What happens when SL becomes very popular very fast?

[cunomar]

1. Zuckerburg buys it

2. Yours legs fall off

3. Media far and wide will celebrate the "upgrade"

4. User base will increase massively

5. About a month later the newly named SL will begin to irrevocably die .

[Persephone Emerald]

On 10/14/2022 at 5:21 PM, Arielle Popstar said:

Or maybe they see the writing on the wall that since the PC is a slowly dying market and the mobile one is gaining more and more ground, they better come up with something to stay ahead of the curve. The cell and mobile are a necessity nowadays whereas high end gaming computers increasingly a luxury. Platforms that have no support for web and/or mobile connections will not survive or even be able to develop any sort of mass appeal. 

Oh Gods, so the metaverse IS going to end up being like the one in Snow Crash, where most people's avatars would look like glitchy 2D figures and the virtual world was little more than one long street full of shops and clubs?

[Maryanne Solo]

On 10/15/2022 at 11:21 AM, Arielle Popstar said:

Or maybe they see the writing on the wall that since the PC is a slowly dying market and the mobile one is gaining more and more ground, they better come up with something to stay ahead of the curve. The cell and mobile are a necessity nowadays whereas high end gaming computers increasingly a luxury. Platforms that have no support for web and/or mobile connections will not survive or even be able to develop any sort of mass appeal. 

A high end gaming computer can also be called a top notch custom workstation and built similarly.
My mobile phone is turned OFF come 3:30 every afternoon, I do not give its number when making ANY purchase ever.
I have yet to see one single individual in the whole wwworld that a smart phone has made smarter.

[Coffee Pancake]

11 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Oh Gods, so the metaverse IS going to end up being like the one in Snow Crash, where most people's avatars would look like glitchy 2D figures and the virtual world was little more than one long street full of shops and clubs?

Snowcrash with the nightmare cross branding and economy of RP1.

They only need people to like the idea in the short term to keep investors happy, the end goal wont be an optional passtime, it will be integral to daily life.

A world without physical shops, where real and digital goods are sold side by side with equal importance, where everything is a brand and every brand is adjacent and tied in with other brands you should like too. The dystopian commercialization of everything explicitly designed and crafted to control and exploit. A perfect utopia for those who aspire, and you will, aspire.

Now is a good time to add Scott Westerfeld's Uglies & Pretties to the reading list.

[EliseAnne85]

On 10/14/2022 at 5:22 PM, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

With all this talk about how much additional power the new ALM only viewer will consume I'm just curious as to how it compares to the power consumption of the time machines y'all are using to travel to the future in order to test this new viewer which they haven't even finished writing yet?  

Well, its only obvious that ALM needs more power, and it would to render four textures.  I'm not so convinced about this PBR viewer and it seems to me it could interfere with innovation and creativity and is sounds like building a graphics program rather than a viewer.  And, then there goes your world, your imagination and welcome to a graphics program?  It sounds like a graphics program because it sounds very rigid.  And, I don't like this everything is either metal or not metal idea.  There aren't that many metal things to begin with.  However, this bump and shiny together in this viewer is lousy.  

And, then there is the economy and costs of items will attempt to go up during this downturn in the economy because of having to download more textures.  

I think maybe they should at least consider having two viewers.  Second Life and Second Life II.  

The main thing though is texture size.  Will this new viewer be able to handle 1024's?  Because a lot of 512's don't always look good on the viewer that exists now.  I want to have 1024's.  So, what does this new viewer mean for texture size?  And can all these gaming computers that everyone is raving about render 1024's without the lag happening all over again?  

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Lindal Kidd]

It's people who slap 1024x1024 textures on everything in sight that create lag for the rest of us.

1024s should be used rarely, with the greatest reluctance.

[Sid Nagy]

15 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

It's people who slap 1024x1024 textures on everything in sight that create lag for the rest of us.

1024s should be used rarely, with the greatest reluctance.

You mean LL?

[Brightstar7777]

13 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

It's people who slap 1024x1024 textures on everything in sight that create lag for the rest of us.

1024s should be used rarely, with the greatest reluctance.

I wonder if there could be a tiered approach to texture upload fees that would economically incentivize creator efficiency given other people's GPU memory is a finite resource.  What would be sensible? 

<= 128^2:  L$0
>128^2 & <= 256^2: L$10
>257^2 & <=  512^2: L$40
> 512^2: L$80

Perhaps?

[Sid Nagy]

1 minute ago, Brightstar7777 said:

I wonder if there could be a tiered approach to texture upload fees that would economically incentivize creator efficiency given other people's GPU memory is a finite resource.  What would be sensible? 

