Can someone explain this?

[Benson Gravois]

4 hours ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

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. 

Thank-you! How do I control the ping?

[Ted McGregor]

24 minutes ago, Benson Gravois said:

How do I control the ping?

You don' t.

You can measure it. The lower the response time the better.

You can try to keep your response times as low as possible.

You shouldn' t compare SL to Steam Games. It' s an apples oranges - kinda opposition.

Edited October 8, 2020 by TDD123

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

1 hour ago, Benson Gravois said:

Thank-you! How do I control the ping?

Have a good isp and router and modem..

[Wulfie Reanimator]

47 minutes ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

Have a good isp and router and modem..

And move closer to the physical datacenter. If you're in a different continent, no ISP is going to save your ping.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

5 hours ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

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.

Yeah, I tried that. I was hoping for a more modern and slightly less arcane solution.

[Jennifer Boyle]

8 hours ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

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. 

I don't think the streaming is where the bottleneck is. There used to be a subscription service that allowed people to use low-powered devices to access SL. It ran the viewer on a server and streamed the video to the user. It worked fine.

7 hours 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.

So, why is the cache limited to such a small size? I'd gladly use a multi-TB SSD for nothing but the cache, if it would improve SL's performance.

I'm pretty sure that retrieving content from the cache isn't the problem; I've experimented with putting the cache on a ramdrive, and there was no improvement.

5 hours 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. 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.

Why can't the viewer cache be a lot bigger, e.g., 1 TB, or 4TB?

If I run out of storage, I'll buy more.

Something is going on besides the server having to send new content to the viewer. I spend 90+ percent of my time in SL in one of two sims. Many times, I've logged in on one of those sims and seen a lot of gray for many seconds while textures slowly loaded. Most, if not all, of those textures had to be cached. What made them so slow to load? I have a fast PC, a powerful graphics adapter, lots of RAM, and my programs, data, and cache are all on SSDs.

I would increase the size of my cache, if I could understand how. The instructions for increasing the size of the FS cache were over my head. I wish someone would write some suitable for people who don't understand what they are doing, but can follow instructions.

[ChinRey]

On 10/4/2020 at 3:45 AM, Benson Gravois said:

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???

You may want to look at this thread of mine: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/462249-what-second-life-could-have-been/

I made a demo scene to show what optimised content means. It's on opensim because there's no way I can afford SL level tiers for something like that but it amounts to the same. If anything, opensim is even less performant than SL.

It's a 4x4 (that is the same as 16 SL sims) region island with roads and a forest with 8010 trees. The whole thing uses about 1% of the server capacity SL assigns to a single full region and isn't much heavier on your gpu than an empty sandbox.

No rezzing or load time issues, the entire scene is loaded in your viewer within seconds of your entry. That can actually be a bit eerie at first. I can't do anything about load time for the system ground so it's the very last thing to appear when you enter.

No LoD issues of course, set your LoD factor to 1 and draw distance to 1024 and everything still looks fine. Make something like that with "normal SL mesh" and you'll end up with lag hell,

The difference is all about the technical quality of the meshes used. Unlike normal SL content, my meshes and textures are highly optimised to make the most of every single vertice, tri and pixel.

If somebody made a place like that in SL, you could drive around as fast as you wanted and never notice any glitches. Until you hit a sim crossing of course - that's another matter.

 

Edited October 8, 2020 by ChinRey

[Evah Baxton]

I don't know anything about how the SL systems works and am making a few assumptions here... 

Cached items have to be checked to make sure they haven't been updated. This takes time with all the possible static changes that could be made to a single object (Mesh, faces, materials). Then there are dynamic changes like physics and scripts that can change the objects. All this polling between server and client (even just to check if a cached item has updated) takes a lot of time.  It's probably doing some kind of checksum, but probably doing it multiple times per object. Perhaps if it finds even one change, it re-downloads the whole object.

Based on the fact that an SL region can't have any idea what it's supposed to look like from one second to the next and then has to communicate your AV + vehicle's state to the possible 8 regions around it, it's fairly impressive how well it works. No other place like it.

One thing I love doing in SL is going into wireframe mode. I like finding meshes that aren't optimized and zooming out to the point where the object becomes solid again because there are so many triangles. It reminds me of the world we live in now where "solid" objects are just groups of other smaller objects that are attracting and repelling each other to make the world we can see and touch. It makes me think of a future where some species will be living in a solar powered server on Mars theorizing about "wireframe theory" and wondering where they came from and why they exist.

