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Second life viewer has been so slow fow a whole year. Why does it happen?


Astrid Kaufmat
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Hello.

I have been using second life viewer for years. Lately I notice that it's incredibly slow even if I use an high-end pc. In detail I can tell you that the last good viewer I used  was the version "Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686". The next updates had as result a consistent cut off of fps ( about 3X less fps than the fps I got with the viewer version I mentioned above).

I've been waiting since August 2017 for a better viewer or something that run smooth like the version Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686,I opened a Jira, but nothing.

What is still strange is that looking in the wiki there are ways to run older versions of the viewer and I did this when the first newer versions with lower fps appeared. The result was each time I used the earlier vesion(Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686) my fps were raised up by 3X than the fps I get with the newer versions of the viewer.

My question is. What has changed in sl since the release Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686? that I know by then animesh and bake on mesh were still at embryological state of projecting

Is it, by chance, that newer versions support only directX12?

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cpu i7 7770k

Gpu nvidia gtx 1060 (with nvidia drivers always updated to newest version)

Using windows 7 and ubuntu 18.10.

I used Sl both way classic installation and also on a Ram disk moving all on custom paths nothing to helps it.All the newer versions from that one keeps making me slower.That's why I supposed maybe they no longer suport direct x11 or maybe not as good as in the past.

Edited by Astrid Kaufmat
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4 minutes ago, Astrid Kaufmat said:

cpu i7 7770k

Gpu nvidia gtx 1060 (with nvidia drivers always updated to newest version)

Using windows 7 and ubuntu 18.10.

I used Sl both way classic installation and also on a Ram disk moving all on custom paths nothing to helps it.All the newer versions from that one keeps making me slower.That's why I supposed maybe they no longer suport direct x11 or maybe not as good as in the past.

Whirly still needs the full information from ABOUT - HELP - ABOUT SECONDLIFE in the viewer to help diagnose.  

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CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz 
Memory: 16384 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 64-bit 
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 1060/PCIe/SSE2

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 25.21.14.1735
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 417.35

Window size: 1024x768
Font Size Adjustment: 96pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 64m
Bandwidth: 3000kbit/s
LOD factor: 2
Render quality: 0
Advanced Lighting Model: Disabled
Texture memory: 512MB
VFS (cache) creation time: December 23 2018 08:07:41

J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.10.4
Audio Driver Version: Undefined
Dullahan: 1.1.1080 / CEF: 3.3325.1750.gaabe4c4 / Chromium: 65.0.3325.146
LibVLC Version: 2.2.8
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Packets Lost: 0/4,490 (0.0%)
December 23 2018 11:00:22

 

here is the help menu. As you can see, I usually hang out at low settings unless I need to take pics or build and see effects.

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not sure if that value is there by default in new viewers or I have accidentally changed it. I use to delete all my settings folder before any new installation.

But it was worth a try so I logged in using a bandwidth once 1000 and once again lowered to 800 even with a bandwidth below 1000 no  change. I would sure see differences( and I saw it only if I force the login in the oldest version I said above in the past doing tests) no matter what settings you'd use.

26 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

Bandwidth looks high to me but I will leave it to those way more technical than I am to help

 

Edited by Astrid Kaufmat
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The bandwidth is high. The setting of Max Bandwidth is more for the server than your machine. The Firestorm people recommend a max of 1500. You can experiment with the setting but your zero lost packets suggests this is NOT the problem. Plus, the setting affects render time more than FPS.

While you get 1/3 less FPS I don't see where you say what your FPS is or what you are doing when you look at your FPS. So, we can't tell if you are below the norms.

In general my FPS has been going up over the years. I currently run an i5-6600k @ 4.1-4.2GHz with a GTX1060 6GB video card. I get FPS in the 20's in crowds and 100's in various empty/deserted places. I would say my average for most of my time is in the 40-60 range.

The SL viewers do NOT use DirectX. They use OpenGL. You have the latest OpenGL driver for your card. So, that should not be a problem.

Windows 10 added a number of improvements for games. So, most of us have upgraded to Win10 now v1809. You may be missing some game support running Win7. I have a client running Win7, not a gamer. She is complaining of 7 being slow. We've done a lot of clean up on the system and she still feels it is slow. I I tend to think it is Win7 not handling the latests security updates well. Otherwise, I can't see any reason for your slow down.

