AR for too many scripts?

[Paul Hexem]

So, I'm on a sim with less than 20 people on it, getting an FPS of 4.6 and a time dilation of .1 when I start to look around. I see a couple people pushing 500 scripts, others up over 200.

I know on my own sim, I eject people for that sort of thing.

So, opinion part: On other sims/mainland, is it acceptable to AR that? Unfair use of sim resources?

[Pussycat Catnap]

I would feel it is. I don't know if the Lindens would agree - but I'd be inclined to try and find out if that happened to me.

I'm seeing an increasing number of places with script-use boards that name and shame visitors - to me that seems unwelcoming - but I'm not sure how better to address things.

 

[Randall Ahren]

Seems kind of harsh. What about Avatar Rendering Cost? Should people be AR'd because they have ARC>5000? You ever observe what happens to FPS when you derender an avatar having an ARC of more than 5,000?

[wiked Anton]

i eject people for the same after a requst to seek from the creator, items with less scripts.( the new one), after that i eject them. Women are the biggest users, jewlery, prim skirts, the hair, boots ( they are up there with hair)....................but i dont think LL would agree. However, what you do with you own land is up to you....*wink*

[Amethyst Jetaime]

LL recognizes that this is a problem.  That's why land owners, not just estate owners, now have access to information that shows script use on their land and the server resources its using.  Eventually script server usage will be allocated among parcels in proportion to the size of the parcel, much as prims are allocated now.

On private estates it is the estate owner that would be the authority here. Unless you own land on the sim, you really have no 'legal' standing and LL is probably not going to get involved with it.

On the mainland, perhaps they would.  However the only category in the AR that comes close is Land - abuse of sandbox resources. 

[Ariel Vuissent]

I think it depends where you are. There are some sims I visit where high script counts are expected due to certain body parts being worn ^_~ These would be adult sims, of course! lol

There are also some roleplay sims where high script counts are expected due to the nature of the avatar or the sim (for example, highly scripted weapons on certain combat sims).

I don't think it's fair if the sim owner has no rule against this. Better, in my opinion, would be to IM the owner and ask what his or her rules are, and if he or she is available if they could come and request that the offenders remove some of their scripted items.

I occasionally go out in highly scripted gear, but not to crowded sims. If there's more than one or two people, I try to keep my script count down.

[Void Singer]

depends... I never go by script count alone, but take into account memory, and activity... I ignore anything under a cap of 10MiB if it seems they aren't the source of the problem.... but someone can have much less and if it's abusing physics can crap out the region, and then I don't care what their script count or memory usage is.

I'm a firm believer that knowledge is power, so script usage boards that have detailed information, I don't see that as name an shame, but rather educational. I am not a fan of auto-boot systems, unless the values are obscenely outside reason, and even then I think people should be warned or informed.

I do however feel that as a land manger if I politely ask someone to check their scripts because the amount or nature of them is causing a problem, and the person comes out with the attitude that they're entitled to use as much as they want on their avatar, I am fully justified in booting them with the response that I'm entitled to designate what's acceptable on that land. if it's not my land, I'll refer it the land owner, and that's their discretion, and none is available I'd feel no remorse in ARing for abuse of resources.

[Paul Hexem]

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Randall Ahren wrote:

Seems kind of harsh. What about Avatar Rendering Cost? Should people be AR'd because they have ARC>5000? You ever observe what happens to FPS when you derender an avatar having an ARC of more than 5,000?

---

I have no problem with ARC. I have a modern computer with a good GPU. ARC is no issue. If a high rendering cost on an avatar bothers you, time to upgrade your system. If I could upgrade LL's servers the same way, I would, and this wouldn't be a problem.

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Void Singer wrote:

depends... I never go by script count alone, but take into account memory, and activity... I ignore anything under a cap of 10MiB if it seems they aren't the source of the problem.... but someone can have much less and if it's abusing physics can crap out the region, and then I don't care what their script count or memory usage is.

I'm a firm believer that knowledge is power, so script usage boards that have detailed information, I don't see that as name an shame, but rather educational. I am not a fan of auto-boot systems, unless the values are obscenely outside reason, and even then I think people should be warned or informed.

I do however feel that as a land manger if I politely ask someone to check their scripts because the amount or nature of them is causing a problem, and the person comes out with the attitude that they're entitled to use as much as they want on their avatar, I am fully justified in booting them with the response that I'm entitled to designate what's acceptable on that land. if it's not my land, I'll refer it the land owner, and that's their discretion, and none is available I'd feel no remorse in ARing for abuse of resources.

