Extreme lag for the past year?

[Sassy Romano]

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Freya Mokusei wrote:

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Sassy Romano wrote:

I experience a similar described issue.  I can be running at a very nice frame rate on ultra, even in busy places, then someone or something arrives and my frame rate can drop to 3 to 5 fps from say 25 to 30.

For reference, my PC is an i7 hex core @  3.2 to 3.8GHz, 24gig of RAM, SSD's with a GTX 680 on the end of a 120Mbps internet connection.  It is most certainly not my hardware or connection!  (Same result with all viewers tested)

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Sorry for not replying sooner, today is a busy one.

I have no intention of splitting hairs, I will assume that our experience doesn't align on this issue. I don't think it is as clearly cut as you say; there are many more reasons for FPS reduction than you seem to imagine - just this week I have observed users who lose more than half of their FPS simply by using 'Enhanced' view while using CHUI 

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I don't use a viewer with CHUI.  I gave an example FPS at a busy area, say 30+ avatars with a draw distance of 256.  It was a rough guess as to what it was when I last logged in, my point was that a "something" that then arrives in scene can drop my FPS from what I stated to say 4 to 5.  I have also experienced it when there has only been one other avatar in the scene and the scene is sparse.  This is why it has nothing to do with network, i've been in that said location for hours, there's nothing being downloaded.  Plus, even if things are being downloaded, they tend to either be unrendered or untextured, there's no drop in FPS *while* downloading.  

I can monitor downloads in the viewer debug consoles, I can watch the fast timers and all that happen is a sudden jump in UI processing.  It's an SL viewer thing, no other game or software that I run is affected.  

[Qie Niangao]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

This is why it has nothing to do with network, i've been in that said location for hours, there's nothing being downloaded.  Plus, even if things are being downloaded, they tend to either be unrendered or untextured, there's no drop in FPS *while* downloading.  

I can monitor downloads in the viewer debug consoles, I can watch the fast timers and all that happen is a sudden jump in UI processing.  It's an SL viewer thing, no other game or software that I run is affected.  

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I just want to reiterate that network bandwidth is not all driven by downloads visible in debug consoles -- notably, object update traffic. On the other hand, one can see the viewer's total bandwidth in the statistics bar, as well as the sim's network processing times and queue statistics, so if all those are nominal then lag is not network-related. And as you say, in your case it's probably not network related anyway, inasmuch as it has happened "when there has only been one other avatar in the scene and the scene is sparse" -- in contrast to the OP's experience of lag specifically in avatar- and mesh-rich scenes.

Meanwhile, something I didn't know to expect, in the latest maintence channel viewer release notes:

This release contains avatar rendering performance work as well as numerous bugfixes:

• Automatic avatar render limit and feedback system
  • rendering optimizations
  • avatar render cost information
  • simple impostors
  • graphics pref update
  • new debug setting "RenderAutoMuteRenderCostLimit" sets render cost cutoff point (default 0 = disabled cutoff check)

So that's pretty interesting. I only just downloaded it, so we'll see if it helps.

[Vania Chaplin]

When LL introduced ARC I was starting to make prim clothes. I think that it would be a good thing to put in the box, not only the perms, but also ARC value. All that it gave to me was customers asking what was that.

[Perrie Juran]

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Vania Chaplin wrote:

When LL introduced ARC I was starting to make prim clothes. I think that it would be a good thing to put in the box, not only the perms, but also ARC value. All that it gave to me was customers asking what was that.

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which goes back to the problem of educating people

[Sassy Romano]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Vania Chaplin wrote:

When LL introduced ARC I was starting to make prim clothes. I think that it would be a good thing to put in the box, not only the perms, but also ARC value. All that it gave to me was customers asking what was that.

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which goes back to the problem of educating people

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Won't happen.  The majority of people are only interested in how good it looks and if they can afford it.

It doesn't matter if the product describes how many scripts, vertices, faces, materials, ARC, render cost, prims, whatever.  It's just noise that gets in the way of the looks and that is all that most care about. (referring to clothes here)

[Perrie Juran]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Vania Chaplin wrote:

When LL introduced ARC I was starting to make prim clothes. I think that it would be a good thing to put in the box, not only the perms, but also ARC value. All that it gave to me was customers asking what was that.

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which goes back to the problem of educating people

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Won't happen.  The majority of people are only interested in how good it looks and if they can afford it.

It doesn't matter if the product describes how many scripts, vertices, faces, materials, ARC, render cost, prims, whatever.  It's just noise that gets in the way of the looks and that is all that most care about. (referring to clothes here)

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Yes, I know.

But we can dream.

