Lag

[ChinRey]

Take a look at this:

• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11700K @ 3.60GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090/PCIe/SSE2
• Connection: 150 Mb/s fibre
• Load time: About 8 minutes
• Fps: 5.7

Yes, I've maxed out all the significant graphics settings but even so, what is the point of those high graphics if not even the strongest gpu and the second strongest cpu on the market can handle it?

With the default graphics settings I got about 100 fps which is perfectly acceptable of course but still far less than one should reasonably expect with this hardware. I tried the Unigine Superposition Benchmark (a simulation specially made to push the hardware to the limit for those not familiar with it) and got:

• Min fps: 160.49
• Avg fps: 234.98
• Max fps: 328.10

---

This is both a software and a content issue. The picture is from Bellisseria, a place crammed full of poor meshes and worse textures. That explains the pitifully long load time and also obviously had a significant impact on the frame rate.

But the gpu load stayed below 8% all the time; the cpu load peaked at about 10% but stayed around 7-7.5% most of the time. This of course a software issue: the viewer simply isn't able to use the power a modern high end graphics computer provides.

---

When we talk about optimisation, it's usually about giving people with "regular" computers a positive experience and yes, that is the most important point. But I wanted to show that SL's inefficient content and software have a negative effect on everybody's experience. "Buy a better computer" isn't a solution.

@animats mentioned in another discussion that LL is working on elminating bottlenecks in the rendering pipeline now. Better late than never of course and I do hope we see some improvements there soon. But they have a loooong way to go and besides, there's still not much chance they'll ever do anything about the content issue which I think is just as important.

[Solar Legion]

There is no legitimate reason - ever - to have your Draw Distance set that high. That is the size of four Regions.

That setting should not ever be allowed beyond 512 Meters at most with the average user never needing to go beyond the size of an entire Region.

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

There is no legitimate reason - ever - to have your Draw Distance set that high. That is the size of four Regions.

That setting should not ever be allowed beyond 512 Meters at most with the average user never needing to go beyond the size of an entire Region.

I love long distance views though. We should be able to see at least as far as 20 regions.

[Aethelwine]

8 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

There is no legitimate reason - ever - to have your Draw Distance set that high. That is the size of four Regions.

That setting should not ever be allowed beyond 512 Meters at most with the average user never needing to go beyond the size of an entire Region.

More than that 1024m with you in centre I think it more like 9x9 = 81 regions? But a bit less maybe 60 regions or there abouts.

Edited October 2, 2021 by Aethelwine

[Luna Bliss]

Well I think if I remember right, the 1024 big prim is the size of 9 regions. 

Edited October 2, 2021 by Luna Bliss

[Solar Legion]

8 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

More than that 1024m with you in centre I think it more like 9x9 = 81 regions?

I am going by the actual measured size of a Region - 256 (x) by 256 (y). What you describe is standing at the center point of a Region (128, 128) and treating the Draw Distance as a complete circle around the Avatar. When set correctly, you should not be processing/drawing anything not directly in your Camera view. It might be loaded into cache to be displayed when you turn .... but it should not be drawn.

Further, even standing in the center of a Region and somehow rendering that entire circle, you are not covering the entirety of the Regions around you.

Edited October 2, 2021 by Solar Legion

[Rowan Amore]

I get almost exactly the same fps at home using low or high graphics.  Maybe 10 less with high.  If I turn draw up to even 128, it tanks.  So...yeah.

[Solar Legion]

3 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I get almost exactly the same fps at home using low or high graphics.  Maybe 10 less with high.  If I turn draw up to even 128, it tanks.  So...yeah.

This is a bit more realistic. When at Home (and in most places) I keep my Draw Distance set to 96 Meters. 128 for some places and for a very specific Region, I crank it to 256.

In all cases with the exception of a crowded Club or such ... the FPS never dips below 30.

Now, can this be improved somewhat? Probably. There is no reason to use 1024 meters DD as any kind of Benchmark nor is there any reason to use an FPS above 90 or so as a Benchmark - outside of First Person/Combat cases.

