Secondlife declining player base

[Fionalein]

6 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

Same for Bandwidth setting (LL default: 500 and it rezzes FAST for me at that speed.)

most bandwidth is not governed by that slider  though...

[Alyona Su]

9 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

most bandwidth is not governed by that slider  though...

Yes, I know; it's something to do with pinging the sim for region info... or summon. I think many people do think it's the bandwidth setting for the full connection, when it's not. Which is part of the issue: many settings aren't very clear in their description for what they do.

[Coffee Pancake]

4 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

Yes, yes. I just installed LL, Kokua, and FS viewers on a new iMac and the defaults are 1024 for LL and KK and 2048 for FS. Though people tend to crank those up. Same for Bandwidth setting (LL default: 500 and it rezzes FAST for me at that speed.)

Don't mess with that slider unless you have a packet loss problem. It only affects UDP traffic.

UDP is for time sensitive information that doesn't have any value after the moment has passed, like updating the position of an avatar as it walks past you several times a second. Setting the "bandwidth slider" higher than UDP can be received and processed is packet loss. Packets of data are literally lost.

SL used to push a lot of stuff over UDP that really shouldn't have been, in recent years they've been working slowly to replace all that code, moving those systems to a more reliable protocol. So 500 .. 300 .. more than sufficient.

Set the cache to the max.

Add the cache folder as an exception to your anti virus / windows defender.

[Monday Avril]

On 7/28/2019 at 5:21 PM, Haselden said:

Yeah, the creators are getting smart to make their stuff look better but at a cost of lag. I really don't think it's the creators fault. Linden labs at some point needs to just fix their viewer build to support 4k.

Agree.

There are mmorpg offer the better graphics quality and much larger environments. They are not comparable to sl. Often such are built on the Crytek engine with virtual worlds up to 60x60sq Km. 60x60sq Km, yes. But with Crytek you cant build anything inworld. Any build you want to use in the vw had to be crippled into the game play. I think the favour of sl is flying & the inworld building more then a high-end graphics with ultra sharp rendering. And licenses from Crylab are not cheap too. Here an example of a good made Crytek based mmorpg:

https://www.entropiauniverse.com/index.xml

Edited July 29, 2019 by Monday Avril

[Sammy Huntsman]

32 minutes ago, Monday Avril said:

Agree.

There are mmorpg offer the better graphics quality and much larger environments. They are not comparable to sl. Often such are built on the Crytek engine with virtual worlds up to 60x60sq Km. 60x60sq Km, yes. But with Crytek you cant build anything inworld. Any build you want to use in the vw had to be crippled into the game play. I think the favour of sl is flying & the inworld building more then a high-end graphics with ultra sharp rendering. And licenses from Crylab are not cheap too. Here an example of a good made Crytek based mmorpg:

https://www.entropiauniverse.com/index.xml

Hell even Minecraft is way better, and you can also get user made content in there. Through mods of course. Look to better the lag issue, SL would have to be built from the ground up. With the ideology, that this old engine is not gonna hold up. They keep on overloading it, and overloading it. Kinda like what Bethesda did with that exact same engine, to the point that they had to make their own. But even that new engine is bursting at the seams, and now Bethesda is creating a new engine for their next gen games. I am not ripping on Bethesda, but saying SL is practically doing the same thing. If SL wants any chance of doing better, they need to bring SL to the next gen world. And not make a Sansar copy. Just rebuild SL, like SL is currently, but using a better next gen engine, or even creating their own, to meet their demands.

 

[kiramanell]

1 hour ago, Monday Avril said:

Agree.

There are mmorpg offer the better graphics quality and much larger environments. They are not comparable to sl. Often such are built on the Crytek engine with virtual worlds up to 60x60sq Km. 60x60sq Km, yes. But with Crytek you cant build anything inworld. Any build you want to use in the vw had to be crippled into the game play. I think the favour of sl is flying & the inworld building more then a high-end graphics with ultra sharp rendering.

 

Definitely.  I have also built homes (and fairly beautiful one at that, if I dare so myself, ahem) in GTA V. Now, let me tell you something about building in GTA V: it's an absolute nightmare. 🤤 Especiially if you go into the whole ymap and/or MILO thingy. My point being, indeed, there are things out there with far superior graphics engines than SL, but nothing works so smooth and easy. Now, granted, GTA V wasn't exactly made to build in, but even dev kits of other games that you can do it in, officially, are much harder to work with than SL.

