Rick Nightingale

I'm sure there must be Jiras covering these things already, or I would file some. I know I'm not the only one. Examples: 1. I'm stood in the middle of my lawn, and turn around. There are two seats; one shows up, the other just as a triangle at its lowest LOD that I am much too close to be supposed to see, even at LOD factor 2 (I'm at that). Turn around again... one of my animesh rabbits 2m away is not there, but suddenly pops in as if it's just been shoved onto the scene like in those old movies where the actor gets pushed onto the stage from the side (probably the animation catching up or something). Also, some of my ground cover plants take a second or two to show up, leaving me with bare ground before they do. Turn around again... the other seat is now a triangle (and stays that way) and some flowers are missing. Oh, and the trees and shrubbery can't make their minds up either. 2. In my dungeon, I have a row of identical statues. Nearly every time one of them will be a lowest LOD triangle depsite that I should never see that within the room. Like the above seat, it stays like that until I've walked towards it a few metres or mess about zooming my camera in and out. My throne has a habbit of doing the same. If I turn around for a few seconds and back again... it's a triangle again. These are just two examples that have happened within the last ten mintues on my land. They are happening all the time and it is really starting to get annoying. The visuals in SL are what I enjoy, and this is taking that away and replacing it with the frustration of watching things slowly pop in, sometimes just as a triangle or not at all, just because I turn around. I understand the viewer doesn't want to waste time knowing about things I cannot see, but the developers have to find a better way to deal with this. The stuck lowest LOD thing, and sometimes just not being shown at all, are the most annoying. I could cope with a small delay, but it is too long and spoils immersion. Simply turning around, especially to see things only a few metres away that I was looking at only a few seconds ago, should be seamless. I've tried at a lower LOD factor of 2, and ramping it up to 4. Makes no difference that I can tell to the above. A final thing... the supposed framerate. While the FPS display at the top of Firestorm is telling me 52 fps (I cap at 50)... I can still suffer from a juddery display to the point that it can cause motion sickness. No way is the actual scene updating at 52 FPS. Maybe the display is, but with a number of identical frames, if you get me. It's really obvious when it happens and it happens a fair bit. It feels like the FPS number is lying, the way a government reports a statsitic that has no actual bearing on the reality of the situation. But the number looks good! I have a GTX 1080 Ti although on an older i7 CPU at 3.7GHz with 16GB RAM. That should be good enough to run at 1920x1200. This never happened before the 'perfromance improvements' or whatever they are called. The difference in number to perceived framerate, I mean. If it was juddery, it read a low FPS. The improvement to the 'real' framerate in some situations is fantastic. I can visit busy places that would normally be slowing me to a crawl and need me to drop to much lower graphics settings to keep things smooth, without having to do so. There have been great improvements. But the down side (I guess side effect of those) is bad. Frankly I feel it's a bit rubbish right now. Maybe I'm just being oversensitive because I so much want to enjoy what I'm making, but I don't think I am or that I'm alone in this.

Not just the beta grid - my wife just got it in Agni! Love the error message 🤣

I've also had another weird thing happen that might be related... I imported some mesh, two items linked together. Not huge, only about 10k tris in each High LOD. I rezzed and unlinked them. From that point, while I could see both parts, only one could be clicked on. It was as if the other did not exist, except visually. Trying to click on it clicked the thing behind it; I couldn't select it in any way, even by click-dragging a selection box around it. Nothing would make it usable until I TP'd out of the region and back again, when it behaved normally. That has happened now on several occasions. Mostly on the beta grid (which was why I paid it no mind two weeks ago when it first happened - just put it down to beta grid being beta grid) but it also happened in the main grid. As usual, it seems to happen only occasionally and randomly.

Whatever is causing this, it's getting truly ridiculous. This happened today... I have not changed anything in this build (or on my land) for a week, and this only started today. It's a typical example though of the 'missing things'. Before doing the below, I tried things like TPing around inside the region, toggling wireframe, clicking on the throne, pulling my camera far out and back... nothing helped. I went into my dungeon. My throne's seat was floating in mid air. My throne is a lot bigger than that, as befits my demonic status. See photo 1. I took a wireframe photo of it... photo 2. As you can see... only the throne seat is there. When I sat in the throne, a few more pieces showed up. (my camera view did not change). Photo 3. Still a lot missing. Photo 4 - a wireframe of the above. Still only the visible parts are in wireframe. Next I teleported out of the region. When I returned, it was nearly all there, but not quite. There was some animated fire missing. Photo 5. I did several more TPs and other things, the fire wouldn't come back. Finally I relogged. The throne was there in its entirety when I got back. Photo 6. Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 Photo 4 Photo 5 Photo 6 - me looking rather dischuffed that my throne vanished.

