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[HELP] Tips on improving SL Viewer/Firestorm Viewer


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Hello there 👋!

I've been playing Second Life for 9+ years and I've noticed that its performance has slowly went downhill. I can count on my fingers how many times I've actually had 30 or even 60 stable FPS in any Viewer for that matter. I own a desktop which can run any games that come out on the market, it's a beast of a computer, I can run games that look 100x times better than Second Life with 100+ FPS and this just boggles my mind. I was wondering if there is any way to improve the performance? I don't know, maybe a certain setting or something because no matter how low or how high the graphics are, the Viewer just refuses to run smoothly. Thanks!

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24 minutes ago, AndehMoltoer said:

Hello there 👋!

I've been playing Second Life for 9+ years and I've noticed that its performance has slowly went downhill. I can count on my fingers how many times I've actually had 30 or even 60 stable FPS in any Viewer for that matter. I own a desktop which can run any games that come out on the market, it's a beast of a computer, I can run games that look 100x times better than Second Life with 100+ FPS and this just boggles my mind. I was wondering if there is any way to improve the performance? I don't know, maybe a certain setting or something because no matter how low or how high the graphics are, the Viewer just refuses to run smoothly. Thanks!

don't compare SL with games, that won't work.
If you want advice, please paste your system/settings info from the viewer help menu here.

Edited by Alwin Alcott
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2 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

don't compare SL with games, that won't work.
If you want advice, please paste your system/settings info from the viewer help menu here.

Hey!

I don't see anything that would let me get the info you specified, all I see is just a "Enable Sysinfo button" option that can be activated, but I don't see the button anywhere.Also, why shouldn't I compare SL with games? It's a virtual environment like every other game out there. It's hard for me to comprehend how a hyper-realistic game runs very smoothly, yet SL refuses to.  Found it here it is:

 

Firestorm_x64 6.4.21 (64531) Jul 21 2021 21:00:53 (Firestorm-Releasex64 64bit / SSE2) with Havok support

Build with MSVC version 1916

I am in Isla Perdida located at simhost-0a7a8833360db8be3.agni ()
Second Life Server 2021-08-27.563375

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900x Twelve-Core Processor           (3693.99 MHz)
Memory: 32768 MB
OS: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19042.1237)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
Graphics Card Memory: 8176 MB
Graphics Card Driver Version: 30.00.13017.5006


OpenGL Version: 4.6.14761 Compatibility Profile Context 21.9.2 30.0.13017.5006

libcurl Version: libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2l zlib/1.2.8 nghttp2/1.40.0
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v8.1
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 2.01.09
Dullahan: 1.8.0.202011211324
  CEF: 81.3.10+gb223419+chromium-81.0.4044.138
  Chromium: 81.0.4044.138
LibVLC Version: 2.2.8
Vivox Version: Vivox 4.10.0000.32327

Packets Lost: 24/393522 (0.0%)

RLVa: RLV v3.4.3 / RLVa v2.4.1.64531
Mode: Hybrid
Skin: Metaharper Modern (CoolOcean)
Window Size: 1920x1017 px
Font: Deja Vu
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
Font Screen DPI: 96
UI Scaling: 1.000
Draw Distance: 128 m
Bandwidth: 3000 kbit/s
LOD Factor: 2.000
Render quality: High-Ultra (6/7)
ALM enabled: Yes
Texture memory: 2048 MB (1.00)
Disk cache: Max size 2048.0 MB (100.0% used)

Edited by AndehMoltoer
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12 minutes ago, AndehMoltoer said:

Hey!

I don't see anything that would let me get the info you specified, all I see is just a "Enable Sysinfo button" option that can be activated, but I don't see the button anywhere. Also, why shouldn't I compare SL with games? It's a virtual environment like every other game out there. It's hard for me to comprehend how a hyper-realistic game runs very smoothly, yet SL refuses to.

On the viewer, top menu...Help/About Firestorm and copy to clipboard...paste here.