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

4 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

And move closer to the physical datacenter. If you're in a different continent, no ISP is going to save your ping.

While that is mostly true, a fast enough connection can lower the ping. but we are talking like having fiber optic compared to just regular dsl or cable internet.

[Ardy Lay]

17 Exabytes....  Now that's a lot of assets data to cache.  No thanks!

Oh, and that bandwidth slider is for UDP traffic, which hasn't included asset transfers for several years now.  When I clear cache then log back in to a built up region my bandwidth usage exceeds 200 Mbps while things load.

[Jennifer Boyle]

8 hours ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

While that is mostly true, a fast enough connection can lower the ping. but we are talking like having fiber optic compared to just regular dsl or cable internet.

I have had fiber to the house for the past year. I had hoped it would help. It didn't.

[Jennifer Boyle]

3 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

17 Exabytes....  Now that's a lot of assets data to cache.  No thanks!

Oh, and that bandwidth slider is for UDP traffic, which hasn't included asset transfers for several years now.  When I clear cache then log back in to a built up region my bandwidth usage exceeds 200 Mbps while things load.

Why is it so slow? Any connection better than dial-up is a lot faster than 200Mbps. Why doesn't SL utilize the available bandwidth?

[Evah Baxton]

29 minutes ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

Why is it so slow? Any connection better than dial-up is a lot faster than 200Mbps. Why doesn't SL utilize the available bandwidth?

Wow. I was impressed that I finally got mine to go above 200 consistently in the middle of a west coast US american city. And hell, I just did a test now and I am around 98.

[Ardy Lay]

3 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

Why is it so slow? Any connection better than dial-up is a lot faster than 200Mbps. Why doesn't SL utilize the available bandwidth?

I would explain what you did there but I think my head hurts too much.

[Caroline Takeda]

On 10/4/2020 at 4:56 AM, Scylla Rhiadra said:

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

 

You need to translate from "Nerdish" to English first.

[Jennifer Boyle]

I misspoke above. When I said 200 Mbps, I was thinking 200 kbps, which is what I see reported in the statistics bar.

I'd sure like to know how anyone achieves 200 Mbps. I have tried everything I could think of to improve SL performance, and have never even gotten close to that.

The fastest rate I have seen in the statistics bar previously was 1,600 kbps. Today, as a test, I TPed to a distant sim containing a number of avatars. I saw rates as high at 7,600 kbps in the statistics bar while the region was loading. Hopefully, something has happened to dramatically improve loading (Migration to AWS?). I sure hope this is a real, lasting change.

Edited October 10, 2020 by Jennifer Boyle
typo

[Maryanne Solo]

Cloud? Probably Jennifer. The Lab has been getting excellent results from trials.
Max here is 50mbps - unlimited data plan.
(Mah fibre to the node - bein directly 'cross duh road. <- pure 2020 street poetry eh?)

I'm really going to miss arriving at crowded clubs tho...
It's kind of like Rocky Balboa entering the meat fridge with body parts, clothes & accessories flying about..
You end up with a mouth-full of rigged mesh hair,
A strangers teeth clamped on to your buttox,
Your boot kicking someone in the head over the other side of the venue,
Hand involuntarily positioned in front of the artists tip jar - 🖐🏻️👍🏻
Sorta like "The Thing" (Addams family) does SL. 😆

Edited October 10, 2020 by Maryanne Solo

[Ardy Lay]

3 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

I misspoke above. When I said 200 Mbps, I was thinking 200 kbps, which is what I see reported in the statistics bar.

I'd sure like to know how anyone achieves 200 Mbps. I have tried everything I could think of to improve SL performance, and have never even gotten close to that.

The fastest rate I have seen in the statistics bar previously was 1,600 kbps. Today, as a test, I TPed to a distant sim containing a number of avatars. I saw rates as high at 7,600 kbps in the statistics bar while the region was loading. Hopefully, something has happened to dramatically improve loading (Migration to AWS?). I sure hope this is a real, lasting change.

That statistics bar in the SL Viewer probably just counts UDP traffic.  Try watching the network chart in task manager, or equivalent.

[Jennifer Boyle]

17 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

That statistics bar in the SL Viewer probably just counts UDP traffic.  Try watching the network chart in task manager, or equivalent.

