Avatar Complexity?

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Amorenna said:

It seems so interesting to me that the avatar complexity counts are so inaccurate. Why have the number at all?

It's a rather complex combination of several unfortuante factors but a simple explanation of the two most important ones:

Back in 2011 when the render complexity formula was developed, nobody at Linden Lab cared much about client side load at all. Their attitude was that if people had lag problems, they should simply buy a stronger computer and they were really only interested in how much work their own servers and connection lines had to handle. The render complexity was only added as an afterthought.

In 2013, when fitted mesh was introduced, they still had that same attitude so they did a quick and dirty job, completely breaking one of the msot important lag reducing mechanisms in SL, the LoD model system.

It wasn't until a new leadership took over in 2014 LL started to look at SL from a user's point of view. One of the solutions they came up with, was the "jellybean" function when the od ignored render weight suddenly became very important. Unfortunately, they didn't realize how badly their predecessors had messed things up so it never occured to them to do a proper reality check, they just took the old code at face value. Lots of people noticed that there was something wrong of course, but nobody took then seriously until Optimo Maximo started that first thread I linked to and Beq Janus got into it. Those are not the kidn of people you can't simply write off (Optimo is a professional game 3D modeller and Beq is one of the main Firestorm developers) and the evidence they came up with, was way to clear to be ignored. That was March 2018 though, only seven motnhs ago.

Edited November 10, 2018 by ChinRey

[Coby Foden]

Old primmy flexi dresses with high ARC appear to rez faster than mesh clothes do. Even in crowded places if some attendees happen to wear flexi dresses. When flexi dresses have rezzed there are still pieces of mesh wearables dancing in the air for quite a while. Looks like that this is also some indication that something is really wrong with ARC calculation.

[LittleMe Jewell]

Yeah, I've found that old flexi clothing and hair rez faster than mesh in crowded areas - though it all seems about the same in non-crowded areas, where there aren't thousands of things competing to be rezzed.

As to the CI values themselves, not only will sculpts and most flexies shoot the number up, but any of those old flexies with lots of alpha texturing will really skyrocket that CI value.  The dress in this outfit is a bit over 2,000,000 because of all the flexi prims with tons of alpha textures.  With the hair, headpiece, and jewelry added in, the entire outfit came in at 2,884,640.

 

[Amorenna Bae]

Hmm so what I'm gathering here is that complexity doesn't seem to really have any real read or calculation on a mesh avie's encumbrance. lol

[ChinRey]

9 hours ago, Coby Foden said:

Old primmy flexi dresses with high ARC appear to rez faster than mesh clothes do.

Prims will always rez faster than rigid meshes.

Rigid meshes will often rez faster than sculpts.

Sculpts will always rez much faster than fitted mesh.

But that's load time, a different kind of lag. What the render complexity was intended to measure, is the gpu load, that is how much an item slows down the performance after it's been rendered.

 

7 hours ago, Amorenna said:

Hmm so what I'm gathering here is that complexity doesn't seem to really have any real read or calculation on a mesh avie's encumbrance. lol

Render complexity does work to some degree to catch excessive texturing. And of course, the fewer avatars there are, the better. So getting rid of some do improve performance, even if the avatars derendered or evicted aren't the big lag monsters.

Bt apart from that, yes. Linden Lab is working on a new resource monitoring system now. Whether that will help, remains to be seen.

[Matsumoto Orellana]

Many of my Avatars go from 40,000 to 100,000. Rarely do they go over 100,000 at all. 93,000 is the highest common one I use. I set the render to render all Avatars. By that I mean max complexity set to unlimited. And even when I am around many that are 50,000+ they render fine and I don't get lag. I must have a good PC and Internet connection or maybe Avatar render is overrated and most people should just max it?

Edited November 17, 2018 by Matsumoto Orellana

[LittleMe Jewell]

8 hours ago, Matsumoto Orellana said:

I set the render to render all Avatars. By that I mean max complexity set to unlimited.

You should slide that down a bit.  If you even end up somewhere with griefers, they could overload your GPU and cause it to fry.  You can still keep it set very high, just don't leave it at "unlimited".

