Lag in Bellisseria *Advice*

[Pussycat Catnap]

On 12/14/2019 at 10:57 PM, Aethelwine said:

My broadband was advertised as being 5 Mbps, but in reality I normally get around 2 Mbps.

If you are in the USA, and on Comcast... the rate they sell you is the 'up to' rate unless you get a business account. Business accounts are given a guaranteed rate - and it can cost 10x more for a rate that is 10x less because of this.

So what that 5 ACTUALLY means is that everyone on the same split as you is dividing that up... subject to ratios for how much they pay for (I buy 10, you buy 5, I get 2/3rds of the split, a new neighbor buys 20, and suddenly both of us go down even more - and we're all actually dividing up a total that is 20, not the 35 you would expect).

When I bought service for a business... they explained this to me, and I started watching the lines and reading up on it and yeah... it sucks... so much that the very tech who installed it for us felt his company was scamming people...

It's why I am buying about 500 now for my home... But I am also in Silicon Valley... where we BOTH need more, but have less (our infrastructure sucks)... When I make trips to Latin America I'm getting a full 200-300 in a coffee shop or hotel lobby... when I am in Asia I can get it in the middle of a  museum as complimentary... I may buy 500 now, but I actually seem to get about 2/3rds of that, give or take... Going up or down depending on which neighbors are home.

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by Pussycat Catnap

[BJoyful]

On 11/13/2019 at 2:13 AM, Pussycat Catnap said:

It would depend on how many textures you want. Note that the more you add the more stuff you're carrying around with you - making yourself a potential point of lag for others.

I would just identify the 6 that seem most common in the kind of home I use.

 

On my old mainland what I used to do was retexture things like walls and floors with some textures from a high end fullperm kit I got ( ProMaterials ). Anything that worked well when you applied a repeating texture and maybe a new color. I then made a prim with the most common one, and would hide it in walls of all my builds, as well as use those textures across all my builds with... just a recoloring.

 

So this idea here is just a version of that... carry your most common textures with you. I would highly stress 'most common' so that there is less likelyhood of becomming a source of lag. This same trick could easily be abused to mess up the experience of everyone around oneself...

 

What I might do... Is take the textures my houseboat uses and put them on a prim and put it inside my traditional, and vice versa... center it as much as I can on the plot, so it's most likely to be only effecting me and people with high draw distance (who are very likely to load those textures from other sources as well).

Could we also do this by making ourselves some Scarlett Ohara clothes (dress made from curtains, hehehe)?  Some patchwork system layer items to carry your fave textures under your normal clothes or under your mesh body?

[BJoyful]

On 12/8/2019 at 9:46 AM, MillyWH said:

I haven't walked around much in Bellisseria because the lag has been so bad but in other sims it's not that bad unless it's really crowded or there are particle effects like falling snow. I dropped my draw distance down to the minimum and put my graphics on low and walked around and it stayed the same (I changed my graphics settings around at different points). If I keep my setting low-ish and my draw distance things get a lot better. It makes the view kind of ugly but for right now it seems to be working. I think I'll wait until another release and try moving then and see if I can have both a home and some sort of view

So despite what I did I couldn't feel comfortable looking at just basically nothing so I abandoned the land and tried again. Another camper poppped up but it's the kind that looks like a horse trailer and I did not like but I grabbed it, the lot was nice but I was back to 9 fps. I'm thinking the bigger issue is my computer and a Linden Home isn't going to work for me but I'll keep trying.

Totally off topic, but did you know you can switch models of the home within theme by clicking the camper pic on a pole?  Campers have 8 models and also you can change the orientation to get the best view for your chosen model 🥰  there have been some brilliant suggestions here in this thread, many of which are new to me and ever so helpful.  I hope some of them will be your ‘magic’ and remember to save those settings in prefs.  Good luck and don’t give up 🤩 because Bellisseria is just too beautiful. ⛵️🏡

Edited December 21, 2019 by BJoyful
Spelling, this time! Lol

[Rolig Loon]

On 11/7/2019 at 6:23 PM, Rolig Loon said:

There are a lot of textures to rez in most Bellisseria regions -- lots of trees and bushes, walls, and the houses themselves.  Prudence is right that it makes sense to keep your draw distance rather low.  If you're on the ground, and certainly if you are in your home, you aren't going to be looking at things much over 75-100 meters away anyway.  