There are other ways of making HUDs than linking one prim together for each option, and that sounds like a very easy way to make GPU lag on a big HUD. My usual way is to make a texture with a lot of the options on - a picture of one panel of your HUD if you like. Apply that to a plane, and detect touch position. The script needs to know what texture/tint that position corresponds to. A notecard can be used to configure that, or just hard-code it. The active plane is just switched into view in front of the others, if you need more than one plane (one texture) to hold all your options. Another option is a mesh with eight front-facing faces, and a lot of those linked together. 255 of those linked gives 2040 faces. The script detects face and link - in this case you could have actual textures on the faces and read them from there... but I wouldn't (GPU lag!).

Safe Waters Foundation - going strong with events, rentals, and just general socialising. Paste this group link into your viewer local chat, then click the group link it turns into to open the profile and join it: secondlife:///app/group/6c9fcb9e-979b-0937-d31b-7a0c4b8bc6c5/about I'm often a Triton...

Yeah, full perms on the script is handy. I'm currently modifying the AVsitter code to integrate my Experience into it, along with some other remote control ability from other scripts. Great fun! I just merged an animesh water horse, with a unicorn horn I rigged to attach to it, with a full AVsitter setup (pulled out of Libertine Stuffed Unicorn; any Witcher fans here?) so the animated horse unicorn can be used as wandering, riding or seating prop when rezzed. A bit of scripting manages the changeover. Adding in my Experience and some sequenced stuff is next. If you're wondering why I wanted it as a unicorn, I'm doing a Legend based dungeon (the movie with Mia Sara and Mia Sara* Tim Curry. Oh, and Tom Cruise was in it too.) *I like Mia Sara so much I typed her twice even as I thought 'Tim Curry', lol.

@PheebyKatz My issue is that the only way for two (or more) avatars to do something as simple as walk hand in hand needs a 'vehicle' that they both sit on; effectively mobile pose balls. I suppose what I really want is the ability to truly synchronise the animations between two avatars, without having to sit on anything. Given the poor implementation of the SL animation system to begin with (why no IK???), that's an even less likely ask to be granted than sitting on another avatar's attachment. At least if we could do that, then such things would be possible in no-rez places and those that disallow vehicle entry. Plus the sat-on avatar could still use their own animations and not be limited to what the pose ball has (like some janky walks I've seen on such things). Bonus points for the sat-on avatar being able to teleport with the sitee still attached.

I use the Oak swim HUD. It's tiny, can be turned on and off (and other options) and if just left on will automatically swim you when you enter water (with bouyancy control). I used to use it often when I was a pirate. Best of all it's full perms and free (there are pay for 'versions' on the MP too, no idea if they do anything different). The animations are... somewhat dated and jerky but could probably be replaced with something better. One day I might bother to do so. Most of my swimming time is spent as a Triton so no need for the Oak. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Thors-Oak-Swim-Animations-Test-Version-with-HUD/3308143 As to the OP... I especially agree on the graceful animation termination. In stuff I make for myself I try to have a 'moving away' animation to prevent the climbing or often just being launched vertically 20m into the air. What I would like to see? and I know I'm not alone... being able to sit on an avatar attachment! Wouldn't that make so many things easy? I guess we'll never get it, given how long people have been asking for it fruitlessly.

...and, I should note that the creator of the no-mod hair (Ginko613) replied to my plea for help with a mod perms copy of the hair. Nicely played!

The store I got my outfit from was "Process of Elimination" on the MP. It's mostly sci-fi related products and everything I checked had mod perms. Also looks really well made: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/74556

Didn't know that, but I don't usually have tags shown. Prefer not to clutter the screen.

Well, I actually wore a transparent prim sphere on my head and it worked. Never thought of a hat... and I even have a hat folder in my inventory!

Bit of a necropost now I guess, but I was reminded of this thread today regarding the mod/no-mod thing. Earlier I was looking for hair. Good men's hair is a rare thing in SL IMO, but I finally found something close enough. Demo'd it fully, even checked that it had a script remove button. Yep. Bought it. Then I set it up and removed the scripts. Nope. Only one of the three scripts was removed. That means the hair still acts as if it is touchable to run the resizer (the only script that got removed). That means I cannot click on my head to move my avatar the way I always do (in Firestorm). Of course, the hair is no-mod. Arghh! Wish I had bought it on the MP,. not the in-world store, then at least I could have left an appropriate review. In contrast, I bought a rather nice full trench coat outfit - wonderfully made, and amazingly it is mod perms. The advert even encourages modding it and the texture HUD itself can be modified to create custom tints! Some people like to make others happy I guess, and like that their products can be further 'enhanced' by the purchaser. Even if in this case it's likely not needed because it's about perfect as it is. The seller is, I believe, a member of the furry lot. Now there are folks with the right sort of attitude to mod perms (and some cracking good avatars!) That purchase was on the MP and got a glowing review.

