Can someone explain this?

[Benson Gravois]

I want to start off by saying this is not a rant, just.a question. 

Why is it I can go on steam and play games like truck simulator and drive fast and everything is clear and seamless and nothing needs to Rez or anything, and then when I go on Second Life with the same computer and try to drive on the Linden roads it is a rezzing night mare? Why???

Same computer folks???

[Rat Luv]

SL has never been good with vehicles, that's true.

[Benson Gravois]

2 minutes ago, Rat Luv said:

SL has never been good with vehicles, that's true.

It's more than just that though. Why do all these games on steam look great and the scenery is complete? You don't have to wait for anything to rezz and there is never an issue with fps? Why can't SL be the same way??

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Because, unlike most video games which feature content, terrain, etc. that's been pre-built by the developers and is already loaded onto your drive, or at least pre-optimized for delivery, SL features user-made content that can literally change in completely unpredictable ways any second.

That means the viewer first needs to read what is there to see before it can draw it. With a standard game, it already knows, and the stuff is ready to go immediately.

[Chaser Zaks]

A lot of games are designed with what is called "physics prediction". Physics prediction allows the client to simulate the physics in the same way the server does based off just Position, Rotation, Velocity, and Angular velocity. This reduces packet overhead a lot.

Second Life however, uses streamed physics. Meaning the client does no physics processing at all(This is why you sink into the ground sometimes when region crossing). The most the client does is interpolation, which just keeps the velocity of a object. While it can reduce physics overhead, it doesn't work very well when stuff is touching the ground, as this results in the physical data being updated a lot.

Additionally, vehicles in games like the source engine trust the client to a certain extent. Second Life puts full trust on the server and never the client. A example of this is:

• In source engine, you press "W" and your vehicle will move immediately, even if it hasn't reached the server. The server then interpolates the time from when you sent the "W", and what your client says they are now at, and checks it.
• In Second Life, you press "W" and you tell the simulator you pressed "W", and then it handles everything else. This means when you press "W", you will have to wait for the server to process the request, and then send back the result. The client does nothing more than tell the simulator the state of the client.

In practice, the server/client model Second Life uses is the safest, as you do not have to worry about cheats such as no clip, fly hacks, etc. However, it is the slowest of server/client models. With source engine, you have to worry about no clip, fly hacks, and other movement hacks.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Chaser Zaks

[Scylla Rhiadra]

24 minutes ago, Chaser Zaks said:

A lot of games are designed with what is called "physics prediction". Physics prediction allows the client to simulate the physics in the same way the server does based off just Position, Rotation, Velocity, and Angular velocity. This reduces packet overhead a lot.

Second Life however, uses streamed physics. Meaning the client does no physics processing at all(This is why you sink into the ground sometimes when region crossing). The most the client does is interpolation, which just keeps the velocity of a object. While it can reduce physics overhead, it doesn't work very well when stuff is touching the ground, as this results in the physical data being updated a lot.

Additionally, vehicles in games like the source engine trust the client to a certain extent. Second Life puts full trust on the server and never the client. A example of this is:

• In source engine, you press "W" and your vehicle will move immediately, even if it hasn't reached the server. The server then interpolates the time from when you sent the "W", and what your client says they are now at, and checks it.
• In Second Life, you press "W" and you tell the simulator you pressed "W", and then it handles everything else. This means when you press "W", you will have to wait for the server to process the request, and then send back the result. The client does nothing more than tell the simulator the state of the client.

In practice, the server/client model Second Life uses is the safest, as you do not have to worry about cheats such as no clip, fly hacks, etc. However, it is the slowest of server/client models. With source engine, you have to worry about no clip, fly hacks, and other movement hacks.

I ran this through Google Translate, and it came up blank.

Estas hablando español?

Είναι αυτό το ελληνικό;?

Talvez português?

[Rowan Amore]

4 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I ran this through Google Translate, and it came up blank.

Estas hablando español?

Είναι αυτό το ελληνικό;?

Talvez português?

Είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

Είναι όλα ελληνικά για μένα

Και εγώ!

[Maitimo]

7 hours ago, Benson Gravois said:

I want to start off by saying this is not a rant, just.a question. 

Why is it I can go on steam and play games like truck simulator and drive fast and everything is clear and seamless and nothing needs to Rez or anything, and then when I go on Second Life with the same computer and try to drive on the Linden roads it is a rezzing night mare? Why???

Same computer folks???

SL works on software that was built in 2001/2002. You need to compare it with other games made in 2002, not games made in 2020. And even then, it's not the same.

To simplify (a bit) what Chaser said, most other games have the world already calculated because it knows that everything stays the same, or changes only in pre-programmed ways. The only thing it needs to re-calculate "on the fly" is your own avatar. But SL is a world in which anything can be changed by users at any time, so it needs to re-calculate everything on the fly, all the time. Not just physics, but everything. Region crossings are particularly awkward because when you cross from one region to another, you are literally going from one server to another.

Additionally, a game such as you find on Steam is created solely by experienced professionals who understand and use proper optimisation in the build. Most people who create content in SL do not understand optimisation, so they do crazy things like make jewelry with 1024 x 1024 size textures on each link of a chain. Or mesh boxes with twenty-gazillion tris.

The only other game that's really comparable is Minecraft, which gets around the problem by making everything out of large cubes with low-res textures, so everything takes so much less time to process.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Maitimo

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Things and people and clothes in most games are optimized, because they're not made by n00bs.

Things and people and clothes in SL aren't optimized because they're mostly made by n00bs; sometimes very successful n00bs, but n00bs nonetheless, because they can get away with not optimizing things, while customers will blame Linden Lab for things around them being 'laggy'.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Arduenn Schwartzman

[KT Kingsley]

It's not really about noobs v. pros. It's more about predefined content already downloaded onto your hard disk v. dynamic content that has to be downloaded on the fly. And sure, optimising is a big – ok, huge – part of that difference, so sure, a pro can probably make the same thing at a fraction of the bandwidth cost than can a noob or hobbyist.

But the whole point of SL is that whoever wants to can make whatever they want to wherever they want to whenever they want to, and see it take shape instantly (and any passersby will also see that creation happening in real time). In SL you can enjoy (or endure, or avoid) the weird and wacky stuff various weirdos have created. But if SL content was limited to properly optimised static stuff only you'd be missing out on most of the fun.

If you want to experience a worldscape created by professional creators, then you'll probably want to involve yourself in professionally created commercial worldscapes. If you have even just an inkling of an interest in exploring the weird and wonderful (or, even the banal and mundane) minds and creations of people in general, then I'm afraid you're going to have to learn to live with the fact that they won't be anywhere near as slick as those made by people who've been trained in, and have the experience of doing so in a professional environment.

Mostly.

Edited October 4, 2020 by KT Kingsley

[Chic Aeon]

Along with all the comments already ----

 

Most games on STEAM are PRELOADED so there is little "rezzing" issue.    Sansar was preloaded. There were still major (oh so major with a few "experiences") issues of "hobbiest mesh" (agree that isn't always true so let's say UNOPTIMIZED mesh that was not made as a GAME ASSET). One site when I joined at the beginning of the open beta (new TOS then :D) took half an hour to load. Doorknobs had a gazillion triangles along with screws with hundreds -- you get the idea.

 

MOSTLY though it is about the unoptimized content.  I have been playing Cities Skylines for the last couple of months  -- a lot. And commenting on the discussion group now and then; certainly WATCHING the discussion group to see what I can learn.  Skylines also has the ability for people to make "mods" that can be used in the game. Some are assets and some are codes. BOTH can be used for free. MANY CAUSE BIG ISSUES.   About every fourth question on that group board gets answered with "it is like a mod you are using".  
 

Since I already knew the dangers of unoptimized content I have not used any mods in any of my cities. My game is running very well. Other people's games? not so much. Some have over a thousands mods in their account and complain about how long things take to load. Mine loads speedily. 