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6 hours ago, Astrid Kaufmat said:

I opened a Jira, but nothing.

I found your JIRA issue but you never replied to Kyle's questions.
BUG-20295 - last three versions of Second life viewers give half FPS

Your system information shows you are set on Render Quality 0 - ie you have basic shaders disabled.
Your system is decent & for such a system lower settings are not always goung to give you higher FPS
You need to keep Hardare Skinning enabled on your system for example or you will lose a lot of FPS
 

 

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15 hours ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

 

Your system information shows you are set on Render Quality 0 - ie you have basic shaders disabled.
Your system is decent & for such a system lower settings are not always goung to give you higher FPS
You need to keep Hardare Skinning enabled on your system for example or you will lose a lot of FPS
 

 

Yes thanks for pointing tat out I remember in the past too fingering with settings there were some to not touch. Today I installed again the whole viewer again cleaning anything included registry. I checked those boxes for basic shaders too.Nothing changed with last settings if I hang out alone I have a range of 100-120 FPS.

15 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

The bandwidth is high. The setting of Max Bandwidth is more for the server than your machine. 

While you get 1/3 less FPS I don't see where you say what your FPS is or what you are doing when you look at your FPS. So, we can't tell if you are below the norms.

In general my FPS has been going up over the years. I currently run an i5-6600k @ 4.1-4.2GHz with a GTX1060 6GB video card. I get FPS in the 20's in crowds and 100's in various empty/deserted places. I would say my average for most of my time is in the 40-60 range.

 

Agreed good to hangout. But if I move to places where they even do a party with  less than 20-30people I drop down to 20 fps or lower which is annoying cause under 25 fps you get that moonwalk feeling (of course keeping settings low).

With the oldest viewer (Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686) I was telling above that now could be used just forcing the login changing the parameters as shown in wiki, In discosteque and such places I used to get 80-100FPS at least. In the past( not so far away ago,we talk of July -August 2017) with the viewer version I mentioned above in places like dcs area I used to get in arena and similar places 280 300 Fps (tweaking a bit more the settings with extreme ways like 24 fardistance no particles and stuff) and camming away from avatar it raised up even to 380 fps .

About the bandwidth yes I changed it, as you suggested too yesterday, I see it was high , but making a fresh clean installation I realize that it was 3000 bandwidth cause now the linden viewer has as default setting that value.We got ask the programmers why they raised up bandwidth that much.

I tested these new viewers on my actual pc and my office one that is similar more and less a part certain pieces but no difference. I don't know if this is related just to SL viewer or to the whole new code/versions of all the viewers.Tho I'd love to keep using just SL viewer.

 

Edited by Astrid Kaufmat
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3 hours ago, Astrid Kaufmat said:

Agreed good to hangout. But if I move to places where they even do a party with  less than 20-30people I drop down to 20 fps or lower which is annoying cause under 25 fps you get that moonwalk feeling (of course keeping settings low).

With the oldest viewer (Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686) I was telling above that now could be used just forcing the login changing the parameters as shown in wiki, In discosteque and such places I used to get 80-100FPS at least. In the past( not so far away ago,we talk of July -August 2017) with the viewer version I mentioned above in places like dcs area I used to get in arena and similar places 280 300 Fps (tweaking a bit more the settings with extreme ways like 24 fardistance no particles and stuff) and camming away from avatar it raised up even to 380 fps .

About the bandwidth yes I changed it, as you suggested too yesterday, I see it was high , but making a fresh clean installation I realize that it was 3000 bandwidth cause now the linden viewer has as default setting that value.We got ask the programmers why they raised up bandwidth that much.

I tested these new viewers on my actual pc and my office one that is similar more and less a part certain pieces but no difference. I don't know if this is related just to SL viewer or to the whole new code/versions of all the viewers.Tho I'd love to keep using just SL viewer.

 

Thanks for providing the FPS info.

In the gaming world there are some odd speed demands. In SL combat we need FPS to handle and process keyboard commands more importantly than for visual fidelity. More FPS means your key-mouse input is likely to arrive before someone's with fewer FPS. So, More FPS equals more likely to win. A quick trigger finger thing. My personal experience is this is very true. When I'm trying to be competitive, I use all the tricks to optimize the viewer for high FPS. But, that makes the render ugly...

