Why does Second Life run so badly on a good computer?

[xlime4]

Hi everyone,

My PC has an Radeon Rx 480 8GB Graphics Card, an Intel i5 6500 CPU and 16GB RAM. In theory, this means that I should be able to play Second Life at a high setting, possibly even the highest settings. However, I can only use the medium setting. Anything higher or lower drops the FPS to a crawl. At medium, it stays at around 30 FPS, which isn’t ideal but it’s still playable. In empty areas, it shoots up to 100 FPS, but it is only 30 FPS in any remotely busy area.

The internet I have is atrocious because I am using the university’s wi-fi, though I’m planning to get an ethernet cable. Is it possible that it is a network issue, or could it be something else? If it’s something else, how can I resolve it? Thanks for any advice.

[LittleMe Jewell]

Also check you virus scan settings and verify that all of the Second Life folders are white-listed / excluded from scanning.  The folder where the executables live as well as the viewer folders in your AppData location.   The virus scanner constantly scanning the activity happening on your cache folders can be killer to performance.

Edited October 11, 2019 by LittleMe Jewell

[Cindy Evanier]

32 minutes ago, xlime4 said:

Hi everyone,

My PC has an Radeon Rx 480 8GB Graphics Card, an Intel i5 6500 CPU and 16GB RAM. In theory, this means that I should be able to play Second Life at a high setting, possibly even the highest settings. However, I can only use the medium setting. Anything higher or lower drops the FPS to a crawl. At medium, it stays at around 30 FPS, which isn’t ideal but it’s still playable. In empty areas, it shoots up to 100 FPS, but it is only 30 FPS in any remotely busy area.

The internet I have is atrocious because I am using the university’s wi-fi, though I’m planning to get an ethernet cable. Is it possible that it is a network issue, or could it be something else? If it’s something else, how can I resolve it? Thanks for any advice.

Open the viewer.. go to Help- About and paste your stats  here.  This will better help people give you advice but sounds to me its not being wired in and using the universitys wifi is definitely the issue

Edited October 11, 2019 by Cindy Evanier

[Resi Pfeffer]

35 minutes ago, xlime4 said:

Hi everyone,

My PC has an Radeon Rx 480 8GB Graphics Card, an Intel i5 6500 CPU and 16GB RAM. In theory, this means that I should be able to play Second Life at a high setting, possibly even the highest settings. However, I can only use the medium setting. Anything higher or lower drops the FPS to a crawl. At medium, it stays at around 30 FPS, which isn’t ideal but it’s still playable. In empty areas, it shoots up to 100 FPS, but it is only 30 FPS in any remotely busy area.

The internet I have is atrocious because I am using the university’s wi-fi, though I’m planning to get an ethernet cable. Is it possible that it is a network issue, or could it be something else? If it’s something else, how can I resolve it? Thanks for any advice.

All you can see in SL is almost entirely created by its users. No one verifies, if an item is well built when it comes to the detail level or polygon count... 
The great freedom of being able to do whatever we want, comes with a price we have to pay. What means, that you can buy hardware for 2K USD, and you still will notice a huge fps drop in a heavily crowded area with high renderweights and poorly built objects.

What you can do, is to run on full settings when being at places not that stuffed, and when visiting a crowded club, you can turn down a little your settings very convenient by using the presets.
 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

The official and Firestorm viewer refuse to use all of the available resources of your hardware.

I've limited my viewers to 60 FPS, but I currently have 42 FPS with 43% total CPU usage and 18% GPU usage (low memory and no disk usage).

There's no fix for that until the viewer developers fix it.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Lyssa Greymoon]

Definitely get yourself an Ethernet cable. Running with a 32M draw distance suggests there’s something wrong with your computer aside from SL. I would run a malware scan on it, and check the task manager to see if something else is eating up resources.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

37 minutes ago, xlime4 said:

Oh, I put the draw distance like that. Not having to render so much helps with the framerate, so I changed it to that.

I figured that was what happened since AFAIK no viewer will set it that low for you on anything. The fact you have a very capable CPU & GPU running at half the draw distance the viewer will default to for a potato suggests there's something wrong with your computer.

[Alyona Su]

5 hours ago, xlime4 said:

Hi everyone,

My PC has an Radeon Rx 480 8GB Graphics Card, an Intel i5 6500 CPU and 16GB RAM. In theory, this means that I should be able to play Second Life at a high setting, possibly even the highest settings. However, I can only use the medium setting. Anything higher or lower drops the FPS to a crawl. At medium, it stays at around 30 FPS, which isn’t ideal but it’s still playable. In empty areas, it shoots up to 100 FPS, but it is only 30 FPS in any remotely busy area.

The internet I have is atrocious because I am using the university’s wi-fi, though I’m planning to get an ethernet cable. Is it possible that it is a network issue, or could it be something else? If it’s something else, how can I resolve it? Thanks for any advice.