[Sammy Huntsman]

1 minute ago, kiramanell said:

 

Definitely.  I have also built homes (and fairly beautiful one at that, if I dare so myself, ahem) in GTA V. Now, let me tell you something about building in GTA V: it's an absolute nightmare. 🤤 Especiially if you go into the whole ymap and/or MILO thingy. My point being, indeed, there are things out there with far superior graphics engines than SL, but nothing works so smooth and easy. Now, granted, GTA V wasn't exactly made to build in, but even dev kits of other games that you can do it in, officially, are much harder to work with than SL.

I would have to disagree with you on SL being smooth and easy in SL, if you are a builder sure you might have the advantage there. But for many non builders, it can be time consuming, rough and hard. I would have to say for building, Minecraft is pretty easy. Basically place a block, and well voila a house or whatever you want to build. Without having to use 3rd part software, or having to figure out dimensions to your house. Yeah of course you gotta count blocks, but I would say in conclusion. That its much smoother and easier to build in Minecraft. as you really don't need that much skill as in SL to build in Minecraft. A 5 year old can build a masterpiece in Minecraft.

[kiramanell]

1 minute ago, halebore Aeon said:

I would have to disagree with you on SL being smooth and easy in SL, if you are a builder sure you might have the advantage there. But for many non builders, it can be time consuming, rough and hard. I would have to say for building, Minecraft is pretty easy. Basically place a block, and well voila a house or whatever you want to build. Without having to use 3rd part software, or having to figure out dimensions to your house. Yeah of course you gotta count blocks, but I would say in conclusion. That its much smoother and easier to build in Minecraft. as you really don't need that much skill as in SL to build in Minecraft. A 5 year old can build a masterpiece in Minecraft.

 

I haven't played Minecraft, so I believe you when you say it's super-easy. But I just googled some images of it, and it looks like it's played on a screen with the resolution of that of a typical Windows desktop icon.  I mean, even LEGOS seem to be less blocky. I'm not sure that what I saw represents all graphical modes of Minecraft; but if it did, do you know of building worlds with comparable graphics to that of SL, that are easier?

[Sammy Huntsman]

7 days to die.

[kiramanell]

3 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

7 days to die.

 

Thanks. Looks like it's on STEAM too, so I may well give it a try.

[Sammy Huntsman]

6 minutes ago, kiramanell said:

 

Thanks. Looks like it's on STEAM too, so I may well give it a try.

You are very welcome. I had to think for a second there. Lol. I had to go through a whole list of games in my head, and well that was fun. Than I came upon 7 days to die. You can also upload your own images in 7 Days to Die too. And it doesn't cost you an inworld currency to do so. So that is a plus.

Edited July 30, 2019 by halebore Aeon

[Sammy Huntsman]

Now that I think about it, the better comparison to SL is 7 Days to Die. Especially with its sandbox aspect.

[Penny Patton]

 

On 7/29/2019 at 1:46 AM, CoffeeDujour said:

The whole issue with texture use and VRAM can be entirely solved with better code, at the expense of disk space.

That would be nice, but I still think you're expecting far too much. If it were really this easy to fix the texture problem in SL, then every videogame in existence would already be using this sort of software and texture optimization would only be necessary insofar as reducing the disk size of the game. Spoiler Alert: This hasn't happened. There's been some great improvements with progressive texture loading, but not nearly to the extent you're talking.

It's a great idea in theory, but in practice I just don't think we're there yet. And the fact that SL currently can't do what you're asking of it makes the whole thing moot. Content creators need to reign in texture use. When you do that you can see enormous performance improvements in SL right now. Of course, if the new cache is rolled out and brings about the kind of performance improvements you expect from it, that'll be great. I would love to see it happen. Is there any sort of timeline yet for this new cache?

In any case, I do agree that excessive geometry is a big problem too, especially when it comes to avatar attachments where there's absolutely nothing reigning it in.

[Cackle Amore]

On 7/28/2019 at 10:21 AM, Haselden said:

Yeah, the creators are getting smart to make their stuff look better but at a cost of lag. I really don't think it's the creators fault. Linden labs at some point needs to just fix their viewer build to support 4k.

I don't really trust some creators to properly us 4k resolution. People already make poor use out of the current max size

I've got no interest in official 4k texture packs that require a small games size worth of extra space to store on my computer, and I certainly don't want it forced upon me by people that think they need 4k textures on a fingernail.

Shadow of War's high resolution texture pack takes up 15gb of space, Monster Hunter World's high resolution pack takes up 8gb.