Thank you @Beq Janus for the super-quick work on the fix in Firestorm for this issue. Sounds like the viewer shutdown process is on the 'interesting times' side of things, as in the saying. Hopefully LL will take on board the suggestion of a more robust approach in the future. Those interested can read about it here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-232971 Looking forward to the next FS version

@Resi Pfeffer Funny you should say that about the anti LOD... I had that happen a week ago when I was making something. As my camera approached the object, it would vanish at the point it should be switching to highest LOD. Couldn't even select it; as if it really didn't exist. Did it persistently on several objects. No (for those going to point out the obvious) I hadn't messed up my LOD models. The models were fine. After swearing for half an hour, rerezzing and reuploading my model several times, I relogged and everything went back to normal. I can't help feeling all of these things are somehow linked to the new, 'improved' code.

Like other's said, I've not filed a Jira because I couldn't get any way to reliably reproduce it, and until today hadn't heard anyone else mention it (other than the usual things on a random group about "my beard fell off when I TP'd"). I tend to assume things are local issues (internet, or maybe my asset server) unless I hear others complain or can rule local things out otherwise. I think Lucia is correct that it's more frequent since the performance code update. More frequent, and more severe. In my case, moving the camera about only occasionally brings something back. I have other things going on like a statue (one of an identical group of them in a row, but linked to different things to combine LI) that insists on showing my the Lowest LOD almost every time I go into the room, or even just have it out of my view for a minute. Just that one, the others are fine. I should not even see Low LOD within 100m of it! It stays like that until I walk closer to it when the viewer switches to highest LOD.

Had this happening a lot recently (several weeks); far more than normal. Everything from my demon's attached horns to my entire house and half my garden, leaving some furniture floating in the air. Also shop buildings in skyboxes where the entire shop (apart from items for sale) is not there; feels like I need to start flying. Sometimes it's just the viewer that forgot to draw them and clicking makes them appear (like my horns and beard) but when it's a building or similar, it's just not there. Like you OP, no significant packet loss and no network issues apparent. Sometimes a double-click TP a few m away makes them appear, sometimes not. Zooming the camera out beyond draw distance and back does nothing to help. One shop I visit often, I'll TP there, and half the building is missing. TP out and back (but still in same region), it's all there. TP out and back again... it's gone again. I put it down initially to using a Firestorm beta, but doubt that's the case now (and no-one else mentioned anything wrong in the preview group). Something is certainly an issue at the moment.

@NiranV Dean The inventory cache files in question aren't shared; there is an individual cache file for each account so there's no clash there from multiple instances*. A quick relog of the same account, on the other hand... I'm 95% certain that I have had cache loss from quick relogs during all of this, but haven't been able to reproduce that over the last few days. From watching things, my theory is that my PC is, overall, just slow enough to take long enough to start the viewer up again and get to the point of logging in. That gives the cache writing from last time just enough time to finish on its fast SSD. I've watched the filesystem and seen the gzip file get finished just at the point of the (reloaded) viewer being ready to log in. I do sometimes have a lot running on that PC though, so perhaps something slowing filesystem access down a little while I'm relogging swaps that fortunate timing around. The next viewer logs in before the cache is written from last time and causes a problem as access to the (unfinished) file clashes. All that's just vague guessing though since I've never looked at the code. *Edit: I wonder what happens if I run a second viewer instance, and log in the same account on it... I know the first login is then auto-logged off by the server, but I wonder if the cache files in that case get messed up. Academic musings... I'm sure it will all come out in the wash now it's being looked into properly.

Thank you Whirly. I fully concur with the "this-app-is-preventing-shutdown" message (and actually do so while the cache is finished) that should be generated in this circumstance

I'm using 6.6.8.68355 (release candidate) here... I've used I think every beta since the last release which introduced the huge jump in framerate. This latest is performing just the same as the last few for me with high frame rates, quick enough texture loading, etc.. Everything seems good even in 'busy' places.

Yes, thank you Beq. Let me know if you need any more tests doing; I'm happy to help. I thought the end of the logs (I did look at them) seemed to end abruptly. I imagine this one will be tricky to investigate, given that it only seems to happen during a Windows shutdown or user logoff. I've tried but failed to get it to reproduce with quick relogs (no shutdown) this morning, even with multiple accounts relogging simultaneously to push the file system. That might be a red herring then, at least on my PC.

Yeah, that's logical. A bit like me watching the viewer's logoff process like a hawk for a week but never catching it 'in the act' of corrupting that file. I never would, until I stopped watching it and went back to behaving normally 🤣

I can confirm the same cache loss in the official LL viewer with a quick shutdown after the viewer apparently closes. Should have tested it before but I really dislike loading that viewer.

@Beq Janus I've done that. https://jira.firestormviewer.org/browse/FIRE-32453 I added several logfiles as I noted in the Jira. The results of the tests were exactly as before, with the addition of testing logging my Windows user out instead of shutting down the PC (quickly after closing Firestorm). Same result of cache loss. There are two logs after cache loss from a quick shutdown, and one log from the Windows log out. Probably more than you need but better to have it, and not need it... lol. Hope that helps.