---

Well, if 500 scripts are only using 800 kb, that's one thing. But nine times out of ten, those scripts are using 10mb or 20mb or more.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Randall Ahren wrote:

Seems kind of harsh. What about Avatar Rendering Cost? Should people be AR'd because they have ARC>5000? You ever observe what happens to FPS when you derender an avatar having an ARC of more than 5,000?

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Its not the same thing.

SIms have a limit on ram allocation - 300mb for a full sim is what I've read as one claim (can anyone cite facts?).

A script heavy avatar can bring down everyone in a sim. In theory even crash the sim.

High arc can't do that to anyone - and isn't even a real measure...

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Ariel Vuissent wrote:

I think it depends where you are. There are some sims I visit where high script counts are expected due to certain body parts being worn ^_~ These would be adult sims, of course! lol

---

Quality made adult parts won't have those issues.

This is true anywhere - quality parts won't have these problems, junk parts will.

You see the same thing with furries - well made furry avatars are often lower script useage than most humans. But poor made furries can be monsterously intensive for very little performance.

 

[Void Singer]

no arguments there gadget, and I don't expect others to have the same limits I do. just trying to push people towards the larger data picture.

 

@Pussycat

It's a popular number, but after lots of digging no one seems to know who threw it out there, whether it applies to pure script memory, the VM,, both, or some internal pool.  it does seem to be an agreeable figure for some basic calculations though

 

@Randall:
ARC is problematic in that it's calculated relative to the local hardware, and the same things seen by two people can have wildy different scores, and the scores don't seem to translate from one user to another.... plus the fact that there is no automated way to compare the impact (because you have to look up scores manually). not that it can't be useful, but it's a matter of local (to the end user) impact, versus impact to the entire region

[GothGirl Demonia]

Well that depends, I have worn over 500 scripts on my avatar before and not crashed a simulator, or created many issues for others, it depends what the scripts are doing, how much script memory they are using, and how much memory the server has and how much it can actually use, a good server really wouldn't have a problem processing 500 scripts on a single agent, but I try to keep my scripts 80 or less now a days since I know about it more.

Simple scripts such as a flgiht enhance, or simple gun scripts with Rez Slaves, and other various functions throught certain parts of armor such as an avatar, would not really cause a simulator to crash to .1 dialation, or make it very unstanble, I would say that it is more than likely a griefer griefing the region, and there are many forms of griefing in Second Life.

Another example is if my clothing/armor was about 40 prims, and it was running simple animation scripts, and change texture scripts those do not use a lot of memory, and are usually not always active at least like Huds that create massive lag at certain times, I remember when I always used huds in the past how much lag they would create like 5.0% script time and above.

UUID's, Sounds, Animations create lag.

Most people know of UUID's, and think of them as bad things because of the Copybot, but a UUID is given to every uploaded asset to LL's servers, for example if you had lets say 15,000 Prims in your region, each prim was a cube, and every cube had a different UUID texture, also depending on texture resolution, and size, and this does not include object geometry, Sculpty prims, or Mesh. But when a user loads into the simulator they have to load all the data that is being sent to their clients such as texture UUID's all other UUID's including animations playing, sounds, Mesh, and Sculpty UUID's, and depending on how many of these are loading, and how many agents, or people are in the simulator at one time this can create major lag. For example if  I went to a simulator very heavily loaded and brought in 25 people all at the same time, this is the reason you notice a major lag spike, the other factor is client settings, for example if I keep my bandwidth at max, and have a very fast connection keep my draw distance at 512 at all times like I usually do depending on how much data is being sent to my client/computers cache this can create lag espically if a lot of users are loading the same stuff. This is one reason some regions say turn your bandwidth down to a certain setting the only thing it improves is the lag, although because it takes longer to load technically it will lag more over time than have burst lag, or lag spikes. *This is also another reason sometimes people make preloaded UUID cube/huds which preload a UUID's used in the same region such as textures, and sounds to a persons client before they enter the region so they are already cached and can be loaded more quickly.

* This is one way you can create griefer prims that fill up a region, and or called torture prims which create massive lag both server side, client side, and crash regions, this does not include using LL's new physics system to abuse a simulator either, although everything can create a certain amount of lag there are people who will abuse such on purpose to crash simulators such as sandbox regions, I actually see this quite often in SL, for example quickly filling up a users cache with random particles, and UUID's makes them get a corrupted cache, have to sometimes totally wipe cache, and viewer settings, and this can grief people who know very little about SL itself or viewers when they have to do a manual fix/reset of all viewer settings.*

For example you could use a bunch of scripts talking to eachother repediately through worn objects to cause a simulator to lag, knowingly this is considered abuse of region resources, or you could rez objects which make a simulator very unstable and crash, how I work in public areas depends on the following.

