Why does SL run so poorly on wi-fi and is there a chance of fixing it for potential users?

[JPG0809]

I had this question on my mind when I bought a new desktop last Christmas. Around Black-Friday, I registered with a website that builds their systems from scratch. I looked up a few articles and websites that explained what each spec and part does so I was making sure I was getting what I wanted/needed for a fair price, and I was pretty excited. Christmas came and after I took the time to download and install the things I needed to be on my desktop, I downloaded some games and programs, including SL.

My computer was running fine and everything seemed to be moving at a regular pace around my avatar when I was inworld, but I could barely move or couldn't move at all. I went into the adanced menu to view my fps to see that I was getting around 7fps or 20fps. Not inbetween, the number would land on one of those numbers every few minutes. It was either on or the other. 

So, I switched sims thinking that there was something causing the trouble like too many people, objects, etc. (which made me worry since that would mean that the money I spent on my GPU and other parts would be for basically nothing when it came to running SL.), and moved to an empty lot, and still, the same problem. This time the fps didn't jump, it was now more consistent.

It was running between 5-7fps.

I tried different things to solve the problem. Turned off the computers and laptops that may be interfering with my connection, adjusted the graphics, replugged the router, went to see how my internet browser (chrome)  was doing when it came to watching videos on Youtube (which worked fine), waited every other hour to check and see if I would have any luck, but everything stayed the same.

I googled my issue hoping that I would find some clue on what to do next and how I should approach things. After a bit of searching I found a bit of info on how much a wi-fi connection would effect SL...negatively. So, about a month later, I decided to switch my new desktop connection from a wireless to a wired one since I wanted to see how this would all play out..

My fps jumped from 5fps to 50fps and to this day, on average, that speed still remains the same for me.

The reason I'm asking this now rather than last year when this problem came up for me is because recently a friend was interested in creating an account and downloading SL and was having the exact same problem I was having or his computer was freezing up a lot, but he was running his viewer on a laptop (we both use the official viewer). He then connected his laptop to a wired connection like mine to see how it would work out and he was running SL just fine with pretty decent FPS even though he had a pretty low end computer with intel graphics, he just had to tweak the graphics a bit and keep that connection.

So, does LL expect their users to all have top-notch internet connections to simply log in and move around? They do realize that not every one can fork over close to a grand to buy a system to run their program and pay the money for a wired connection just for a single program, right? Most people use laptops and the majority that have desktops  have them, but are much older meaning they would have a lot of upgrading to do...

 I understand it's incredibly unrealistic to expect SL to run efficently on a old computer or a one with a crappy internet connection, but when you have a decent wireless connection that can load websites and other programs well enough that you're not waiting minutes for a screen to load and have well above average specs, but the program you want to run is having issues running because your connection isn't the "best", then that's going to alienate alot of newer users who want to give SL a chance since many probably won't got out of their way to get a wired connection JUST for SL/one program.

Most will take Speed/consistency over top notch graphics anyday. Having it the other way around is like watching a well edited video with nice effects but with crappy audio or the video keeps freezing. Is there a reason why SL has such a fickle performance when it runs on wi-fi and is there a way to fix it rather than buying accesories to boost wi-fi signal and signing up for SLGO for other, newer users?

If it's needed, I don't mind post my specs if it helps.

 

 

Thanks!

 

[Sassy Romano]

Wifi is nothing to do with what you described.  SL is not a streamed solution and if anything, lack of bandwidth and things arriving slowly would most likely yield a faster fps simply because nothing had arrived yet that needed rendering.

I've used wifi for years with no problem with SL, for that matter 3G data service too.

What you haven't described though is any of your hardware such that people can offer other suggestions and the main issue with wifi is that it's an unknown as to the quality of your connection.  There's a huge difference between using a wifi connection when sitting a few metres from the access point, versus sitting in a room that's 3 walls away when you're only getting a low bandwidth connection and suffering packet loss due to wifi interference from other devices on the same frequency (none of which we can comment upon because we don't have that information either).

On the other hand, connect via a cable and it's a simpler story.

Either way, fps is not a function of the network connection, if anything it's an inverse function.

If you want evidence of this, go and watch my video of me moving around in SL on an Atom processor based tablet with 1GB ram and the onboard intel graphics and wifi.  It's performing better than your (unknown) hardware in some instances.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Second-Life-viewer-on-a-tablet-Oh-yeah/m-p/2895183#U2895183

[Jean Horten]

When I use my Notebook ( Intel i7, Nvidia GTX 770M non optimus) to access second life, I don't see any difference in fps on wifi and wired, so I doubt the wifi connection is the main problem.

J.

[Qie Niangao]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Wifi is nothing to do with what you described.  [...]

Either way, fps is not a function of the network connection, if anything it's an inverse function.

---

You'd think, but the OP reports two anecdotes of magical FPS recovery just by hardwiring what had been a wi-fi connection -- this despite many of us, myself included, running perfectly well over wi-fi.

So, one wonders wtf is wrong with the wifi routers used in the OP's anecdotes.

