whats with the horrible lag!!!

[Random Toocool]

what is up with the crazy amounts of lag in Sl nowadays. i can barely move my cam in most places, for fear of freezing up or just getting booted. my text wont type right, the lag eats my letters.

anyoe know what the problem is.. or how i can change some settings to avoid this.. my graphics are sent to low currently. \

cheers!

 

[Knowl Paine]

Earlier today, the Water was acting very odd for me. Not sure why it was (possible still is) doing that.

This is the 2nd lag post today, could indicate a possible pattern.

When did you first notice the problem?

[Kylie Jaxxon]

Yeah, I just came out of inworld...everything slow to respond   They must be having problems...

[Random Toocool]

its been awhile now. couple of days its been pretty bad!

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1. Draw distance ie:you will lag like a crazy person if your trying to draw everything in a sim, espcially mainland

2. Hardware. ie:your 10 year old computer is not going to play SL like it used to, things advance so should your computer

 

Those are only 2 things that effect your expereince in SL.  I could add more but am limited for time, maybe I edit later on to add more.

[Thinkerer Melville]

I am inworld now and see no lag problems-- 

FPS around 40, Time dilation: .998

That is on Cookie, not a busy sim.  

Running  viewer 3.2.5, on a PC 2 years old, with 6 meg claimed download speed. 

Graphics set to high (not ultra)

Draw distance 240

Main concession for speed: Lighting and shadows off

TKR

 

[LoveAngeL Lyre]

No problem for me today so far. This moment at a homestead with 20/20 avatars and my fps arround 30 (if i rotate my camera looking the sea i get more). I use an old Nvidia Geforce GT240 with the following settings:

• High graphics
• Basic and atmospheric shaders = ON
• Draw distance = 512
• Max. partcle count = 4096
• Max #  of non-impostor avatars = 37
• Mesh details (everything), avatar physics and terrain detail = High
• Water reflections = Everything
• Anisotropic Filtering = ON
• Antialiazing = 2x
• VBO = ON
• HTTP textures = ON
• Maximum Bandwidth = 5000
• Voice = OFF

[linkin Slate]

Region Cookie for example shows 3 other sims shareing same host so 4 regions on that host, possible aiding in better performance.

Now some mainland regions are showing up to 10 and 12 regions shareing  same  host server.

Region: Dalen 

 for example shows 19 regions  shareing same host server, a mixture of mainland and estate regions.

http://gridsurvey.com/index.php?filter=d&page=3

Link above add a sim name and find otu about your sim .

This is just one more reason you could be have lag.

[Pussycat Catnap]

In addition to draw time and outdated machines...

Check your router, see if a reboot of your internet router helps.

Stop streaming pron on the other monitor.

Check script usage / memory / time of self and those in sim with you. One avatar with scripted prim feet or resize hair can lag EVERYONE in an entire sim...

 

 

[Maelstrom Janus]

I love all these helpful suggestions putting the onus on the customers to sort out problems at their end...heaven forbid anyone dare suggest that Lindens need to buck things up and sort their systems out !!!!

[Maelstrom Janus]

Send for the Lindens Cop Out Squad !!!!!!

[Eloise Baily]

Oh Maelstrom you are SUCH a grumpypants! What he meant to say was:

Kick it. Kick it till it works. 

[Ceka Cianci]

i just updated my video drivers today..wow what a difference..i can now go into shadows and depth of view..

here i thought i was up to date..hehehehe

[Penny Patton]

Lag can be caused by a number of things. People like to blame LL for lag, but actually the biggest problem is that LL has done absolutely nothing to educate their customers on how SL works, or encourage good habits to prevent lag from occuring.

First, it's important to distinguish "lag" from low framerates. Lag is a slowdown that results in an experience of being frozen in place or as if your avatar was struggling to move. Low framerate is when SL looks like a slide show of still images. These are entirely separate conditions that are almost entirely unrelated.

Actual lag has a number of causes.

