SL v3.0 running extremely slowly

[Darcal Merlin]

I've had my current laptop for 14 months now and it was £900, so high-spec. SL used to run like a dream on it, but after not using SL for a few months, I've come back to it (installed the latest viewer) and now it runs terribly slowly.

I've not got a virus and all the other obvious stuff is all present and correct. Everything else on my laptop runs fine, including my 3D games (Call of Duty: Black Ops for example).

It seems that wherever I am the textures take an absolute age to download and trying to move around is also a nightmare. I could basically stand in one place for ten minutes and after that time some of the textures have downloaded properly, some partially and some not at all. Of course I've tried the lowest detail settings but it makes no difference. I used to run SL on ultra and my laptop handled it really well.

I'm wondering if it's the new viewer or that the SL servers are not coping anymore.

If someone could help me out with this I'd be very grateful.

Basically my specs are:

Intel Core i5 processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 (512 megs dedicated), 4 gig RAM, 500 gig HDD, Windows 7 (64bit)

Cheers.

[Tommy Rampal]

The sudden change from v2 to v3 isn't a huge one apart from the mesh. Do note that installations sometimes resets your viewer config, which is essential for you to get right in order to not experience any lag. Change the graphics settings to what suits your laptop; bare in mind that overheating (which is extremely common in all laptops) and power settings take effect (which is why I purchased a desktop); in some Windows configurations, not having your laptop powered by your wall charge will affect performance also.

Texture loading issues relates to your viewer config aswell. By default your viewer is set to allow 500kbps maximum bandwidth, this is the minimum amount. I have fast broadband, so I set mine to the maximum (10,000kbps). You can find this in the Setup tab of your preferences window.

It's a common misconception to blame Secondlife and/or their servers. Really, the only thing they've got/they're doing wrong is setting default settings and optimising the rendering for lower spec computers.

[Darcal Merlin]

I'd been trying to run it at the "high" graphics detail level but because it was struggling I tried the "low" setting. This unfortunately made no difference whatsoever to the time it was taking to load the textures. Now that you mention it though, I've noticed that SL suddenly seems to be making my computer work very hard, unlike before. When the fan reaches it's highest speed (which doesn't take long in SL these days) everything seems to almost grind to a halt and it's not until the fan slows down again that the FPS goes back to a reasonable level.

I just don't understand why it's now taking so much processing power to load the textures. If I'm in a fairly sparse location, on my own and the textures have eventually finished loading properly, my fan slows down, the framerate goes back up and it all works fine. So it seems to be the texture loading that is causing me severe slowdown rather than detail settings. I'd have expected it to put a load on my internet connection's bandwidth rather than my CPU though. I've got a pretty fast processor and internet connection (50mb/s) anyway.

As you say, SL hasn't really changed that much in the past few months and it used to run very well for me, so I suspect something must be going on with my computer in that case. Now to re-install Windows or find a needle in a haystack I suppose.

I have my laptop plugged in by the way and my maximum bandwidth set to 10000 aswell, so I'm obviously gonna have to look beyond SL to solve this.

Thanks for the info.

[Darren Scorpio]

A lot of people including me (who has always loved V2) experienced a decrease in performance after 2.7, in my case I could not update to anything newer than 2.7 or I would lose 50% fps making sl unusable. This made me sad of course because I thought I wouldn't be able to see mesh. However as of last night Henri Beauchamp released Cool Viewer 1.26.1 which has mesh support. I get very good fps on it so you might give it a try, it is a V1 viewer.

 

ETA: I will not post the link to the download because some people get butthurt over non sl links around here, but you can google Cool Viewer.

[Tristizia Demonista]

I'm using Beta 3.0.2 and haven't seen any decrease in performance (quite the contrary compared to 2.7 even), might be worth a try for you.

[WolfBaginski Bearsfoot]

That's intriguing, but it's consistent with what I'm seeing. Texture loading is being awkward in all the viewers at the moment, but the LL Viewer does seem to be somehow worse.

This sounds typical of something doing a lot of work, over and above the network protocol itself, when a texture is downloaded, and not playing nicely with resources also needed for the rendering. There's all sorts of stuff which could be happening with allocation of CPU time, and then there's the communication which the graphics card.

Looking at the stats panel, there's a definite correlation between high bandwidth use and low frame rate. I wonder why.

 

[Darcal Merlin]

I agree it's puzzling. I've since downgraded as it were to Snowglobe and it runs a treat on ultra detail, so I think I'll stick with it for now. The textures download quickly and even while they're downloading any movement is still smooth. The view is almost as good and isn't at all taxing for my computer.

[Darren Scorpio]

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Tristizia Demonista wrote:

I'm using Beta 3.0.2 and haven't seen any decrease in performance (quite the contrary compared to 2.7 even), might be worth a try for you.

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I tried 3.0.2 and I still get the same 5fps at most. The odd thing is that my friend who was only getting 2fps on 3.0.0 now gets 10fps on 3.0.2 so yes for him it increased. I have another friend who gets 13-15fps on Phoenix and with V3 they now get 20fps so for them it also increased. So if someone can explain to me why these oddities are happening it would be great.

[Tristizia Demonista]

Did the graphics settings somehow changed in your viewer ?

Might be the reason why, dunno. 

[Darren Scorpio]

I really wish it was the settings the problem I would be really happy, however the settings are all the same as it is always the first thing I do the first time I start a viewer I have just installed.

[Opensource Obscure]

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Darcal Merlin wrote:

It seems that wherever I am the textures take an absolute age to download and trying to move around is also a nightmare. I could basically stand in one place for ten minutes and after that time some of the textures have downloaded properly, some partially and some not at all. Of course I've tried the lowest detail settings but it makes no difference. I used to run SL on ultra and my laptop handled it really well.

I'm wondering if it's the new viewer or that the SL servers are not coping anymore.

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You're not using a Wifi or 3G internet connection, right?

[Opensource Obscure]

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Darren Scorpio wrote:

A lot of people including me (who has always loved V2) experienced a decrease in performance after 2.7, in my case I could not update to anything newer than 2.7 or I would lose 50% fps making sl unusable

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I guess this is tracked in a JIRA issue, can you point me please? I think I didn't notice any big change after 2.7.

 

Darren Scorpio wrote:

ETA: I will not post the link to the download because some people get butthurt over non sl links around here, but you can google Cool Viewer.

That's why we should have a "Mute this user" feature here. Non-SL links here are freaking legit, AFAIK.

[Darcal Merlin]

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Opensource Obscure wrote:

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You're not using a Wifi or 3G internet connection, right?

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No, I'm using a wired (ethernet) connection on a 50 mb/s cable modem. I've done a speed test and a ping test on it and it's working fine. Snowglobe runs great for example.