Low fps gaming computer

[mistrestorm]

Hello i’m new to SecondLife and it really annoys me that i have a such low fps, i always play on my gaming computer and even in most demanding games i have around 50-60 fps in ultra settings. I also heard that second life works better with an ethernet cable but i don’t know if it matters, thankss

[Aishagain]

@mistrestorm The short answer is Yes, it DOES matter due the nature of data transmission and reception.  Also "whitelisting" of the viewer, its cache folder and your settings folders should be done as a priority.

see: https://wiki.firestormviewer.org/antivirus_whitelisting?s[]=fs&s[]=whitelist

There are many aspects of the unoptimized content in SL that cause lower fps than would be seen in most pre-optimised games.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Aishagain
additional text

[KjartanEno]

Unlike most games you've played, Second Life isn't as dependent on your graphics card as much as it is on the single-threaded performance of your CPU. "Ultra" setting in Second Life viewers isn't necessarily a good thing to use. The draw distance will heavily impact your framerates. If you do start with "Ultra" then go into the advanced settings and try a draw distance of 128 meters. The second factor that impacts framerate heavily will be shadows. Granted, pretty shadows are hard to live without. You'll get more help from others in the forum if you go to the "Help" menu of your Second Life or third party viewer and click "About" to get the information on your hardware and operating system. Copy and paste it in your post like this:

Firestorm 6.4.13 (63251) Mar  2 2021 00:42:56 (64bit / SSE2) (Firestorm-Release) 
Release Notes

You are at 119.5, 45.4, 21.6 in Blake Sea - Half Hitch located at simhost-082e44f1317538804.agni
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Blake Sea - Half Hitch/119/45/22
(global coordinates 290,167.0, 268,845.0, 21.6)
Second Life Server 2021-03-31.557694
Release Notes

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor (3598.56 MHz)
Memory: 16022 MB
OS Version: Linux 5.4.0-70-generic #78-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 19 13:29:52 UTC 2021 x86_64
Graphics Card Vendor: AMD
Graphics Card: Radeon RX 580 Series (POLARIS10, DRM 3.35.0, 5.4.0-70-generic, LLVM 11.0.0)
Graphics Card Memory: 7738 MB

OpenGL Version: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 21.0.1

RestrainedLove API: RLV v3.4.3 / RLVa v2.4.0.63251
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2l zlib/1.2.8 nghttp2/1.25.0
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v8.0.6
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 2.01.08
Dullahan: 1.8.0.202011061705
  CEF: 81.3.10+gb223419+chromium-81.0.4044.138
  Chromium: 81.0.4044.138
LibVLC Version: 2.2.3
Voice Server Version: Vivox 4.6.0017.22050

Settings mode: Firestorm
Viewer Skin: Vintage (Classic)
Window size: 1920x1028 px
Font Used: Deja Vu (96 dpi)
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 32 m
Bandwidth: 1500 kbit/s
LOD factor: 2
Render quality: High-Ultra (6/7)
Advanced Lighting Model: Yes
Texture memory: 2048 MB (1)
VFS (cache) creation time (UTC): 2021-3-16T2:8:11 
Built with GCC version 50400
Packets Lost: 0/10,710 (0.0%)
April 11 2021 10:03:06 SLT

Edited April 11, 2021 by KjartanEno
clarification

[mistrestorm]

thanks

[mistrestorm]

1 hour ago, KjartanEno said:

Unlike most games you've played, Second Life isn't as dependent on your graphics card as much as it is on the single-threaded performance of your CPU. "Ultra" setting in Second Life viewers isn't necessarily a good thing to use. The draw distance will heavily impact your framerates. If you do start with "Ultra" then go into the advanced settings and try a draw distance of 128 meters. The second factor that impacts framerate heavily will be shadows. Granted, pretty shadows are hard to live without. You'll get more help if you go to the "Help" menu and click "About" to get the information on your hardware and operating system. Copy and paste it in your post like this:

