Keeping Avatar Complexity Low While Keeping Avatar Quality High

[Rabid Cheetah]

I've been experiencing lag issues lately, and have taken to ensuring my avatar complexity is lower than what I usually run around in.  This has helped the lag issues, but the only outfits I've got that are lower in lag are the Linden new player avatars and some older things stripped of most of the accessories.  Does anyone have some suggestions for keeping out of the lag zone, yet still looking fantastic?

[Alwin Alcott]

Choose the hair and jewelry carefully
Not to many attachments that add nothing to what others don't see..or even are usefull

When all around complexity started i was already glad when i could stay around 100k/150K
With some more experience, better selection what to buy, i'm mostly between 30 and 50 theses days, and think i still look ok.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Alwin Alcott

[Orwar]

   This outfit has my alt's complexity at 47K. It's not difficult scaling it down further by finding less complex alternatives and pulling accessories. 

   Edit: Tried on another pair of eyes and it went down to 34K.

   Her usual shopping/exploration outfit has something like 26K complexity.

   Complexity alone is a bad measure though, and there are several factors that may be causing lag. Excessive scripts, HUDs with a lot of texture memory (and scripts), other people around you, your environment, particles, physics, a too high LOD and/or drawing distance, etc.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Orwar

[Rabid Cheetah]

Thanks.  I wish there was a way in Firestorm to view complexity of items before wearing them.  I also wish the Marketplace listed the complexity of items, the way that it lists prim count/Li.

[Orwar]

2 hours ago, Rabid Cheetah said:

Thanks.  I wish there was a way in Firestorm to view complexity of items before wearing them.  I also wish the Marketplace listed the complexity of items, the way that it lists prim count/Li.

   Demos can be a fairly decent indicator of the items' complexities .. But it can also be grossly misleading, depending on how it being a demo is shown - adding a meshed demo sign floating over your head adds to the complexity of the item.

   That said, avatar complexity is said (by people who grasp it better than I), to be a very poor indicator of the actual performance impact of an avatar, but it's the tool we've got for now so we'll just have to make the best use of it that we can. Here are some of LL's own info on complexity: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Avatar_Rendering_Complexity

   And a quick video with Torley.

 

 

[Lewis Luminos]

Check your older mesh items; they are probably much higher complexity than newer ones, as most creators have learned to better optimise their models over the years. The old hair I used to wear nearly all the time was a whopping 45k, I had another I used to wear at Noir that was even more, but I've swapped them for similar, newer styles, neither of them is now above 5k. Now that the BoM Signature body has trimmed out its extra layers, I'm now usually under 45k in total.

Check demos; while it won't be exactly accurate, it's very unlikely that the purchased product will be higher complexity than the demo, because of the extra signs attached to it.

[Orwar]

5 minutes ago, Lewis Luminos said:

it's very unlikely that the purchased product will be higher complexity than the demo, because of the extra signs attached to it.

   Except if the 'demo' is the mesh without any textures. 

   Goes to write it down on my long, long list of pet peeves.

[LittleMe Jewell]

8 hours ago, Rabid Cheetah said:

Thanks.  I wish there was a way in Firestorm to view complexity of items before wearing them.  I also wish the Marketplace listed the complexity of items, the way that it lists prim count/Li.

My understanding, for things that we wear/attach, the complexity is not the same for everyone.  I do not remember the details of that, but someone had mentioned that the complexity I see for myself is not necessarily the complexity that someone else sees for me.  Thus what a creator thinks is the complexity of an item would not necessarily be the same for the folks that buy it.

It probably has something to do with how messed up the whole complexity calculation is to begin with -- and what viewer folks use.

[Nalates Urriah]

Viewers using the complexity calculations used by Linden Lab make use of information about your graphics chip. So, no we don't all see the same ACI values.

Additionally distance from the avatar makes a difference too.

Modern graphics cards process polygons at amazing rates. They even handle massive amounts of texture data fairly easily. Our bigger problems come when the card starts to run out of VRAM for holding textures and the computer has to help move texture data around, meaning in and out of the video chip. Unfortunately while the viewers handle graphics memory differently none seem to be able to use all that is available in higher end cards/chips. Often it isn't the high ACI of individual avatars as it is the collection of a large number of avatars with many different textures. Makes lots of data to be moved around.

A big producer of lag is the scripts worn by the avatar, attachments and HUDs. One can probably do more to reduce their personal lag, what they experience/cause, by looking at their scripts.

[Maitimo]

On 3/3/2020 at 1:34 PM, Lewis Luminos said:

Check your older mesh items; they are probably much higher complexity than newer ones, as most creators have learned to better optimise their models over the years. The old hair I used to wear nearly all the time was a whopping 45k, I had another I used to wear at Noir that was even more, but I've swapped them for similar, newer styles, neither of them is now above 5k.

This, but beware, it's not just old stuff than can be sky-high. I bought two styles from Doux a couple of days ago, and didn't even think to check complexity whilst trying on the demos. One of them is 4k complexity, the other one is 96k.  😲

[MrsSeren]

1 hour ago, Matty Luminos said:

This, but beware, it's not just old stuff than can be sky-high. I bought two styles from Doux a couple of days ago, and didn't even think to check complexity whilst trying on the demos. One of them is 4k complexity, the other one is 96k.  😲

Yes, I have one Doux hair that pushes my complexity to nearly 200K when I wear it but I love that hair however the complexity not so much so I totally feel you and wondering if was same hair.

[Orwar]

17 hours ago, Matty Luminos said:

One of them is 4k complexity, the other one is 96k.

   Yikes. 🤔

[missyrideout]

I remember buying that hair and being disappointed. Since then though, comments on these forums made me aware that many modern hairs aren’t much better despite their lower listed complexity. 200k triangles or more on some of these multi-style, multi-accessory HUD type hairs. 

When I want a truly lower lag outfit I start with Slink Redux and a hair that is actually lower on render weight. 

I use FS area search (uncheck “attachment” for your attached items) to inspect my worn items more thoroughly. Most of the time I don’t care and wear Belleza though..... part of the problem! 

[Pussycat Catnap]

To make this issue worse...

It is possible to cheat the complexity code and make an item have a much lower complexity score than it's number of polygons and texture detail should have been rated for.

Check out what some things look like in Niran's Dragon Viewer...

- While the Lindens say his formula is 'not right'... it at least does not excuse any hacks... so some items that we're all used to seeing complexity scores in the 1,000 - 10,000 range come in in the 100's of thousands to over a million...

 

There is a project to change the complexity equation... but there is some concern it will NOT close all the loopholes uploaders are using to cheat the system...

 

[Nalates Urriah]

On 3/5/2020 at 12:40 PM, Pussycat Catnap said:

There is a project to change the complexity equation... but there is some concern it will NOT close all the loopholes uploaders are using to cheat the system...

The project is called ARCTan...

The Lindens have been collecting data and studying the problem for over a year. Vir Linden is doing some work on ARCTan now. A consideration in writing the new formula is how to get designers to design more optimized content.

SL is a place for hobbyists more than it is for professionals. So, some will ignore the new ARC and blithely go on designing high poly, large texture content. Others will look for ways to game the system. Others will spend the time to learn how to optimize content and provide us good stuff. It is what humans do. The Lindens learn from what we do and eventually compensate. The current ARC/ACI is not their first attempt at creating something that will encourage better optimized content. This is unlikely to be their last attempt. No one gets it right the first time, think Windows 10...

So, I don't see it as a 'concern' some loop-loopholes won't be closed as it is an expectation people will find new ones.