1. Is the person who rezzed those objects an actual griefer for example in a sandbox sometimes new people to SL get given a griefer object by a griefer and they rez it and it does wierd things to the region if I find out that this has happend to someone, I do file an AR, but I include on the report that some griefer was handing it out and that they didn't know so that LL doesn't exactly fully blame them for being a newbie and they have a chance to come back, or appeal a suspension if they got such.

2. Abuse of region resouces I only consider, or file an AR when it is done on purpose, for example if I was in a region, or if a user was accidently using a hud that was creating Lag, I would try to talk to the person about it first, and if it was on my region I would give them a fair warning before taking action agaisnt such a user such as a land, or sim ban, and or report to LL, as they might just not know or have forgot to delete resizer scripts from their items it happens.

3. It seems that some people are too Ban Happy, and AR happy on our grid over some very little things I really only AR for the serious issues, or issues that can't be resolved peacefully between individuals that create a lot of drama/break the CS by creating harassment, or serious big problems for myself or friends, while I believe users have that right I find that doing such now just because you can kinda does disrupt the peace, creates drama, espically if you have stores on your region, and people want to buy legit items instead of free copybot/cloned content, I know that some designers ban on sight for example just because they are caught wearing a ripped hair without knowledge, but I find it wrong and they should at least be told and given a chance to change and learn, but this is how I operate things on my land, and hey I know there are some simulators, and residents on our grid who simply dont care, and some who create a lot of problems and drama espically those simulators in SL that call themselves MMORPG's which create so much drama, spread rumros and lies.



[Dilbert Dilweg]

I wouldnt AR anyone solely for scripts being too high. most of the residents have no idea they are running that many scripts. Most of the high counts are resizer scripts. I want to AR the creators who caused the script problem with their 200+ script infested shoes, hairs, or jewelry lol.

The only time I would AR somone for over script usage is if I could prove they were deliberately using scripts to lag the region.. I inspect residents attached objects and make determinations accordingly.

[leliel Mirihi]

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Void Singer wrote:

ARC is problematic in that it's calculated relative to the local hardware, and the same things seen by two people can have wildy different scores, and the scores don't seem to translate from one user to another.... 

---

[citation needed]

Seriously that goes directly against the definition of ARC. The equation used to calculate ARC (or now draw weight) just gives an object verious amounts of points depending on what prim properties it has, at no point does it factor in your hardware.

[Innula Zenovka]

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Gadget Portal wrote:

So, I'm on a sim with less than 20 people on it, getting an FPS of 4.6 and a time dilation of .1 when I start to look around. I see a couple people pushing 500 scripts, others up over 200.

 

I know on my own sim, I eject people for that sort of thing.

 

So, opinion part: On other sims/mainland, is it acceptable to AR that? Unfair use of sim resources?

---

 If I saw those sort of sim performance figures on a sim I managed, I wouldn't automatically assume it was because of avatars with too many scripts, no matter how outlandish the numbers. At least in my experience, when the numbers are as bad as that, it's a problem with the simulator, more often than not (particularly if the sim in question a homestead).    That would be the first thing I investigated, certainly.

As to the specific question about AR-ing people for having too many scripts, I guess it can't do any harm but I would be astonished if LL actually bothered to do anything about it unless it looked like deliberate and consistent griefing.   

To my mind,  it would probably be more productive to ask LL to investigate the cause of the problem (which could be so many things at their end) and take appropriate action rather than to assume it's because of any particular cause.    If, when they investigate the logs, it turns out to be so-and-so's kazillion scripts, then they can have a word with the person in question.   If it's problem with their servers they can seek to resolve that.

[Qie Niangao]

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leliel Mirihi wrote:

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Void Singer wrote:

ARC is problematic in that it's calculated relative to the local hardware, and the same things seen by two people can have wildy different scores, and the scores don't seem to translate from one user to another.... 

---

[citation needed]

Seriously that goes directly against the definition of ARC. The equation used to calculate ARC (or now draw weight) just gives an object verious amounts of points depending on what prim properties it has, at no point does it factor in your hardware.