Firestorm 6.4.13 (63251) Mar  2 2021 00:42:56 (64bit / SSE2) (Firestorm-Release) 
Release Notes

You are at 119.5, 45.4, 21.6 in Blake Sea - Half Hitch located at simhost-082e44f1317538804.agni
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Blake Sea - Half Hitch/119/45/22
(global coordinates 290,167.0, 268,845.0, 21.6)
Second Life Server 2021-03-31.557694
Release Notes

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor (3598.56 MHz)
Memory: 16022 MB
OS Version: Linux 5.4.0-70-generic #78-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 19 13:29:52 UTC 2021 x86_64
Graphics Card Vendor: AMD
Graphics Card: Radeon RX 580 Series (POLARIS10, DRM 3.35.0, 5.4.0-70-generic, LLVM 11.0.0)
Graphics Card Memory: 7738 MB

OpenGL Version: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 21.0.1

RestrainedLove API: RLV v3.4.3 / RLVa v2.4.0.63251
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2l zlib/1.2.8 nghttp2/1.25.0
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v8.0.6
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 2.01.08
Dullahan: 1.8.0.202011061705
  CEF: 81.3.10+gb223419+chromium-81.0.4044.138
  Chromium: 81.0.4044.138
LibVLC Version: 2.2.3
Voice Server Version: Vivox 4.6.0017.22050

Settings mode: Firestorm
Viewer Skin: Vintage (Classic)
Window size: 1920x1028 px
Font Used: Deja Vu (96 dpi)
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 32 m
Bandwidth: 1500 kbit/s
LOD factor: 2
Render quality: High-Ultra (6/7)
Advanced Lighting Model: Yes
Texture memory: 2048 MB (1)
VFS (cache) creation time (UTC): 2021-3-16T2:8:11 
Built with GCC version 50400
Packets Lost: 0/10,710 (0.0%)
April 11 2021 10:03:06 SLT

Firestorm 6.4.13 (63251) Mar  2 2021 18:51:46 (64bit / SSE2) (Firestorm-Releasex64) with Havok support
Release Notes

You are at 86,4, 171,0, 2.504,7 in DDL Accessories located at simhost-02ff298a0ee98fc76.agni
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/DDL Accessories/86/171/2505
(global coordinates 222.038,0, 355.243,0, 2.504,7)
Second Life Server 2021-03-11.556847
Release Notes

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz (2208 MHz)
Memory: 16229 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19042.867)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce RTX 2060/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 6144 MB

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 27.21.14.6192
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 461.92

RestrainedLove API: (disabled)
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2l zlib/1.2.8 nghttp2/1.40.0
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v8.0.6
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 2.01.08
Dullahan: 1.8.0.202007261348
  CEF: 81.3.10+gb223419+chromium-81.0.4044.138
  Chromium: 81.0.4044.138
LibVLC Version: 2.2.8
Voice Server Version: Vivox 4.10.0000.32327

Settings mode: Firestorm
Viewer Skin: StarLight (Silver Pink)
Window size: 1920x1080 px
Font Used: Deja Vu (96 dpi)
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
UI Scaling: 1.4
Draw distance: 144 m
Bandwidth: 550 kbit/s
LOD factor: 3
Render quality: Ultra (7/7)
Advanced Lighting Model: Yes
Texture memory: Dynamic (2432 MB min / 25% Cache / 19% VRAM)
VFS (cache) creation time (UTC): unknown
Built with MSVC version 1916
Packets Lost: 0/370 (0,0%)
April 11 2021 11:15:41 SLT

[KjartanEno]

2 minutes ago, mistrestorm said:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz (2208 MHz)

A quick search reveals you have a laptop of some kind. Your video card is more than capable enough. The CPU is a bit of a bottleneck. Modern games are designed to use more cores/threads, but Second Life isn't optimized like that. It is hoped that this could change in the future.

I'd recommend setting a draw distance no higher than 128 meters and turning off shadows (you can leave advanced lighting enabled with ambient occlusion on). If you have good internet, try increasing the viewer bandwidth to 1500 kbit/s. If others have more operating system specific recommendations, I'll leave it up to them. 