We need to collectively improve the baseline quality of content creation across SL. Not by dumping more strain on the user base with unneeded massive textures and 50 layers of subdivided models, but by creating smarter. Optimized mesh and textures made with an old game engine in mind.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Digit Gears

[Sammy Huntsman]

28 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

 

That would be nice, but I still think you're expecting far too much. If it were really this easy to fix the texture problem in SL, then every videogame in existence would already be using this sort of software and texture optimization would only be necessary insofar as reducing the disk size of the game. Spoiler Alert: This hasn't happened. There's been some great improvements with progressive texture loading, but not nearly to the extent you're talking.

It's a great idea in theory, but in practice I just don't think we're there yet. And the fact that SL currently can't do what you're asking of it makes the whole thing moot. Content creators need to reign in texture use. When you do that you can see enormous performance improvements in SL right now. Of course, if the new cache is rolled out and brings about the kind of performance improvements you expect from it, that'll be great. I would love to see it happen. Is there any sort of timeline yet for this new cache?

In any case, I do agree that excessive geometry is a big problem too, especially when it comes to avatar attachments where there's absolutely nothing reigning it in.

But um, most Triple A games their Textures and Models are Optimized way better than Second Life's. You don't see as much of an issue, with other games besides SL. Like most games as it were, are way better optomized, and have a far greater engine than Second Life.  I think SL is still running Havok, that was used in the Elder Scrolls Morrowind.

[Drayke Newall]

5 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

But um, most Triple A games their Textures and Models are Optimized way better than Second Life's. You don't see as much of an issue, with other games besides SL. Like most games as it were, are way better optomized, and have a far greater engine than Second Life.  I think SL is still running Havok, that was used in the Elder Scrolls Morrowind.

Which is Penny's point. People need to optimise the content they bring into Second Life. Sure Second Life's engine is old but if things are done right it can look in some cases pretty good in comparison to other modern Triple A games.

[Sammy Huntsman]

4 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Which is Penny's point. People need to optimise the content they bring into Second Life. Sure Second Life's engine is old but if things are done right it can look in some cases pretty good in comparison to other modern Triple A games.

But there is so much you can do with an old engine, until it totally implodes on itself. Second Life's 2003 Havok engine is bursting at the seams. They need to redo SL from the ground up. Stop putting a bandaid over a gaping wound.

[Drayke Newall]

12 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

But there is so much you can do with an old engine, until it totally implodes on itself. Second Life's 2003 Havok engine is bursting at the seams. They need to redo SL from the ground up. Stop putting a bandaid over a gaping wound.

Of course that's the best way, but we got Sansar instead lol. But whilst it is old it can do what it needs to if done correctly.

That said no one uses the Havok engine in SL to its full potential anyway due to other scripting limitations I suppose. When was the last time you kicked a ball in second life that had physics turned on. As far as the other side of physics goes, once again its a user issue not optimising their content.

For example, for some reason many people still don't realise that you can set a "none" physics to every single plant on the ground, only having the root prim that can be under the ground as having physics. Doing this helps the sims performance when there are lots of people hitting into the object etc. Instead we still have people that use a special script to turn a single prim in a linkset phantom because its impossible to set a single prim phantom in a linkset it has to be the entire object.

Same with mesh, not every mesh needs to be set to Prim, most can be set to convex hull  or in some cases none (ie water) reducing the impact.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Drayke Newall

[Sammy Huntsman]

2 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Of course that's the best way, but we got Sansar instead lol. But whilst it is old it can do what it needs to if done correctly.

That said no one uses the Havok engine in SL to its full potential anyway due to other scripting limitations I suppose. When was the last time you kicked a ball in second life that had physics turned on. As far as the other side of physics goes, once again its a user issue not optimising their content.

For example, for some reason many people still don't realise that you can set a "none" physics to every single plant on the ground, only having the root prim that can be under the ground as having physics. Doing this helps the sims performance when there are lots of people hitting into the object etc. Instead we still have people that use a special script to turn a single prim in a linkset phantom because its impossible to set a single prim phantom in a linkset it has to be the entire object.

Same with mesh, not every mesh needs to be set to Prim, most can be set to convex hull  or in some cases none (ie water) reducing the impact.

I get what you are coming from, I really do. But the issue is both with the age of engine, and trust me Bethesda did the same thing. With Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3. They practically brought the engine beyond it's limitations, and well they have had to make a new engine for Fallout 4 and Skyrim and are currently making a new one, for Starfield and ES6. There is only so much you can do, with an engine that limits you. Especially when you don't use it at it's fully potential, and even then Havok was crap with Fallout 3. You can't really play Fallout 3 on PCs anymore. They need a different or brand new engine. Yes all creators should optimize their items, but the responsibility lies on both creators of items and the creators of SL. They need to better optimize their system too.

