Slow Rezzing-in: How to tell whether network or hardware?

[Qie Niangao]

Especially when visiting busy venues it can take several minutes to rez-in mesh geometry and textures. Both an old machine and a slow network may be contributing to the slowness, and I'm trying to decide which to try addressing first.

This is with a short (<100m) draw distance, low maximum avatar complexity, default 1.0 rendervolumeLOD -- and anyway I'm not especially concerned with rendering performance, but rather the long (and growing?) time between arriving at a location and having enough of the scene rezzed-in to be able to navigate.

For completeness, here's my configuration:

Quote

Second Life Release 5.1.9.519298 (64bit)
Release Notes

You are at 140.0, 46.0, 25.4 in Calintreau located at sim10531.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.52.37:13014)
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Calintreau/140/46/25
(global coordinates 462,476.0, 306,222.0, 25.4)
Second Life RC BlueSteel 18.09.20.519894
Release Notes

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3450 CPU @ 3.10GHz (3103.05 MHz)
Memory: 8151 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 17134)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 660/PCIe/SSE2

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 24.21.14.1163
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 411.63

Window size: 1622x942
Font Size Adjustment: 96pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 96m
Bandwidth: 2400kbit/s
LOD factor: 1
Render quality: 5
Advanced Lighting Model: Enabled
Texture memory: 512MB
VFS (cache) creation time: January 25 2018 07:38:07

J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.10.4
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Ex 4.44.64
Dullahan: 1.1.1080 / CEF: 3.3325.1750.gaabe4c4 / Chromium: 65.0.3325.146
LibVLC Version: 2.2.8
Voice Server Version: Vivox 4.9.0002.30313

Packets Lost: 15/15,009 (0.1%)
October 02 2018 07:33:05

That's one setup, but it's really not a viewer-specific problem; compared to my experiences with the LL viewer, Firestorm might be slightly slower and Catznip slightly faster, but this rezzing-in performance is pretty dreadful regardless of viewer.

Obviously my GPU is several generations old with correspondingly stingy VRAM, and the CPU is old, too (but are more recent CPUs enough faster to be worth the disruption of getting a whole new machine?).

My network sucks, too: a (Canadian) Bell "Fibe" VDSL link that's measuring about 19 Mbps down, 1.6Mbps up, but I don't think that performance has degraded since rezzing-in was much more tolerable. But one might reasonably expect network to be a bottleneck specifically during the rezzing-in process, right?

The question is how to determine what to attack first, to avoid spending time fixing a problem that will remain hidden by an even worse bottleneck.

Or is it all hopeless and I need to move to a less telecom-disadvantaged country, and pick up a new machine on the way?

[cykarushb]

Hardware is fine for SL. Slow rezzing would almost always be network related. If some stuff stayed missing or gray it could be cache related but just overall slow loading, network.

Your network speeds are fine but im willing to bet your pingtime is whats holding you back.

Because you seem concerned with your PC's hardware, i can assure you the 660 and older i5 are perfectly fine for SL. I run an i5 4570 and a GTX 970 and its just overkill for this game. While you would see better performance with better hardware, it would be a matter of a few frames per second at most. That i5 and 970 perform just a tad bit better than a Pentium E6500k and a GTX 275, which i have tested on SL as part of its "system requirements". 

[Alyona Su]

I used to get really slow-rezzing when using Firestorm. Ever since I switched away from it, even really crowded places rez fully within 10 to 20 seconds and last few avatars within about 60 seconds from first landing. I do mean new places that are not in the cache, such as Event sims.

Seriously: try other third-party viewers. Firestorm has turned into major bloatware the way I see it. It must also be buggy because I no longer have to relog every couple hours and never crash. The only time I have to relog is when my interwebs have a hiccup and I lose connection.

Edited October 2, 2018 by Alyona Su

[Qie Niangao]

Thanks for the suggestions... I'll keep watching for other responses, too. I'd still like to know (for myself and for anybody else who asks) if there are objective measurements that reveal the specific bottleneck, particularly for this rezzing-in performance.

Meanwhile I've tried installing the current Black Dragon viewer. Too soon to tell if it helps anything, but just starting it the first time and rezzing into my sky platform I got a notification I haven't seen before:

Quote

We are sorry, Linden Lab has discovered degraded performance on your connection to the region you are on.  You will need to restart Second Life and log into a new region for the next 30 minutes to an hour.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

I wonder what exactly "Linden Lab has discovered" here. Maybe all will become clear over time.

[Alyona Su]

38 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

We are sorry, Linden Lab has discovered degraded performance on your connection to the region you are on.  You will need to restart Second Life and log into a new region for the next 30 minutes to an hour.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

This is new to LL also. Someone else reported it in another thread and Oz Linden said (I paraphrase): "Put that in Jira - now I'm intrigued". I don't recall of the person mentioning this error said which viewer they were using, but I am thinking it's a viewer thing if even Oz is "intrigued" LOL

I tried Black Dragon myself and it's feature favor the really technical types, so I decided it wasn't for me, though I hear raves about it. I use Catznip myself and have most Firestorm feature and a few features no other viewer has (as I write this) that make inventory management an amazing breeze. I've also liked Kokua, but it's been a long time since I've tried it.

The sad fact is that most who use Firestorm use it because someone told them to. Many I talk to don't bother with any of the features (in terms of customizing them). But I digress, other than to say to anyone reading this: If you ever have glitches or complaints about SL then *always* try another viewer. Always.

[Qie Niangao]

Ah, good. I'm finding Black Dragon too idiosyncratic to track down and disable all the "special features", but Catznip has been my "daily driver" most of this year, only using Firestorm and LL viewers for special purposes. As I said, Catznip may be slightly better at this rezzing-in thing (and rendering in general), but I'm finding all of them markedly slower than, say, a year ago, specifically at rezzing-in, and the degradation has been fairly steady and gradual (except when I screw up and leave my draw distance too deep after a photo session).

I'm beginning to think this may simply be the way of the world, trying to rez ever more Mesh geometry painted with ever more high-res textures.

[Alyona Su]

29 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I'm beginning to think this may simply be the way of the world, trying to rez ever more Mesh geometry painted with ever more high-res textures.

Bingo. You get to eat the Winner's Cookie.

I prefer prims over mesh if they look good enough. Sculpties over mesh if they look and rezz good enough, and mesh only when there's no other choice or the quality is stunning (which makes this a 50/50 proposition) and I am referring to rezzed stuff, not clothes.

[Whirly Fizzle]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

We are sorry, Linden Lab has discovered degraded performance on your connection to the region you are on.  You will need to restart Second Life and log into a new region for the next 30 minutes to an hour.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

Yeah this an odd thing.

Bug report: BUG-225544 - "We are sorry, Linden Lab has discovered degraded performance on your connection to the region you are on."

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

 I'm beginning to think this may simply be the way of the world, trying to rez ever more Mesh geometry painted with ever more high-res textures.

I'll agree with Alyona here.  While my rez times, even at huge crowded events, are usually still less than 15-20 seconds (with Firestorm), overall rezzing is still slower for me than it was a year ago and definitely slower than it was back before nearly everything was made of mesh.

[Deann3]

Unfortunately, slow rezzing is part and parcel with sl now. And likely will be until linden lab recognises the fault is with the program and fixes it.