Visually for dancing, walking, running, and flying FPS above 10 FPS is adequate, at least according to a Linden I know. Hardware-wise most monitors are refreshing the image at 60 FPS. Higher end monitors are refreshing at 144 FPS and VR requires a minimum 90 FPS to avoid simulator sickness for most people. The SL viewer and servers are designed to operate on a 44 FPS basis. When the servers fall below that rate the viewer is designed to interpolate and continue providing 44+ FPS. Thus the effect we call rubberbanding happens when things catch up. All this gives us the hardware facts for deciding on a practical basis what settings to use.

There is much debate about what FPS a human can actually see. (Ref) But, we also have to consider what FPS the viewer can actually generate. At 380 FPS the SL system is repeating frames, like 8 or 9 repeats between each frame update. Your hardware is repeating the frames while it waits for SL servers to deliver new info. We can see a nicer image movement because our computers can use the information we have to figure out a new view. So, camera views can change smoothly.

You can see the effect in the SL viewer by opening the Snapshot Panel and enabling Freeze Frame. Alt-key and right-click-drag to see the effect. Enabling Auto-Refresh makes it more palatable. But, the scene is frozen. In Freeze Frame the viewer begins to ignore new info from the server and simply renders what info it has for the new camera position. This is what your video card does for 8 or 9 frames while it waits for an info update. When you disable Freeze Frame the image jerks, sort of the rubber banding effect we see when intrpolation is updated with actual data.

So, if you have 60Hz monitor and render more than 60 something FPS, there are frame renders that you never see. If you have 144Hz monitor you get to see more frames. But, it is challenging to know whether these are viewer interpolations or frames updated with 'new' server information or existing viewer data. 

As far as changing to another viewer for better FPS... I wouldn't bother. The render engine in the viewer is complex. The result is the third-party viewers mostly use the engine without modification. The Beta Firestorm 6.0.1 I find a bit slower than the Linden 6.0.1. The differences in speed between third-party viewers and the Linden viewer are in what the viewers ask the engine to render and how they supply information to the engine. I find most difference is in the time for scene time, start to no gray, than in FPS.

Overall all viewers provide about 20-30 FPS in crowds. The annoying problems are from LAG... the servers overloading and delaying outgoing information. Look at Server FPS to see when you are suffering from server side overloads.

The question I have is what do you think you'll do with anything faster than the typical 20 to 30 FPS?

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Thanks for letting us know the updates from lab toughts about fps. 10 FPs I think is really low to say it's liveable (wonder why then if I go reading blogs of gamers pcand games they all care to have at least 60 fps to enjoy it). But if lindens say so it explains a lot. From old school viewers  I have always been known 25 fps is the minimum to have a decent movement . I know of people who brag to have 2-5 fps and yet they pretend to do stuff like competitions in SL but I mostly think they do to scoff others" hey I kill you even if I am a zombie".Most of the fps I saw were probably a glitch but I've never been under 60 in clubs,using earlier versions of viewer.

I went to a party where a friend as DJing and I was having less than 15 fps .Once again all this didn't happen with earlier viewer  versions like Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686.To make it liveable if I go to a party now I must derender and mute everyone.

It could be programmed obsolescence.France has been hardly beaten by law and judges ;about this now many products there have to declare better informations about it.  I never saw hardware gettting so old in a couple of years, considering that my previous pc with a wolfdale a bit overclocked to 3800 ghz and a 9800 gtx has been giving me decent result for almost 10 years (I usually make machines that must last at least 10 years or more) .Then if there is a secret complot to make us buy new and more hardware I don't know .

Of couse about the human delay and synapsis delay around (0,12 msec) reasonable to explain why having extreme low ping or extreme fancy keyboard and mouse is "useless". But this aspect impacts more in the delay you'd have hitting the button and seeing the strike. Another talk,another book (physiology).At least before we complain about this I'd first need very smooth movements ,that are failing lately with recent viewers.Then comes all the  thoughts and discussion about delay.