I forgot that I had written this note a month and a half ago.  It's probably worth noting that the Victorians use way fewer textures than the previous Linden Homes styles.  Now that they have gone to using a single texture for interior and exterior walls, our viewers have less to download.  The same may also be true in the landscape objects, but I can't tell.  Textures in user-owned objects are still the lion's share of the total, but at least the texture load from Linden Lab has decreased.

[Flower Caerndow]

Plus LL is using way less scripts in the new Victorian regions, so that helps with script lag!

Until people add a lot of items to their parcels....

[Pussycat Catnap]

On 11/12/2019 at 5:56 PM, Pussycat Catnap said:

If you use Firestorm and you see any Orange on your mini-map...

(right click the mini-map and select the option: show -> Temp on Rez Objects)

....AR the owner of that parcel for using a temp-rezzer. That is a covenant violation and there was a LOT of it going on during Halloween decorations that I personally ignored to let people enjoy their holiday decorations... but it made a lot of sims lag beasts... time to start zapping any of it that's still around.
- make sure to do this for your sim and at least all 8 sims that touch it, regardless of draw distance settings.

 

Many things that will rez fish or birds or butterflies and so on in a plot of land work using temp rezzers...

 

So here's an actual example of a temp-rez-object I just found this morning in Coral Bay:

Had to guess where my mini-map was calling out, and then find something that when I used 'edit' showed as "temporary".

The blue on the minimap is objects I owns, all the grey and black is objects others own. I don't personally know what the difference is between grey and black...

This is ALSO an example of how people often accidentally have temp-rezzers. I highly suspect the person behind this does not know that when they have their table rez a dinner, it uses a temp-rezzer rather than a normal one.

Note the particles... the temp items are making them... so they are scripted - that means every 59 seconds those scripts are restarted and reloaded onto the server...

 

 

[jamiesizzle]

So am I getting this right? If the game can't perform the suggested option is to collectively lower our expectations? Linden land never has heavy traffic even on new regions. Everything that is being suggested to be turned off or removed is sold on MP to create an improved player experience. I don't remember my garage coming with a disclaimer that this is all I can have rezzed before it affects performance. Where is the list of how many plants to paintings is ideal just to be able to walk in your own home? Thanks for all the workarounds and I now at this stage in the game Linden is not about to improve or fix anything but let's face it, this is clearly on them, and they clearly don't care, and the choice give us is do you care more about the game than being able to play it. Unreciprocated loving is just obsession.

[LittleMe Jewell]

7 minutes ago, jamiesizzle said:

but let's face it, this is clearly on them,

Sort of -- it is mostly because way too many creators are creating crap products and/or using too high of a resolution on their textures (and too many of those high resolution textures), all of which take way too much computing power to render. 

It is on LL that they allow that crap to be uploaded and that they do not force the creators to be efficient in their mesh creations and they do not charge more for higher resolution textures.

[Nika Talaj]

On 1/2/2020 at 8:05 AM, Pussycat Catnap said:

So here's an actual example of a temp-rez-object I just found this morning in Coral Bay:

...

Had to guess where my mini-map was calling out,

In Firestorm, you don't have to guess.  Bring up area search and go to the Filter tab. Uncheck the "Temporary" box I've labeled 1.  The one labeled 2 will then no longer be gray, so check it.  Then hit Apply just to be safe.  Go to the Find tab and hit Search ... don't put anything in the search string. 

The list will have only temp-rez objects in it, like this.