---

I believe you're correct about that, but a couple of points:  You've no doubt noticed that the ARC score changes on your own machine as you cam in and out, even for your own avatar.  I don't know what's happening there; maybe it's an effect of LOD, or maybe it's because some objects stop rendering altogether at some distance.  But it's not as simple as just the summed effects of all attached object properties.  Maybe somebody intimate with the viewer code that calculates ARC could comment.

Also, the fact that ARC is not hardware-specific reveals one of the big problems with any such measure: it's at best some weighted average of the effects different properties have on a wide range of graphics hardware with which they may be viewed.  GPU manufacturers are forever touting advantages of one over another, so we know they don't all handle all features the same way, and therefore won't be equally affected by them.

None of which is to say that ARC is useless, but its valid interpretation is limited.

And that's saying nothing of the complexity of weighing viewer-side rendering cost versus sim lag effects that are sometimes caused by "too many scripts" -- the topic of this thread.

[Pacificghost]

I'm a rookie here.  What is a script?  Is it like a program?

 

[leliel Mirihi]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

I believe you're correct about that, but a couple of points:  You've no doubt noticed that the ARC score changes on your own machine as you cam in and out, even for your own avatar.  I don't know what's happening there; maybe it's an effect of LOD, or maybe it's because some objects stop rendering altogether at some distance.  But it's not as simple as just the summed effects of all attached object properties.  Maybe somebody intimate with the viewer code that calculates ARC could comment.

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That was a problem with ARC but has, I believe, been entirely fixed with display weights in v3. It now accounts for all of an object's LODs so the only variation you should see is when the viewer doesn't know about all the objects in a link set.

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Also, the fact that ARC is not hardware-specific reveals one of the big problems with any such measure: it's at best some weighted average of the effects different properties have on a wide range of graphics hardware with which they may be viewed.  GPU manufacturers are forever touting advantages of one over another, so we know they don't all handle all features the same way, and therefore won't be equally affected by them.

---

I think that's looking at the problem from the wrong angle. The differences between GPUs can be summed up as the faster one being able to do a given job faster. How it's faster would go into some nitty gritty details that are way beyond the scope of this forum, and there really hasn't been as much improvement in the area as you'd think. Modern GPUs are in many ways just faster versions of past GPUs. Much of the advances we've seen in current games are due to clock speed and memory bandwidth increases along with algorithmic improvements in how games render things and very little to due with any behind the scene optimizations that GPUs do. ( I'm talking about the last 5 years here, before that there were large differences between each generation of GPUs)

Really you should say that hardware config X should be able to render any scene with a display weight of N at roughly the same frame rate. Any large variation you see would be something the display weight system isn't accounting for. From there you can go on to say that you need a machine that can handle a DW of Y in order to run on mid graphics settings and so on which will allow you to roughly rank systems.

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And that's saying nothing of the complexity of weighing viewer-side rendering cost versus sim lag effects that are sometimes caused by "too many scripts" -- the topic of this thread.

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You're certainly right there, but this is a related and interesting question. Can you AR some one for too high of a display weight? From the average users perspective sim lag and viewer lag are the same thing, and they're both often caused by an over use of resources.

 

 

[Ceka Cianci]

myself i wouldn't be ARing people for scripts..half the people don't even know what script limits are let alone how to curb them..

as for ejecting them for it..not until i atleast said something to them first..

because just ejecting doesn't cure anything..why not inform people and educate them about scripts ..chances are they may not know they are really high..

a lot of people want to comply with sim and land owners..why not inform them so they can pass on the information..

so many people are so quick to throw the switch lol

 

 

[Lilmix Pixelmaid]

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Pacificghost wrote:

I'm a rookie here.  What is a script?  Is it like a program?

 

---

Scripts make the grid go round. :-D

They make basically everything in the virtual world happen. From something as simple at making an object say "Hello Avatar" to running a grid wide vending system, moving vehicles, connecting a TPV to the SL world, HUDs, Security, Media, Games, etc... The list goes on and on...

See http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Tutorial and other parts of the knowledge base/wiki for more info ;-)

[Jenni Darkwatch]

I'd not AR for it unless it's clearly a griefer. In all other cases, a swift boot does work just as well.

[Void Singer]

ok, I'll admit, the phrase "relative to the local hardware" is misleading... it should be relative to the local settings (which are only limited by the hardware). you can see this by changing your settings, or even as Qie pointed out, your view distance. if you have crap hardware though, the distinction between settings and possible settings is largely moot.

[Eloise Baily]

No.

Find something fun to do instead.