I did as you suggested and was pleasantly surprised; When I turned the draw distance up to 1,000 m and teleported into a new sim where there were a lot of avatars, according to Windows 10 Task Manager, the peak bandwidth used by Firestorm was 42 mbps, so SL viewers do use a lot more bandwidth than I thought.

I had always assumed that the Statistics Bar was designed to display what was important.

[Ultima Cloud]

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???

That's because most games are closed world and/or use nothing but baked textures. They are designed for you to travel through them and not necessarily stand still and stare at a texture. If you did, you would realize the textures low resolution. SL has come a long way but most builders still don't know how to bake textures and even if they did they would be high rez bakes since people in SL do actually stand around and stare at things.

I have a gaming PC with 32gb ram and 2080 vid card. I can play other games well over 100fps on ultra settings. SL on ultra im around 14-20 fps. 60+ with dof enabled.

Edited October 11, 2020 by Ultimo Constantineau

[animats]

On 10/8/2020 at 3:59 PM, Evah Baxton said:

Cached items have to be checked to make sure they haven't been updated.

Actually, no. Each texture, mesh, sound, animation, etc. has a unique UUID. If you upload a new texture, etc. the upload gets a new UUID. So the SL system doesn't need cache expiration and replacement, the way web pages do.

2 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

I had always assumed that the Statistics Bar was designed to display what was important.

More like what was important 10 years ago. Assets (textures, meshes, etc.) used to be sent to the viewer from the Linden Lab sim servers themselves. Now they come in through a separate path that works just like web pages - requests with a URL go out, and assets come back later, all run from ordinary web servers on AWS, with Akamai caches. That's totally separate from the servers that run the sims. The statistics bar doesn't have much info about that part of the viewer.

Which assets to load in what order seems to be somewhat broken. A good way to show this is to teleport to a new sim to a spot right in front of a big picture or sign. It takes far too long for the big picture in front of you to rez in full. Sometimes a full minute. The viewer needs to be smarter about that.

2 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

Windows 10 Task Manager, the peak bandwidth used by Firestorm was 42 mbps, so SL viewers do use a lot more bandwidth than I thought.

Yes. When you teleport into somewhere, there's briefly a huge amount of traffic. The first traffic is over UDP, as the sim tells you what's where in that sim. Then the assets are dragged in from the asset servers.

Entering a new region, it may be a minute before everything is loaded. Most of the network traffic is in the first 10 seconds, though. Then the traffic goes way down, too far down, and the rest of the assets dribble in slowly. Something is throttling the traffic, but whether it's the viewer or the Akamai cache system or the AWS web servers isn't clear. This has come up at Server User Group, and may get looked at after cloud uplift.

Quote

Why doesn't SL utilize the available bandwidth?

The short answer is, because, in the end, those assets come from disk drives holding thousands of terabytes of SL assets, and they have physical limits on how fast they can random access all those little individual assets.

Edited October 11, 2020 by animats

[Eirynne Sieyes]

6 hours ago, animats said:

 

The short answer is, because, in the end, those assets come from disk drives holding thousands of terabytes of SL assets, and they have physical limits on how fast they can random access all those little individual assets.

I sure hope the cloud runs on SSDs!

[ChinRey]

13 hours ago, Ultimo Constantineau said:

That's because most games are closed world and/or use nothing but baked textures.

That's not quite true. Tileable textures were developed (and patented) by Pixar as a way to reduce the texture load compared to traditional baked ones and they still do that job very well. So the general rule is still, use and re-use tileable taxtures whenever possible.

The reason SL tend to be more texture heavy than games is simply that SL uses far more textures.

  

13 hours ago, Ultimo Constantineau said:

I have a gaming PC with 32gb ram and 2080 vid card. I can play other games well over 100fps on ultra settings. SL on ultra im around 14-20 fps. 60+ with dof enabled.

There's bit of a vicious circle there. You ave to bake shadows and such in SL because even game computers are struggling to run on ultra and the computers are struggling to run on ultra very much because there are so many baked textures.

My own computer is anything but a game computer but it can still match those 14-20 fps running on ultra with 1024 m draw distance at the optimised forest sim I mentioned earlier. The fps I get there with setting is about the same as what I get with graphics set to high at an average SL sim.

  

13 hours ago, Ultimo Constantineau said:

...

since people in SL do actually stand around and stare at things.

Well, what else is there to do here?

Edited October 12, 2020 by ChinRey