Right-click on the Dinner4 line and hit Zoom, and voila, you're looking at it.  These table settings are often the offenders.  Given that temp-rez is against Belli's covenant, and that most people do not set access permissions on their tables, you COULD then test and see if getting rid of the temp-rez helps region performance.  It can take 5 or 10 minutes for region stats to settle down after the temp-rez item is shut off.

[Pussycat Catnap]

21 hours ago, jamiesizzle said:

I now at this stage in the game Linden is not about to improve or fix anything but let's face it, this is clearly on them, and they clearly don't care,

No.

It's not.

People in this "game" are running bloatware viewers like Firestorm, using art quality 3D models that are hundreds of thousands to millions of polygons. Most 'games' are in the low tens of thousands.

The worst offenders are popular mesh bodies like Legacy and Belleza, and some hair brands.

It's insane.

It's also not needed. Bodies like Regallia have proven you can have the same quality of animation, shape response, and clothing fit on as little as 30,000 triangles. Other furry brands have shown similar or even better optimized results. Regallia is a "furry" body that can wear and fit all human clothing. It would be a human body if not for having paws on the feet.

 

NO 3D APPLICATION can keep up with that in real time...

 

And actually, Linden Lab has repeatedly given us the tools to fix this stupidity of the users.

From Complexity, to native-BOM with NO Onion layers (none of that HD crap merchants are now doing), to linkset scripts, to countless improvements in the rendering engine. They keep on trying, and the users keep ignoring them and rudely complaining about it.

The users will come in here and complain about lag, complain the lab does nothing, ignore ALL the things the lab does, and then get angry when told how to fix it and have a lag free experience WITHOUT even sacrificing quality...

 

So NO...

NONE of this is on them.

It's ALL on us.

 

SL's users, as a general whole; are a bunch of tin-foil hat wearing whiners that refuse to take their medicine and scream in denial of the facts.

It's like someone getting a new car, REMOVING the seat belt and the airbags and the brakes, and driving into a brick wall at 60mph then complaining the car was made badly...

 

ps: Since we're in the Linden Homes forum, an example from here. The scripts in the newer homes are a single script controlling all the customization. It's why the walls and floors are touch-response. And yes... I'm calling myself out as the example - because I complained about this. It's there as a lag-reduction measure. They chose region performance over individual user entitlement. They made the right call - folks such as me complained. I stopped complaining though - once it was explained with detail.

- one problem we have with 'denialism' is many people have had things repeatedly explained - shown solutions - and they then ignore and refuse the solution and keep complaining about lag they themselves are causing themselves and those around them to suffer...

 

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Nika Talaj]

2 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

From Complexity, to native-BOM with NO Onion layers (none of that HD crap merchants are now doing), to linkset scripts, to countless improvements in the rendering engine. They keep on trying, and the users keep ignoring them and rudely complaining about it....

SL's users, as a general whole; are a bunch of tin-foil hat wearing whiners that refuse to take their medicine and scream in denial of the facts.

Everything you say in this post is true, but permit me to dial back the judgementalism just a tad.  SL's users are regular humans in search of diversion.  They are not generally technologists, in fact, LL has striven over the years to make the platform MORE accessible to people without the type of technical know-how required to intelligently make tradeoffs while shopping, decorating, and dressing.  I find it encouraging that some furniture and pet makers are providing low-LI versions along with the regular versions of their products.  But even while using products that have released lower-lag versions, like Maitreya's BOM upgrade that defaults to wearing 3 fewer onion layers, most users do not appreciate that it is a lag-fighting feature.  They will use the products that look best to them and are most convenient, and complain when they can't move or teleport, and their friends cannot rez their head.  LL employees are very patient, perhaps too patient, when dealing with these complaints.

