Lag?

[GypsyNite]

Hello all. I have a question, not sure if I can word it as such to where people will be able to understand what I am asking, but here goes. I am searching for land and have found some prospective parcels(or thought I did). However,  when I turned up the draw distance on a few parcels that seem very, very quiet on the ground level with virtually no activity or homes, then began flying upwards to check out the airspace, I see quite a bit of action in the sky, such as skyboxes or domes with a fair amount of scripted items running in them. One of the parcels I am looking at has a rental company in a neighboring region, so there are a dozen or so skydomes stacked up in the sky. So this got me wondering about lag, of course. When am I going to start noticing other people's scripts and traffic as lag on my end, when I am on my parcel? At a certain range or only in my region. etc?  I am using a midrange computer-not high performance, but not low either using high graphic settings. I did do a search on here and on Google really could not find any answers. Thanks in advance. 

[Alwin Alcott]

99.9% of lag is at your own side, connection, machine or to high graphic settings.

Have a look at the sim performance in the advanced menu ( ctr-shift-1) to see how the sim performs.

 

[ChinRey]

You can check the load on the sim by typing Ctrl+Shift+1 to bring up the statistics window. Scroll down to the bottom of it and click on time. That will bring up something like this:

A healthy sim will have a few ms of spare time to handle any load peaks but it doesn't need to be as much as in this picture. Whetehr it's scripts or some other tasks that keep the server busy, isn't really important to you. What matters is that it has time to spare for whatever you want to do there.

As for lag from objects, that's often the biggest problem, people in SL jsut love to fill theri land up with poorly optimized high lag content. ANything that is outside yuor draw distance shouldn't matter much though, it's only what you actually can see.

[GypsyNite]

1 hour ago, Alwin Alcott said:

99.9% of lag is at your own side, connection, machine or to high graphic settings.

Have a look at the sim performance in the advanced menu ( ctr-shift-1) to see how the sim performs.

 

Alwin, Yes, I have seen people say this as well and certainly seen a difference in my lag (had much less of it)  when I upgraded my P.C. and I do notice more lag when someone else is streaming on my network. I have also had other people insist that lag is mostly SL, because of running scripts and traffic, so I just wanted to have clarification on what is the reality. One of my friends is complaining that the club that opened up behind him has his parcel completely lagged out?  They seem to have quite a few scripted items, not so much in the way of traffic though. I did not really notice a whole lot of lag when I visited. Thank you for your help!

10 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

You can check the load on the sim by typing Ctrl+Shift+1 to bring up the statistics window. Scroll down to the bottom of it and click on time. That will bring up something like this:

A healthy sim will have a few ms of spare time to handle any load peaks but it doesn't need to be as much as in this picture. Whetehr it's scripts or some other tasks that keep the server busy, isn't really important to you. What matters is that it has time to spare for whatever you want to do there.

As for lag from objects, that's often the biggest problem, people in SL jsut love to fill theri land up with poorly optimized high lag content. ANything that is outside yuor draw distance shouldn't matter much though, it's only what you actually can see.

4

Chin Rey,

Thank you for your response and showing me how to look at the load on the Sim. When I was looking at land, I had my draw set anywhere from 200 to 700 or so, just to see what is up there. Regularly it is at around 100, less if in a crowded event. 

I posted a screenshot of what I got when checking the load on the sim.

I am sure this is another dumb question of mine but when you say, "ANything that is outside your draw distance shouldn't matter much though, it's only what you actually can see," is there a draw distance that would give me better performance, or rather I should ask, by reducing my draw distance will the objects that residents load up on their land, affect me less? I had my draw distance set at 240 when I saw all those skydomes and platforms. There were indeed platforms that were packed full of objects.

I wish I knew more about this stuff. I do spend money in SL and want to make that I am not buying poorly optimized, high lag content that is going to affect neighbors and myself.   Or just knowing in general how to create the best experience in SL for myself and others.  

 

 

Thanks again to both of you! 

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, GypsyNite said:

I posted a screenshot of what I got when checking the load on the sim.

Oh. That sim server must be bored with so little to do.

It shouldn't cause any perfomance issues as it is now then. Of course, you never know what people may add in the future but that can't be avoided.

 

1 hour ago, GypsyNite said:

I am sure this is another dumb question of mine but when you say, "ANything that is outside your draw distance shouldn't matter much though, it's only what you actually can see," is there a draw distance that would give me better performance, or rather I should ask, by reducing my draw distance will the objects that residents load up on their land, affect me less?

The simple answer is that your computer downloads and processes everything that is within your draw distance and ignores everything that is farther away. So in theory, the lower your draw distance is, the less work your computer has to do.

The complex answer is ... well, a little bit more complex but even so, except in some very rare circumstances, lower draw distance means less lag. How low you are willing to go, is up to you.

[GypsyNite]

lol. Ok, I see... Hopefully, it is not me exciting the sims then. And I suppose I should stop now with the questions because I think I am starting to turn this thread into a techie one instead of about land.Thank you so much, I do have a better understanding now. 

22 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Oh. That sim server must be bored with so little to do.

It shouldn't cause any perfomance issues as it is now then. Of course, you never know what people may add in the future but that can't be avoided.

 

The simple answer is that your computer downloads and processes everything that is within your draw distance and ignores everything that is farther away. So in theory, the lower your draw distance is, the less work your computer has to do.

The complex answer is ... well, a little bit more complex but even so, except in some very rare circumstances, lower draw distance means less lag. How low you are willing to go, is up to you.