No way Second Life should be running this slow.

[CPCookieMan]

Hey guys,

I just downloaded Second Life for the first time onto my new computer. It's running painfully slow, think 8 - 15 FPS at best. What am I doing wrong here? My system is no piece of crap either.

Specs:

AMD FX-8120 8-core Processor @ 3.1GHz

AMD Radeon HD6950 1GB

16GB DDR3 RAM

And blah blah blah other system specs, but no game should run that slow on that PC, keep in mind at minimum settings. Help?

CPCookieMan

 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

You're right, no system with your specs should run that slow.  All you need to do is find out why because my system runs SL much faster and it's only spec'd at:

Intell i5 2.8 gig CPU

nVidia GTS 250 1 gig video card

8 gigs DDR3 RAM

and other blah, blah, blah specs.

 

I listed the corresponding hardware components for my system that you listed for your system.  I guess the difference is somewhere in that "blah, blah, blah spec section.  Or maybe drivers........oh, maybe connection.  Heck, it could be operating system setup.  How about background programs.  Jeeze, I just don't know. 

Maybe you could help a little.........what have you done to try to fix it?  You and I know SL should run better but, for some reason, it's not.  What am I doing that you are not?  Or what are you doing that I'm not?  Somehow I get the impression you think it's something to do with SL........but, with all that talk about the latest official SL viewer being a POS and laggy as he**, guess what viewer I'm running?  Yeah, that one.........the notorious Viewer 3.2.4.  My frame rates just a few minutes ago while I was on were right at 35 FPS (at a club, no less with about 20 people dancing away and the usual particle generators spewing fountains of lag inducing garbage in the air). 

 

Yeah, I agree, "no way Second Life should be running this slow".

[CPCookieMan]

Yes, I'm running a LOT of background crap, but like I said, hasn't affected any other games. My background programs leave me with over 8GB of RAM to spare and my processor usage isn't going above 10%. I could shut down a VM and the Minecraft server, maybe Skype and Chrome. Those are my biggest offenders for background usage. Even then, with these background programs running, I get 100+FPS in Minecraft, so I don't see a problem with running them. I was just standing in the tutorial world and it runs slowly, it's not like I'm in a room with a bunch of particle generators or something. I did catch wind of AMD graphics cards and OpenGL optimization or something. Could that have anything to do with it? Should I use a new viewer?

CPCookieMan

[Charolotte Caxton]

Go to your preferences. Go to Graphics. Click Advanced. Uncheck Lighting and Shadows (one check).

Now, go to Hardware. Uncheck Enable VBO.

You should be able to crank everything up ok now, except maybe draw distance and avatar imposters, but these two you can adjust if you are taking photos or not. You don't need a big draw distance if you are mostly inside and you don't need a lot of avatar imposters if you aren't surrounded by hundreds of persons.

Draw of 200 and imposters of 12 is a good reference point.

[CPCookieMan]

By "crank everything" what target FPS are you thinking? This fixes a lot of the problems I was having with FPS, but cranking it makes it slow again... I get 10 or so FPS on Ultra, 20 on High. That's without lighting an with a view distance of 128 and whatever that other thing was at 12. Is SL just not supposed to be fast? And um... How exactly do I play this game once I get it all set up and working?

CPCookieMan

[Theresa Tennyson]

Your two questions are closely related. First of all, you can "play" Second Life ANY WAY YOU WANT. Just about any situation you can imagine has been modeled SOMEWHERE and the modeling was probably done by someone else in the "world." If you're looking for something goal-based that you can "win" you're probably going to be frustrated. However, if there's some situation floating around in your head that you've never seen a pre-made game about you can probably locate it and if you can't (and are willing to put a LOT of effort into it,) you can get to the point where you can make it yourself. SL is at its best in the social and creative end of things - "action" is possible and takes place in many areas but the engine isn't optimized for it.

Which brings us to your first question. Most video games, even on-line ones, are built on a series of predictable situations that your computer will have some knowledge of beforehand so it can throw them at you quickly. In Second Life nothing is that predictable. The region you went to yesterday might be completely rebuilt tomorrow, and if you're fighting a dragon in an enhanted forest or in some sort of urban combat situation somewhere there's a chance that I might happen to suddenly pop in on the scene wearing leopard hoodie pajamas and clinging to the back of a flying Totoro (both of which I have.) This means that the entire world has to stream to your computer with very little pre-rendered and therefore it's not optimized for frame rate. Realistically, "Ultra" graphics are only used for photography and other non-speed-dependent tasks.

[Charolotte Caxton]

FPS is a hot topic of debate within SL. Many factors can affect what any one person gets such as computer specs, internet connection speed, and what particular region you are in and at what altitude, to name a few.

In my sky home at 3800 meters, I get an average of 90fps. The same location, but on the ground, I average 35fps. If I go to some regions, I may get as low as 9 or as high as 85. There are so many variables, the best you can do is find one spot that is away from everything and gives you consistent performance. If I hung out all the time in the spot that gives me 9fps, I would wonder why SL is so slow also. 

Now, that being said, there are many many discussions on the subject of how to maximize your experience in SL. A lot of it depends on what you are trying to accomplish in here. You mention other games, no, SL is not going to behave as well as you expect from having experienced those other games. The main difference between those games and the user created world of Second Life, is just that. Second Life is created by its Residents. Everything you see has been made by someone just like you or me (for the most part). With that in mind, you also have to understand that many persons do not know about optimization and such. They make something they think is cool, they put it out for themselves and everyone else to enjoy, and without them realizing it, they are contributing to what we affectionately refer to as lag. Don't ask me the specifics, I'm one of those persons.

