Mick Scarbridge

I was not aware that KDE could use SL viewers. I always used Gnome to get SL viewers to work in Linux.

Like it or not, SL is a business and things are prioritized just like your ISP priritizes business customers over regular customers. That is a standard model among almost all businesses out there.

That is a ton of server, network, and viewer lag. I would probably not be able to move there, or tp out to prevent getting stuck in a lag-a-thon. The only way I could see to reduce the amount of lag in a situation like that would be to ask people to detach all scripted attachments and then sit on a non-physical, phantom object to make their avatars not use the physics engine for calculating collisions, and while getting the land owner to temporarily disable media access and voice in the region to avoid excess lag sources.

I would personally look for a system with a powerful ATI Radeon graphics adapter that has at least 1 Gb GDDR5 and in the viewer Preferences for Graphics, 2nd tab, I would disable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects to avoid the "ATI Pink Glitch". The number of CPU cores do not seem to matter much after the first two cores because the viewers do not seem to use more than two cores at this time. ATI Radeon graphics adapters have always worked well for me using Windows as well as Linux. I would agree that 2 Gb of RAM is not enough because a Windows OS uses about that much and your hard drive will be caching more of the time instead. I am uncertain how much RAM a Mac uses, so I will use Windows as a guideline for minimum SL specs. Installing 4 to 8 Gb of DDR3 should do well, allowing you to multitask without much lag. I only use a short, shielded, high quality CAT-6e cable that has been certified, and never wireless LAN devices for online gaming because they drop a high percentage of data packets. With Linux, I can tweak the OS quite a bit to squeeze out a rediculous amount of gaming efficiency from the OS and programs by using a lightweight OS, uninstalling the things I do not use, and only installing the things I use frequently. With a Windows system, I used to kill Windows Explorer and startup games using Task Manager, as that was the old gamer's trick to free up a good 30 percent of system load back in 2006. Also, a computer runs best with fewer excess files on the OS hard drive, so a good investment would be an external hard drive to move non-OS and non-Program files to that drive. As for a simple yes or no, that system would be slow, so I would say no.

I've been using a meager 2.6 GHz 1 core 32 bit AMD Sempron based craptop for the past 3 years. My system has a miniscule 128 Mb ATI factory laptop graphics and only 2 Gb DDR2 non-ECC non-registered RAM. I am on a satellite ISP as it is one of the only two options in my area (the latter being a non-option of dialup). I was getting a decent 14 FPS for 2 1/2 of the four years I have been in SL, but this last year seems to have slowed down to a rediculously slow 4 FPS or less, sometimes dropping lower than 1 FPS. Ever since the change of the quality of graphics was forced to maximum, my SL experience has been less than desirable. SSB seems to be a double edged sword for me right now, however I understand that this technology is relatively new as with the rest of project sunshine. The user should have the option to adjust the quality of everything rendered so that people with older and outdated systems can still enjoy SL. I will be getting a new system that is more than enough for HD video editing, but that will take about a year to complete the building process as it is a professional dual socket Xeon workstation with three ATI video cards. By then, I will have moved to the city and will have a minimum of a 10 Mbps cable or fiber connection for my home business. Until then, I am stuck with running into walls from lag and conducting my usual ritual of making a cup of tea while I first login for the day. This reminds me of the old ritual that many NES gamers did when they blew out the cartridge before playing to make it work. Either way, I notice lag more than most others because of how sensitive my older craptop is to the most miniscule bit of lag, and I have definitely noticed a big change since SL forced quality to max (not to be confused with the graphics settings such as Low, Medium, High, Ultra). I think that SSB is a good thing, but at the same time this requires more server power. Perhaps LL could start a grid-wide fund raiser that allows residents who love SL to donate to help SL upgrade their server hardware? I would throw a good $20 USD their way for that.

I believe that SL should have a few places reserved specifically to those that consent to do battle with each-other without worry of anyone else reporting them as "griefers". This should prove to be much more effective than just reporting people and awaiting a generic response via email. Some people do grief others at random, that can be irritating, however others may almost religiously partake in battles with their closest friends in SL, but have no real place to do so. I feel that several sims cold be dedicated for all those who wish to do battle could go to do so in peace, without people telling them that they could get banned for that. SL would probably benefit from that instead. I am seeking the opinions of the masses on this concept. :smileywink:

That does affect the economy a bit, but what will truly stifle the SL economy will be the upcoming limitation on scripts. If the number of scripts are going to be limited, than everyone who has purchased items anywhere in SL with scripts inside them may be demanding a refund. If this happens en mass, than say goodbye to Second Life because nobody will be purchasing anything from anyone. SL cannot exist without scripts, and few people will be willing to part with their AO's, their HUD's, their vehicles, their scripted clothes, their avatars, and other things that they had paid for with very real money. The only reason that Second Life is still around is the popularity combined with the freedoms of creativity and expression, and the profits made by Microsoft (SL), Linden Labs, major corporate IT networks, and the users. Setting limits will only serve to increase the number of scripts that every sim owner uses, thus denying service to customers that have paid for items. The mindset is 'take what you can while it is still here", which can even turn into a state of mild panic for some. You would see too many sims with "No-Scripts" restrictions because the sim owners themselves have nearly used up all of their script limits. If nobody has a place to build things due to script limitations, than you have only resellers left as merchants. The only outcome of this sort of restriction is commercial suicide. My proposition for LL and SL is this: I suggest scripting avatars, hair, shoes, and clothing with special resizing scripts that auto-delete from their host prims once the user has finished resizing the objects to the particular avatar. This leaves the original items inside their boxes in case a user creates another avatar for a special occasion, yet is server-efficient, and it does not require any restriction. If more creators had used things like this, than it would eventually use less server load. :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2: