No Sansar

[ChinRey]

2 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

This topic seems to come up on a recurring basis. IMO, LL has its own priorities and is going to do what it is going to do. And I hear the people familiar with all the technical stuff saying it is too expensive for LL fix most of the issues, and that fixing the issues is incompatible with the flexibility that sets SL apart from game-games.

That said, though, lag always was the thing I hated most about SL. Probably I am not using that term in exactly the right sense, because I include the 4 fps at clubs in that too. I stupidly used to think that LL would fix it someday, but finally let go of that hope.

We use the word "lag" for low fps in Second Life. It's not what it usually means anywhere else but, well, it's SL slang.

There's a lot that can be done to increase everybody's fps without resorting to unrealistically high hardware requirements. I don't think I'm exaggerating if I said half the workload our cpus and gpus have to handle in SL never makes any difference to the actual appearance or experience and is a total waste of computing power. If anything, I'm underestimating the problem we have with content related bloated overhead. In addition there is also, as Animats said, a lot that could potentially be done to streamline the software to make SL more performant for everybody, regardless of how strong or weak their computers are.

But the first step in fixing the content overload problem is to document it though. LL has actually been working on that for over a year now as the first stage of Project ArcTan.  It is frustrating that it takes so long and it shows how far behind they fell during the six dark years of neglect. But it has to be done before any effective means to regulate the load can be implemented. LL has tried to put the horse before the cart (or maybe cure before the diagnosis is a better metaphor here?) several times. That has never worked well and it never will.

 

48 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

The thing that finally got to me, though, is something that LL either can't do anything about or is incompetent at doing anything about, or some combination of the two. I have not really been able to find anything of enduring interest in SL for years.

...

 

Anyhow, this was probably off-topic.

Cutting and editing he quote here because I think that isn't off topic at all, it's spot on.

 

[Ardy Lay]

I have 10 and 12 year old computers I have chosen to stop using because some components of them were not provided drivers to work with Windows 10 1903 or 1909.  They sit politely off to the side with windows 7 installed and updated as far as that goes.  One of them never did provide a tolerable Second Life experience.  It has Intel GMA 950 and Core Duo.  Yeah, not even Core 2.  It was still usable and quite good for everything else I needed it for, which was not 3D graphics .  But now it seems really bogged down in comparison with new computers.  I tried reinstalling Windows XP on it, which was what it shipped with, and that was still slow but the performance tests matched the computer’s original performance.  So now I am convinced that I have changed my expectations.  That old computer was fast when compared to its predecessor.  It hasn’t gotten slower, I have become impatient.  The other old machine went through the same procedures recently.  Same results except it has Intel Q6600 and Nvidia 8800 GS.  It was pretty good with SL at the time but now I won’t tolerate it.   Those two computers were about $1,000 and $1,800 back then.  I won’t describe my more recent acquisitions except to say I get much better performance for the money.  I can’t say I expect the majority of SL residents to buy new hardware periodically to keep up with developments in “advanced gaming graphics” like I have done over the 12 years I have been in SL.  Personally, I want the fancy rendering.  But I know many of the people I socialize with are not spending like I am on computers to run Second Life Viewer.  I do not want them to leave SL because some loud people keep trying to convince the rest of us and Linden Lab that SL has to be a game like all those other programs out there that are games.  Game aspects won’t run them off if they are not intrusive.  What will run many of them off is eliminating the ability to run SL viewers on inexpensive hardware.  And no, paying to run it remotely  someone else’s hardware is not perfect solution, again, because of the exspense.

Maybe somebody will do the math and change my mind but I am not really the target audience as I have been spending the money on computers and energy to run them.

[CaerolleClaudel]

15 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

We use the word "lag" for low fps in Second Life. It's not what it usually means anywhere else but, well, it's SL slang.

So, are walking in place and rubber banding related to low fps? I actually seem to experience both even when the fps meter shows 30-40 fps. I know that the lag at clubs is related to low fps, or assume it is.

Another frustration is landing at a club and seeing body parts flying through the air for several minutes. Everyone is naked for a while, too, but that isn't as disconcerting as having enormous heads zooming at me. And teeth, OMG...

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 hours ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

I gotta know, do people go onto the Steam forums and complain that Doom Eternal won't run on their Chromebooks, or is this a Second Life thing?

I'm sure not.

Which kinda makes my point for me: an awfully large proportion of the SL user base is comprised of people who are not gamers (and many of whom don't even know what Steam is).