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Second Life will never run like a game optimized for performance that was made by game developers.  Everything in SL is user created and can change minute to minute.  So much of what is created is NOT optimized with your performance in mind.

The one thing I see.that will make a dramatic effect on your fps is draw distance.  Unless you're out exploring open areas or taking pictures, drop your draw distance in half.  128 is an entire region.  Inside structures, like at busy clubs and such, 32 is more than adequate.

 

draw_distance_vs._region_diagram_corrected.png

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10 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Second Life will never run like a game optimized for performance that was made by game developers.  Everything in SL is user created and can change minute to minute.  So much of what is created is NOT optimized with your performance in mind.

The one thing I see.that will make a dramatic effect on your fps is draw distance.  Unless you're out exploring open areas or taking pictures, drop your draw distance in half.  128 is an entire region.  Inside structures, like at busy clubs and such, 32 is more than adequate.

 

draw_distance_vs._region_diagram_corrected.png

Ah...I see, thought it was another issue that I was missing. Anyhow, I appreciate your help thanks :)!

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Rowan ...

... A Region is 256 meters a side, not 128 ...

It's great that people are more heavily recommending that users use a "normal" Draw Distance but come on, use the actual measurements when discussing things at that size. Your chart is showing the draw distance of 128 "covering" the Region from the exact center point of the Region. From there you only need to have your Draw Distance set to half the actual size to see everything around you.

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My FPS made a noticeable improved when I moved the cache over to a ramdisk, set to 2.5gb.  Previously, I had it set to my HDD and when riding my moped around I would experience horrible lag where my viewer would nearly lock up with the draw distance set to 64 or lower.  While It is not a perfect solution, it is a lot smoother than before, my viewer is no longer locking up when I am riding around, and it is set at 128 meters.  Even in Bellisseria where I would experience horrible lag, it is fine.  The downside, is that I always have a 2.5gb chunk of memory in use.. considering how often I use SL and OS, it is worth it for me though.

Edited by Istelathis
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24 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

Rowan ...

... A Region is 256 meters a side, not 128 ...

It's great that people are more heavily recommending that users use a "normal" Draw Distance but come on, use the actual measurements when discussing things at that size. Your chart is showing the draw distance of 128 "covering" the Region from the exact center point of the Region. From there you only need to have your Draw Distance set to half the actual size to see everything around you.

I was using that as an example of what is seen from a specfic point.  Thanks for the correction on region size.  My mistake.  I was using the graph as someone else had used it to show draw distance numbers from a fixed point.  

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Just now, Rowan Amore said:

I was using that as an example of what is seen from a specfic point.  Thanks for the correction on region size.  My mistake.  I was using the graph as someone else had used it to show draw distance numbers from a fixed point.  

Not a problem and just realized that my post came out a bit harsher than intended - that's what I get for posting before coffee.

It's nice as a kind of general reference - especially if one is landscaping and such.

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FPS hasn't really improved over the years, but, stability has, and that's the big thing. Back on the ol days, unexpected sim crashes were kinda common place. Avatars are more complex now and all sorts of mesh objects, but in general 15-20 fps with 'everything on' is still doable to be able to move around and function (with other avies present) Empty sims on a high end machine should still see 30+ fps

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23 hours ago, AndehMoltoer said:


OS: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19042.1237)

Graphics Card: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT

These 2 aren't friends.

Nvidia will get better FPS on Windows for SL - it's a known thing that AMD's OpenGL implementation on Windows sucks, and this isn't likely to change given the amount of games which rely intensely on OpenGL (which isn't that many, as Vulkan is now a thing)

If you feel inclined, you can try out Linux which has a vastly superior OpenGL implementation and thus SL performance is much improved (On my system, which is similar to yours, I went from around ~24fps average to between 80-100 on Linux).

Other than that, turn down your draw distance, and turn down particle effects to around 1024. Turn down your LOD settings to around 1.5.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I get much better FPS using Alchemy viewer rather than Firestorm. In fact, "much" is an understatement. 

