibly compromised by dust.

[Dilbert Dilweg]

there is a program called CPUz and GPUz. they are tools to monitor your CPU load and temperatures as well as memory use etc, use it while running SL and see which one is taking the biggest hit on performance

 

[Carlos Sunbelter]

Take a look at this thread.

http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/100_cpu

There are three methods to attack the freezing problem.

1 - Disable Threaded Optimization (nVidia Only)

2 - Set Process Affinity

3 - Anti-Virus

I applied the 1 and 3.

I noticed in the task manager that my viewers, all of them, including radegast with the 3d-tab, would get one of the 4 cores of my CPU and take it to 100%. The problem was so serious that if I opened another cpu-bound application at the same time the power consumption would skyrocket and my no-break would shut down.

I added the cache folders to the exclusion list of the anti-virus (mine is Microsoft Security Essentials), that speed-ed up the cache operations.

I also applied the solution 1 - To Disable the Threaded Optimization. After that the CPU consumption is leveled among all 4 cores of my CPU.

To monitor that you can key Ctrl+Alt+Del and activate the Windows Task Manager, set it to show in CPU History, one graph per CPU. Keep an eye on the Processes tab, where you see how much cpu/memory each process uses and the Performance tab, where you see each history core graph.

My Configuration:

Motherboard: M3A

CPU: AMD Phenom 9850 quad-core 2500MHZ

Memory: 4096MB

Graphics Card: NVidia - GeForce 8600GT

Windows7

 

Follows the article I mentioned above.

==========================================================================

My CPU is Always at 100%

 

nVidia Related

NOTE: this issue is specific to Windows.

There are situations where a CPU will go to 100% usage when a viewer is running. This appears to occur most in computer with nVidia video cards - but not only.

Another effect that seems to happen with nVidia cards is that the viewer will freeze, seemingly at random, and for varying periods of time. Or it will lock up when you attempt to open profiles or try to search.

There are two solutions possible.

Disable Threaded Optimization (nVidia Only)

• Make sure you are not logged into Phoenix or Firestorm and that it isn't running

• Bring up the Nvidia Control Panel; under Advanced Settings there is a section called “Manage 3D Settings”.

• To the right are two tabs, one labeled “Global Settings” and the other labeled “Program Settings”.

• Under the Program Settings tab, you need to make a profile for Phoenix or Firestorm (which ever you are using). You will need to locate the PhoenixViewer or Firestorm application here; it will be something like: C:\Program Files\Phoenix Viewer\Phoenix.exe or C:\Program Files\Firestorm\Firestorm.exe

• Once the profile has been created, scroll to the bottom of the list of settings you can change, and find the one titled “Threaded Optimization” and set it to OFF. Hit apply and then OK to exit. (Don't change any other settings unless you know exactly what you're doing.)

Now try to start Phoenix or Firestorm and see if the situation has improved for you. If for any reason you wish to revert, then quit Phoenix or Firestorm and simply delete the profile - or reenable “Threaded Optimization”.

Set Process Affinity

Should the above option not be available to you, or should it not solve the problem, then you can try to set the process affinity to a specific CPU core:

• Bring up Windows Task Manager with:
  • Windows XP: Ctrl-Alt-Del
  • Windows Vista: Ctrl-Shift-Esc
  • Windows 7: Ctrl-Shift-Esc

• Click the Processes tab and select Phoenix.exe or Firestorm.exe.

• Right click Firestorm.exe and select “Set Affinity”.

• Select only one of the available cores, to begin with.

You will need to experiment at this point; there is no guide as to which core will work better for you. You may also be able to select more than one.

Also, the downside of this is that it will have to be done every time you run the viewer.

Anti-Virus

There is at least one anti-virus program which will scan every file placed on your computer, even if created by an authorized program. This affects Phoenix, Firestorm (and any viewer really) in that it will scan each and every texture placed in cache, slowing down performance of the viewer significantly, and keeping CPU usage high.

If you find yourself in this situation, see if you can exclude the viewer cache folder from being scanned. Ideally, you should exclude the entire settings folder as well.

You can determine the current location of your cache by looking at Preferences → Network & Folders → Disk Cache Location and Sound Cache Location (if this is set).

 

[Iikeasir]

Okay so after testing for a while with disabled HTTP textures, I can oficially verify that it solved my problem.