Too many scripts in a sim is a frequent cause. Remember this, a sim only has so much memory devoted to running scripts. If the amount of script memory being used exceeds the amount of memory the sim has it results in some very noticibly lag.

 How does a sim wind up with too many scripts?

Avatars loaded up with scripts are the number one cause. There is no reason for any avatar to ever be using more than 2MB of script memory. If you are using more than that then you either have a lot of unecessary scripts you're not even uses (resizer/recolour/retexture scripts in attachments are a common offender)  or the scripts you do use are inefficiently scripted.. (LL really should do more to encourage people to look for efficiently scripted content.)

 To be clear, I'm not saying people should give up features, I'm saying content creators should do a better job of making those features efficient. Take any heavily scripted avatar with lots of features they actually use and that avatar can almost certainly be reduced to 2MB or less of script memory without giving up a single feature.

 Of course, options are limited for consumers who don't write their own scripts, us non-scripters have to rely on the work of others to enjoy our scripted features. What can we do? Well, there's a few things.

 Try to purchase low-lag items. Look for creators who actually list the amount of script memory their content uses. Very few creators do this, as consumers we should demand it as much as we expect furniture makers to tell us how many prims their creations are. You wouldn't buy a 200 prim couch to put in a parcel that only has 50 prims left, especially when there's a better looking couch that's only 2 prims? Why should scripting be any different?

Try to delete unnecessary scripts in your attachments and homes/builds. Check attachments for scripts you may not be aware of. Many attachments these days (especially hair and shoes) have scripts for resizing, changing textures, or changing colours. Poorly scripted versions will have a script in every prim, which means you're generating a whole lot of lag! Well scripted content will only have a single script that handles all of this for the entire object, but still, every little bit you can shave off your script use the better!

 Try to do the same for your homes or other environmental builds. Your couch has a resizer and a texture changer? Make a copy, choose the textures/colours/size you want, then delete the scripts! 

Particles and animated textures will continue even if you delete the script that started them! Great way to reduce prims right there!

Try to only buy mod/copy content, otherwise deleting the scripts means you're stuck permanently! Scripted texture and size changers are no replacement for mod rights and LL's isntabilities means no-copy content will inevitably be lost or destroyed.

Scripts are not always only in the root prim of an object, most TPV viewers (like Phoenix or Exodus) have a "delete all scripts in selection" option that will remove ALL scripts from an object, not just those in the root prim. Any halfway decent resize/recolour/retexture scripts will also have a "delete scripts" function built right in.

 

 That about covers scripts. What else causes lag? Excessive use of bandwidth! Specifically downloading large amounts of SL content. There's a number of ways this can happen and cause lag.

 All textures need to be downloaded to your computer, and they will eat up bandwidth fast! Content creators should try to use as few textures as possible, and also try to keep their texture sizes as small as possible. There's rarely a reason to use a 1024x1024 texture, let alone multiple textures that size in a single object. Again, the onus is on content creators to make better use of textures. Use smaller textures, and use a single texture that can be wrapped around an object where possible. Smaller items do not need a lot of detail. A wall/floor/ceiling is generally fine between 256 and 512.

 LL could do so much more to encourage better, more efficient use of textures in SL, such as charging more for larger textures, and having textures affect land impact just as polygon counts, number of prims, and scripts currently do.

 On the up side, once they finish downloading textures no longer contribute to lag...until the next time SL decides to redownload them. Of course, textures will continue to affect framerates, but more on that later.

 What else causes lag? The number of avatars in a sim! Every avatar needs to download everything they see in a sim, and what they see is constantly changing so they are constantly downloading. This sucks up the bandiwdth from the sim to each and every individual in the sim. The sim is also constantly working as each individual's viewer is sending messages to the sim about what it needs downloaded. These are two entirely separate kinds of lag, each becoming worse the more avatars are in the sim! And there's no way around this!

However, there is something people should keep in mind. Bots work in the same way as an avatar with a living person behind it, adding exactly as much lag! So too many bots in a sim means fewer living avatars can be in a sim before they begin to experience lag.