LL has provided many tools to build a more efficient world, and I wish that they took more steps to encourage (or even compel) merchants to USE these tools!  As you imply, it would be very helpful for merchants to create popular products that are low-lag, particularly mesh bodies and heads.  If someone created a decent-looking human mesh body that was truly low-lag, had decent skins/tinting, and was compatible with Maitreya clothes, I would buy it no matter what the price.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think there is an opportunity for a new SL fashion blogger here!  I might actually read a blog called

                                                         The Low-Lag Fashionista

                                For fashionable avatars who want to be actually seen

It might contain info like this:

IMHO, Lelutka's beautiful EVO head line has 3 attributes that are disturbing from a lag viewpoint, which are not immediately obvious to the casual user:

• I don't see that the mesh is "lighter" than their previous models, despite being BOM-centric
• The HUD has little in the way of built-in makeups (unlike their previous products), making it almost certain that every EVO user in a room is wearing textures from different makers (oh yes, a boon for makeup artists, but a lagfest for users)
• The HD textures for lipstick and eyeshadow are completely unnecessary lag factories in all situations other than close-up fashion photography.

 For that matter, there's an opportunity for a similar decorator blog.

                                                             Homes that Help

             Low-lag decorating for avatars who want to be able to actually move in their homes

[Milk Pixelmaid]

The best way to combat lag on Bells is to be on a region with people that don’t cram their homes with scripted stuff, or find a region with few homes.

[Blush Bravin]

I find the abundance of high resolution textures is my biggest lag causer. Scripts of course have their issue, but they don't lag me out nearly as much as high res textures. My solution is to set my draw distance way down. I mean way down like to 50 so I'm not having to rez all those textures inside my neighbor's home. Once I do that I have no issue with lag inside my home.

Now, I too have an abundance of objects in my homes, but I do try to inspect items to see just how many 1024x1024 textures are used on an object. The objects that use a lot of textures rarely get used in my home. I budget those objects to one or two of my very favorites to a room. So it makes me choose what I'm going to spend my resources on. 

So, when decorating don't just think about finding the lowest LI items to clutter up your parcel. Pay attention to the texture memory you're using. Perhaps using less items, rather than covering every little space with a low LI item, will get you better performance.

[Nika Talaj]

Is there a quick way to tell the size of textures on an object, Blush?  When I inspect it I can see the total number of textures and texture memory used, but that's all.

[Blush Bravin]

9 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

Is there a quick way to tell the size of textures on an object, Blush?  When I inspect it I can see the total number of textures and texture memory used, but that's all.

When you inspect an object in Firestorm, I'm not sure if this is available in LL viewer, you can see the texture.

[Frigga Freidman]

This is all proving very educational - thanks to all of you for sharing info about the technicalities!

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

For me, the lag I notice most comes when someone has linked so many items together (to save on LI usage) that they have created a monstrous 1,000,000-triangle linked object. Someone asked me one time why her parcel was laggy. I inspected and pointed out the really high-triangle landscaping object she had created, and after she unlinked, the parcel became much easier to move around. 

I have no idea whether this is a valid theory, but the experience that lag lowered after unlinking held true for us both. I have done the same in all my homes and found them easier to move around. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

8 minutes ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

For me, the lag I notice most comes when someone has linked so many items together (to save on LI usage) that they have created a monstrous 1,000,000-triangle linked object. Someone asked me one time why her parcel was laggy. I inspected and pointed out the really high-triangle landscaping object she had created, and after she unlinked, the parcel became much easier to move around. 

I have no idea whether this is a valid theory, but the experience that lag lowered after unlinking held true for us both. I have done the same in all my homes and found them easier to move around. 

Interesting.  I wonder why having 10 linksets of 10,000 triangles each is better, lag-wise, than one linkset of 100,000 triangles.  I always thought the issue was more specific to the number of triangles in each object in the linkset, rather than the full linkset itself.  If the single linkset really is worse, I may need to play around with mine a bit to get the best reduction of LI without increasing the lag.

 

 

I've always figured the lag was a combination of large textures and high triangle count objects. Not necessarily high count in the way that Sylvia mentioned, but just high count objects in general.

 

[Blush Bravin]

29 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

Is there a quick way to tell the size of textures on an object, Blush?  When I inspect it I can see the total number of textures and texture memory used, but that's all.