[Rowan Amore]

1 minute ago, Solar Legion said:

This is a bit more realistic. When at Home (and in most places) I keep my Draw Distance set to 96 Meters. 128 for some places and for a very specific Region, I crank it to 256.

In all cases with the exception of a crowded Club or such ... the FPS never dips below 30.

Now, can this be improved somewhat? Probably. There is no reason to use 1024 meters DD as any kind of Benchmark nor is there any reason to use an FPS above 90 or so as a Benchmark - outside of First Person/Combat cases.

When I'm at home, I'm normally IN my home changing clothes or unpacking things at ground level on Horizons.  I keep draw at 32 there only because I'm inside.  My fps is between 70-80.  Raising it to 128 cuts that in half.  I really have no reason to have it any higher if I'm riding around the regions there.  

Out taking pictures anywhere, I do raise it to around 200 just to get good background detail.  

[Solar Legion]

4 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

When I'm at home, I'm normally IN my home changing clothes or unpacking things at ground level on Horizons.  I keep draw at 32 there only because I'm inside.  My fps is between 70-80.  Raising it to 128 cuts that in half.  I really have no reason to have it any higher if I'm riding around the regions there.  

Out taking pictures anywhere, I do raise it to around 200 just to get good background detail.  

For the last images I took of Aerie Isle, I kept my DD at 256 for a similar enough reason.

Mind, that was also with an isolated Region.

[Arielle Popstar]

Maybe it is just me but I am noticing that in S/L especially, distant objects and textures load first and then seem to get progressively closer. Certain avatar textures in fact are the last to load. Some changes in prioritization or the ability to select at least would be nice.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

35 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

There is no legitimate reason - ever - to have your Draw Distance set that high.

How about an illegitimate reason

[ChinRey]

39 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

There is no legitimate reason - ever - to have your Draw Distance set that high.

Well, this was a performance test of course but apart from that I both agree and disagree with you.

On opensim I wouldn't even consider using a draw distance lower than 1024 m, and even that is really too low, because I big landscapes are an essential feature of any true virtual world.

But I do agree that the way Second Life is today, big landscapes are hardly ever an option. It's all made up from small "pocket realities" with little or no consistency or continuity so big draw distances are usually more a liability than an advantage. But this is a paradox with Second Life. It was made right from the start for big landscapes - with a grid that allows for virtually unlimted expansions and continents with connected regions. What's the point of those two features at all when there is no realistic way to take advantage of them?

(Edit: I also have to point out of course that this is a closeup picture, only showing items a few meters away. With proper object-to-object occlusion the draw distance shouldn't have been relevant at all in this case.)

I tried the Unigine Valley Benchmark too. A huge landscape the size of 1024 SL regions, no draw distance limit whatsoever and graphics far superior to anything ever seen in SL - or in Sansar for that matter:

• Min fps: 45.3
• Avg fps: 206.5
• Max fps: 333.8

The minimum fps was because the frame rate dropped for a fraction of a second every time the scene changed and is not really relevant.

This is the kind of performance we can expect from a modern game engine. And it's what people familiar with modern game engines will expect. Why can't we have it in Second Life? That's a rhetorical question of course but it's something we should think of. It shows how far behind the cutting edge SL (and Sansar too) are and I do think it's one of the main reasons why there will be no Second Coming of the Second Life.

 

Edited October 2, 2021 by ChinRey

[Solar Legion]

Unless you're looking to tack the ability to use VR HMDs onto Second Life there is no reason at all for FPS that high and even then the 300 range is in the realm of ludicrous overkill.

[Ted McGregor]

38 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

There is no legitimate reason - ever - to have your Draw Distance set that high. That is the size of four Regions.

Only once I had a valid reason : on a standalone sim ( no other sims around ) and with a starry sky holding  a diameter of 1024. The sight was awesome and the framerate never dropped significantly. 

Of course I always forgot back then to set back DD when teleporting away from there , resulting in almost a complete standstill when ending up anywhere else.

 

[Ted McGregor]

15 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

This is the kind of performance we can expect from a modern game engine. And it's what people familiar with modern game engines will expect. Why can't we have it in Second Life? That's a rhetorical question of course but it's something we should think of. It shows how far behind the cutting edge SL (and Sansar too) are and I do think it's one of the main reasons why there will be no Second Coming of the Second Life.

