Does the super low Bandwidth throttling still apply today?

[Jackson Redstar]

I've been curious about this since I joined SL, course back then in the mid 2000s internet speeds were much lower than todays. I have also read really old threads talking a a server cap of max 3000 kbs

Im curious with todays average internet speeds, the move to the cloud etc is SL servers still limited to 3000 kbs or is this ancient stuff? I have mussed about in debug settings changing the max throttle up and haven't seen any tp failures or otherwise ill effects, and of course, this is one subject where everybody seems to have a different answer for. My internet is currently 100mbs and even that by todays standards is a little slow

 

according to the FS page:

• Measure your download speed to the city where SL has servers¹⁾, by clicking this link, then select YOUR PREFERRED SERVER; make note of the download speed they indicate at the end of the test:
  Tucson, AZ. ^2) 3)
• The speeds are given in Mbps; multiply the speed you get by 800
• Set your Firestorm bandwidth to 1500, or the result you got above - whichever is smaller: in Firestorm, go to Preferences → Network & Files -> Connection; Maximum Bandwidth is at the top.

so if I am 102 mbs to Tuscon then that is 81,600 but the max I should set it as is 1500 - how does this even make sense with todays internet speeds? to put in perspective to even get a number SMALLER than 1500 you would be on a 1.5 mbs connection speed or less!

 

sorry if this is a dead horse, I'm just curious 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Jackson Redstar

[Aishagain]

If I recall correctly the throttling does occur at a server level...the LL servers could not (at the time this metric was set) stream more than about 2000kbps not 3000k.  I doubt that that is still so and since that limit referred to UDP data and not http I cannot think that the limits are relevant now.  However I am no tech so others will perhaps give the correct story.

[Gavin Hird]

The throttle also has to do with not feeding too much data to the viewer as there are limitations to how much new and updated content it can process between rendering each frame. If you feed it too fast, it will just be discarded and can be seen as cliches or tearing in frames, or cause the viewer to request the content to be reloaded. 

[Jackson Redstar]

1 hour ago, Gavin Hird said:

The throttle also has to do with not feeding too much data to the viewer as there are limitations to how much new and updated content it can process between rendering each frame. If you feed it too fast, it will just be discarded and can be seen as cliches or tearing in frames, or cause the viewer to request the content to be reloaded. 

maybe back in 2005 that was a concern when you had 2 gigs of RAM tops and a 500mb video card......

[Odaks]

There is also the difference between wired and wifi connections. Irrespective of the calculation, any connection terminating with a wifi link should be set to 500 max. But there are many modern wifi systems that can handle much higher speeds than used to be the case, and this restriction may well be totally unnecessary, too?

[Solar Legion]

It will heavily depend on your ISP and average Bandwidth. The last time this came up was in 2014 and frankly the same advice holds true today: On average you are better off not setting it above 1500 - this allows wiggle room for potential ISP end issues (the last few days my own speeds have varied greatly and my area - the last time we looked - simply does not have the infrastructure installed for speeds above 30 - 50 Mb/s on the downlink, averaging around 20 Mb/s when operating 'properly'). If your speeds are otherwise consistent then play around a bit to see what works best with the fewest errors or other complications (bearing in mind that you'll have to factor other Bandwidth sinks such as external browsers and such). Also bear in mind that as of the last thread (2014) the server side of things was capped at 3000 and ignores all requests for faster transfer.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

there is a bug above 1500,  so if you set it higher you make it throttle it's self.  it's an LL bug,  no eta when it will ever be fixed.

[Willow Wilder]

22 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

It will heavily depend on your ISP and average Bandwidth. The last time this came up was in 2014 and frankly the same advice holds true today: On average you are better off not setting it above 1500 - this allows wiggle room for potential ISP end issues (the last few days my own speeds have varied greatly and my area - the last time we looked - simply does not have the infrastructure installed for speeds above 30 - 50 Mb/s on the downlink, averaging around 20 Mb/s when operating 'properly'). If your speeds are otherwise consistent then play around a bit to see what works best with the fewest errors or other complications (bearing in mind that you'll have to factor other Bandwidth sinks such as external browsers and such). Also bear in mind that as of the last thread (2014) the server side of things was capped at 3000 and ignores all requests for faster transfer.

I mostly agree with this, except for the 1500 setting if you use a wireless or satellite connection, in which case, the Firestorm Wiki Speedtest referenced above is still recommended. There are even handy little notches in the viewer preference settings for this. 

Strangely, the official Second Life Viewer still allows users to ramp it all the way up to 10,000 kbps, which I suppose is good for the "moar is better" crowd.