Official SL viewer crashes in crowded sims

[MartinKnight0]

Hello, I have a problem with the Official Viewer:

it works fine most of the time, but when I TP to a crowded place (like a club with 20+ people), it usually crashes after 1 or 2 minutes, even if I un-render everyone by default.

A few times it also crashed when there were not many other players around though, for instance if I fly fast across many sims.

My graphic settings are already pretty much at the lowest: draw distance 64m, avatar complexity to minimum, etc.

I am using a laptop at the moment; so I know it's not ideal, but I thought it would be able to handle SL on minimum settings.

I have been told that I should be using Firestorm, and I probably will, unless I can get there crashes to stop, maybe by changing bandwidth or texture memory? They are currently set to 600kbit/s and 500 MB respectively. I didn't raise them because from what I have read on the forums, it seems that increasing them only makes things rez faster, and has the side effect of actually increasing the viewer instability and the chances of crashes happening.

Thanks in advance if you have any tip to get rid of these crashes.

 

Specs:

 

Second Life Release 5.1.0.508209 (64bit)

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6498DU CPU @ 2.50GHz (2591.99 MHz)
Memory: 12204 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit
Graphics Card Vendor: Intel
Graphics Card: Intel(R) HD Graphics 510

 

Window size: 1366x705
Font Size Adjustment: 96pt
UI Scaling: 0.95
Draw distance: 64m
Bandwidth: 600kbit/s
LOD factor: 1.125
Render quality: 1 / 7
Advanced Lighting Model: Disabled
Texture memory: 512MB
VFS (cache) creation time: September 06 2017 13:36:18

Edited September 12, 2017 by MartinKnight0

[Lillith Hapmouche]

I hope you're making use of the graphic presets feature that should also be available in the official viewer. So instead of manually switching from your standard to even lower rendering settings, you simply switch from profile 1 to profile 2.

Anyway, 64m draw distance might still be too heavy on that low-end iGPU in crowded scenarios.
Afraid I never bothered to check if more "VRAM" for such units will actually be a benefit or a potentially conflicting idea. But based on the general concept of low-end dedicated graphic cards having a ton of VRAM, it is probably quite likely that the unit is too slow and cannot even make proper use of the extra storage space.
Oh, and maxing out your cache storage might be helpful.

You can easily give Firestorm a try, as installing a second viewer will not interfere with the official one ... only if you try to keep it open during the install.

[MartinKnight0]

Alright, thanks Lillith, so this evening I will try to max out cache storage, if that doesn't help, I will install Firestorm, and if that doesn't help either, I will just play SL on my desktop pc.

And I think I can't decrease the draw distance any further, 64m is the minimum on the official viewer, I believe.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Firestorm does allow you to get lower than 64m, and it also has a handy chat command to change the distance when you type "dd 48" or "dd 128" in local chat.

Plus, you might try one of the debug settings, "RenderFarClip", even on the official viewer. See this thread for more details: 

 

PS: playing with your bandwidth by lowering might also help. In theory, too much data could be choking your pipeline...

Edited September 12, 2017 by Lillith Hapmouche

[MartinKnight0]

3 minutes ago, Lillith Hapmouche said:

 

playing with your bandwidth by lowering might also help. In theory, too much data could be choking your pipeline...

My bandwidth is already set to 600kbit/s though, isn't that already pretty low? It would take forever to rez things if I went below that.

Which settings do you recommend for texture memory and bandwidth on Firestorm in order to have the best performance?

[Alwin Alcott]

55 minutes ago, MartinKnight0 said:

I will install Firestorm,

firestorm can have a higher demand on your machine than the LL viewer, but it does have a lot more changable settings.

If you really want a lighter viewer install the Singularity ( never thought i would ever say that)

be sure to download the right one, with bento support.

http://alpha.singularityviewer.org/alpha/

 

or check some of the other 3rd party viewers in the sl wiki

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory

 

Edited September 12, 2017 by Alwin Alcott

[Klytyna]

3 hours ago, MartinKnight0 said:

My bandwidth is already set to 600kbit/s though, isn't that already pretty low? It would take forever to rez things if I went below that.

Which settings do you recommend for texture memory and bandwidth on Firestorm in order to have the best performance?

Viewer bandwidth has NOTHING to do with making things 'rez faster'.

It's simply a measure of how much data the client and the server send and how often, when repeatedly handshaking with each other and handling stuff about where your avis is and what its doing, animation state changes, etc.

Setting viewer bandwidth too high means your client wastes so much time 'chatting' with the server, that it isn't doing it's other jobs properly.

Less is More. For most people bandwidth of 500 is fine.
 

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Not listed in the TPV Directory, but fully compatible to its requirements, except that the coder did not agree to offer his full name and address to the public, plus used by many on really old hardware: Cool Viewer

My one and only recommendation is to carefully test on your end. Well, and following the bandwidth guide on the Firestorm Wiki and don't go higher than 1500 kbps.

Based on what I read, the intel graphics solely use the system's RAM, so in theory, you could monitor your usual RAM usage with something as simple as the task manager and then assign the remaining free RAM as your graphical memory in the viewer. However, that won't speed up the iGPU at all, which is quite a pity since the CPU itself seems to be pretty fast.

Edited September 12, 2017 by Lillith Hapmouche

[Chic Aeon]

A 1.23 based viewer (old style) will likely be your best shot on your laptop.

While I LOVE FIRESTORM it will only be harder on your laptop, not better.   Singularity is another popular 1.23 viewer that folks use still. Best to check those in that category (the interface will look very different -- that's an easy way to tell).

It sounds very much like you have done all you can do and your computer just isn't up to crowds on any of the more recent viewers. 

[MartinKnight0]

2 hours ago, Klytyna said:

Viewer bandwidth has NOTHING to do with making things 'rez faster'.

It's simply a measure of how much data the client and the server send and how often, when repeatedly handshaking with each other and handling stuff about where your avis is and what its doing, animation state changes, etc.

Setting viewer bandwidth too high means your client wastes so much time 'chatting' with the server, that it isn't doing it's other jobs properly.

Less is More. For most people bandwidth of 500 is fine.
 

I think that it has a lot to do with how fast things load, for instance if I set it to 100 kbit/sec, I would have to wait a very long time to download and see all the textures, avatars, etc, when I enter a new area.

Anyway, I have started using Firestorm (64 bits) and so far it seems to run way more smoothly than the Official Viewer, although I will have to use it for a while to see how the crashes situation goes.

Thanks everyone for the help, I will post more if there's any update.

[Klytyna]

6 hours ago, MartinKnight0 said:

I think that it has a lot to do with how fast things load, for instance if I set it to 100 kbit/sec, I would have to wait a very long time to download and see all the textures, avatars, etc, when I enter a new area.

You think that because you are new, and because you are basing youer thoughts on experience with other 'games' and 'logic' etc.

The problem is you think wrong, the bandwidth setting is SOLEY for client -> Sim Server/ Sim-Server -> Client communication, and has ABSOLUTLY NOTHING to do with the delivery of textures via http and the Content Delivery Network, which is a completely separate system that doesn't use that babdwidth throttle setting AT ALL.

Welcome to SecondLife, here, everything you THINK you learned playing Call of Honour/Medal of Duty /Combat Front/Zombie Slaughter/Great Walrus Attack 5 (delete as applicable), all that means officially, SQUAT.

This is why so many people claim SL has a 'Steep Learning Curve'. It doesn't, you just have to realise it's not all the other 'games' you played
 

[arton Rotaru]

The 64 bit viewer  version 5.1.0.508209 is not yet the current release viewer. It's kinda crashy still.