Penny Pax wrote a lot about the content users create and the inevitable problem of texture overflowing network activities. If user were contstrained to limit their texture size, things might be far more optimal than they are now with unoptimized textures. Something that is always done in a game engine of any triple A title you can think of. And it' s also something that has limited FPS average from day one. 

It' s also not helping the video memory is still limited to 2GB only while GPU's currently contain much more memory to be used. I think now dynamically upto 4GB can be set , but imagine how optimal SL would run if you could use texture memory to it's fullest with your current GPU ( 24 GB is it not ? ) 

Oh .. and shadows .. disable those .. and watch your FPS go up instantly. 

 

Edited October 2, 2021 by TDD123

[ChinRey]

1 minute ago, Solar Legion said:

Unless you're looking to tack the ability to use VR HMDs onto Second Life there is no reason at all for FPS that high and even then the 300 range is in the realm of ludicrous overkill.

Yes, that's true and I have to add that most places in SL I get a cool 50-100 fps which is more than enough. It's only particularly laggy places, like Bellisseria, the frame rate is as low as in my test.

But I think you still miss my main point. I've done similar tests with a battered old Lenovo not-at-all-game box and with a small Powerbook Pro and the results are similar: Regardless of how weak or strong you hardware is, Second Life gives you far less visual quality than "modern" game/virtual reality engine and generally even less than opensim. With an avalanche of new aspiring virtual realities beaing launched, I do think that is a serious disadvantage for Second Life. It may not be that important for established users who are used to how it is there but I'm absolutely sure it's one of the many factors that put potential new users off.

[ChinRey]

18 minutes ago, TDD123 said:

Penny Pax wrote a lot about the content users create and the inevitable problem of texture overflowing network activities. If user were contstrained to limit their texture size, things might be far more optimal than they are now with unoptimized textures.

Umm yes. But even though it's a bit rude of me, I probably should point out that I deliberately chose a spot with no user content. Everything you see in that picture and everything in the five regions behind it are Mole builds. I couldn't avoid user content in the houses behind my avatar and to the sides but if content outside the view angle is that significant, that's a problem in itself.

This is a little bit off on a tangent but it's one of the things that I find rather frustrating whenever we are dicussing content optimisation. We keep complaining about content creators who are overloading their meshes and textures with way too many tris and pixels. But can we really blame them when the Moles and Lindens themselves can't manage to deliver meshes with decent technical quality if their life depended on it?

Edited October 2, 2021 by ChinRey

[Solar Legion]

10 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Yes, that's true and I have to add that most places in SL I get a cool 50-100 fps which is more than enough. It's only particularly laggy places, like Bellisseria, the frame rate is as low as in my test.

But I think you still miss my main point. I've done similar tests with a battered old Lenovo not-at-all-game box and with a small Powerbook Pro and the results are similar: Regardless of how weak or strong you hardware is, Second Life gives you far less visual quality than "modern" game/virtual reality engine and generally even less than opensim. With an avalanche of new aspiring virtual realities beaing launched, I do think that is a serious disadvantage for Second Life. It may not be that important for established users who are used to how it is there but I'm absolutely sure it's one of the many factors that put potential new users off.

Honestly?

If new users are being driven off by the lack of Shiny (and yes, if the visual quality is such a deal breaker that is exactly what is happening) then good riddance.

The only real "competition" I have seen in recent years to Second Life has been VRChat and Neos. The former can even run native on a Quest 2 (which runs a variant of Android) and honestly is not much better visually than Second Life (to me, using both the PC/Steam and Quest 2 versions) with Neos having the most potential. That opinion bolstered by the fact that of those two, only Neos allows for in world creation of assets.

Both of those can be used with and without an HMD, by the by. Neos does not function on the Quest 2 as a standalone.

As an anecdote: About a month or so back I introduced a close friend of mine from VRC to Second Life and gave them the proper caveats. Their only complaint thus far has been buying items - I'll be helping them get a decent avatar set up at some point.

MY main point is that such Benchmarks and the opinions of Shiny chasers should be ignored.