Regardless of whether or not one considers SL a game or not, it is not a game like, I dunno, Fallout or Skyrim or Bloodborn, if only because it attracts a large body of people who would never play games like that.

5 hours ago, Gadget Portal said:

SL is a game like other MMOs and requires a gaming computer, and should benefit from the same advances in technology.

Yeah, no. It isn't. See above. There's an entire demographic of SL users who have never used another MMO, and likely never will.

It doesn't matter what you think LL should do. This isn't about "principles" or what SL should be like -- it's about its current user base. And were LL to ramp up the technical requirements of SL to the degree that it made obsolete and useless the cheap off-the-shelf laptops that an awful lot of SL users currently rely on, you're going to lose those people.

I recently sent to a friend a pic that I took of his house. His immediate response was "Woah! That's not what SL looks like to me!" because he's using a simple, inexpensive laptop that can't comfortably run at high or ultra. He was impressed by the pic, but it's not going to change the way he uses SL. Ramp up the minimum requirements of SL, and that's one non-gamer among many thousands of others just like him who is simply going to disappear.

Really, I wish people would step out of their bubble for a minute, and realize that their experience of, and expectations for, SL are not necessarily everyone else's. LL, fortunately, knows that it needs to keep its platform flexible enough that it works reasonably well for both those with high expectations for graphic rendering, and those who don't care about that, or don't have machines that can take advantage of that.

5 hours ago, Gadget Portal said:

Treating SL different and letting people think it's Barbie Dress Up Facebook is why there's always an active thread complaining about lag.

You get how condescending that sounds, right Gadget?

Who are you to say that "Barbie Dress Up Facebook" isn't an entirely appropriate way to use SL? Frankly, it's what drives a sizable chunk of the SL economy.

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Selene Gregoire]

11 hours ago, ChinRey said:

That would be the end of my days in Second Life. More importantly, I don't have any hard facts of course but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it would mean kicking out half the current SL population.

I'm able to run an GTX 1050 OC 2GB just fine. I do leave shadows off and reflections minimal most of the time since I'm usually building.

[Ardy Lay]

Frames per second is what users experience.  The amount of work to render a single frame of an SL scene varies WILDLY.  Is there a better metric to use to compare SL rendering performance from one device to another that will be fairly consistent and comparable without great dependence upon the scene?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

13 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

I'm able to run an GTX 1050 OC 2GB just fine. I do leave shadows off and reflections minimal most of the time since I'm usually building.

Yep, for sure, you're right! i think your case is not at all untypical.

And that's the point that Gadget and some others seem to be missing -- SL does work reasonably well for people without gaming computers. And it needs to continue to run reasonably well for people who don't have gaming computers, or you'll lose a sizable portion of the resident population, likely without attracting many new gamers to the platform at all in compensation.

[ChinRey]

42 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

And it needs to continue to run reasonably well for people who don't have gaming computers, or you'll lose a sizable portion of the resident population...

Those users are customers too. I think I speak on behalf of Linden Lab, all merchants, land rental owners and everybody else who do any kind of commerce in SL that if people are willing to spend more money on SL, we'd rather they spend it on what we have to offer than on expensive hardware that shouldn't have been neccessary in the first place.

Edited April 2, 2020 by ChinRey

[Madelaine McMasters]

42 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yep, for sure, you're right! i think your case is not at all untypical.

And that's the point that Gadget and some others seem to be missing -- SL does work reasonably well for people without gaming computers. And it needs to continue to run reasonably well for people who don't have gaming computers, or you'll lose a sizable portion of the resident population, likely without attracting many new gamers to the platform at all in compensation.

I've watched Mac play MMO games with friends on his whizzy PC. My RSI riddled right arm wouldn't last a minute in that environment. That said, had SL been designed last year instead of 20 years ago, I imagine it would be more pleasant to use on the computers we all have right now.

I have mentioned before that the computer I use now has a CPU that's 25x faster and a GPU that's 120x faster than the one I had when I joined SL. My internet connection is 100x faster. I'm still averaging around 20fps on "High".

ETA: I still also slow to a crawl or crash in crowded regions.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Madelaine McMasters

[CaerolleClaudel]

31 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

And that's the point that Gadget and some others seem to be missing -- SL does work reasonably well for people without gaming computers. And it needs to continue to run reasonably well for people who don't have gaming computers, or you'll lose a sizable portion of the resident population, likely without attracting many new gamers to the platform at all in compensation.

