Is prim equivalent PE misnamed?

[Freecilla Kuhn]

I am missing something here or is this just not thought out correctly?

It seems to me that the idea behind prim equivalent or PE is to show the "resources used" so should it not be called RU?

At 15,000 prims a sim and one square box has the PE of 15 then a sim with 1,000 square boxes has the PE of 15,000 and the sim is full.... or does this mean that a sim will no longer have a prim limit but will instead have an RU limit of 225,000 to allow 15,000 square boxes in a sim? Unless you add a script to one of the boxes then you can only have 990 prims in a sim since that scripted prim will have a PE of 25. Or is a prim 3D shape and a resource is the information needed to make that shape as well as the scripts in it and textures and sounds etc.... that can't be right either other wise they would be two different things.

Anyone that has been in SL for several months or so will learn from experience that heavy primmed and scripted objects could cause lag due to the information, (resources) it is asking a computer to read, (and carry out in the way of script instructions) so the PE is really only intended for new users that do not know how lag could be created by heavy objects.

Oh I know, perhaps an area of the welcome islands could be set up with all of those freebie standing video games, (pacman, space invaders, centipede etc) because when most people get them they rez them all and have instant lag with all the bleeping and blooping sounds going on. This way they will learn how lag can come from objects without having to make up a new system about resources being name as a prim system. hmmmm...

[PeterCanessa Oh]

Why do you need to ask?  Linden Lab has clearly explained this and communicated it to everyone in the detailed ... Oh, you're right.  I hear some comments about it from mesh developers every now and again, otherwise ... the usual sound of the wind and tumbleweed.

What could be worse than a fixed increment for scripts anyway; which takes no account of the memory or CPU the script is using.

[Ciaran Laval]

On the beta grid with the project viewer it's called land impact, not prim equivalency. Rez two very basic mesh objects, each will have a land impact of 1, making a total score of 2, link them and the land impact score for the linked object is 1, because those individual items have a land impact of 0.5 in reality but on their own fractions aren't calculated.

 

[Rhys Goode]

This is a complicated subject, I have a smattering of knowledge, but if you want to find out details, you should really look in the mesh forum.  You would likely get a better answer to your question there.

From what I glean, it is possible to make very low or very high PE objects that will look the same in your 3D modeling software.  So it would not surprise me if you managed to make a simple box with a PE of 15, even though it is more typical to be able to make a more complex shape, that might take 3 or 4 prims to approximate with the SL building tools, and have it come out with a PE less than 1.  It takes some skill and judgement designing the mesh to make it come out right.  If you insist on using 10 times the number of vertices as needed in the mesh YOU design, then you will pay the price in PE.

But like I said, lots of good info available in the Mesh forum.  In particular there are  long threads relateing to the development of PE. 

 

[Ann Otoole]

Prim Cost would have been a more understandable label for the number that represents how many prims the model will cost to rez.

IMHO

[Freecilla Kuhn]

Hi Peter, I needed to ask so I may understand. By my questions someone that knows about PE would know that I do not know, you know, and hopefully they would then provide an answer.

For me I do not make sculpties nor will I be making meshies, I spend much too much time building and making textures so I will have to wait until someone makes packs I can buy to use in my builds. In turn I have not been keeping up with all if the blogs and posts about everything, (who could really) so I thought I would ask here.

[Freecilla Kuhn]

I took Rhys suggestion and I searched PE and found a lot of information but all in all your one sentence answer was dead on according to many others that took a whole paragraph to say the same thing, thank you Ann.