Load or don't already

[Paul Hexem]

SL has to have the worst possible method for loading textures I've ever seen.

What moron thought partially loading textures was a good idea?

EVERY other thing I look at online, in games, websites, 3D applications, EVERYTHING, images either load or they don't. And when they do, they don't take more than a couple seconds. But I won't get into that.

I just want to know how is it possibly a good idea to load textures halfway, giving us ugly blobs to look at for ten minutes at a time?

If you can't make 3D application that can load textures, maybe it's time to look for another line of work?

Christ.

[swedishfox Ghost]

Fun fact: most games already have the textures that you need when you install the game, take team fortress 2 for example. Now take SL, where every texture is stored on servers and have to be sent to you a few at a time.

 

You can make the textures load by playing with your draw distance, in phoenix this is done automatically with distance stepping, you tp in and your draw distance is set to minimum, when time passes it'll gradually keep raising your draw distance until your set distance is met, this is a type of queuing.

[Paul Hexem]

Fun fact: If I go to a website I've never been to before, I have to load the images for the first time. They're not installed on my computer ahead of time, and they either load or they don't.

Bad excuse is a bad excuse. Next?

[Randall Ahren]

You seem to be in an angry state. Consider the situation logically, not emotionally. You have suggested that if one cannot make a 3D application that can load textures, then perhaps it's time to look for another line of work. Have you considered the converse? That if one is not happy with a 3D application, then perhaps it is time to look for another application?

If the SL viewer disturbs you, you can change the viewer or you can your state. We use SL applications because there is no better alternative. Hence, the logical conclusion is a state change.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

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Randall Ahren wrote:

Have you considered the converse? That if one is not happy with a 3D application, then perhaps it is time to look for another application?

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I hear the graphics on the Wii are pretty good. With almost ZERO load time! :smileytongue:

[Paul Hexem]

Yeah, I started off annoyed, then got punk responses to my annoyance, which made it worse.

Everybody keeps coming in to spout off the "It's 3D and user created, it's supposed to be laggy" excuse (which despite knowing the technical reasons, I'm still skeptical about), and nobody's saying anything related to the actual topic of why loading halfway is better than loading or not loading.

It's not a technical question. It's a practical one. When is doing something only halfway a good thing?

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Wii does not deliver graphics from remote servers.......just as WoW doesn't.  It's all on a hard drive in the console itself.  And there are not nearly as many textures to store, not to mention that every one of those textures are made by a professional graphics artist especially for a specific operation system install on very specialized hardware designed with nothing but graphics in mind.  That's not even apples and oranges..........more like a lady bug and a rock.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

News flash.........it's not supposed to be laggy.  It's is laggy due to what has been pointed out to you.  It would not be laggy if LL produced every texture, optimized every texture and you downloaded every texture to be stored on your computer.  That's how games like WoW work................this is entirely different.  You should have been here when I got here...talk about lag!!  We survived.  :matte-motes-big-grin:

[Randall Ahren]

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Gadget Portal wrote:

When is doing something only halfway a good thing?

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Perfect is the enemy of good according to Voltaire. In other words, pursuing the best solution may end up doing less actual good than accepting a solution that, while not perfect, is effective. Moreover, a halfway solution now is better than a perfect solution later if the perfect solution will not be available after your competitor has taken 90% of the market. Ask Mr. Jobs if he would have handled the pc war with Microsoft any differently in retrospect.

[leliel Mirihi]

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Gadget Portal wrote:

[...] and nobody's saying anything related to the actual topic of why loading halfway is better than loading or not loading.

It's not a technical question. It's a practical one. When is doing something only halfway a good thing?

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Easy, it's called LOD. Just because you can see a texture doesn't mean you can see it at full size. Do you think the viewer should load a 1024x1024 texture on a tree 200m away from you even tho it's only taking up 100 pixels on your screen? Multiply that by 5000 for all the textures in a sim and you'll see why the viewer does it.

[Ansariel Hiller]

You want all textures load in full detail? Fine! Just check the option to let the viewer do so! Viewer 2 has this option somewhere in the develop menu if I remember correct. Will be fun with a laggy viewer that eats up your memory when it loads 2000+ textures per scene!

[Chronometria]

I dont mind waiting for it to load textures. The problem is when it "gives up" half way through and just stops loading the ones it has not done yet. Slow would be better than never.....and sometimes it chooses never.

[Greene Paine]

In response to the original poster, it's because of LOD like the other guy said. Other games do it too. You said it's either load or don't load but that's not true. Have you ever heard  of "mip maps"? Look it up. This is a common practice in game design to display lower rez textures on long distance objects. Also in the past websites did something similar. Ever heard of interlaced images? Look that up too. You have much reading to do.

Also you would see the same behavior on a website. Try loading an HTML page with 15,000+ 1024x1024 images and tell me how fast that happens. Oh yeah, then see if you can zoom way out so all those textures display at the same time. Oh yeah ... then try walking around on the web page, add in physics, IMs, and dozens of other people walking around as well.

Your inability to grasp reality is no excuse. Next!

...I'm not saying though that everything is perfect. LL could do many things better, but I see that their trying. When I first came to SL in 2006 things were much worse. But lets complain about actual issues hmm? Instead of barking at the proverbial mail man.

[Paul Hexem]

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Chronometria wrote:

I dont mind waiting for it to load textures. The problem is when it "gives up" half way through and just stops loading the ones it has not done yet. Slow would be better than never.....and sometimes it chooses never.

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This says it better than I did.

As for LOD... no. I'm not complaining about textures 200 meters away. I'm complaining about textures 2 meters away. They load halfway and stop. Then you're stuck clearing cache, relogging, rebooting your router, your modem, running speed tests... It's kind of ridiculous to have to do all that for a texture to download...

Oh, by the way? For everyone calling me an idiot, here's some documentation that says "STFU" better than I can.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-24191

Feel free to comment in that JIRA and go "It's not broken, it's LOD and user content!!"

Pull your heads out of LL's asses and do a little research before you insult someone next time, please. Texture loading problems are a documented issue. Been documented for years.

Looks like a fix may finally be pending, however.

[leliel Mirihi]

I've seen and commented on that issue before. While I fully agreed with it back when it was created in 2008, things were that bad (for me), I no longer feel the same. Things have gotten a lot better (for me), textures load reasonably fast in almost all cases (for me). I'm not the only one who says that either. Yes I know things don't work as well for other people, but it is most certainly not like it was in 2007 when everyone had trouble loading textures.

Call me an apologist or shill if you want, I'll just think you're biased against LL and unable to comprehend that things might actually work for some people.

[swedishfox Ghost]

Wow, just.... wow.

First everyone is trying to explain to you why it happens, then try to offer some help.

Second is that, yeah your pissed, its not a license to be an ass by telling to STFU, you wanted answers, you got them, but don't be a total dick if it's not what you're looking for, it's not called for.

 

EDIT: My home, with no caching at all, after 1 minute of loading on a low end machine, with draw distance stepping starting from nothing and stopping at 100 meters, this is impressive in my book.