And then I have a computer that meets animat's specs, other than having 16GB instead of 32GB of RAM (and never go past using about 12GB no matter what or how many things I am running, so I am not sure what the 32 is for), a way faster than minimum internet, and STILL constantly experience lag, even in places that aren't crowded. I have to admit I run on high graphics, because I like things to look nice, but honestly I haven't found decreasing my graphic settings to help that much. I keep complexity at less than 100,000 and limit avis, and adjust draw distance down depending on what I am doing, but find lag an almost constant frustration.

Another thing that is frustrating is trying to look at things while walking around; shopping is especially bad. IRL I can walk and look to the sides, but in SL your avi has to be facing things to see them (and don't get me started on stores having print scaled so small I have to zoom in to read it, and maybe even fiddle with my camera to get it close enough that I can zoom in enough). I guess I could have adjusted my camera so it looked sidewise, but that only takes care of one side. I realize this is a limitation of using a keyboard, but it is something that lowered my motivation to go explore or to shop. Probably VR lets you walk and look about at the same time, but that doesn't exist for SL, and I am not too interested in wearing a headset anyhow.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

56 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'm sure not.

Which kinda makes my point for me: an awfully large proportion of the SL user base is comprised of people who are not gamers (and many of whom don't even know what Steam is).

Regardless of whether or not one considers SL a game or not, it is not a game like, I dunno, Fallout or Skyrim or Bloodborn, if only because it attracts a large body of people who would never play games like that.

Non-gamers seem to have unrealistic expectations of what terrible laptops should be capable of. I'm not much of a gamer myself, but that hasn't stopped me from buying hardware that's at least somewhat fit for purpose.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

24 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Those suers are customers too. I think I speak on behalf of Linden Lab, all merchants, land rental owners and everybody else who do any kind of commerce in SL that if people are willing to spend more money on SL, we'd rather they spend it on what we have to offer than on expensive hardware that shouldn't have been neccessary in the first place.

Yes, exactly. And an awful lot of those consumers are focused on playing Barbie. I'm honestly not sure what business model is being proposed to replace it by those who think this is somehow an illegitimate use of the platform.

24 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

That said, had SL been designed last year instead of 20 years ago, I imagine it would be more pleasant to use on the computers we all have right now.

This might be a more profitable focus for future development -- making the UI more usable, and optimizing the current code and environment so it works better on normal computers, rather than super-kewl-OMG! effects that only function on high end ones. The former benefits everyone; the latter is going to appeal to a much smaller segment of the population, and may even exclude some.

22 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

I keep complexity at less than 100,000 and limit avis, and adjust draw distance down depending on what I am doing, but find lag an almost constant frustration.

Yes, this! However you want to define it, and whatever causes it, I think "lag" is by far and away the most common complaint among SL users, and it particularly impacts on those for whom SL is a social experience, because it is especially prevalent at places like clubs. Arguably, too, it impacts upon shoppers, who likely will often use MP rather than shop in-world. I find the MP convenient myself, if only for the search function . . . but surely we want people using in-world stores.

 

22 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

Another thing that is frustrating is trying to look at things while walking around; shopping is especially bad. IRL I can walk and look to the sides, but in SL your avi has to be facing things to see them (and don't get me started on stores having print scaled so small I have to zoom in to read it, and maybe even fiddle with my camera to get it close enough that I can zoom in enough).

I'm a little confused by this . . . I do a lot my in-world shopping via camming around, mostly using the keyboard shortcuts. This doesn't work well for you?

17 minutes ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

Non-gamers seem to have unrealistic expectations of what terrible laptops should be capable of.

I'm sure you're right -- part of the issue here maybe is that non-gamers tend not to be very tech-oriented, and don't really understand what a GPU (for instance) actually does. But those non-gamers, as unreasonable as they might be, still comprise a sizable constituency here. It might not be technically feasible to meet all their demands, but neither is it advisable, from a business perspective, to simply dismiss their complaints.

17 minutes ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

I'm not much of a gamer myself, but that hasn't stopped me from buying hardware that's at least somewhat fit for purpose.

Absolutely; SL has often been at least at the back of my mind when I purchased a new computer. Again, though, some -- probably many -- don't think this way. Maybe they should -- but if they don't, are you willing to shrug them off and lose them?

Edited April 2, 2020 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Selene Gregoire]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yep, for sure, you're right! i think your case is not at all untypical.

And that's the point that Gadget and some others seem to be missing -- SL does work reasonably well for people without gaming computers. And it needs to continue to run reasonably well for people who don't have gaming computers, or you'll lose a sizable portion of the resident population, likely without attracting many new gamers to the platform at all in compensation.