Try different viewers. I get better performance on Catznip. myself - though it will be different for each person. Here is a serious and important question: How long have you been using that system? I got a MASSIVE performance boost when I RESET WINDOWS (Reinstalled MS Windows, then reinstalled my viewers and other software). Because Windows systems are always eating themselves slowly over time and lose performance in that process.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Alyona Su

[Alyona Su]

10 minutes ago, xlime4 said:

Thank you. I’ll try a different viewer and see if that helps. I have been using this system for 3 years, so I imagine that’s enough for wear and tear on the operating system.

If you still aren't satisfied with the performance you get with different viewers, then you may want to consider resetting windows (It's called "Windows Reset" for Windows 10)

If you do this, then Windows will be reinstalled (and in the process cleaned-up). A file will be created that lists all your Apps - most with links to redownload if necessary. This is the only "bad" part about it - the time and effort to reinstall your apps. But it's worth it because you not only get a major performance boost with SL, but with the entire system, including all your other apps. You documents and user-created stuff will stay put and not be changed. You only need to reinstall apps.

I was able to set my Graphics to 100% Ultra settings and still get 30-60 FPS in most places in SL with Catznip. After I reset Windows, I am able to do nearly the same with Firestorm also, though I still get better with Catznip, but the difference in performance is not as large a gap as it was before.

Good Luck!

Edit to add: Its does take a LONG TIME LOL - Figure two or three hours depending on your system and configuration. The security updates are what take forever.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Alyona Su

[Alyona Su]

Yes, lots of moving parts to make SL work well. People sometimes don't think about the core part of it all. I'm sure you'll see a big performance boost with an "out of the box" system. It's like a new computer. You'll see.

Edited October 11, 2019 by Alyona Su

[cheesecurd]

Ancient software + bloated user created content + inefficient resource utilization = god awful framerates on high end hardware.

[Alyona Su]

I'm not sure you did it right - too fast.

Go to Settings->Update & Security->Recovery->Reset this PC (Click "Get Started"). 

[cheesecurd]

13 hours ago, xlime4 said:

Now that I think about it...I think there’s something wrong with my RAM. Every time I get a BSOD, I keep getting errors relating to RAM failure. Looks like I’ll need to get some new RAM sticks and someone who can help me fit them in, soon

It’s just a regular desktop right?

if you have an i5 6500 that means you’re using 2400mhz ddr4, just pick up a new 2x8gb kit of 2400mhz ddr4

basically this kit From crucial is the most plain Jane stuff out there, but anything else the same spec works just as well if you want lights or a different heat spreader style or whatever 

ram is the easiest of things to swap out, it’s keyed, it only fits in one way, pop the little tabs on the slot to let the old sticks out, push the new ones in until the little tabs lock it in place 

bios handles the change automatically

[Whirly Fizzle]

 

@xlime4

I don't like the look of that image at all.
Can you just confirm that you are seeing that Glide Student advert where the Firestorm login screen should be?

If the login screen is being replaced by an advert like that then you have some kind of malware/browser hijacker on your system.
Obviously malware can cause poor performance too.
 

 

[xlime4]

3 hours ago, Cindy Evanier said:

Open the viewer.. go to Help- About and paste your stats  here.  This will better help people give you advice but sounds to me its not being wired in and using the universitys wifi is definitely the issue

Since it was requested, here's the stats from the viewer:

Firestorm 6.3.2 (58052) Sep 27 2019 22:41:52 (64bit) (Firestorm-Releasex64) with Havok support
Release Notes

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz (3192 MHz)
Memory: 16321 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 17763.805)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: Radeon (TM) RX 480 Graphics

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 26.20.13001.25001
OpenGL Version: 4.2.13570 Compatibility Profile Context 19.7.5 26.20.13001.25001

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 v7.10.7
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 2.00.03
Dullahan: 1.1.1320 / CEF: 3.3626.1895.g7001d56 / Chromium: 72.0.3626.121
LibVLC Version: 2.2.8
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Settings mode: Firestorm
Viewer Skin: Firestorm (Grey)
Window size: 1920x1017 px
Font Used: Deja Vu (96 dpi)
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 32 m
Bandwidth: 500 kbit/s
LOD factor: 2
Render quality: Medium-High (4/7)
Advanced Lighting Model: Yes
Texture memory: 2048 MB (1)
VFS (cache) creation time (UTC): 2019-10-9T23:55:0
Built with MSVC version 1800
October 11 2019 03:32:13 SLT

[xlime4]

13 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

The official and Firestorm viewer refuse to use all of the available resources of your hardware.

I've limited my viewers to 60 FPS, but I currently have 42 FPS with 43% total CPU usage and 18% GPU usage (low memory and no disk usage).

There's no fix for that until the viewer developers fix it.

That explains a lot! I've only used Firestorm and the regular viewer. Do you know of any viewers that might make use of my hardware? Thanks.