While it has a lot of features and the UI imo is "fresher" it otherwise lacks the stability and overall feature-rich experience of Firestorm. I was going to stick with Alchemy but they've not updated it in over a year and that's a deal breaker for me. - Not that they care. It may be worth a try though if FPS is a particular concern.

 

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1 hour ago, MarissaOrloff said:

The best performance uplift in FPS you can give yourself is to use the Linux viewer. I also had about a 10% increase in FPS enabling Resizable Bar (NVidia RTX-3000 series only) in bios. 

so means we have to install another OS?  Linux...  have you met the populace of SL?

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I'm using KOKUA VIEWER in the version without RLV ( yes, they have this option ) and I can say this viewer is MUCH faster than Firestorm. Not only in places with more avatars, but much faster to rezz any kind of object.The viewer is more simple than Firestorm but also has a bult in AO.I recomend for who wants to feel the old pleasure to play without sad worries.The Firestorm EEP versions are a complete disaster ! Try the modest Kokua and you guys you'll see !

https://kokua.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/KKA/pages/15237201/Downloads

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On 10/19/2021 at 2:25 PM, Exavor Diesel said:

I get much better FPS using Alchemy viewer rather than Firestorm. In fact, "much" is an understatement. 

While it has a lot of features and the UI imo is "fresher" it otherwise lacks the stability and overall feature-rich experience of Firestorm. I was going to stick with Alchemy but they've not updated it in over a year and that's a deal breaker for me. - Not that they care. It may be worth a try though if FPS is a particular concern.

 

I tried Alechemy for a bit it was 'faster' but once everything was equalized, draw distance, dynamic draw etc it wasn't really that much faster. There is anoter thread posted by a Linden about an 'improved' Linden viewer, I downloaded it and tried it if it was at least twice as fast as the current FS, but well, the Linden viewer UI kinda sucks, so there's that

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/19/2021 at 4:59 PM, MarissaOrloff said:

The best performance uplift in FPS you can give yourself is to use the Linux viewer. I also had about a 10% increase in FPS enabling Resizable Bar (NVidia RTX-3000 series only) in bios. 

Thanks for the tip, Marissa. I spent a few hours today enabling Resizable BAR on my computer. It was a pain to update the BIOS and VBIOS, and configure the BIOS correctly. Hope the effort will be worth it, because I ain't switching to Linux. :D 

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  • 8 months later...
On 10/19/2021 at 9:25 PM, Exavor Diesel said:

I get much better FPS using Alchemy viewer rather than Firestorm. In fact, "much" is an understatement. 

While it has a lot of features and the UI imo is "fresher" it otherwise lacks the stability and overall feature-rich experience of Firestorm. I was going to stick with Alchemy but they've not updated it in over a year and that's a deal breaker for me. - Not that they care. It may be worth a try though if FPS is a particular concern.

 

Go to their discord server they are  making betas that work quite well even if they don t publish them in official page... I ve tried all of them and performance wise the experience is very good since it puts more load on gpu. There s their latest beta -2 weeks old-  Package Registry · Alchemy / Alchemy Next · GitLab (alchemyviewer.org)

Edited by Gio1984Vr
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2 hours ago, Gio1984Vr said:

Go to their discord server they are  making betas that work quite well even if they don t publish them in official page... I ve tried all of them and performance wise the experience is very good since it puts more load on gpu. There s their latest beta -2 weeks old-   Package Registry · Alchemy / Alchemy Next · GitLab (alchemyviewer.org)

https://i.imgur.com/m4gzmyE.png

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4 hours ago, Quistess Alpha said:

You know you can embed images directly into your post?

It's as simple as drag-dropping the image from one place (ex. the imgr page) to the text-input box.

m4gzmyE.png

I just normally post the link and it posts it,  didnt know it did not show up for others.   I was seeing it.

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