Dealing with slow loading of objects/buildings

[BloodyKitty230]

First off, forgive me if this is in the wrong section. 

 

My question is, does anyone have a hard time wanting to play SL and deal with slow loading of buildings or objects when you teleport somewhere? Because i have a low-end computer its a bit annoying for me so I keep deciding to quit and then go back today but if you guys have the same issues do you just pass it off or what? I tried lowering my settings or raising some but still the whole slow loading and gray buildings annoy me. 

Do you think I should stick with SL even through that? Is it worth to keep playing on a low-end computer?

[sven Homewood]

I know some people that are happy with 1-2 FPS on lowest settings! (no kidding!) And so its hard to say if you are happy with it. If you are using a thirdparty viewer you might want to look into the newest SL viewer which loads a lot faster due to some important updates how things are loaded (at least it does load a lot faster for me!) and see if you are happier with it. Slow loading can also be an issue with using wifi (not always tho) and maybe having an anti virus scanning your incoming traffic. You should try to disallow the scan of the data coming from SL.

[Ren Toxx]

I use it on an ancient laptop that forces me to set everything way below the preset minimum available through the preferences, and is still sluggish as hell... plus on a tablet which, though far more modern, performs as... well, a tablet; others will call it quits if it doesn't do full ALM, 512 m. draw distance at, like, 150 fps. There's just no telling how much everyone likes SL enough to put up with such annoyances.

Despite yours being a low-end computer, if your main qualm is slow loading of surroundings that sounds mainly like a connection issue. What maximum bandwidth have you set in Preferences > Network? Come to think of it, how do you connect? Home wi-fi?

For all that, you might want to check the latest official viewer, which is said to have notable improvements in loading efficiency.

[BloodyKitty230]

@sven - Really? Well in some ways I figured some people might be happy like that and as much as I am in a way, the whole gray objects and slow loading of buildings and objects makes me a bit well.. frustrated at times. And it's probably my computer because the viewer doesn't seem fast for me sometimes, even with low settings. And I made sure my wifi is as good as it can be (and it's on full bars too). The whole anti-virus might be it but what your saying about the disallowing the scan to run.. but i'll try it.

 

@Ren Toxx - That's interesting that you do, and I give kudos for still having an ancient laptop. I'm sorry about that it runs sluggish for you as well. Usually, I'd like to have SL distance a bit far (not at the highest), and hopefully soon I can have the ground not so weird looking. 

Maybe it is a connection issue but at the same time the connection seems fine, and like I said to sven, the bars are at it's highest. Well considering I have uninstalled SL again I am not sure what I had it on, but al l know it wasn't high, so it may of been to the low end (if that makes sense). For the connection question I connect to home wifi.

And I made sure to check the regular SL (from what I remember) and even with its tweaks it's not running that fast but I guess theres only so little to expect from some things.

[Heart Brimmer]

You could also try Singularity viewer, I have a high end computer and with any other viewers I didn't really get good FPS, when I downloaded Singularity my FPS nearly doubled. Maybe give it a try, I also used it before I got my new computer and while I did have to have the graphics setting on low, things did rez faster then firestorm or even the LL viewer. Hope this helps.

[BloodyKitty230]

@Heart Brimmer - Oh I'm such a stupid head. I should've said that it was occuring on Singularity viewer (the whole slow loading of building & objects). But maybe sometime I'll try again in the future or even later on today. (hopefully my hard drive space wont go up even with my disk cleanup). Thanks for the suggestion of the viewer.

[Heart Brimmer]

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BloodyKitty230 wrote:

@Heart Brimmer -

Oh I'm such a stupid head. I should've said that it was occuring on Singularity viewer (the whole slow loading of building & objects). But maybe sometime I'll try again in the future or even later on today. (hopefully my hard drive space wont go up even with my disk cleanup). Thanks for the suggestion of the viewer.

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Ahh, well there goes that idea lol. I hope you get it sorted soon. If nothing else, you might check into prices for a new computer. Good luck!

[BloodyKitty230]

Aw, well thanks anyway-- I think I'll give it another chance. But my cousin suggested to wait till this computer dies so.. might be awhile .

[Heart Brimmer]

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BloodyKitty230 wrote:

Aw, well thanks anyway-- I think I'll give it another chance. But my cousin suggested to wait till this computer dies so.. might be awhile

.

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I suppose it all depends on how much you want to enjoy SL without lag and gray blobs lol

[BloodyKitty230]

Haha that's true! And I guess i'll try and deal with it more. Better than trying to earn credits for IMVU I guess.

[crvwfd]

see i have crashed 4 times today using singularity viewer on a 64-bit win8 system, i have an asus alptop with 500 gb hard drive and 4 gb ram of memory. yet i used both the alpha and the regular one from january, both crash randomly. any thoughts?

[Heart Brimmer]

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BloodyKitty230 wrote:

Haha that's true! And I guess i'll try and deal with it more. Better than trying to earn credits for IMVU I guess.

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Never tried IMVU, but at least you can get free stuff on SL, so right there's a plus! :matte-motes-grin:

[Heart Brimmer]

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crvwfd wrote:

see i have crashed 4 times today using singularity viewer on a 64-bit win8 system, i have an asus alptop with 500 gb hard drive and 4 gb ram of memory. yet i used both the alpha and the regular one from january, both crash randomly. any thoughts?