[AyelaNewLife]

12 hours ago, Matsumoto Orellana said:

Many of my Avatars go from 40,000 to 100,000. Rarely do they go over 100,000 at all. 93,000 is the highest common one I use. I set the render to render all Avatars. By that I mean max complexity set to unlimited. And even when I am around many that are 50,000+ they render fine and I don't get lag. I must have a good PC and Internet connection or maybe Avatar render is overrated and most people should just max it?

As has been said a few times in this thread, the official viewer/Firestorm complexity calculation is outdated to the point of near uselessness, so there's no point in trying to draw conclusions from what you've seen.

[Ansariel Hiller]

14 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

As has been said a few times in this thread, the official viewer/Firestorm complexity calculation is outdated to the point of near uselessness, so there's no point in trying to draw conclusions from what you've seen.

Even if you don't like it: That's the official calculation until LL changes it. If we were changing it on our own like that furry viewer with its handful of users did, we would have got slapped by LL big time instantly. But don't worry. Calculations are gonna change with the ARCtan project. ?

Edited November 17, 2018 by Ansariel Hiller

[AyelaNewLife]

26 minutes ago, Ansariel Hiller said:

Even if you don't like it: That's the official calculation until LL changes it. If we were changing it on our own like that furry viewer with its handful of users did, we would have got slapped by LL big time instantly. But don't worry. Calculations are gonna change with the ARCtan project. ?

Hey I don't blame you guys at all for sticking with the party line, even if the party line is terrible  you can get away with that kind of eccentricity if you're developing a niche viewer; yours, uh, is not, and it is for the best that you mirror the LL viewer with that kind of thing.

[iceing Braveheart]

On 11/2/2018 at 12:09 PM, Alyona Su said:

 This is another reason I won't buy ANYTHING costing more than 25L without a demo first. it's not just how it fits anymore. It's that rendering score. I saw a hair I fell in love with. Score: 160000. Umm, no.

this forum seems to be against graphics and visuals, this forum seems to prefer that it had remained 1962 for forever without any progression moving forward

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H6hnFV-nDU

[Alyona Su]

3 minutes ago, iceing Braveheart said:

this forum seems to be against graphics and visuals, this forum seems to prefer that it had remained 1962 for forever without any progression moving forward

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H6hnFV-nDU

Only in your mind.

[iceing Braveheart]

On 11/17/2018 at 2:33 PM, Ansariel Hiller said:

Even if you don't like it: That's the official calculation until LL changes it. If we were changing it on our own like that furry viewer with its handful of users did, we would have got slapped by LL big time instantly. But don't worry. Calculations are gonna change with the ARCtan project. ?

What is the benefit of 3rd party viewers if change is not allowed and is forbidden?

[LittleMe Jewell]

22 minutes ago, iceing Braveheart said:

What is the benefit of 3rd party viewers if change is not allowed and is forbidden?

Nobody said you couldn't change it.  As a matter of fact, a few pointed you to the code base and said to go for it.

[Fionalein]

The problem with complexity calculation is that it is done client side - if your complexity function always answers 1000 you would be 1000 to security orbs... That is why most TPVs adhere to the LInden way of doing it, get caught cheating the complexity ball and some land owners will sure permaban you from their land.

[Solar Legion]

On 11/22/2018 at 3:38 PM, Fionalein said:

The problem with complexity calculation is that it is done client side - if your complexity function always answers 1000 you would be 1000 to security orbs... That is why most TPVs adhere to the LInden way of doing it, get caught cheating the complexity ball and some land owners will sure permaban you from their land.

It is also one of the many reasons why some view Complexity as being an absolutely worthless value - at least for anything beyond one's own machine.

Which is how it should be.

Users need to tune/tweak things so that their experience is good and their machine renders things well. Any attempt to enforce a Complexity value beyond that needs to be put down.

[Ginger Shostakovich]

*wonders* Is this the reason why I sometimes see people who appear naked to me? Even when everything else is rezzed, they don't seem to be wearing any clothes, even in general sims / shops (and no, I don't think it's because they are nudists). 

[Fionalein]

29 minutes ago, Ginger Shostakovich said:

*wonders* Is this the reason why I sometimes see people who appear naked to me? Even when everything else is rezzed, they don't seem to be wearing any clothes, even in general sims / shops (and no, I don't think it's because they are nudists). 

