Let's talk about Bandwidth settings in SL

[Jackson Redstar]

The "max' bandwidth setting at least in the FS viewer (I don't have the official installed so I don't know) is 3000 kbps, or 3mbps - which is says 'may cause issues'. Now this is 2021 and I would suspect most people have available to them internet speeds far greater that 3mbps. I am currently on fiber optic with 300mbs down and up. I run a LAN cable to my computer. So why would I want to set my max bandwidth to 3mbps?

I went into debug settings and set it to 28000 kbps (280 mbs)  I haven't seen any 'issues'. So can we have a modern discussion on bandwidth in SL - why they still even have a bandwidth speed slider in the first place and why they even recommend, for instance, setting Cable internet to 1.25 mbps (or 1250 kbps)? Or is this obsolete now in current viewers but the UI control is still there?

Curious minds want to know...

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 hours ago, Jackson Redstar said:

The "max' bandwidth setting at least in the FS viewer (I don't have the official installed so I don't know) is 3000 kbps, or 3mbps - which is says 'may cause issues'. Now this is 2021 and I would suspect most people have available to them internet speeds far greater that 3mbps. I am currently on fiber optic with 300mbs down and up. I run a LAN cable to my computer. So why would I want to set my max bandwidth to 3mbps?

I went into debug settings and set it to 28000 kbps (280 mbs)  I haven't seen any 'issues'. So can we have a modern discussion on bandwidth in SL - why they still even have a bandwidth speed slider in the first place and why they even recommend, for instance, setting Cable internet to 1.25 mbps (or 1250 kbps)? Or is this obsolete now in current viewers but the UI control is still there?

Curious minds want to know...

The "Bandwidth" setting is only for UDP communication, which is a more primitive protocol that skips a lot of error testing. It used to be that almost everything between your viewer and the server went by UDP; now most information travels by separate HTTP connections that automatically negotiate speed.

[Jackson Redstar]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

The "Bandwidth" setting is only for UDP communication, which is a more primitive protocol that skips a lot of error testing. It used to be that almost everything between your viewer and the server went by UDP; now most information travels by separate HTTP connections that automatically negotiate speed.

so why does FS at least have this antiquated piece of the UI left? does any setting you make have any affect at all?

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Jackson Redstar said:

so why does FS at least have this antiquated piece of the UI left? does any setting you make have any affect at all?

There's still some information that's sent by UDP - I think "updates" that tell you the location of items/avatars

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

3 hours ago, Jackson Redstar said:

so why does FS at least have this antiquated piece of the UI left? does any setting you make have any affect at all?

It's quite simple to investigate. Set it to a low level, say 100, and TP to somewhere you know is cached. watch how nothing seems to rezz.

Increase the slider to a more reasonable level, sat 1000. Notice how everything begins to appear.

Because the location is cached the delays to rezzing cannot be due to texture bottlenecking, they're already there in the cache.

I am still not sure why having a very low bandwidth setting should result in such a delay rezzing. What I do now is that if it is set too low, not enough information regarding object positions, sizes, texture uuids on the faces, etc, gets to the client, or possibly such handshaking that the client performs with the regions goes so slowly that the region assumes the client isn't there.

However, it does prove that the bandwidth slider could allow you some control over how quickly or how slowly information is sent to your client by the region, I'm jut nor sure if it has any practical purpose.

[Jackson Redstar]

yeah there been so much misinformation over the years and half baked theories hard to know exactly what's what. I remember some said if you set it to high you'll cause lag around you for others. I dunno. like I said I set mine to 280mps and all seems fine. I monitor the receive on the task manager and popping into a new sim Ill usually see 70-80 mbps of downloading data. I suppose i could compare that with 'recommended' settings see if there is any difference