how much can I set my bandwith to? :)

[Rolig Loon]

Generally speaking, SL works best for most people if you set Max Bandwidth in Preferences in the range from 1000 to 1500 Kb/s.  If you use wireless (not supported by Linden Lab, but it works for many people), set your maximum bandwidth about 500 Kb/s lower.

Remember that what you are setting is your Maximum bandwidth.  In normal use, SL actually requires much less bandwidth than that (in the range between about 500 and 800 Kb/s).  If you set your maximum bandwidth too low, you will get sluggish response.  If you set it too high, you can have problems with streaming audio/video or voice cutting out on you, or can have teleporting problems.

Read http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/fs_speedtest for more specific advice.

Edit:  There is no good solution for a large ping time.  That's a function of your distance from Linden Lab's servers in the western U.S.  SL residents in Europe typically have ping times between 150 and 200 msec.  Those in India and Australia can typically have times over 300 msec.  You might never have problems with a large ping time in a simple game like WoW, which does most of its work on your own machine.  SL streams data continuously between your machine and the Linden Lab servers, however, so a long ping time will mean that you are usually out of sync with the servers and will experience lag.

[Rolig Loon]

Generally speaking, SL works best for most people if you set Max Bandwidth in Preferences in the range from 1000 to 1500 Kb/s.  If you use wireless (not supported by Linden Lab, but it works for many people), set your maximum bandwidth about 500 Kb/s lower.

Remember that what you are setting is your Maximum bandwidth.  In normal use, SL actually requires much less bandwidth than that (in the range between about 500 and 800 Kb/s).  If you set your maximum bandwidth too low, you will get sluggish response.  If you set it too high, you can have problems with streaming audio/video or voice cutting out on you, or can have teleporting problems.

Read http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/fs_speedtest for more specific advice.

Edit:  There is no good solution for a large ping time.  That's a function of your distance from Linden Lab's servers in the western U.S.  SL residents in Europe typically have ping times between 150 and 200 msec.  Those in India and Australia can typically have times over 300 msec.  You might never have problems with a large ping time in a simple game like WoW, which does most of its work on your own machine.  SL streams data continuously between your machine and the Linden Lab servers, however, so a long ping time will mean that you are usually out of sync with the servers and will experience lag.

[Rolig Loon]

---

Chapsrick wrote:

[ .... ]

REPLY: Since I can't figure it out here: I've very recently moved to Firestorm. While in Singularity I had no problem with music streaming, Firestorm seems to want to interrupt my music randomly. The settings were the same. Any idea why this can happen? 

---

Yes.  If you set your maximum bandwidth too high, you are potentially not leaving enough bandwidth for streaming services and voice.  As an example, suppose that your available bandwidth is only 1000 Kb/sec. Suppose that you set your Maximum Bandwidth to 1000 Kb/sec.  Normally, SL will only use between 500 and 800 Kb/sec, which means that your machine should have at least 200Kb/sec of its available bandwidth for supporting streaming services.  However, when you are doing something in SL that requires more bandwidth than usual -- rezzing an object, uploading textures, or simply moving around in a very busy region --- your viewer may use all of the bandwidth that you have authorized, and there will be nothing left for streaming.   The music will stop.  Now, suppose instead that you had only authorized a Maximum Bandwidth of 750 Kb/sec.  In that case, the viewer can never use more bandwidth than 750 Kb/sec, which means that you will always have 250 Kb/sec available for streaming services.  The music will never be interrupted, even when you are rezzing objects in a busy region.  

That is why Linden Lab generally recommends that you set your Maximum Bandwidth no higher than 75% of your average download bandwidth.

So, why are you having more problems with Firestorm than you did with Singularity?  Because Singularity is a very basic, simple viewer.  It normally requires much less bandwidth than Firestorm.  Of course, it also has many fewer special features.  So, you have a tradeoff.... More services in Firestorm, less available bandwidth.