Also, in many of the games you can play, most of what you see and interact with is stored on your computer and is limited to how many objects and textures there are. In SL, everything is stored on servers far away from you so your system has to continuously receive and transmit data to these servers, which is why internet connection plays a role in all this, it is kinda like watching a high resolution youtube while its being edited stream to your pc. It's virtually not possible. Well, not in the real world, this is SL

[VRprofessor]

"... a flying Totoro..."

If I google this will I get an answer or should I just ask here?

[VRprofessor]

I am going to semi-naively point at the graphics card.

I ran into someone a couple of days ago who said they were getting about 4-5fps using the same graphics card.   I did a quick search of the forums and found some discussion of problems related to that card.

 

(Sorry, pushed the wrong "reply" button.  This was for CP, not Theresa.)

[CPCookieMan]

Nah, I think Charlotte had the right idea there, the FPS is basically fixed. I play on high settings and get around 30FPS, so fair enough.

CPCookieMan

[JupiterFlambay]

Second LIfe is garbage, when I first joined in 2007 it was faster than it is now. Also hardly anything has changed, I play GTA 5 no problem on my system.

[Chic Aeon]

10 minutes ago, JupiterFlambay said:

Second LIfe is garbage, when I first joined in 2007 it was faster than it is now. Also hardly anything has changed, I play GTA 5 no problem on my system.

While this IS a necro thread, wanted to point out that TONS has changed since 2007 including the introduction of mesh and lots of heavy content (both mesh and textures) made by "amateur" content creators (that is pretty much all of us for better or worse).  There are plenty of places that work well and changing your settings would help.  SL is not a GAME, it is a USER CREATED PLATFORM. 

 

 

[Lyssa Greymoon]

29 minutes ago, JupiterFlambay said:

Second LIfe is garbage, when I first joined in 2007 it was faster than it is now. Also hardly anything has changed, I play GTA 5 no problem on my system.

You know what else ran faster in 2007? Everything.

[cheesecurd]

2 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

SL is not a GAME, it is a USER CREATED PLATFORM. 

The game being user created does not make it "not a game". Roblox is all user created content at a similar level of user involvement and its still very much so a game.

I really do not understand this mentality that SL isnt a game because its user created and not developer content only.

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, cheesecurd said:

The game being user created does not make it "not a game". Roblox is all user created content at a similar level of user involvement and its still very much so a game.

I really do not understand this mentality that SL isnt a game because its user created and not developer content only.

Most GAMES such as GTO in the OP are made by professional 3D modelers with STRICT codes to follow to keep the "game" running. The fact that most all of the people creating mesh in SL are NOT professionals (there are a few) means that there is little control. That has certainly turned out to be the case. I just found three suitcases that were 204,000 triangles --- part of a big set that was at least as dense.  Whether you want to call it a "game" or not, most of us who have been here over a decade consider it NOT.   

 

I didn't say it wasn't a GAME because it is user created, I was saying that it didn't work like typical computer games BECAUSE it was user created -- on a "platform" that makes very few rules -- in contrast to a game studio with professional employees who have criteria to conform to. 

 

 

[NiranV Dean]

SL is a virtual world. A virtual world is a sandbox. A sandbox is a game. A game does not need to have a goal to be a game. There are plenty of goal-less games, those are usually called sandbox games because you make your own goals... and content to varying degrees. Besides SL is a MMO which automatically puts it into the technical category of a game. Real life people inside a game doesn't make it less of a game. Every multiplayer game has other people in it.

Conclusion: SL is, was and will always be a game.

The problem is that people automatically expect certain stereotypes when they hear "game" which are neither true nor necessary. But then again there are a lot of stereotypes going around in SL that have survived the passing of time.

Edited September 2, 2019 by NiranV Dean

[Parhelion Palou]

9 hours ago, NiranV Dean said:

SL is a virtual world. A virtual world is a sandbox. A sandbox is a game. A game does not need to have a goal to be a game. There are plenty of goal-less games, those are usually called sandbox games because you make your own goals... and content to varying degrees. Besides SL is a MMO which automatically puts it into the technical category of a game. Real life people inside a game doesn't make it less of a game. Every multiplayer game has other people in it.

Conclusion: SL is, was and will always be a game.

The problem is that people automatically expect certain stereotypes when they hear "game" which are neither true nor necessary. But then again there are a lot of stereotypes going around in SL that have survived the passing of time.

RL is a game too ... same characteristics, but much higher penalties if you fail.  😉

If pretty much everything is a game using that definition, isn't the definition useless? No reason to have the word game in that case.

Edited September 2, 2019 by Parhelion Palou
Tired, seemed like the thing to do at the time.

[Alyona Su]

18 hours ago, JupiterFlambay said:

Second LIfe is garbage, when I first joined in 2007 it was faster than it is now. Also hardly anything has changed, I play GTA 5 no problem on my system.

So... same computer, then?

[NiranV Dean]

8 hours ago, Parhelion Palou said:

RL is a game too ... same characteristics, but much higher penalties if you fail.  😉

If pretty much everything is a game using that definition, isn't the definition useless? No reason to have the word game in that case.

Life is Dark Souls. You will die.

 

@Topic

You should be getting 30 FPS average with dips down to 15 on busier places and up to 80 FPS on almost empty places, around 40-60 FPS with decent stuff around, with shadows on, i've got an AMD FX 6200 which in SL is exactly the same as your eight core. It all depends on where you are though and what kind of people and content is around you. Judging by your framerate i'd say complete trash.

Edited September 2, 2019 by NiranV Dean