[mistrestorm]

8 minutes ago, KjartanEno said:

A quick search reveals you have a laptop of some kind. Your video card is more than capable enough. The CPU is a bit of a bottleneck. Modern games are designed to use more cores/threads, but Second Life isn't optimized like that. It is hoped that this could change in the future.

I'd recommend setting a draw distance no higher than 128 meters and turning off shadows (you can leave advanced lighting enabled with ambient occlusion on). If you have good internet, try increasing the viewer bandwidth to 1500 kbit/s. If others have more operating system specific recommendations, I'll leave it up to them. 

Okay i will try this thx

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, mistrestorm said:

Okay i will try this thx

You could also drop your LOD to 2.  Most things will look perfectly fine at that level.  If not, they probably aren't made well.

[Aishagain]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

You could also drop your LOD to 2.  Most things will look perfectly fine at that level.  If not, they probably aren't made well.

Y'know I hear that a lot.  In my experience, on Ultra graphics with my system (Ryzen 9 3900/Nvidia GTX1660Ti) LOD of 2 just does not work well.  I use LOD of 3 or sometimes 3.25 to rez pesky badly made mesh or sculpties.  I've always wondered in what way an LOD of 2 helps.  I find it hard...no impossible to believe that most of my stuff and the places I vist (like Cerridwen's Cauldron) are badly made and LOD just does not do the place justice.

[Rowan Amore]

39 minutes ago, Aishagain said:

Y'know I hear that a lot.  In my experience, on Ultra graphics with my system (Ryzen 9 3900/Nvidia GTX1660Ti) LOD of 2 just does not work well.  I use LOD of 3 or sometimes 3.25 to rez pesky badly made mesh or sculpties.  I've always wondered in what way an LOD of 2 helps.  I find it hard...no impossible to believe that most of my stuff and the places I vist (like Cerridwen's Cauldron) are badly made and LOD just does not do the place justice.

Interesting thread about that

 

[Aishagain]

@Rowan Amore Yes that's very interesting and once I've read it a couple of times I hope I'll understand LOD better.  Thanks.

That said, I still don't think Cerridwen's Cauldron or any of Elicio Ember's stuff is badly made.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Aishagain

[Coffee Pancake]

11 hours ago, mistrestorm said:

Hello i’m new to SecondLife and it really annoys me that i have a such low fps,

Hello, I'm a third party viewer developer. These are my tips for a smoother saner SL. 

Reduce your draw distance.

This will dramatically reduce the list of objects being sent to your viewer, this in turn reduces the number of texture requests and decodes, less stuff to do means you will be done processing sooner and your FPS will improve.

Be patient.

Dashing about floods your viewer with objects it then has to download and fetch textures for. If you keep moving, this list never goes away, and while it's processing there isn't enough free CPU time to make frames go brrrrrrr.

Add your SL cache folder as an exception to windows defender (or whatever other antivirus you have installed). SL has to download and process a LOT of textures and mesh objects, these all get saved in the cache. This is very slow. Anti virus software (like windows defender) makes this take twice as long as it should and slows everything else down. (oh.. and never clear your cache, even though someone will suggest it sooner or later)

Don't mess with the bandwidth slider.

The bandwidth slider only affects incoming transitory data from the region, stuff that changes or needs updating frequently (like avatar positions). If you set this too high, SL will fire these updates at your viewer faster than it can catch them and you will have a bad time. Lower is perfectly fine. Very low is fine too. The bandwidth slider does not affect the speed things download at.

Turn Shadows off !

Shadows are calculated on the CPU, this is time the CPU could be decoding textures or animating avatars. It can easily half your frame rate all by itself. Turn it back on when things have settled down (make graphics presets!)

Drop your LOD to 2

2 is MAX detail in every other viewer, if something looks like junk at 2 .. it's fair to say it's junk.

Sometimes SL is janky.