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Try the 32-bit Singularity, I couldn't use the 64-bit at all.

[Dresden Ceriano]

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BloodyKitty230 wrote:

I guess i'll try and deal with it more.

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This may be your only option if you're not able or willing to upgrade your system and perhaps use a decently wired connection.  Only you can decide where your priorities lie.

Personally, I wouldn't put up with it and would probably stop logging in very much, if at all, until which time I could do so comfortably.  I've done that very thing in the past and now take steps to ensure that I'll no longer find myself in such a situation.

My sister, on the other hand, was more than willing to put up with it, until which time that I came into a nice chunk of unexpected money and decided to use a good portion of it to build us both two rather nice computers.  Through the years, we've invested in keeping our hardware upgraded enough to make our participation in SL as comfortable as possible... at my insistence, of course.

Unfortunately, nothing I've said here helps you with your situation in any way, shape or form.  But, that's what happens when I start posting to the forum after I've had a few cocktails.  I suppose, as long as I remain coherent enough to not start cursing people out left and right, I'll have nothing of which to be very ashamed tomorrow. YAY!!!

...Dres

[Ren Toxx]

I'm still unsure what your actual problem is. Old or otherwise not powerful hardware tend to cause the whole SL experience to go slow -objects and textures load slowly more as a side effect of it, but really, the main thing is that everything remains slow even after it's loaded: your avatar, and everything that moves, does so in noticeable lapses, your moving commands take a moment to begin, panels and menus take a while to open and close, typing is slow (if you're a decent typist, you see letters appearing quite later than you type them)... in essence, you get low framerates, because your processor and graphics card can't do it all fluidly. This is usually referred to as graphics lag.

On the other hand, you could have a kick-ass computer and still see everything load slowly, if you have a poor connection, have your viewer set with a too low maximum bandwidth, or both -and your experience remains slow only insofar as new things need to be loaded, but once they're all so, the viewer performs otherwise fluidly. This is usually called connection lag.

So I'm still not sure which of the two cases is yours. Anyway, connecting through wi-fi doesn't usually yield optimal results; I happen to do so too, it being my only option, and if that's your case as well, that's how it is; but still:

- Next time you install and try the viewer, check that its maximum bandwidth isn't the 500 kbps. most viewers use by default. For wired connections 1500 kbps. is often cited as the optimal value, but maybe for wireless 1000 kbps. would be a wiser setting, so as to not overload it if it happens to be slow -more about this below.

- Obviously, try making it easy for your wifi connection: don't expect good connectivity if you're the other side of the house from your main router, with many walls in between. If you can't avoid this either, try considering a wi-fi extender, it might improve things enormously.

- If you have the patience, delve in your router's user manual to learn how to check all the specific wi-fi settings you're using. Things that come to mind: check that it's using the newest wireless protocol your computer is compatible with (G instead of B, N instead of G, and so on), try different wifi channels, lest a neighbour is using the same channel and causing interference, etc.

- If you determine that other than connection issues your computer does well enough for SL (i.e. it suffers connection lag, but not graphics lag), try increasing your viewer's cache size (setting usually located right next to the bandwidth one); the more data you have pre-stored in your computer, the less it'll have to retrieve it again from the SL servers each time you arrive to a place, at least the ones you've visited before.

[hollowgirl78]

I have a high end rig but I have an older graphics card and because of this combo I have found I constantly need to play around with different settings , sometimes even change viewer depending on what sim I am visiting and what I am doing in SL. Just keep messing about til it works for ya.

[BloodyKitty230]

@Dresden - So far I am not able to upgrade it due to a lack of money our family makes, and plus I do not have a proper job yet (though I have to look for one when I can). Actually I believe I do have a decent wired connection at home, since like I keep saying the bars are all green for the signal strength. Don't worry I'd be the same as you but sadly I feel like I need some sort of game on my computer to play or else just logging into Facebook or Tumblr all day would be boring, heh. 

That is very nice of you to do that, especially for your sister! Investing in doing that though probably costed a few good buck right? Probably does for all of us at some point. Aw come on don't worry, you were help by willing to ask questions and talk about it despite you drinking your cocktails. (almost said 'trails')

 

@Ren - My apologies for not being clear. And I sort of figured that it could be old or not powerful enough of hardware to be able to run SL. And all those things are interesting to hear, but I've only experienced slow movement (at times), somewhat delayed text after pressing, enter, and also I have low framerates at times too. 

I never really knew that could happen when you have a great computer like you said. Well I did lower my bandwith a tad but not all the way down, and also I do have good network speed (unlike some other days). I would say the two cases are a combination of whats sort of going on if that makes sense. The next time I login I'll check it and make sure its at the recommendation you say and i'll see how it goes from there. Thankfully my houses router is just on the other side of my room in my brothers, so I'm not far away at all.

I'd totally dive into the router if my brother wasn't one who pointed fingers for things breaking, but maybe one day I'll try hopefully. I actually never would've guessed that about the viewer cache size, I'll have to try that as well! 

P.S. - Thanks for everyones recommendations and words!