[PeterCanessa Oh]

Yeah, sorry Perrie but 2 strikes and you're out.  In this thread you also said:

 

... they don't invest in educating people as to best practices.  A concerted effort by LL to better educate could prove less expensive and more productive than all the other resources they are investing in improving performance.

 

Now I've had to click the "Report Inappropriate Content" button!  LL should talk to their customers AND you want to dream?

That's the sort of crazy talk that keeps you Martians as members ^^

 

 

[Perrie Juran]

 

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PeterCanessa Oh wrote:

Yeah, sorry Perrie but 2 strikes and you're out.  In this thread you also said:

 

... they don't invest in educating people as to best practices.  A concerted effort by LL to better educate could prove less expensive and more productive than all the other resources they are investing in improving performance.

 

Now I've had to click the "Report Inappropriate Content" button!  LL should talk to their customers AND you want to dream?

That's the sort of crazy talk that keeps you Martians as members ^^

 

 

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I didn't say I would stop dreaming.

[Ceka Cianci]

For me in the past..What has done it for me..When i would upgrade my video card and my amount of memory..

 

The first two years i was in a laggy SL..Then finally got around to getting a new card and maxxed out my memory..

That was like getting a whole new SL..

Then having to do that with each system since..

I've always had a fast connection..So that never was a problem for me..

 

thepast year for me it's been the same thing..memory and video card..

i'll probably just go get a whole new system in january..

this one is not worth updating anymore..

i think this is th 3rd? or maybe 4th system i've had since 2006..

i'm at the point where i've lost count.. hehehe

i can't even remember how many upgrades to my card and memory in those so far..

 

[steph Arnott]

I had problems in May. Turned out to be Nvidia's useless driver upgrade. It says its done and it has not changed a thing. I would never have know if it was not for the forums, so we do learn things, LOL.

[Ceka Cianci]

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steph Arnott wrote:

I had problems in May. Turned out to be Nvidia's useless driver upgrade. It says its done and it has not changed a thing. I would never have know if it was not for the forums, so we do learn things, LOL.

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hmm maybe that is all i need to change..

what version fixed yours?

i've tried a couple but stopped trying hehehe

[steph Arnott]

I ended up using the windows Device manager to search, it not very reliable but after several attempts it found it.

ADDED:  GeForce8200M G driver 9.18.13.783

[Cory Toll]

Looks like all I needed to do was use a different viewer. I switched to a popular third party viewer (firestorm) and even when set to ultra, I no longer have major or noticable FPS loss/lag issues. I really wish the official viewer had whatever this thing has. After the Emerald fiasco, I'd always been extremely paranoid about third party viewers.

 

Anyway, if anyone else is having the same issue I was having, maybe a trusted 3rd party viewer is the answer?

[steph Arnott]

LL have the same problem as many companies, if idea's are soley kept in house then nothing new arises and code that is bloated gets left as is.

[Czari Zenovka]

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Czari Zenovka wrote:

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Conifer Dada wrote:

I've been in SL nearly 7 years too, and there have been times when SL has worked well, with minimal lag.  

But quite recently SL loading of avatars was so slow it was hardly worth logging in.  Then Linden Lab introduced server-side baking, which was supposed to make rezzing much quicker -

and it did!......

to start with, for a day or two.  It was amazing - instantaneous rezzing of everything - even in busy places, plus good frame rate and movement.  But after a couple of days performance for me started to deteroirate and now it's nearly as bad as before SSB.  I can't see how the problem could be my computer or internet connection, since SL worked so perfectly for a short time.

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I've experienced this as well re: SSB.  In crowded places, running a 10-year-old PC that could not run mesh viewers, XP OS, and only able to have 64m draw distance, avatars actually loaded faster & better than my brand new PC.  Oh, same internet connection, ISP, I use wired, etc.  Everything else in SL is amazing on the new PC but avatars loading more slowly since SSB than previously on my 10-yr.-old PC?   *Scratches my head*

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Update:  I returned to the same very crowded location last night and with 76 avatars on the sim, most of them in one area, I didn't see *any* gray avatars.  I had not changed the settings on my PC, nothing with my internet connection changed, using same viewer with same graphic settings, etc.  However, this time, the alpha parts/clothing avatars were wearing showed them as having no legs, middle sections of their avatar missing, etc.  Still scratching my head on that part, but this is an improvement.

[Czari Zenovka]

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Cory Toll wrote:

Looks like all I needed to do was use a different viewer. I switched to a popular third party viewer (firestorm) and even when set to ultra, I no longer have major or noticable FPS loss/lag issues. I really wish the official viewer had whatever this thing has. After the Emerald fiasco, I'd always been extremely paranoid about third party viewers.