 

See any parallels? 

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

52 minutes ago, KT Kingsley said:

But the whole point of SL is that whoever wants to can make whatever they want to wherever they want to whenever they want to, and see it take shape instantly (and any passersby will also see that creation happening in real time).

Yes, yes and yes with a capital K.

Furthermore, several people can collaborate on an inworld build, as far as I know that's unique to SL/Opensim. 

[Syo Emerald]

16 hours ago, Benson Gravois said:

It's more than just that though. Why do all these games on steam look great and the scenery is complete? You don't have to wait for anything to rezz and there is never an issue with fps? Why can't SL be the same way??

Because they are completely different things. They are differently made and differently run. Its like comparing the performance of a DVD you play at home vs. the performance of some random Twitch stream. Others already commented, but here are the key points:

- SL is live downloaded. Everything you see is constantly streamed, nothing is pre-installed on your computer, expect for the little bit of software to enter SL. Thats why things need to rezz. The server needs to send that data to your computer first. In a typical game, all textures and objects are pre-installed on your computer.

- SL is entirely user-made content. This means the content is often not optimized, since the people creating them are not professionals. That leads to performance issues.

[Solar Legion]

There's nothing to explain.

Steam and similar are game platforms, selling software with pre-loaded/compiled/optimized assets (yes, even the Workshop Content is put through this process) and the same is true of tings like Minecraft.

No need to compare to anything from the same era as Second Life's start as there is nothing whatsoever to compare it to.

[Paul Hexem]

SL has a ton of technical flaws that LL is too lazy or stupid to fix, for sure. But rezzing as you move is not one of them, that's by design. No way to pre-load content that users can move at will.

[Sassy Kenin]

Yes, the software is a rare real time run edit persistent world.  99% are not including Sansar. they require any environmental or avatar changes be done in a program or offline.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 10/3/2020 at 9:45 PM, Benson Gravois said:

I want to start off by saying this is not a rant, just.a question. 

Why is it I can go on steam and play games like truck simulator and drive fast and everything is clear and seamless and nothing needs to Rez or anything, and then when I go on Second Life with the same computer and try to drive on the Linden roads it is a rezzing night mare? Why???

Same computer folks???

Because the games you are going on in Steam do not have user content but only game company content so they can make it uniform. But these games are on shards also and not trying to make an actual contiguous world.

If you want to drive better, go back to Steam. The driving is good enough in SL and it's more interesting in terms of what you see.

[Penny Patton]

Like others have said:

• Content in SL is almost always horribly unoptimized.
• Content in SL is dynamic, not pre-loaded. 
• SL uses streamed physics instead of predictive.

Videogames can also use all kinds of tricks to further optimize the experience, tricks that just aren't possible in SL due to its dynamic nature. Like, in a videogame, the visuals are all built in a way that looks right from the player's POV but if you were able to free-cam around like you can in SL you'd be able to see how they cheat, such as buildings with no backsides and low-poly objects in the distance, away from the track.

Now, if you're building your own private estate where you have complete control, you can minimize the rezzing issues by only using optimized content and building with fast rez times in mind. That can help a lot, but it will never be 100% on par with your typical videogame driving experience.

 

[Jennifer Boyle]

On 10/3/2020 at 8:52 PM, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Because, unlike most video games which feature content, terrain, etc. that's been pre-built by the developers and is already loaded onto your drive, or at least pre-optimized for delivery, SL features user-made content that can literally change in completely unpredictable ways any second.

That means the viewer first needs to read what is there to see before it can draw it. With a standard game, it already knows, and the stuff is ready to go immediately.

But, in reality most of the content doesn't change every second, or even every hour, day, or  month.

I live in a mainland sim. Most content there has been the same for months, if not years. Yes, some has changed. I have wondered for years why SL servers don't have a way to flag changed content, so they know what needs to be redrawn and know that nothing else does. I've also wondered why locked content isn't flagged as unchanged. If these kinds of changes were made, it seems to me that the problem would be largely solved.