[xlime4]

3 hours ago, Resi Pfeffer said:

All you can see in SL is almost entirely created by its users. No one verifies, if an item is well built when it comes to the detail level or polygon count... 
The great freedom of being able to do whatever we want, comes with a price we have to pay. What means, that you can buy hardware for 2K USD, and you still will notice a huge fps drop in a heavily crowded area with high renderweights and poorly built objects.

What you can do, is to run on full settings when being at places not that stuffed, and when visiting a crowded club, you can turn down a little your settings very convenient by using the presets.
 

Thank you! I'll do that. I didn't know that I could use graphics presets, so this is really useful.

[xlime4]

1 minute ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

Definitely get yourself an Ethernet cable. Running with a 32M draw distance suggests there’s something wrong with your computer aside from SL. I would run a malware scan on it, and check the task manager to see if something else is eating up resources.

Oh, I put the draw distance like that. Not having to render so much helps with the framerate, so I changed it to that.

[xlime4]

3 minutes ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

I figured that was what happened since AFAIK no viewer will set it that low for you on anything. The fact you have a very capable CPU & GPU running at half the draw distance the viewer will default to for a potato suggests there's something wrong with your computer.

I defaulted to high (though not max) settings and it ran at 10 FPS. I changed all of my settings to get it at a stable frame rate while still having an enjoyable experience.

[xlime4]

9 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

Try different viewers. I get better performance on Catznip. myself - though it will be different for each person. Here is a serious and important question: How long have you been using that system? I got a MASSIVE performance boost when I RESET WINDOWS (Reinstalled MS Windows, then reinstalled my viewers and other software). Because Windows systems are always eating themselves slowly over time and lose performance in that process.

Thank you. I’ll try a different viewer and see if that helps. I have been using this system for 3 years, so I imagine that’s enough for wear and tear on the operating system.

[xlime4]

18 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

If you still aren't satisfied with the performance you get with different viewers, then you may want to consider resetting windows (It's called "Windows Reset" for Windows 10)

If you do this, then Windows will be reinstalled (and in the process cleaned-up). A file will be created that lists all your Apps - most with links to redownload if necessary. This is the only "bad" part about it - the time and effort to reinstall your apps. But it's worth it because you not only get a major performance boost with SL, but with the entire system, including all your other apps. You documents and user-created stuff will stay put and not be changed. You only need to reinstall apps.

I was able to set my Graphics to 100% Ultra settings and still get 30-60 FPS in most places in SL with Catznip. After I reset Windows, I am able to do nearly the same with Firestorm also, though I still get better with Catznip, but the difference in performance is not as large a gap as it was before.

Good Luck!

Edit to add: Its does take a LONG TIME LOL - Figure two or three hours depending on your system and configuration. The security updates are what take forever.

I couldn’t find a viewer that works for me. In fact, Catznip has even worse performance for me. I’m in the process of reinstalling Windows - fingers crossed.

[xlime4]

52 minutes ago, Alyona Su said:

Yes, lots of moving parts to make SL work well. People sometimes don't think about the core part of it all. I'm sure you'll see a big performance boost with an "out of the box" system. It's like a new computer. You'll see.

I’m not sure if it worked...when I reset it and I started up my computer again, everything was exactly the same. Not only that, but I remember at one point it said “undoing recent changes.” Did it not work?

Edit: yeah, this showed up:

Edited October 11, 2019 by xlime4
New information

[xlime4]

3 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

I'm not sure you did it right - too fast.

Go to Settings->Update & Security->Recovery->Reset this PC (Click "Get Started"). 

Oh, I did that. However, it still gave me that message. I’m resetting again and hoping that it’ll work this time. If not, then I’ll have to look up what the issue might be. Either way, my computer hates me for some reason.

Edit: Nope. It still won’t reset. Looks like I’m stuck with this framerate unless I get an NVIDIA graphics card

Edited October 11, 2019 by xlime4
Update

[Lyssa Greymoon]

There’s something else wrong with your computer. The frame rates are abnormally slow, and the resetting failures aren’t normal. Getting an NVIDIA card isn’t going to help.

Run malware & antivirus scans. Check the hard drive. Get a utility to check the SMART status. If it’s a mechanical drive not an SSD run a surface scan too.

[LittleMe Jewell]

Play with your bandwidth setting a bit - yours is set to 500.  Even on wifi you can sometimes get better FPS with a higher setting.   Just keep it <= 1500.

[xlime4]

2 hours ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

There’s something else wrong with your computer. The frame rates are abnormally slow, and the resetting failures aren’t normal. Getting an NVIDIA card isn’t going to help.

Run malware & antivirus scans. Check the hard drive. Get a utility to check the SMART status. If it’s a mechanical drive not an SSD run a surface scan too.

How do I check the hard drive, and what am I checking for?