 

Anyway, if anyone else is having the same issue I was having, maybe a trusted 3rd party viewer is the answer?

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I've used a TPV since 2007 (Nicholaz viewer) which was way before Emerald.  I've seen your sentiment about being concerned to use a TPV due to Emerald expressed before and it's a shame that came out of the Emerald debacle.  Even with TPVs some are "lighter" than others.  I have settled on Singularity as my preferred viewer which is one of the lighter (on resources) ones, but I've heard reports that some people use different viewers for different things in SL.

Welcome to the world of wonderful TPVs.

[WADE1 Jya]

Yeah Second Life got way slower for me lately and then it got worse... I haven't logged in lately because the last SL update literally destroyed one of my computers here!

That forced update. Opened SL after updating & it was the worst lag ever and then SL crashed but the viewer window stayed open & it was frozen although finder said the application had quit? Then the computer went dead. It can't startup any more since... junked basically. Thanks a lot Lindens... Now I am too scared to use SL on my nicer computers ever since.

[Perrie Juran]

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WADE1 Jya wrote:

Yeah Second Life got way slower for me lately and then it got worse... I haven't logged in lately because the last SL update literally destroyed one of my computers here!

That forced update. Opened SL after updating & it was the worst lag ever and then SL crashed but the viewer window stayed open & it was frozen although finder said the application had quit? Then the computer went dead. It can't startup any more since... junked basically. Thanks a lot Lindens... Now I am too scared to use SL on my nicer computers ever since.

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are you sure you didn't have a virus that was eating up your hard drive? 

[steph Arnott]

I have never heard of this happening before, I can not see how SL could do that.

[Freya Mokusei]

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steph Arnott wrote:

I have never heard of this happening before, I can not see how SL could do that.

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It can't. Just another case of a non-technical user blaming Second Life for their own inability to understand a fault.

 

[Sassy Romano]

Laptop or desktop? Many laptops are poorly cooled and don't expect to run apps that constantly load the graphics. Possibly hardware stress but not exactly SL's fault, rather using the wrong PC.

[Qie Niangao]

Well, SL can eat hardware. It's not quite the HCF instruction, but it destroys video cards fairly regularly. I suppose GPU heat could damage other components if the case cooling is sufficiently whacked -- and this is evidently a Mac (the "finder" was mentioned), hence by design it's always running at the edge of meltdown lest it ever emit any fan noise or be a micron thicker than absolutely necessary.

So, if we want to blame an updated SL viewer, I'm sure we could make up a just-so story about changed default graphics settings or some such thing, and some sequence of hardware faults with plausible causal links.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

That's what I'd say. SL once burned one of my video cards. It just was the wrong card for the job so I don't blame anyone. It fried a part of my motherboard in 2007 and I think a power supply went dead in 2009. Chances are the same happened  to WADE1, possibly the power supply (which is cheap and easy to replace).

On the other hand, a while ago, I really can't remember which viewer versions, CPU's were stressed to a constant 100% when SL was active for some people. A well cooled PC should be able to handle this, mine can render for hours (4 cores at 100%) with normal temps, but it's not the way it's supposed to be for a program like SL and it can seriously damage "average" computers.

Never hurts to monitor all temperatures, or even the drawn power at the wall socket. If temperatures get too high and cleaning doesn't help, add fans, replace heatsinks or improve airflow (or when using a laptop add a cooling pad) depending on what's overheating. If you draw more power than your power supply can handle, upgrade it.

For what it's worth, I don't experience any more lag than last year.

[Sassy Romano]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

So, if we want to blame an updated SL viewer, I'm sure we could make up a just-so story about changed default graphics settings or some such thing, and some sequence of hardware faults with plausible causal links.

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The one thing I did notice is that I usually use Firestorm and my desktop PC is quiet.  If I use LL's viewer, almost straight away, the graphics card fans speed up and monitoring shows an increase in temperature.  It does appear that the LL viewer goes runaway with frame rate when it can and with my GTX 680, that's quite easy to do.

I don't need the frame rate that it tries to achieve and so i'm happy to reduce the frame rate and do the same on laptops to keep them cool.

In debug settings, MaxFPS and YieldTime are my choice settings to keep laptops cool and although in the case of YieldTime it does make the viewer a little more sluggish based on how much time is given up, i'm happy for that if it stops me cooking a laptop or having it heat up to the point of being uncomfortable to use.

[steph Arnott]

I just have my SL graphic settings set to what the card can cope with. I very rarely set the draw distance above 80, not much point if I in a club. Just think LL get a lot of blame for things that are not down to them. They have many faults but hardware is not there's. Lag for me has not changed.

ADDED: Only time i crash is when my bandwidth goes down.