Are scripted objects taxing on the GPU?

[malienna]

I notice that whenever I am using a certain farming system, my computer overheats. It's the fields themselves that seem to be causing this issue, not the animals. Is there any sort of gadget or tool I can use to clarify what's going on with the fields? I already have to use the lowest possible settings in SL, but am able to play most other farming systems without any issues, it's just this one that causes this problem (sadly, it's my favorite one).

[malienna]

I am also thinking it could be the sim. How can I determine how many scripts are in the sim itself, not just from my own objects/avatar?

[Qie Niangao]

If you're up for some reading material, there's a wiki Knowledge Base article, "How to improve viewer performance" that concludes showing how to bring up the Statistics Bar. and a link to another article about how to decipher the metrics on that Statistics Bar. If you scroll down and expand the Simulator section, you'll get to "Active scripts" which is a count of all the scripts in the sim.

The thing is, that metric affects the sim, not really anything that would overheat your computer.

If the problem really is GPU workload from the specific farming system, that system might be flooding your viewer with object updates. The Develop menu can toggle a special indicator "Show Updates to Objects" (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-U) but that's just one possibility.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

3 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

If the problem really is GPU workload from the specific farming system, that system might be flooding your viewer with object updates. The Develop menu can toggle a special indicator "Show Updates to Objects" (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-U) but that's just one possibility.

I don't think looking at Object Updates is very useful. Those are network related, as in how often the sim tells your viewer that something has changed about an object (even if it isn't visual). Lots of updates wouldn't cause any GPU load because all objects are drawn (basically, for the sake of brevity) from scratch every frame, regardless of updates.

There are things in the hidden Developer menu that can be used to analyze what exactly the GPU is doing, but it's... really only useful for developers. There's probably way too much information to parse through for a random person to even begin to understand any of it.

• Show Info > Render Info
• Consoles > Texture Console
• Consoles > Fast Timers (all stuff that gets done, including rendering)

It's more likely that, somewhere, there's some ridiculously high-density mesh causing framerate drops while it's in view. It could be the farms, something near them, or just everything in their general direction that just collectively gets too heavy to render quickly.

[cheesecurd]

Your gpu likely wouldn't be handling any of the scripting. The GPU use in SL is primarily texture and geometry related. Even lighting is mostly CPU bound.

If you are experiencing actual overheating you have a hardware issue you need to take care of. Your components are designed to and should be capable of running at 100% usage without thermal throttling or causing faults due to heat.

This could be as simple as a dusting or a bit more in depth.

[Rider Linden]

Scripting is handled entirely on the simulator.  It would not impact your GPU in any way.

[Theresa Tennyson]

21 hours ago, malienna said:

I notice that whenever I am using a certain farming system, my computer overheats. It's the fields themselves that seem to be causing this issue, not the animals. Is there any sort of gadget or tool I can use to clarify what's going on with the fields? I already have to use the lowest possible settings in SL, but am able to play most other farming systems without any issues, it's just this one that causes this problem (sadly, it's my favorite one).

Most objects used to show a large area covered with vegetation (like grass or probably your "fields" of "crops") are made up of many folded layers of semi-transparent textures that will overlap each other when you look at them. To draw them, your computer needs to add and recalculate the texture information of every one of these folded areas for each pixel it draws on the screen when it draws these objects. This is a tremendous load on your graphics system.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

14 minutes ago, Rider Linden said:

Scripting is handled entirely on the simulator.  It would not impact your GPU in any way.

Unless you put up several dozen prims and then start cycling the textures on them several times a minute? (My way of saying that although the scripts themselves are serverside, their outcome is most definitely clientside)

[Rider Linden]

Just now, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Unless you put up several dozen prims and then start cycling the textures on them several times a minute? (My way of saying that although the scripts themselves are serverside, their outcome is most definitely clientside)

DON'T DO THAT!  You'll make me cry. 😭

But you are correct, scripts can cause effects that will be reflected in  the viewer and potentially degrade performance... I will hazard a guess that virtual crops are not committing this particular sin however. 

[malienna]

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to my post. I greatly appreciate all of the information shared with me! I have decided to stop playing that particular farming system, and the overheating has ceased. Still very curious what caused the problem, so will be spending the next few days studying the info here - so grateful for your help!

[Lucia Nightfire]

Thousands of overlapping alpha textured mesh faces can easily become taxing to a GPU.