Everything you see in SL is made by another resident. Some are exceptionally talented, some are very um .. enthusiastic. Some are running on laptops so old, making their entire house full bright so it glows in the dark makes perfect sense.

[KjartanEno]

8 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Don't mess with the bandwidth slider.

The bandwidth slider only affects incoming transitory data from the region, stuff that changes or needs updating frequently (like avatar positions). If you set this too high, SL will fire these updates at your viewer faster than it can catch them and you will have a bad time. Lower is perfectly fine. Very low is fine too. The bandwidth slider does not affect the speed things download at.

Thank you! I learned something new. I have always conflated 'bandwidth' with total rezzing speed.

[Odaks]

22 hours ago, KjartanEno said:

The CPU is a bit of a bottleneck

Although quoted as 2.2GHz,  the 8750H will turbo automatically up to 4.1GHz, and that's pretty nifty!

[Coffee Pancake]

24 minutes ago, Odaks said:

Although quoted as 2.2GHz,  the 8750H will turbo automatically up to 4.1GHz, and that's pretty nifty!

That's for burst workloads, render a web page faster, etc.

Laptop cooling wont be capable of sustaining that speed with a constant load and it will thermal throttle down after a few minutes, from my quick research it seems that under gaming loads it can drop below 1Gz

[Odaks]

12 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Laptop cooling wont be capable of sustaining that speed    [8750H CPU]

Ok. I'm running that CPU in a Defiance laptop, coupled with a GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU. Cooling is, indeed, one hell of a problem! On a decent cooler tray, temperatures can be kept at around 82C while SL is running. I keep an eye on this via GPU-Z, but on odd occasions I've seen 90 - 92C. It is very rare for frame rates to drop below 20, with sensible settings (LOD 2. no shadows, draw 128. Shadows can often be tolerated though). I suspect the CPU must be spooling up a lot more than just to provide an occasional burst, but I don't know how to properly measure this.

[Coffee Pancake]

3 minutes ago, Odaks said:

suspect the CPU must be spooling up a lot more than just to provide an occasional burst, but I don't know how to properly measure this.

https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

[Odaks]

Thanks @Coffee Pancake! It'll be interesting to see what is going on.

[Tonk Tomcat]

Don't worry, even with the best computer sl will never run great. That's because 99% of all mesh content is made very badly and it's not game optimized low-poly at all, like it is normally in every other game. If you want to run it smooth, get your own sim and only add optimized content. Otherwise we sadly have to live with it that one avatar comes with more polgons like a triple A game whole screen scene and is nearly 1gb of texture data.

[Rachel1206]

On 4/12/2021 at 7:31 PM, Odaks said:

Ok. I'm running that CPU in a Defiance laptop, coupled with a GTX 1070 Max-Q GPU. Cooling is, indeed, one hell of a problem! On a decent cooler tray, temperatures can be kept at around 82C while SL is running. I keep an eye on this via GPU-Z, but on odd occasions I've seen 90 - 92C. It is very rare for frame rates to drop below 20, with sensible settings (LOD 2. no shadows, draw 128. Shadows can often be tolerated though). I suspect the CPU must be spooling up a lot more than just to provide an occasional burst, but I don't know how to properly measure this.

That sounds like rather high temperatures with a Max-Q, I am running an ASUS Strix gaming laptop with a 1060 and normally get around 55-70c on the GPU (CPU 55-76c) when running SL in high graphics, 240 meters, ALM enabled. Could it be someting as simple as dust in your laptop or some obstacles nearby preventing proper airflow?

Meassurements as reported by CPUID HWMOnitor.

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by Rachel1206

[Odaks]

8 hours ago, Rachel1206 said:

That sounds like rather high temperatures with a Max-Q

The 80 - 82 figure was from memory of spot checks with TechPowerUp GPU-Z. Maybe not very reliable. I've got HW Monitor loaded onto this laptop now and should get a clearer idea of what is actually happening. To avoid any firther derail here I'll report back separately if those figures are really rhat high. The CPU core speeds are of interest too; see @Coffee Pancake's .posts above.