The real question stays do you test the viewer I said(Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686)? do you notice the huge difference in performances and FPS? why is that happening? which feature( if a feature is ) could cause it?

Anyway thanks I'll try to make more tests with settings and stuff and, If I get anything good ,I let you all know.

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If you routinely got 80 fps or more in crowded areas...wow.  Consider yourself blessed.  I have a very capable machine and I never have gotten that sort of performance.  Even in low lag areas like my skybox at 3000m, my fps is around 60-70.  At clubs and even in empty ground level areas, I'm often at 30 or below.

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12 hours ago, Astrid Kaufmat said:

Thanks for letting us know the updates from lab toughts about fps. 10 FPs I think is really low to say it's liveable (wonder why then if I go reading blogs of gamers pcand games they all care to have at least 60 fps to enjoy it). But if lindens say so it explains a lot. From old school viewers  I have always been known 25 fps is the minimum to have a decent movement . I know of people who brag to have 2-5 fps and yet they pretend to do stuff like competitions in SL but I mostly think they do to scoff others" hey I kill you even if I am a zombie".Most of the fps I saw were probably a glitch but I've never been under 60 in clubs,using earlier versions of viewer.

37

10 is slow. But, SL is not the type of computer game you are thinking about for a 60 FPS experience. And the Lindens think it "livable", not ideal. They design for much higher rates. The platform is easily capable to 150+ FPS. But, the content and multi-server communication adds tremendous overhead, something most games aren't dealing with.

Other games are designed with content made by professional modelers and optimized for the game engine. Plus, the content is generally placed on your computer when you install the game. SL contains well over 200 petabytes of content. That is about 4 million Blu-Ray disks. So, there is no way to install all that data in a consumer computer.

Nor is the content designed by professionals. The majority of content is created by hobbyists that are unaware of how to optimize for game performance.

At one time the texture on an avatar was backed into three 512x512px images. Now there may be 12+/- 1024x1024px textures just on the body. Plus the nails, makeup, eyes, and other mesh body parts all using multiple textures. That is a huge difference in texture data load. So, the viewer has slowed less than texture had increased.

12 hours ago, Astrid Kaufmat said:

I went to a party where a friend as DJing and I was having less than 15 fps .Once again all this didn't happen with earlier viewer  versions like Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686.To make it liveable if I go to a party now I must derender and mute everyone.

FPS in a club is not as important as it is in a combat game. The viewer literally breaks loose from the frame rate for camera movement to provide a smoother experience. You will likely see the viewer lose connection at some point and your avatar stop moving, can't walk... eventually you get logged off if the viewer cannot reestablish a connection. But, you can zoom, move, and fly the camera during the disconnect. So, you can see camera movement and scene render is not totally tied to FPS or connection speeds.

If you are just dancing, the viewer acquires all the info it needs to render the scene and then speeds up. When you begin to move the camera the Interest List (what stuff the viewer needs to render your field of view) has to start updating and acquiring new information. You can see this problem by pressing Ctrl-Shift-3, the Texture Console. Move the camera and watch the list fill with new stuff that it needs. When I new avatar appears this list also fills up.

12 hours ago, Astrid Kaufmat said:

It could be programmed obsolescence.France has been hardly beaten by law and judges ;about this now many products there have to declare better informations about it.  I never saw hardware gettting so old in a couple of years, considering that my previous pc with a wolfdale a bit overclocked to 3800 ghz and a 9800 gtx has been giving me decent result for almost 10 years (I usually make machines that must last at least 10 years or more) .Then if there is a secret complot to make us buy new and more hardware I don't know .

The Lindens has no interest in making anything SL obsolete. Computer makers are in the game of providing more and better. Game developers take advantage of that and do more with their games. When you want to do more, you update the computer. If your demands for work are not changing, there is no reason to upgrade.

Computers will last 10 years... but, in 10 years tech will have advanced so far the computer will look pretty sad. There is no way to anticipate what tech will be available in 10 years. So, the French courts and law makers aren't going to solve your problem.

12 hours ago, Astrid Kaufmat said:

The real question stays do you test the viewer I said(Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686)? do you notice the huge difference in performances and FPS? why is that happening? which feature( if a feature is ) could cause it?

