Horrible Lag, Lag meter shows Client as green, yellow and red?

[Piper Shan]

Im having a real pain in the butt issue. Since the evening of July 26th I started to experiance horrendous lag in it seemed like ANY region I went to. It was random, I thought maybe it was grid side, as I have a bran new Mac that runs beautifully, and never had this issue. Walking is slow, textures are slow, things take forever to reload that should have been stored in my cache.  My computer should be able to run max settings no problem, but even when I turn my settings lower I still have bad lag. Im asking here becasue its my experiance that submitting tickets does nothing... though I have submitted one about this problem anyway... I was hoping to get some faster responses on the forum encase I can do something about it? 

 

Anyway when I check the leg meter the client keeps switching from green normal to yellow to red at random and thats just standing still O.o

 

Anyway here are my specs..

Second Life 2.8.0 (236429) Jul 21 2011 13:45:01 (Second Life Release)Release Notes
You are at 214329.0, 299114.0, 28.7 in Ravenscraig located at sim8330.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.38.143:12035)Second Life Server 11.07.19.236133Release Notes
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz (3100 MHz)Memory: 4096 MBOS Version: Mac OS X 10.6.8 Darwin 10.8.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0: Tue Jun  7 16:32:41 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1504.15.3~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 6970M OpenGL Engine
OpenGL Version: 2.1 ATI-1.6.36
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.21.1 OpenSSL/0.9.8q zlib/1.2.5 c-ares/1.7.1J2C Decoder Version: KDU v6.4.1Audio Driver Version: FMOD version 3.750000Qt Webkit Version: 4.7.1 (version number hard-coded)Voice Server Version: Not ConnectedBuilt with GCC version 40001Packets Lost: 159/57297 (0.3%)

 

Help would be appreciated, I am a designer in SL I need it to work but I cant in these conditions. :|

[EmmaWoodhouse]

My experience since the 2.8 update has been identical to your description.  I am also running on a Mac Pro, and it was suggested that I change my system preferences:

Open 'System Preferences' -> 'Network' -> 'Advanced...' -> 'DNS'
Click "+" and type 8.8.8.8
Click "+" and type 8.8.4.4
Close 'System Preferences'
Restart Second Life

Unfortunately, this fix did not improve things for me.  Any other Mac users having issues with SL Viewer 2.8? 

[Rabid Cheetah]

Not a Mac user, but man, the lag in this game has gone from terrible to excruciating.  Having the same issues you are, in Viewer 2 for the PC.  Meantime, I doubt it's the regions I'm in, or any of my scripts as I don't have a great deqal of attachments (been wearing the same walking AO and flex hair for over a year and not had problems until a month or so ago).  Nor do I think it's my system, as I can handle a user-heavy high-graphics game like Guild Wars (and during increased users online due the Dragon Festival, mind you), without a hitch.

 

Linden really should do something, or I'm going to go back to strolling lag-free through all the beautiful hills and valleys of Cantha, climbing the snow-capped Shiverpeak Mountains, or enjoying the waves rolling in on the beaches of Kryta with no frackin' subscription fee, let alone tier!  of course, dealing with hydras, the Charr, and necrotic horsemen does get in the way of my sight-seeing...

 

If you look at Linden's list of approved third-part browsers (sorry, don't recall the link), Viewer2 is actually rated BELOW Phoenix for crash incidents.  So, I tried Phoenix, and it seems to have less issues (though it has a clunky, Viewer1-style interface).

 

Good luck...

[Piper Shan]

Thanks for the reply. I actually downloaded Imprudence to try and combat the lag untill the issue is fixed, and I find Impreudence runs amazingly! I guess that proves its client side. It seems as though since the update, second life is using more memory resources then it use to? I have no idea what more its trying to process? anyway, id recomend using imprudence for now.

[Kascha Matova]

---

Piper Shan wrote:

Thanks for the reply. I actually downloaded Imprudence to try and combat the lag untill the issue is fixed, and I find Impreudence runs amazingly! I guess that proves its client side. It seems as though since the update, second life is using more memory resources then it use to? I have no idea what more its trying to process? anyway, id recomend using imprudence for now.

---

Is Imprudence version 2 based though?

Rolling back to the 1.x codebase is an easy way to sidestep any problem with the latest version but it doesn't really solve anything.

CoolViewer, Phoenix 1.x, Singularity and Ascent will also run flawlessly for me regardless of what's happening with any 2.x viewer whether official or 3rd party. And that's great as long as I'm okay with my avie never advancing past where she'd developed in 2009.

Otherwise LL is going to have to do a far better job of figuring out what they've broken or bottlenecked with these V2 additions, and whether or not they are ultimately worth it.

[Symon Tigerfish]

Glad to hear that I am not the only one experiencing this issue. I am also running a MacBook Pro (10.6.8) and did not have the lag issue until I did the 2.8 update. Luckily I still had the 2.7 in a downloads folder so tried it and voila, problem was gone. Have tried several times to go between the two versions, every time I open 2.8 high lag, use 2.7 normal actions. Hopefully they will get this corrected.