Can anyone enlighten me?

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

On 10/3/2020 at 8:45 PM, Benson Gravois said:

I want to start off by saying this is not a rant, just.a question. 

Why is it I can go on steam and play games like truck simulator and drive fast and everything is clear and seamless and nothing needs to Rez or anything, and then when I go on Second Life with the same computer and try to drive on the Linden roads it is a rezzing night mare? Why???

Same computer folks???

Very simply put. in most other games unless its being streamed in, everything is already on your platform of choice, there is a lot less work to be done about the calculations on where things are and how they will interact. In SL you have to stream everything all the time where ever you are, so it takes longer to update what is happening making things like driving, boating, flying more complicated and sometimes full of issues.

The only real way to combat this is to make sure you have as low as ping to the server as possible. SL is heavily ping controlled. Where high ping can cause problems. 

[Lyssa Greymoon]

5 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

But, in reality most of the content doesn't change every second, or even every hour, day, or  month.

I live in a mainland sim. Most content there has been the same for months, if not years. Yes, some has changed. I have wondered for years why SL servers don't have a way to flag changed content, so they know what needs to be redrawn and know that nothing else does. I've also wondered why locked content isn't flagged as unchanged. If these kinds of changes were made, it seems to me that the problem would be largely solved.

I think it would have to do with the cache being relatively small. If you don't go anywhere but that region, it shouldn't be a problem. With a maximum cache of 10GB, it seems like stuff is going to get cycled out of it pretty fast if you do much more than stand around.

I would very much like to be able to dedicate Fortnite or GTA V like amounts of storage to preload Second Life assets.

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

11 minutes ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

I think it would have to do with the cache being relatively small. If you don't go anywhere but that region, it shouldn't be a problem. With a maximum cache of 10GB, it seems like stuff is going to get cycled out of it pretty fast if you do much more than stand around.

I would very much like to be able to dedicate Fortnite or GTA V like amounts of storage to preload Second Life assets.

Actually there is a way to do that using the FS viewer. You can increase the size of the cache beyond the 10GB limit but it basically requires the use of another computer to do it efficiently. You can increase it up to 1TB if you really wanted to doing it that other way.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

7 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

But, in reality most of the content doesn't change every second, or even every hour, day, or  month.

I live in a mainland sim. Most content there has been the same for months, if not years. Yes, some has changed. I have wondered for years why SL servers don't have a way to flag changed content, so they know what needs to be redrawn and know that nothing else does. I've also wondered why locked content isn't flagged as unchanged. If these kinds of changes were made, it seems to me that the problem would be largely solved.

Can anyone enlighten me?

First, a very literal answer: It does not make sense to "flag" stuff that "needs to be redrawn" because as soon as anything on your screen (including the position/angle of  your camera) changes, everything needs to be redrawn without exception. Otherwise you would quickly find yourself with very interesting visual bugs. Objects being glued to your screen, disappearing entirely, or showing up through other objects like some weird alpha glitch.

What you probably meant: "Why not cache things that haven't changed for an extended period?" Cache to where? The sim? Everything is already on the sim, the sim is just one giant cache we can walk in. Cache to the viewer? We have that, it's literally the viewer cache, but it necessarily requires that you slow-rez the thing first. The viewer cache is also not unlimited, you can't cache the entire world of everything you've ever seen because you'll run out of computer space. And if you were to only cache the things that rarely change, you'd slow-rez everything else, every time you see it.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Arielle Popstar]

3 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

What you probably meant: "Why not cache things that haven't changed for an extended period?" Cache to where? The sim? Everything is already on the sim, the sim is just one giant cache we can walk in. Cache to the viewer? We have that, it's literally the viewer cache, but it necessarily requires that you slow-rez the thing first. 

Which leads to the question why the Maximum Bandwidth of the viewer is set to no more than 3000 Kbps (FS) and the actual recommended bandwidth is under 15000 Kbps. To the point it could be streamed, there seems to be a viewer bottleneck right there.