Edited October 2, 2021 by Solar Legion

[Ted McGregor]

2 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Umm yes. But even though it's a bit rude of me, I probably should point out that I deliberately chose a spot with no user content. Everything you see in that picture and everything in the five regions behind it are Mole builds. I couldn't avoid user content in the houses behind my avatar and to the sides but if content outside the view angle is that significant, that's a problem in itself.

Why not monitor the texture loading with CTRL + SHFT + 3 ? You will see what is trying to be loaded into texture memory.

And please do so with variable drawdistance settings and notice the differences in loading. 

[Arielle Popstar]

5 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

Honestly?

If new users are being driven off by the lack of Shiny (and yes, if the visual quality is such a deal breaker that is exactly what is happening) then good riddance.

The only real "competition" I have seen in recent years to Second Life has been VRChat and Neos. The former can even run native on a Quest 2 (which runs a variant of Android) and honestly is not much better visually than Second Life (to me, using both the PC/Steam and Quest 2 versions) with Neos having the most potential. That opinion bolstered by the fact that of those two, only Neos allows for in world creation of assets.

Both of those can be used with and without an HMD, by the by. Neos does not function on the Quest 2 as a standalone.

As an anecdote: About a month or so back I introduced a close friend of mine from VRC to Second Life and gave them the proper caveats. Their only complaint thus far has been buying items - I'll be helping them get a decent avatar set up at some point.

MY main point is that such Benchmarks and the opinions of Shiny chasers should be ignored.

Lag complaints seem to be the predominant complaint for users abandoning S/L and as such it cannot be ignored forever. You might feel it is a good riddance but for those looking to see some better user retention numbers, it is important. Like ChinRey I see a significant difference between S/L and opensim grids. Though to be sure everyone loved it, the 5,000 prim increase the Lab allowed per region probably did not help matters much. I would think it would have been better to have left the prim limits the same and dropped the price by 25% instead.

[Ted McGregor]

21 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

But can we really blame them when the Moles and Lindens themselves can't manage to deliver meshes with decent technical quality if their life depended on it?

We can blame them. We just cannot stop them, since LL never set proper limits to use like, as I said before, is ALWAYS done in triple A titles.  ( For example : triple A titles will always get rid of that pesky data that brings the game to a halt or freeze. In SL however it became an art to create just such data. A whole different approach to optimization. ) 

Edited October 2, 2021 by TDD123

[Solar Legion]

Second Life creators and users are not Studio (or Indie) Game Devs (generalization as I am well aware there are a few creators or users that could fall into the latter category). Anyone can create content for use in Second Life without needing to jump through those particular hoops. Which is exactly part of what gave it so much draw and has allowed it to continue on.

You could debate holding Content Creators to higher standards and where to draw the line as to which class should and shouldn't be held to those standards but you should not expect the normal End User to jump the the same hoops.

If you're insistent on having those higher standards put into general place, remove the ability for the general userbase to create objects, severely restrict what they can edit and go from there.

[ChinRey]

5 minutes ago, TDD123 said:

We can blame them.

There are some who should know better and some who obviously don't care - like the very famous SL designer who usea 1024x1024s for the shadow prims under his furniture.

But in my experience most of the "sinners" are justifiably ignorant.

6 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

Second Life creators and users are not Studio (or Indie) Game Devs (generalization as I am well aware there are a few creators or users that could fall into the latter category). Anyone can create content for use in Second Life without needing to jump through those particular hoops. Which is exactly part of what gave it so much draw and has allowed it to continue on.

And this is exactly why Linden Lab should aim for a higher standard. Most beginners genuinely want to improve their skills and are willing to invest a bit of time and effort on it. But with the platform owner offering no help, no encouragement and no good examples to follow, it's an uphill struggle.

[Solar Legion]

1 minute ago, ChinRey said:

And this is exactly why Linden Lab should aim for a higher standard. Most beginners genuinely want to improve their skills and are willing to invest a bit of time and effort on it. But with the platform owner offering no help, no encouragement and no good examples to follow, it's an uphill struggle.

The most they should be doing is offering pointers or suggestions.