A Returning resident,with some questions.

[Beyonder616]

   Hello everyone,I am new to the forums,I have decided to give Second Life another serious attempt.

   The last one was in 2010-2011 where i played a lot.I don't have access to that account and have tried to play again in 2015 with this account but I couldn't find any of the old places that i remembered and I didn't find much interest in the new places that i discovered.Coming back now i found alternatives to those and other cool places.

   Now one big problem i have found is the fps drop and the viewer crash,I played with both the SL and Firestorm viewer but both seem to give these problems,like both set my graphic settings on high,my laptop is midrange,changing to medium or low doesn't seem to change much.What could i do to make things go smoother?

   The places that i have interest in seem to be pretty empty,i see that lots of events are happening,i suppose those are the places that have the most people,right?

   Are there any new good ways of making linden dollars?I remember there being lots of camping balls or chairs and money trees that help at the start,have not seen much of those yet.I did start using Bletaverse and it seems to go well for now.

  And to end it,are there any other major changes that have happened?Like some changes which would be good to know about them.

 

Edited August 19, 2018 by Beyonder616

[PhantomPixel]

You say "mid range"......how mid range. Like how old is your laptop, how much memory does it have, what graphics card are you using inside of it etc etc. Does it use windows 10? if so there are a small number of people who experienced those issues when the had Nvidia cards. One fix was going into the settings and limiting fps to around 60. Also if using windows 10 and you have dedicated graphics make sure that Firestorm / V3 is actually using that card etc etc. Also if you want a slightly lightweight viewer that seems to work for people that have issues with the other ones, look up Singularity. Another one that works wonders is Alchemy.

[Chic Aeon]

Lots has happened including MESH and materials which can easily slow down your computer. If you past your computer stats in here (Firestorm> Help> About Firestorm> Copy to Clipboard ) someone will let you know. If your computer is older and not all that powerful than that is mostly likely your problem. I have an older notebook computer that ran SL fine a decade ago LOL.  Can't even log in now. 

As noted Singularity or another 1.23 based (older style) viewer may help. It usually does.

Best place to make money is on the Linden Realms.  No real easy way like in the old days. 

 

 

[Lindal Kidd]

I must differ with Chic on this one...Linden Realms is a waste of time, although a diligent person can make a few $L per hour.  It is MUCH simpler and quicker to just buy some $L with a credit card or PayPal.

[Beyonder616]

I was just randomly using midrange,without really checking that out,i did change my system like 2 times after 2011,this laptop i bought like almost an year ago,here is the clipboard data:

Firestorm 5.1.7 (55786) Jul 13 2018 20:00:04 (64bit) (Firestorm-Releasex64) with Havok support
Release Notes

You are at 87.4, 34.5, 21.4 in Johanna located at sim10633.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.52.195:13014)
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Johanna/87/34/21
(global coordinates 207,703.0, 315,938.0, 21.4)
Second Life Server 18.07.20.518086
Release Notes

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4288U CPU @ 2.60GHz (2593.99 MHz)
Memory: 8116 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 16299)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 920MX/PCIe/SSE2

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 20.19.15.4364
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 388.43

RestrainedLove API: (disabled)
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2l zlib/1.2.8 nghttp2/1.25.0
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.10.4
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 1.10.05
Dullahan: 1.1.1080 / CEF: 3.3325.1750.gaabe4c4 / Chromium: 65.0.3325.146
LibVLC Version: 2.2.8
Voice Server Version: Vivox 4.9.0002.27586

Settings mode: Firestorm
Viewer Skin: Firestorm (Grey)
Window size: 1366x705 px
Font Used: Deja Vu (96 dpi)
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 64 m
Bandwidth: 500 kbit/s
LOD factor: 1.5
Render quality: Low (1/7)
Advanced Lighting Model: No
Texture memory: 1024 MB (1)
VFS (cache) creation time (UTC): 2018-8-19T12:2:37 
Built with MSVC version 1800
Packets Lost: 0/2,177 (0.0%)
August 19 2018 14:34:17 SLT.

Edited August 19, 2018 by Beyonder616

[Lindal Kidd]

Your system shouldn't have any problems running SL, although maybe not on the highest graphics settings.  How are you connecting to the internet, and how is your computer connected to your local network?

[Beyonder616]

My laptop is connected to my wifi network,the router is right under it.But i don't think that is the problem,there is no lag,it is a FPS drop for sure.Second Life gets in the not responding mode a lot,and if that continues it forces my viewer to get me out of the game like the screen where it says there may be some problem with the place you were.I don't really understand why it happens,sometimes it is random,while i am just wandering around the same area,for a while.

[MoiraKathleen]

Regarding your comment about it getting in the "not responding mode", you might want to try connecting via ethernet cable rather than wireless.  Sometimes wireless connection aren't as stable of a connection.  

[Penny Patton]

SL keeps demanding more powerful computers to run it with decent FPS and graphics settings, largely due to the introduction of mesh, which simultaneously allows for better optimized content and far more bloated content than SL had before. Unfortunately, LL never gave content creators any incentive to optimize and most only know content creation from SL itself, where there's never been a culture of "try to get the most out of the fewest resources" like you find in gaming dev and game modding communities. 