Sometimes the cloth information reaches your machine substantially later than the body one, so they appear naked untill cloth info arrives. Not based on complexity but closely related, as more complex outfit items also need more data to be transmitted.

[Cherry Asturias]

On 11/9/2018 at 11:35 AM, ChinRey said:

I know, those are long threads and rather technical too but to sum it up, that "old *****ty garbage" isn't nearly as laggy compared to fitted mesh as the complexity numbers indicate.  To compare the two fairly, you have to at least double or even quadruple the compexity number of the fitted mesh. That is 60,000 ARC worth of citted mesh equals 120,000-240,000 ARC worth of "old *****ty garbage". That's not an exaggeration, it's actually a very conservative estimate. Some 60,000 ARC mesh avatars may well be laggier than any classic avatar ever seen in SL.

Here's the explanation:

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/419469-rigged-mesh-lod-bug/

and

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/419469-rigged-mesh-lod-bug/

I see this is an old topic but I happened up on it and I have something to add

I did not go to a mesh body until 2019. I did not like how long it took mesh bodied people to load in. I never had issues with classic avatars unless the people were wearing a lot of armor and weapons and such. So, I decided to join the laggy mess of mesh people. I got my mesh head just several months ago (2020) and at that time I saw the maitreya petite addon, so I got that too.

I have always been very unhappy in how that I arrive somewhere and body parts are flying all around, heads, teeth, arms, legs, clothing, etc... and some never load in at all, so here are these body parts that fly all around the whole time I am present and others take a long time to load in. Some mesh clothing takes forever to load in, so I stand in the middle of partly rezzed naked bodies. Mesh people have caused me more lag than classic avatars ever did. I was surprised to hear people saying it is the classic avatars and everyone should go mesh to help get rid of lag. I have friends who have issues with the mesh bodies and not with classic avatars. And I am not living SL life with jelly bodies all around me either hahaha

With the mesh body and outfits, I dont dare change clothes out in public. The layers often load incorrectly onto my mesh body and I have to take off and put back on to get the layers in order. This has left me standing in the middle of a crowd with the big maitreya boobs hanging  out of the top of my shirt until I am able to take off the petite addon and put it on again. And I have to do this with face products to get them on with layers in order, so they show up.

This past week, finally just truly sick and tired of the mesh body, and even though I realize it will not help the issue because all others are going to remain with mesh bodies, I took myself back to the classic avatar. She is wearing a bit of what I see called bom layers. Her complexity is showing at 16,666 with a one rank, whatever that means. With the mesh body, she ran around 25k to 35k with that one rank and some clothes seems to take her up to 60k and I am a very dressed down person compared to the majority in SL. I am not finding the reading of the complexity to matter when it comes to laggy areas. There are three people who come to one place I go to and every time those three mesh bodies with mesh heads show up, I just about cannot function at all because of the lag they bring with them and their complexity is around 50k and 60k.

I was able to obtain a face pretty close to my real life face with my classic avi, whereas I have not been able to do that with my mesh head. My mesh head is too prim proper perfect with her perfect little sissy face and fat, pouty lips that cannot be altered in a way fitting to me hahaha I hate that head hahaha Lelutka.Nova. I do miss having the small maitreya petite boobs but at least I dont have to worry about the big maitreya boobs hanging out because the outfit doesnt load in proper order.

I may wear my mesh body and head some time later on, maybe. I dont know. There are imperfections with my classic avi.The hands are ugly and slink hands will not seam up right and flicker. The feet are ugly when I cannot wear my slink feet with dresses or shorts because that seam has an open space in it and I have tried to work on this for hours and hours and days and days and I am sick of trying, so forget it. The body skin has a dark ring around the upper pelvis area and I have tried many classic skins and they all do this. BUT I like my classic avatar. It is all the mesh bodies, heads and body parts that cause my firestorm and SL viewers to have issues. Put me in a sim of classic avis and all runs pretty well, far better than when all of this mess came out with mesh bodies and heads. I have found the mesh bodies and heads to be laggy and overrated.

I just wanted to put my two cents in with this thread. Nobody is going to convince me that the complexity number necessarily tells if an avi is laggy and that classic avatars are more laggy than mesh avatars, because I experience otherwise

Edited December 23, 2020 by Cherry Asturias