I have the performance numbers on my blog. From 5.0.6 to 6.0.1 aren't that different. As best I can tell the biggest hit comes from from content. Not changes in the viewer.

Think of it this way. If in 2018 they improved viewer performance by 20% and users increased the render load by 30% and see a 10% slow down... is the viewer the problem?

If you live in a town of 500 and get to work in 10 minutes then the town turns into a city of 1 million and takes you 30 minutes to get to work... is something wrong with your car?

Basically, SL will never perform like most computer games because technical design difference. 10 FPS to 60 FPS with 20 to 30 being typical... is what you'll get with SL using any viewer.

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Probably people here think I was born yesterday or that I can't read stats or use bencharks programs. I have been assembling pc's for years and always made them work at top.Probably they think I am allucinated or on crack. Not at all.

As promised I made more tests. I tried old viewer I also tried to import some files or settings from old viewer to the new ( with the needed modifies) no big result. But when I log again in the viewer version I said above I keep getting huge , monstrous difference in FPS.

Here is my last test anybody can repeat this.  Facts not words

here is how to repeat the test and how to verify it:

1) Viewer version used : Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686_Setup.exe 

(to use older versions you need to edit the properties just right click and in the path add --channel "Test 123" after secodlife.exe).It's not harder than setting custom paths for SL viewe as specified here http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_parameters

2) To allow anybody to repeat the test I used Ruth without ao and any other item worn (but the difference in fps even with a mesh avatar and ao wouldn't change at all).To ruth yourself you need to go to develop/character tests/tests female.

3)then lower your draw distance to 30 which is good deal als o for exploring dancing and so on (unless you need to make pictures or movies or test your building, we're talking of eveyday usage with best performances).To do this for those who don't know how to in classic viewer  go to advanced menu/ show debug settings and type in the blank space : renderfarclip , then set as value 30.

And I made the test in a linden welcome center so we can't use as justification "hobbists  made pieces of furniture and avatars".No no no no no that's not it.The viewer rocked till 1 year ago even with "hobbists" stuff around ( with all respect for "hobbists "after all who made the self saying themself professional profssionists?)

Here are the proofs of what I say

How comes I still see in the version viewer ( Second_Life_5_0_6_326593_i686) more than 260 fps when I go around which allows me to be also in busy places with other avatar and losing a few fps I still have 180 160 Fps with prople around so smooth like hell?

With the new viewer you get 110 Fps (the avarage) in a sandbodx and alone but if you go to clubs it's not normal anymore getting on knees with 30 -40 fps or even  lower if the builder has used really laggy pieces of furnitures. Oh yes with 30 pfs I should consider myself lucky especially if I walk like in a slow motion movie feeling my feet in a soup.

Attention please we're not talking of 2 different versions of viewers like comparing viewer 6.x to 1.x to 2.x  .In that case you could call me alucinated. We're talking of version 5.x that was around last summer (more and less) and this loss of FPS has been there for  a year. In the past this happened yes. but after 1 at least 2 versions update the viewer got back there again as good as it was before.There haven't been big releases of new features either to justify this lag between the two versions. that I know the nly big new thing is now animesh. But this happened also before animesh came out( few months ago).

 

old-viewer.png.81a60f7e9d0899287a7f0c97ef6f4fdc.pngnew-viewer.png.0d85614c0d78d078c3e63d45a5683c95.png

Someone above said that we expect fps to be lower, if I remember well. I remember that in the old SL world I used to have  the same pc with a 9800 GTX and fps never went low this way and they've been high for years (9 10 years I used the older pc).What's that programmed obsolescence? now that Sl is on steam it works like other games there? Some persons I assemble pc for tell me some steam games give them discounts if I put in their pc a specific card.Then what should I think we make you obsolete so you get new Nvidia cards? Is it possible?Or is this some new feature or some shaders that are no more working to be turned off ( I heard of some problems with pfs in phoenix viewer too but they resolved  doing a manual setting for specular shaders).

Edited by Astrid Kaufmat
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Between those 2 viewer versions, LL set a hard limit on FPS.  I'll comment back when I find the commit & the reason why they did this.
The limit was so high though that it really shouldn't adversely affect anyone.
You are getting over 100 FPS on the new viewer in your images though - do you really need more FPS then that?

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