Disabled them, cleared cache and I'm not freezing anymore, and SL is playble for me now even in crowded and mesh-busy places without any issues, just like before.

 

Thank you so very much for your answers and help.

♥

[Perrie Juran]

I really don't get the problems with HTTP.

I thought  the whole point of HTTP was to make things run smoother.

Yet over the past more than a year through various updates I have gone through periods of time where having it enabled worked best and then other periods of time disabling it worked best and other periods I couldn't see any difference.

It really makes one wonder what the heck is up with it.

 

[Vania Chaplin]

From what I've heard (sorry, no fonts) some "not-so-new" routers behave poorly with HTTP textures. The same people, mostly FS helpers, say that if this solve your problem, it is time to begin to think a newer router (yeah, makes sense)

[Perrie Juran]

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Vania Chaplin wrote:

From what I've heard (sorry, no fonts) some "not-so-new" routers behave poorly with HTTP textures. The same people, mostly FS helpers, say that if this solve your problem, it is time to begin to think a newer router (yeah, makes sense)

---

That is probably a big part of the equation.

I do know a few months ago one of the Linden Devs mentioned doing a list of (acceptable) routers but I don't know what became of that project.

I've had the same ISP provided router for two years now and for me the problem has been on and off.  So it could just be something in the way my ISP handles traffic.

How do we say, just wish someone would make up their mind.

[PeterCanessa Oh]

The biggest issues we see with rez-times, especially when you 'see' things for the first time, are down to the burst of new information SL has to send you.  Consequently the best and quickest solution, if applicable, is to stop using a wireless connection.

Radio is a funny thing and even if everything has been working well for a while simply rearranging the furniture can radically affect your signal.

[Iikeasir]

Ohai again!

As I've said earlier, this is a pernament fix for me right now, I am still able to see major difference and no more freezing issues - thank lord. Textures seem to load a little bit longer now, but at least I'm not getting and irritating freezes.

Speaking of routers - yeah, my router is technologically a little bit old, and it's router provided by my ISP, but I've never thought of this as possible problem, but I don't really have the possibility right now to change it to something else and verify that this solves the problem too.

For now I'm really happy with what I've got, which is no more freezing. Hopefully it stays this way.

Luke

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

My own router is a Linksys, one of the models that has previously been claimed to be one of the ones which work badly with SL. I use it in wired mode, and don't have any problems. Admittedly, I stopped using the Firestorm viewer and switched to CoolVLViewer, and it was partly for the reasons the OP has mentioned, Firestorm was giving me problems with texture loads on turnarounds.

So far most of the people have taken an on/off approach to the HTTP textures, but it's possible that simply lowering the maximum number of fetches could solve the problem? There's a reason for putting that spinner box in the preferences page.

I had got as far as cutting the HTTP fetch numbers down to a maximum of 8 fetches. It seemed to be giving me an improvement, but then I got tired of having to do clean installs and painstakingly put all the settings back in again for each update, so I tried other viewers. Singularity was good, but still had the problem that Firestorm had of not updating the positions of rotating doors if they were behind you when they were supposed to swing closed, and CoolVLViewer did that perfectly, and used HTTP fetching with the maximum number without any turnaround problems, and also did not demand I uninstalled it every time I updated it. It's only drawback that I can see is the maximum cache size of 1G, but I wasn't seeing any advantages with the other viewers of having larger caches when I was getting the texture freeze issue and the doors not updating their position.

It's all a matter oif experimenting, and of remembering that no developers, Linden included, can hope to test their code with every possible combination of graphics card and motherboard. That's what we have to do @)

[Nyll Bergbahn]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

I really don't get the problems with HTTP.

I thought  the whole point of HTTP was to make things run smoother.

Yet over the past more than a year through various updates I have gone through periods of time where having it enabled worked best and then other periods of time disabling it worked best and other periods I couldn't see any difference.

It really makes one wonder what the heck is up with it.

 

---

I've always had issues with HTTP Textures due to the router supplied by the ISP. Loading new textures after a teleport crashed me within a minute or so. Switching back to UDP solved it.

To my surprise after installing Second Life 3.6.1 (278007) Jun 27 2013 this morning with HTTP Textures on by default, I can happily teleport around SL with no problems. Has LL done some work on HTTP Textures to avoid the troublesome routers crashing SL?