Well... considering I can't afford anything more powerful than what I already have I would be one of those that would be shut out after 16+ years. The 1050 is even lower than the 1060 that Chin mentioned, capability wise. I can't run one of my favorite early release games any more because my GPU runs way too hot at 80C. That's 20C higher than recommended for the GPU.

So... yeah.

 

ETA: The game is Empyrion: Galactic Survival on Steam if anyone wants to check the specs.

Edited April 2, 2020 by Selene Gregoire

[animats]

7 hours ago, Gadget Portal said:

SL is a game like other MMOs and requires a gaming computer, and should benefit from the same advances in technology. 

SL should work on lower end computers, but here's what gamers have now. Steam has about 20,000,000 concurrent users at any one time. Highest ever in one game was about 3 million. Nice big market there.

Here's an automated survey from data Steam collects: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

That market is out there, waiting for SL to serve it properly.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

38 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Absolutely; SL has often been at least at the back of my mind when I purchased a new computer. Again, though, some -- probably many -- don't think this way. Maybe they should -- but if they don't, are you willing to shrug them off and lose them?

No, but I don't think expecting minimal effort or investment in SL is asking too much.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

8 minutes ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

No, but I don't think expecting minimal effort or investment in SL is asking too much.

Reasonably speaking, no, it's not.

But, again, it's not a question of what is "asking too much" -- it's a question of how users will respond, whether their response is reasonable or not. "Be reasonable" isn't a great sales pitch. A business that wants to succeed has to do its best (which may not always be sufficient, to be sure) to cater to the reasonable and the unreasonable. And if a healthy proportion of current users shrug and say, "I'm not going to do that," they'll be lost to the platform, and the fact that they were being unreasonable ain't going to fix the dent in the bottom line.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

27 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

And if a healthy proportion of current users shrug and say, "I'm not going to do that," they'll be lost to the platform, and the fact that they were being unreasonable ain't going to fix the dent in the bottom line.

Violate the laws of physics or we'll stop not spending money for your product!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 minutes ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

Violate the laws of physics or we'll stop not spending money for your product!

Well, as I said, sometimes one can't accommodate the unreasonable, because they are being really unreasonable. An SL example would be those demanding that LL halve the price of tier; that probably can't happen.

It's always going to be cost-benefit analysis, right? What do we lose by accommodating the unreasonable, and are those losses worth retaining them? Are some accommodations even going to retain them?

The point I was making was simply that businesses can't demand that consumers be "reasonable'; that's just not a criterion that's going to be part of any strategic calculation about changes to a product. Rather, the analysis is going to be something like "what do we gain if we do this, and what do we lose?", regardless of how unreasonable on some levels the final decision might seem. Again, it's about the bottom line.

[ChinRey]

6 hours ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

So, are walking in place and rubber banding related to low fps?

No.

Low fps means that the gpu is unable to update the pcicture on the screen fast enough, causing a jagged effect with noticeable jumps between the pictures. In extreme cases you get the infamous "slideshow" effect. It is always caused by either your gpu or your cpu being too busy.

Rubber banding is caused by problems with the connection or (usually) server performance.

[ChinRey]

2 hours ago, animats said:

SL should work on lower end computers, but here's what gamers have now. Steam has about 20,000,000 concurrent users at any one time. Highest ever in one game was about 3 million. Nice big market there.

Here's an automated survey from data Steam collects: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

That market is out there, waiting for SL to serve it properly.

Is it? Looking at how other virtual worlds have performed on Steam, it doesn't seem very promising.

I'm not even sure if SL can be on Steam. I understand Steam does allow A rated content now but there also seem to be incompatibility issues with the way the Linden Dollar works and there may be other problems as well. All LL would say when they gave up on Steam was that there were "complications".

[CaerolleClaudel]

28 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

No.

Low fps means that the gpu is unable to update the pcicture on the screen fast enough, causing a jagged effect with noticeable jumps between the pictures. In extreme cases you get the infamous "slideshow" effect. It is always caused by either your gpu or your cpu being too busy.

Rubber banding is caused by problems with the connection or (usually) server performance.

So, walking in place and rubber banding are related to LL, and not whatever computer we have.

[FairreLilette]

3 hours ago, animats said:

SL should work on lower end computers

SL should work on lower end computers exactly how when the Legacy mesh body is nearly one million triangles not even counting a head, hair or clothing?  And, other mesh avatars average about 150K to 200K in triangles before clothing, head and hair too!   

For most lower end computers, users would have to live a more isolated SL either building or doing 2D photography.

