Sim performance drops

[PatrickDevonAnderson]

I own property on the adult mainland on an 801 class server according to the grid survey. I am noticing a reoccurring drop on my performance monitor, from excellant frame rates to near zero that happen almost consistently every 90 seconds or so. Even with only 2-4 avis on my sim the lag is so bad it is literally one step forward two back. The grid survey shows 24 possible regions on the server. Is there a way to tell if this performance issue is a result of items on my sim or another on the server? And how can I address this? It makes my property virtually unusable at times

[Rolig Loon]

Regions are moved from one server to another frequently, so your own region may no longer be associated with the same machine that it was on last week, or whenever. While it's possible that a different region is putting heavy load on you own region, it's less likely than things that are closer to home.  Your first step in analyzing region performance should usually be to study your Statistics bar (CTRL + Shift + 1).  Look at your own stats as well as the region stats to distinguish between effects that are client side and those that are server side.

Among the server stats, keep an eye on Sim FPS and Time Dilation.  If Sim FPS is always pretty close to 45 and Time Dilation is nearly 1.0, then the servers are running fine.  The problem is on your end.  If not, look to see what's using the greatest amount of time.  Generally, that will be avatars, even if there are only one or two people on the region.  The next big suspects, though, are physical objects and repeating temp rezzers. Either of those could produce regular periodic spikes in load.  If you have pathfinding objects running around (especially if your region has not been physics optimized), they could eat up a lot of time too.  You can control all of those by making careful choices about what you build.

[ChinRey]

First, acoording to Linden Lab, the server classes mean nothing anymore. These days sims are assigned server resources according to which type of sim (full, homestead or open space) it is, nothing else.

That also means it is very unlikely another sim will affect your performance even if they happen to share the same Ip address so I guess you should take a look at your own sim.

First: breedables. Not all breedables today are high lag but some (expecially the Big Cats btw) are and even the relatively low lag ones can be a problem if there are many of them or they start to malfunction.

Second: Pathfinders. A single fairly simple pathfinder script can easily steal half the sim's resources and if it's faulty (like specifying an unreachable target location) it can bring a sim to a standstill all on its own.

These are the two most likely causes, not only because they are the big ones but also because they are often periodic just like you describe.

If neither can explain the problems, I suggest you look at the detailed frame time breakdown at the bottom of the stats window. That might give you a clue to what is happening. And also, if you get those lag peaks with plenty of spare frame time, you can be sure it's not the normal tasks of the server that causes it.

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Patrick,

Frame rate is a function of the viewer, not the server. Something is jacking up the scene complexity, causing your viewer to struggle under the load. Turning your view to another direction will often bring the frame rate back up, as the offending object(s) are moved off-screen. You can use this as a sort of radio direction finder, to locate the area of the sim that's producing the heavy load. Similarly, pulling your draw distance way in may give you an idea how far away the gremlin is.

Good luck!

[PatrickDevonAnderson]

Well the pathfinding seems to be the cause, though I have nothing enabled on our parcels. I am seeing spikes in pathfinding and packets in the status bar to over 25,000 unpacked requests that match the spikes I see on the land monitor. Now where do I go from here to determine where the problem is located and how to address

 

[Rolig Loon]

You can use Build >>> Pathfinding >>> Characters to identify any pathfinding characters on the region and then locate and eliminate them.

[PatrickDevonAnderson]

I will have to check that

ty

 

[PatrickDevonAnderson]

Will that 1. Only show agents in my draw range and 2. Show objects j do not own?

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

Does pathfinding really affect frame rate, or is it something other than FPS that's actually dropping?

[PatrickDevonAnderson]

I have a sim performance monitor and it will run steady in the green at 45 fps and around 1 on dilation. The fps will bounce on the monitor to 2-3 and the dilation to inder .15. When the spikes happen the avi will "bounce" walk through objects n bounce back. Interact w objects, eg sit, edit etc will freeze or not work at all. I know it is not my viewer or connection because my coowner expeeiences the same things at the same times

[Madelaine McMasters]

Ah, you're talking about simulator FPS, not viewer.

[Nalates Urriah]

A good place to get first hand help is the Server Beta User Group that meets on Thrusdays (3PM SLT) in Morris, ADITI (preview grid). A couple of people that attend are owners of a number of regions. They should be able to give you some help. Plus 1 or 3 Lindens attand the meetings. They can look at your region stats to see what is happening.

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

Nice easy answer as you said you own the property, contact support under "region performance issues". Explain the issue to them In detail, and they'll take a look for you, including checking the sim for any objects causing an issue.

 

Other thing you can do, is when its open, use live chat to ask for a restart to move the sim to another server.

 

Let us know how it goes.