(Incidentally, I do recall situations where being starved for packets would depress viewer FPS. I thought those were all fixed now, but I'm far too lazy to investigate. And anyway, that wouldn't diagnose whatever is so very sick about wifi connections for the OP and friend.)

[Ohjiro Watanabe]

This is what the wiki says:

 

Wifi and satellite connections

Second Life is not compatible with dial-up internet, satellite internet, or some wireless internet services. Occasionally these types of connection may work with Second LIfe, but Linden Lab is unable to support them or to address issues related to their use. For the best Second Life experience, always use a hard-wired DSL or cable connection. 

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Wifi-and-satellite-connections/ta-p/1296823

That is most of the story, Linden Lab don't support wifi but some people will manage ok with it.

Why? Some games that you may play on line work like this. You download the game and then you play it. The only information that has to be passed over the internet is position and commands to play an animation or a sound and so on. Small amounts of information.

Second Life doesn't work like that. You only download a viewer, all the content has to be downloaded as you go along, mesh objects, textures, sounds and animations. That is why you need a good connection.

[Sassy Romano]

That wiki article is somewhat mistitled.

 

They are referring to provider to client wireless services which is rather different to the more common in premise WiFi.

 

Signal quality, interference and latency are the bigger issue supporting those and although they will also exist in-premise, the article does not in the body text state that SL is incompatible or not supported via home WiFi.

[Ohjiro Watanabe]

Hmmm, interesting point Sassy, I had never thought about that. It does also say here: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/How-to-improve-Viewer-performance/ta-p/1316923

Important: Second Life allows but does not support wireless connections. Always use a hardwired connection if possible.

If that is also a reference to a wireless internet provider it is very ambiguous. But maybe that is just my think because those type of service are unusual round my way.

 

 

[Perrie Juran]

---

Ohjiro Watanabe wrote:

Hmmm, interesting point Sassy, I had never thought about that. It does also say here: 

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/How-to-improve-Viewer-performance/ta-p/1316923

Important:

Second Life allows but does not support wireless connections. Always use a hardwired connection if possible.

If that is also a reference to a wireless internet provider it is very ambiguous. But maybe that is just my think because those type of service are unusual round my way.

 

 

---

It is poorly worded.  It sounds more like an addendum.  In other words they are saying in addition to the listed service types, problems with home Wifi (or other wifi LAN's) are your problem, not ours.

The OP's problem is with throughput over their wireless which is separate from bandwidth.

 

[Rhys Goode]

I normaly use wifi from home, and often on the roaed. Once thing I've noticed is that performance varies a lot from router to router. At home, the routu\er I have from my ISP has wifi that sucks, OK for web browsing, but not SL, it drops packets left and right. But I have a different router, plugged into the bad one, and to does wifi flawlessly.

Traveling around the county in our RV, I stay in lots of different campgrounds with public wifi.  SL performance at these locattions is *much* better that it was a year or two age.  It used to be that only about 1/3 such wifi' connections would run SL.  Last summer, it was more like 3/4 worked fine. And simialar experience in hotels, now SL mostly works over wifi, two years ago, it mostly did not. The most useful diagnostic for me has been looking at packet loss (help>about, will give you a report).  It you are droping more than a few percent of the packets, you will not have a happy experience in SL.

So, while there are certaianly bad wifi routers out there that will not work well with SL, its a lot better than it used to be, and works fine for me in most places.

[Pussycat Catnap]

My unproven annectdotal theory is that some routers throttle SL intentionally but without knowing so.

Many routers today come with a 'QoS' or 'Quality of Service' feature, sometimes known by other names as well. This feature prioritizes video and gaming traffic, and throttles down other forms of downloading or web traffic.

- I suspect most of these services do not know SL is a 'game', and so treat it as if it was peer-to-peer sharing / downloading / torrent / warez theft traffic... and slow it so that your video streaming on netflix over in the other room can go faster, or whatever.

In such situations, logging into SL and flipping on your music stream will cause this kind of router to think... I need to slow all this warez-porn-downloading so we can speed up that Katty Perry stream...

- Not realizing your SL is NOT warez nor porn and is in fact the very 'game like' traffic it is supposed to be prioritizing above Katty Perry spam...

 

What got me to this logic was my old router had such a service but without the ability for me to configure it or monitor its details, and I noticed my SL would slow by a mile anytime anyone on my internet was viewing anything that QoS was designed to speed up... including when I was trying to listen to music while also in SL...

- I suspect, that this QoS acts stronger over wi-fi than wired for some routers.

 

Its unproven because to do that I'd need to know how to break open server logs and look at what's downloading when and how fast... and because I never tried to isolate different things on my router one at a time, set up test cases and control groups, and so on... to be sure. Its possible my internet was slowing down from random operating system junk and I only mentally got fixated on the QoS system...

 

But it would not surprise me if SL's obscurity and hesitation to define what kind of service and traffic it is, has put it on the wrong side of QoS systems that throttle it because they don't recognize it.

I got a better router. Two of them in fact because of the weird shape of my home meaning I need to use one as an access point... and now my SL works great wi-fi or not.

ps: My main router is an ASUS RT-AC68U.