I've said this so many times...but when I became a Dinkie by choice, I found a whole other SL without the lag.  

A Dinkie runs about 17,000 triangles.  How many Dinkie's can you fit into that nearly 1 million triangles for one legacy body?

I came to SL to build.   Now I want to socialize.

It's about 30 tiny avatars per one human mesh avatar.  

Tinies have had events of 80+ avatars and it all runs great but bring 5 or more human biggie avatars to that event of 80+ tinies and it becomes a total lag drag again not because of the tinies but because of the biggies (your average human mesh avatar).  

If the event stayed 80+ tinies alone without the biggies, there is no lag.  

SL is not built for these high triangle mesh avatars or other recommended requirements need to be made for them.  I didn't come here to derender and jelly doll things.  That's a virtual mess, not a virtual world.  

 

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by FairreLilette

[CaerolleClaudel]

10 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

SL should work on lower end computers exactly how when the Legacy mesh body is nearly one million triangles not even counting a head, hair or clothing?  And, other mesh avatars average about 150K to 200K in triangles before clothing, head and hair too!   

Maybe they need to improve system avis (for God’s sake at least fix the effing chest groove!!!!) and make everybody use those. Really, I had the most fun in SL before mesh bodies even happened. Of course, then all people who are in SL for the current graphics would be gone.
That is the big problem, as is always brought up: SL means different things to different people, it is not like some game-game with narrow, focused design parameters and goals, and meeting the wants and needs of all the stakeholders seems to be a zero sum endeavor based on the current state of the environment. 

[ChinRey]

15 minutes ago, CaerolleClaudel said:

So, walking in place and rubber banding are related to LL, and not whatever computer we have.

With some reservations, yes. Both those problems mean your computer and the server don't communicate properly. The problem can lie on either side of course or somewhere in the connection between the two (which includes your router) but if it's your computer that is struggling to keep up, those issues wil almost certianly be masked by far more serious ones, like freezing.

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

9 hours ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

I gotta know, do people go onto the Steam forums and complain that Doom Eternal won't run on their Chromebooks, or is this a Second Life thing? Second Life isn't even that hard to run. It doesn't have the DirectX 11 or 12 requirements of modern games, so you can run it on ridiculously old, and now very cheap hardware.

It's mostly an SL thing to complain that your steam powered difference engine isn't working...

But I have seen mild versions of it in other MMOs. A few years back when all the MMOs were canning support for Windows XP, you had some luddites pipe up about why can't their horse and buggy run World of Warcraft...

But the MMO companies tend to just shut them up with notes about how few of them there are, and how many people they're losing by not being more current than their competition... 'you people using stone knives and bearskin rugs to play this game make us about $199.50 a month, total... and we could add 6-7 figures to our revenue stream by showing you the door, not to mention this here mile long list of features we can't develop until you leave... so... bye...'

21 hours ago, animats said:

Target reasonably modern computers. Pick a level that 75% of Steam users have. Steam publishes statistics on that, so you can tell what most users have. That would probably be roughly an NVidia 1060 (most popular graphics card on Steam), 32GB RAM, 4 CPUs, 100GB SSD space for the cache. Weaker hardware should still work, but that's a good recommended level.

Most of that is about 5+ years OLD. So fully reasonable. The 32gb ram one is odd though - when I built a new system middle of last year all the guides noted that anything above 16gbs of ram was largely wasted unless you do something like run the game and a video development suite and stream and render 3D art ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

32GB's is now in the guide for the top system:

https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/PqMnTW/glorious-intel-gamingstreaming-build

https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/J9dnTW/glorious-amd-gamingstreaming-build

You have to hit up to an $1800 system before you see 32GBs:

https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/yzLrxr/magnificent-amd-gamingstreaming-build

 

But the 'great systems' still are at 16GBs:

https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/NmZxFT/excellent-amd-gamingstreaming-build

https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/fB6MnQ/enthusiast-amd-gamingstreaming-build

And a basic gamer build is also 16GBs because this is actually not the 'pinch point'. The CPU and GPU are where the differences mostly lie.

https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/G4V323/modest-amd-gaming-build

Likewise an entry level system:

https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/DHTwrH/entry-level-amd-gaming-build $539.23 today, but that goes up and down daily.

 

Based on this, I'd recommend swapping that Radeon 570 for a GeForce 1060 3GB in that entry build, and you could run any modern video game and SL very well for very cheap:

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=378,392&sort=price&page=1

(I don't know how good the 570 id, but when I see Radeon I tend to think it's time to swap that out.)