[Kasya Sciavo]

If all you people having these constant problems stopped using V2, you would not only enjoy your SL more but send a message to LL that we all told you about ages ago.  Even after all this time to get it right, V2 is still a disaster.  Worse, even on top end machines it is a veritable snail.  

The TPV viewers based on snowglove especially run rings around V2, and frankly if you continue to use the mess that is V2 I personally have no sympathy for you whatsoever.  I suspect the people who sell snow to eskimos are keen to get your number. :matte-motes-silly:

 

[Gryphon Ronas]

Seriously?  I walk around all day with shadows enabled on a PC that I got when back when Vista was new. Don't understand what the problem is.  Hardly what I'd call a 'disaster tho'.

Since I wiped my hard drive and got rid of a few years' worth of accumulated clutter, SL has become stable and enjoyable again.

[Luc Starsider]

The ridiculous framerates in v. 2.8.x has to do with VBO. Go to me->Preferences->Graphics->Hardware settings and turn off VBO. That should get your framerates back up again. Alternatively, as Symon says, use v. 2.7.5, which works fine with VBO turned on.

- Luc -

[Piper Shan]

I try and use the defult viewer as I want to be up to speed with all the lastest features. I think as a designer for SL that is important. It took me a while to get use to the new interface, but now that I am I feel like I have to relearn where everything is on Imprudance lol. I havnt had that many issues with the offical SL viewer, none enough that make me come posting asking questions on the froums. Ill go back to the offical viewer once that lag bug is fixed. Plus I feel like my personal info is more secure on the offical then a third party viewer.

[Flash Krell]

Use Luc's suggestion.  I just tried it and everything sped up dramatically.  Still having some issues but it's a work around for now.

[Anarovishka Petrov]

Luc, it seems like your tip helped! Thank you! I'm a MAC user and I had the same problem. Seems like it's running ok now.

[Piper Shan]

Just wanted to also shout out that I tried what was recomended by Luc and it seems to have helped the issue! Yay, cuz Imprudence doesnt let me make outfit folders! >.<

[Luc Starsider]

I'm glad what I suggested helped you guys. I can't take credit for it in any case since it was mentioned in the release notes, and have been discussed on a few other threads. Guess not many read release notes, and to me it seems it affects other computers than the MacBook. Still, it seems to be a Mac issue.

As long as it helps I'm happy!

- Luc -

[Tim Alvarado]

I had horrible lag when I upgraded from 2.7 to the 2.8 viewer.  I turned on the Statistics Bar and found that Ping Sim was continuously over 500msec.  So everything was laggy slow.

I'm running SL 2.8 on a Core 2 Duo 3.06GHz MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and the NVIDEA GeForce 9600M GT with 512MB.  

Switching back to viewer 2.7 and everything is fast again with Ping Sim back to less than 100msec.

After more fiddling with 2.8, i found that if i set the Graphics to "Low" the Ping Sim was under 100msec and SL was not laggy.  Just turning on the "Basic Shader" check box in the Graphics preference would cause Ping Sim to go over 500msec and stay there.  Uncheck the "Basic Shader" check box and Ping Sim was back down to below 100msec.

So there is obviously some big bug in 2.8 that effects my MacBook Pro and GeForce 9600M graphic card.

I'll stay with 2.7 until they fix this.

Can anyone else duplicate my findings?  

Tim

[Luc Starsider]

I haven't tried the latest viewer on a Mac with an nVidia card. I thought the low fps were something that affected Macs with AMD cards, but apparently not.

I also thought the fix was either to disable VBO *or* turn off basic shaders. I can't imagine SL without basic shaders on, so I recommend disabling VBO. Could be both are needed in some cases.

Have a look here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Release/2.8.0
Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you will find a list of known issues. The same issues are listed for v 2.8.1 beta...

- Luc - 

[Kascha Matova]

---

Kasya Sciavo wrote:

If all you people having these constant problems stopped using V2, you would not only enjoy your SL more but send a message to LL that we all told you about ages ago.  Even after all this time to get it right, V2 is still a disaster.  Worse, even on top end machines it is a veritable snail.  

The TPV viewers based on snowglove especially run rings around V2, and frankly if you continue to use the mess that is V2 I personally have no sympathy for you whatsoever.  I suspect the people who sell snow to eskimos are keen to get your number. :matte-motes-silly:

 

---

I'm sorry. Was this some half-assed attempt to tell me I reap what I sow? What part of "Ascent, Singularity, and Cool VL Viewer" says to you that I am tethered to V2?

And what exactly does "V2" mean to you, considering that you mention third party viewers running on Snowglobe as if they are a direct alternative that doesn't run 2.x code. Are you talking about Firestorm or one of the others like Kirstens? So then what if the 2.x compatible viewer I actually use is in fact Firestorm, yet I still have wicked problems I didn't have with 1.x? Is my number still a hot item with shady salesmen then too?

I didn't just get here yesterday. Can you know what's going on first before you tell me what a simp I've made of myself? Much obliged.