 

Alright, that's enough out of me tonight. This isn't everything, and doesn't even go into what causes low framerates, but it's late and I want to enjoy what's left of my night before I need to sleep and head off to work in the morning. ^^ I hope  some people find this useful!

 If you experience lag everywhere you go, check your  avatar for the issues i mentioned. It's entirely possible for a person to be the source of much of the lag they find themselves experiencing in SL and never even realizing it!

[onewith Slingshot]

Thanks  that all really helped me... my lag comes and goes.... just trying to understand Thanks.

[Alicia Sautereau]

Not to forget people who care a ton of scripts/1000 flexi parts that cripple a sim with their mere appearance.

Usually the people who allways complain about lag where ever they go, as they are the source...

[Eileen Fellstein]

Maelstrom's post is like deja vu, lol. But I have to agree with it again, for the most part. Which is not to say the information and suggestions in the other posts are innacurate or untrue, especially the part about educating people on what does and doesn't work to keep lag down.

 

I really believe though that if it's not tackled soon from the LL end of things that SL will become more and more of an elitist activity, only working acceptably well enough for those that can afford to always have the most recent state of the art technology in our homes and face it, that does not include most of us.

 

And you really can't blame any resident for wanting what is advertised. I mean everything from the promo videos on the main site to add billboards all over the grid depict fantabulous looking avatars doing a variety of activities in any number of fantastical environments. These videos don't even hint at lag even being an issue. And (I wont say 'none' but most content creators are not going to undermine their own sales by warning people upfront that their product may contribute significantly to lag if used on a sim with more than ONE avatar and THREE non-sculpty prims on it, lol

 

Also build designers need to take as much responsibility for it as the people they are expecting to have on their sim. If you're expecting 25 people most of the time. Streamline your build, use a minimalist pallet of textures, take readings and multiply that by 25 because that's essentially what will be happening when those 25 avatars show up to populate your sim.

and OMG OMG do NOT put a MALL on the same sim  within camming view of your guests no matter what some marketing specialist says. it kills everythng! No one is going to buy anything if the lag is so horrible they can't stand to be there.

[Ceka Cianci]

Great post Penny =)

[Maelstrom Janus]

Hello Mr Grumpy pants here again !!

 

So basically penny what youre saying is that the resources allocated by lindens aren't high enough or the script system they put in place is prone to use in such a way that it causes lag...

 

therefore the ones to blame are linden labs and really its up to them to tighten up on these issues and sort them out. So really people are on the basis of what youre saying right in blaming lindens because basically its their system which is prone to 'misuse'

[Maelstrom Janus]

And the problem isn't that my posts are deja vu , but the people citing lag problems are...and why  - because lindens dont tackle the issue... it's up to non- lindens staff to try and do the job lindens should be doing  and if pointing out the generally lacking nature of  the company makes mr mister grumpy pants rather than a disatisfied paying customer Im sure that helps lindens off the hook again.

[Cully Andel]

so it's al down to scripts (and I saw something once from a Linden saying scripts dont cause lag) or attachements, or hw far your viewer goes or blah blah

That's rubbish. I use minimum graphics, and sometimes I still have to totally derender to simply be able to type. I've been at events of, wait for it, more than 10 people!, and the same group can suffer horrendous lag, or absolutely none at all, and we pretty much all wear or attach the same things for everyday SL life.

I've been to places laggy as they come - we all detached everything and it was still laggy. Next time round -- zero lag.

It's good to blame us for daring to use SL as we want to, and as it's advertised, so how about actually putting the time and effort in to letting us do this without having to wade through treacle on an elastic cord when we walk, or logging on in 3 weeks to see if our chat's caught up.

Yes indeed some people have older systems. This should be taken in to account inthe programming! I have one 3-4 year old laptop, one week old pc. Both the same when it comes to lag. Far too many people are complaining abot lag for everyone to be running old pc's, at maximum graphics, with mega scripts and attachements.

and it has to be said - one of the things LIndens have 'promised' is to improve lag - so that kind of suggests there's something they can do there end.

They did keep that promise. Lag is so much better now