[Drayke Newall]

Just now, halebore Aeon said:

I get what you are coming from, I really do. But the issue is both with the age of engine, and trust me Bethesda did the same thing. With Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3. They practically brought the engine beyond it's limitations, and well they have had to make a new engine for Fallout 4 and Skyrim and are currently making a new one, for Starfield and ES6. There is only so much you can do, with an engine that limits you. Especially when you don't use it at it's fully potential, and even then Havok was crap with Fallout 3. You can't really play Fallout 3 on PCs anymore. They need a different or brand new engine. Yes all creators should optimize their items, but the responsibility lies on both creators of items and the creators of SL. They need to better optimize their system too.

No, I fully agree. Its why people have asked for SL2 for a decade. But you will be surprised how far an engine can be pushed.

For example you say that Bethesda made a new engine. They didn't they simply forked the Gamebryo engine pushing it further by enhancing its graphics system. I've made many a mod for Morowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Trust me its the same creation engine they have been using for close to 20 years. Its also why I am not going to buy TES VI as they have stated they are still using the same engine.

[ChinRey]

15 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

I think SL is still running Havok, that was used in the Elder Scrolls Morrowind.

SL uses the Havok physics engine and possibly Havok AI pathfinding software but neither has anything to do with rendering, it's all server side.

But since you mention it, I'm not sure if there is any better physics engine available at the moment. For all its flaws, it certainly beats the three open source engines - Bullet, ODE and ubODE - used by opensim. AGX looks promising but as far as I know, nobody has really tested it in a complex virtual world yet.

 

34 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

But um, most Triple A games their Textures and Models are Optimized way better than Second Life's. You don't see as much of an issue, with other games besides SL. Like most games as it were, are way better optomized, and have a far greater engine than Second Life.  I think SL is still running Havok, that was used in the Elder Scrolls Morrowind.

One of the main problems is that a Second Life scene is made from a large number of assets, created independently by different content creators and not intended to work together as a whole. This adds a tremendous lot of overhead and it can't really be fixed without limiting the users' ability to freely create content.

 

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, Drayke Newall said:

No, I fully agree. Its why people have asked for SL2 for a decade. But you will be surprised how far an engine can be pushed.

For example you say that Bethesda made a new engine. They didn't they simply forked the Gamebryo engine pushing it further by enhancing its graphics system. I've made many a mod for Morowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. Trust me its the same creation engine they have been using for close to 20 years. Its also why I am not going to buy TES VI as they have stated they are still using the same engine.

But all engines have their limits. How far will Havok go? Will it last a good long time, or after a few more updates and patches, will it crash and burn?  That is my biggest concern here, how far will that engine go, until it gives the middle finger and just dies?

 

[Drayke Newall]

7 minutes ago, halebore Aeon said:

But all engines have their limits. How far will Havok go? Will it last a good long time, or after a few more updates and patches, will it crash and burn?  That is my biggest concern here, how far will that engine go, until it gives the middle finger and just dies?

Not really any software can just keep updating. Just gets more complicated code wise finding all the issues to fix. Considering the latest game that uses havoc is Rage 2 and Wolfenstein: Youngbloods released this year alone, meaning 19 years worth of use, I will say its going just fine and not going anywhere.

Edit:

8 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

One of the main problems is that a Second Life scene is made from a large number of assets, created independently by different content creators and not intended to work together as a whole. This adds a tremendous lot of overhead and it can't really be fixed without limiting the users' ability to freely create content.

This is the main thing and is so true. Relying on multiple assets from different creators will just hinder performance. Building an entire sim from scratch creating everything yourself is the easiest way to boost performance anywhere as you can uv map textures properly and reuse textures throughout the design wisely and do certain tricks to help it all.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Drayke Newall

[ChinRey]

12 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

This is the main thing and is so true. Relying on multiple assets from different creators will just hinder performance.

Yes but to be fair, it isn't the only thing. I've tried building sims entirely from my own ultra-opimised content and although it helps a lot, performance still falls short of what I'd expect from some other game engines.

Edited July 30, 2019 by ChinRey

[Drayke Newall]

15 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Yes but to be fair, it isn't the only thing. I've tried building sims entirely from my own ultra-opimised content and although it helps a lot, performance still falls short of what I'd expect from some other game engines.

When I built my sim, only time I experienced lag was when I tried using multiple moving grass textures.

Though that said, prims in themselves have far more polygons than what can be uploaded with mesh. A mesh cube uploaded can have 2  polygons per side and stretch to a maximum size of 64m without any difference in texture sharpness. Whereas a normal prim cube stretched to 64m will have multiple polygons. So I suppose it comes down to how optimised is optimised.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Drayke Newall