<= 128^2:  L$0
>128^2 & <= 256^2: L$10
>257^2 & <=  512^2: L$40
> 512^2: L$80

Perhaps?

So you want everything on the marketplace a lot more expensive?
Don't give LL funny ideas.

[Brightstar7777]

6 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

So you want everything on the marketplace a lot more expensive?
Don't give LL funny ideas.

Unpaid accounts have high levels of LOD applied to their builds and avatars? 👹

Edited October 17, 2022 by Brightstar7777
potato man!

[Coffee Pancake]

32 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

It's people who slap 1024x1024 textures on everything in sight that create lag for the rest of us.

1024s should be used rarely, with the greatest reluctance.

It's really really really not though.

The viewer will only download and decode enough data to have the object rendered at screen size, this isn't perfect and can be improved as it does overshoot. Even then, it's not loading all textures at full resolution all the time. 

Textures are bad in quantity, not size. The viewer will lag badly when there are hundreds of textures in the queue to download and decode. However, once they are loaded, it's fine and they don't eat that much VRAM in the grand scheme of things.

Rigged animated meshes are the killer. Processing those scales linearly. The more you have the more time it takes, the slower it goes - every single frame.  This is especially true for bodies with high poly counts, one specific body being notably far worse than all the others.

 

[Sammy Huntsman]

I think with the fact that it got such negative press over the years, and now new media is finally giving SL a new light. I feel like we need to get out of that niche market and join the masses. 

[EliseAnne85]

24 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

It's really really really not though.

The viewer will only download and decode enough data to have the object rendered at screen size, this isn't perfect and can be improved as it does overshoot. Even then, it's not loading all textures at full resolution all the time. 

Textures are bad in quantity, not size. The viewer will lag badly when there are hundreds of textures in the queue to download and decode. However, once they are loaded, it's fine and they don't eat that much VRAM in the grand scheme of things.

Rigged animated meshes are the killer. Processing those scales linearly. The more you have the more time it takes, the slower it goes - every single frame.  This is especially true for bodies with high poly counts, one specific body being notably far worse than all the others.

 

A bunch of us should get together as tinies wearing 1024's and see how much lag there is then because the tiny avatars are very low poly.  A Dinkie is about 17k triangles, I think or somewhere in that ballpark, whilst a very heavy poly body that is very popular and very nice is 1 million triangles though.  Also, the tinies don't have much in the way of scripts going whereas a human avatar is scripted from head to toe, even down to the grommets on their shoes.  

But, again on the 1024's.  There are some things for Dinkies I'd like to make in 1024 as it looks better.  I'm trying to shrink down some things before I put them on the 512 but that looks more bad than I thought.  I dunnoooooo what to do.  It's very frustrating.   Many of our cards render 1024 so I'm confused, and as I said, very frustrated.   And, PBR is commercial grade, so I'd think people would want to create with 1024.  

[Sammy Huntsman]

Just now, EliseAnne85 said:

A bunch of us should get together as tinies wearing 1024's and see how much lag there is then because the tiny avatars are very low poly.  A Dinkie is about 17k triangles, I think or somewhere in that ballpark, whilst a very heavy poly body that is very popular and very nice is 1 million triangles though.  Also, the tinies don't have much in the way of scripts going whereas a human avatar is scripted from head to toe, even down to the grommets on their shoes.  

But, again on the 1024's.  There are some things for Dinkies I'd like to make in 1024 as it looks better.  I'm trying to shrink down some things before I put them on the 512 but that looks more bad than I thought.  I dunnoooooo what to do.  It's very frustrating.   Many of our cards render 1024 so I'm confused, and as I said, very frustrated.   And, PBR is commercial grade, so I'd think people would want to create with 1024.  

Or just hold creators accountable for making unoptimized meshes and textures. Why would everyone want to basically change to dinkies? 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I think with the fact that it got such negative press over the years, and now new media is finally giving SL a new light. I feel like we need to get out of that niche market and join the masses. 

Make your own fun giant chatroom hangout virtual worlds aren't a mass market product.

The masses are never going to want this as it stands, and without platform advancement specifically enabling us to create mass market experiences (games), they will always find more fun easier and faster somewhere else.

SL (and similar products) require a high level of focus and engagement. This presents people with a choice that excludes other high focus entertainment .. and then we lose, because we can't compete with the mass market appeal of binge watching something or playing an actual game and being social on the side via discord.

[EliseAnne85]

6 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

Why would everyone want to basically change to dinkies? 

I never said that nor thought it.  I said for a test and it would be a test of texture size vs poly count because I think it's the high poly count that is the bigger lagger than texture size.   But, we wouldn't know exactly unless we tested it.  