 Viewers now have a feature that let's you set an avatar complexity cap. I recommend using it. One extremely bloated avatar can crash a mid to low range computer out of SL. Unfortunately, this feature does not take texture use into consideration, and bloated texture use is one of the biggest performance killers right now. But it's better than nothing. And remember to keep your own draw weight down, for your own sake if no one else's. If your avatar is extremely resource intensive, you'll lag everywhere you go.

Keep your draw distance low (I tend to keep mine around 128m but ymmv).

You can also set the maximum number of avatars that will be rendered at once. The others being rendered as pixel "imposters". This helps a lot with performance.

Other than that, not all sims are that bad. Some are pretty good. Of course, it really depends on what you're looking for in SL. Keep an eye out for those places where you find yourself lagging less, or even getting better FPS. Even if those places are empty, you can always drag friends back there later.

 Speaking of empty places, even the popular spots in SL have their slow hours and their busy hours. Don't write a place off just because you visited once and it was empty. And if you find a really good, empty place, you can also drag your friends there sometime.

[Coffee Pancake]

Everything Penny said.

There aren't really any free L$ sources in world anymore, camping and money trees are long gone.

I would advise an annual premium membership $72 .. for which you will get $60 back in L$ at 300 a week over the course of the year. So net cost is $12 and you can have 1024sqm of land included, priority teleports for getting into busy events

[Beyonder616]

    I played some SL yesterday for some hours,no crash,no messages with not responding,it was great and i visited lots of places.Well there was only one place that gave me a huge fps drop but even that one couldn't get me to the not responding message.I didn't do anything,everything went great with medium,even with high,that made me let it stay at high.Even ultra seems to be working fine although i tried it in only one place.

   Yup,i saw the avatar complexity thing,it seems I can't view anything over 350.000 in complexity,that is when I am on the ultra setting.My new friend managed to get over 500.000 in complexity,good thing that firestorm keeps me from not seeing them,to avoid the lag thing.

   I tried using the marketplace,again,do most owners keep most of their items in the marketplace?Or do they like to keep them in their inworld shop more?This marketplace takeover is also something I have heard is a new problem.I asked this because i was not able to find several items from one owner,in the marketplace,but I found them in their inworld shop,I might have not been searching in the right way,possibly.

   Where are these Linden Realms taking place?I couldn't find it by searching for the place,I only found the group.From looking a bit around the forums,they seem to be like some sort of an mmorpg?

   Right now Bletaverse traffic cone jumping is my main income source,it seems to be work better for me than camping did,I already have more than I had on my old account,but over there I was more of a freebie hunter,than anything else.

Edited August 22, 2018 by Beyonder616

[Penny Patton]

20 hours ago, Beyonder616 said:

Yup,i saw the avatar complexity thing,it seems I can't view anything over 350.000 in complexity,that is when I am on the ultra setting.My new friend managed to get over 500.000 in complexity,good thing that firestorm keeps me from not seeing them,to avoid the lag thing.

You can turn it off by setting the slider to 0, but then you have to deal with the performance hit from every bad avatar.

20 hours ago, Beyonder616 said:

 I tried using the marketplace,again,do most owners keep most of their items in the marketplace?Or do they like to keep them in their inworld shop more?This marketplace takeover is also something I have heard is a new problem.I asked this because i was not able to find several items from one owner,in the marketplace,but I found them in their inworld shop,I might have not been searching in the right way,possibly.

The userbase is split between those who put everything on the marketplace, and those who focus on their inworld shop. Personally, I only shop on the marketplace these days. For all its many problems, it's still easier than navigating most inworld stores.

LL has promised an overhaul to the marketplace. Hopefully they manage to do it right. There's so much they can improve and I think that will help get more people keeping their marketplace shop up to date.

 

Edited August 23, 2018 by Penny Patton
words

[Lindal Kidd]

6 hours ago, Penny Patton said:

LL has promised an overhaul to the marketplace. Hopefully they manage to do it right. There's so much they can improve and I think that will help get more people keeping their inworld shop up to date.

 

Not if everyone is like you and shops only on the Marketplace!  Support In World Stores!  Just SAY NO to the Marketplace!

[Lindal Kidd]

For Linden Realms, try searching "Portal Park".  (Heh...I know, obvious, right?)

[Penny Patton]

1 hour ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Not if everyone is like you and shops only on the Marketplace!  Support In World Stores!  Just SAY NO to the Marketplace!

Whoops. Mistyped. I meant to say "keep their marketplace shops up to date". I've edited the post.

[Beyonder616]

    Damn,this Portal Park place seems to open up lots of interesting places.Linden Realms was fun,it seems you have a limit on how much you can make per day out of quests,the other option of making money being green and blue crystals,which I don't have an idea where I can find,I only managed to find a single green crystal somehow.For the traffic cone jumping will work out better,I guess.

     I found out something interesting by jumping,some sort of mining activity that can help me get lindens,it seems similar to the fishing activity which I also heard about.I don't have any idea how these would work out,trying them out would be a great plan.

    I hope,that SL can also run well,on Linux.

Edited August 23, 2018 by Beyonder616