Going to try this again since I didn't really read your question well the first time. So to see the actual resolution of a texture do this. First the item must be mod so you can actually access this info. From the build menu, select the textures tab, then select a face of the object you are inspecting. In my example I have selected the face that has the trunk texture. Click on the texture and it will open another menu. You can see the size of the texture is 512x1024.

[Blush Bravin]

6 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I always thought the issue was more specific to the number of triangles in each object in the linkset, rather than the full linkset itself.

Me too! As a creator I am constantly linking objects to create a whole. My add-ons simply would not exist without linksets. I would really like to see some concrete evidence to prove this one way or the other. 

The one advantage to this would be that people would simply use less objects because they would run out of LI faster. That certainly would reduce lag. I do link deco objects in my homes, but I don't link a huge number of items all into one linkset. Rather, I make many little linksets with like items linked to reduce LI.

[Pussycat Catnap]

2 hours ago, Nika Talaj said:

Everything you say in this post is true, but permit me to dial back the judgementalism just a tad.  SL's users are regular humans in search of diversion.

My judgementalism is sparked by repeatedly seeing people judgmentally blame the wrong sources...

Most often the lindens getting blamed... but I have seen this blame directed at "anybody but me" all to often as well...

It gets further aggravated when people are told how to fix something and openly state things like "I will wear what I want to because it doesn't effect me personally, SL is just laggy because of false things that I incorrectly believe and not because of my choices that are all bad..."

There is ignorance - which is just not knowing.

And there is stupidity - which is refusing to learn when the help and advice is offered to you.

 

The blog idea you note... it's been done before, many times. And soundly rejected, ignored, denied, etc...

At this point... almost 20 years into the existence of SL... the excuses have worn out. If someone says "why is it laggy, what can I do?" I'm there for them. Admitting you do not know, and want help - that's a GOOD thing...

Because lag is 100% in your control. Though that control CAN mean blocking some of your friends...

 

But when they blame something wrongly... especially when I see it inworld or on a fashion blog of someone and I can SEE what is causing the lag being worn on them... then I have no patience left.

 

- I know my rant started in reply in this thread, but the frustration is really aimed at the things I see in group and local chat inworld all the time, and what I see on fashion blogs... Because it's in those spaces where I see the judgemental incorrectly-aimed blame coming from people after they're shown the causes, or even when they first acknowledge the causes... (such as the endless parade of people with 1-gazillion complexity who first say they know what complexity is then say they don't care, then complain about lag - all in the same comment in chat...)

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Elena Blossom]

Thank you @Blush Bravin @Nika Talaj @Sylvia Tamalyn for all this information, and for sharing it in such a nicer way

As it is been pointed, not all of us have a high technical knowledge, we learn from experience, and a respectful approach is the best way to create awareness.

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

19 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Interesting.  I wonder why having 10 linksets of 10,000 triangles each is better, lag-wise, than one linkset of 100,000 triangles.

I'm going to have to test that, as I use a number of linked together items in my builds.

My current theory would have to do with bounding box physics. If the linked items complicating the math of determining where objects are for collision purposes.

When you edit things you can set all but the root prim of any linkset to type 'none'. If my theory is right - then doing this would reduce the 'perception of lag'. Obviously that's not the workable solution - but any item in the linkset that doesn't need to be solid could be set to type none IF this works...

[Blush Bravin]

11 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

My current theory would have to do with bounding box physics. If the linked items complicating the math of determining where objects are for collision purposes.

Physics would most definitely affect lag. You are so right on that. When I link deco items I make sure those items are set to phantom. Actually, when decorating I try to set as many items as possible to phantom unless there really is a need for physics. So that's a big reason why I link like items. For instance, I would link all my rugs which would all be phantom. Then I would link all deco items sitting on counters, again all set to phantom. I try not to link anything that actually needs to have physics with anything else.

If you test this, please share here. I am most curious in your findings.

Edited November 19, 2020 by Blush Bravin

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

I hope people who know more about this than I do *do* test the theory! All I can offer is the perception of myself and one other non-tech person, so I'd be very interested in some concrete investigation.