Edited October 17, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Brightstar7777]

3 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I never said that nor thought it.  I said for a test and it would be a test of texture size vs poly count because I think it's the high poly count that is the bigger lagger than texture size.   But, we wouldn't know exactly unless we tested it.  

We would still need to take into account the wide gamut of system architectures and GPUs being used and try to narrow the field. And, yeah, maybe with texture LOD algorithms the impact on VRAM and system bus bandwidth isn't actually so severe?

[Persephone Emerald]

3 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

It's people who slap 1024x1024 textures on everything in sight that create lag for the rest of us.

1024s should be used rarely, with the greatest reluctance.

True, and yet what is the aspect ratio of most of the Linden Home textures? Even white walls? It's 1024.

Check for yourselves.

[Persephone Emerald]

3 hours ago, Brightstar7777 said:

Unpaid accounts have high levels of LOD applied to their builds and avatars? 👹

The reason the textures look bad in this picture is that their repeats are not optimal. Most of them look stretched out, so they need more repeats. The 2 sidewalk or street prims in the back also overlap badly. 

SL needs more people to take basic building skills classes.

[NevaehHeartstrings]

7 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Textures are bad in quantity, not size.

So is having a lot of mesh with the same texture & UUID not as laggy?  example a region full of the same mesh grass from one creator vs. filled with hundreds of grass plants from different creators.

My PC is DirectStorage ready for the Microsoft API.  will the viewers be able to take advantage of this? somewhat off topic but while I'm here it offsets memory from CPU to GPU.  my newest game I'm playing Scorn takes advantage of it

[Coffee Pancake]

32 minutes ago, NevaehHeartstrings said:

So is having a lot of mesh with the same texture & UUID not as laggy?  example a region full of the same mesh grass from one creator vs. filled with hundreds of grass plants from different creators.

SL doesn't do instancing, however when a texture is shared between multiple objects (copies of the same object or not) only one copy of the texture needs to be decoded and stored in memory.

32 minutes ago, NevaehHeartstrings said:

My PC is DirectStorage ready for the Microsoft API.  will the viewers be able to take advantage of this? somewhat off topic but while I'm here it offsets memory from CPU to GPU.  my newest game I'm playing Scorn takes advantage of it

SL will never support DirectStorage as it is not built around DirectX and needs to function on platforms other than Microsoft's.

[EliseAnne85]

9 hours ago, Brightstar7777 said:

I wonder if there could be a tiered approach to texture upload fees that would economically incentivize creator efficiency given other people's GPU memory is a finite resource.  What would be sensible? 

<= 128^2:  L$0
>128^2 & <= 256^2: L$10
>257^2 & <=  512^2: L$40
> 512^2: L$80

Perhaps?

People wouldn't buy stuff with super low textures though cause it would look like crap.  I even used a 128 for a stick and the texturing of it was lost; may as well have colored it a color.

First of all, regarding large textures, I think the math might be 100 Dinkies equals 1 Legacy mesh body.   So, the Dinkies/tinies could possibly render high pixel textures without a problem.  But, the vast majority of SL wants to be a human, so testing it is kind of moot.  I am still a bit curious though.  Plus, Dinkies and other tiny animal avatars live like humans and buy furniture and houses and buy from many main creators humans do.  I was just wondering how many 1024's we could render.  But, my concern is, with the new viewer it could make low pixel textures not look very good.  But, as Fluffy said, kain't really know because there is no time machine to the future.

[Arielle Popstar]

20 hours ago, Maryanne Solo said:

I have yet to see one single individual in the whole wwworld that a smart phone has made smarter.

Smart phones are no different then a high end gaming machine. None of them make us smarter but they do give us the ability to work smarter. That is 3/4 of the battle.

[Quistess Alpha]

29 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Smart phones are no different then a high end gaming machine.

hopefully a bit of sarcasm there, but among other major differences, phones have awful (non-existent) cooling capacity.

[Coffee Pancake]

3 hours ago, EliseAnne85 said:

People wouldn't buy stuff with super low textures though cause it would look like crap.  I even used a 128 for a stick and the texturing of it was lost; may as well have colored it a color.

This also ignores what is technically happening when items are processed and rendered.

The myth of high rez textures being bad is a stubborn one that might have been somewhat true a decade ago, it very much isn't true now. Textures are not bad because they can be 1024, they are bad because there can be hundreds of them.

 

Do NOT use multiple smaller textures. This is the worst.

Use the biggest texture the platform allows, currently 1024.

Put as many different parts of the model onto the same texture map as possible.

This is faster to process as only one set of images needs to be decoded, faster to render as everything on the same texture can be rendered in the same pass.

There is a very solid technically supported argument for allowing textures bigger than 1024 and mitigating people using them inappropriately with better software (some of which LL have already been doing).