EliteData Maximus

i could make use of wireshark and TCP/UDP connection list and reverse DNS and traceroute the true identity and location of all relevant connections to any specific server that retrieves content for assets such as textures, objects, sounds, etc. i could then narrow down the issue to a specific server in a specific location by measuring the downstream speed of that particular server. i am currently using the Firestorm client set to "Phoenix", the latest version. the bandwidth settings within the client is really just a simplified setting for the amount of multiple simultaneous connections the client can make to any given server for asset retrieval. there are network speed throttle settings within the debug menu that also affect upload and download connection speeds as well but despite changing any of these settings inside the menu and debug menu, the network speed observed inside the statistics window of the client still shows a maximum speed of 1Mbit/s (changing texture retrieval from UDP to TCP makes no difference) its my opinion and thought, despite any additional detailed testing that i may perform, the results i will receive will be indicative of a server that is speed limited to 1Mbit/s, a latency issue in the traceroute path or a peering issue. i have measured the same instances with the latest official stable release of the SL client as well. now i dont doubt that this could be a peering/latecny issue between my ISP and CDN servers and/or LL's servers, the statistics settings does not measure the latency of independent connections, only as a whole measurement for latency and packet loss. average packet loss measured in the statistics window is less than 1%, latency averages 300mS, after complete loading of 128m far clip area of a region, typically less than 5 minutes. it would be nice to see what others network speed is observed through the statistics menu. ill get around to performing more detailed tests to try and pin down the actual issue though im very confident the issue is not my network and client, the issue is either a peering issue between the CDN/LL and my ISP or that one or more servers are simply throttling their outbound speed to a single IP despite multiple connections (its common in the IT industry to do this) i also dont see any method to change the VFS size for the cache either (similar to virtual memory), it appears to be hard-coded to 1GB. since i have visited many regions over the weekend, their assets have been saved to the cache, re-entering those regions provides instant load-up of those assets with extremely minimal load time, current cache size is 4.1GB, only changed > objects, sounds, textures and avatars are refreshed, non changed assets are retrieved from the cache. at the current time, i have the viewer configured to draw "grey" outlines of unloaded assets, its a far cry from the "missing image" days.

the specs of my (cable) internet: 100Mbit down, 35Mbit up. my tests seem to indicate asset downloading (that has not already been downloaded) from any region doesnt seem to exceed 1Mbit/s maximum at the server level. its my opinion that region asset downloading to the viewer, limited at 1Mbit/s, hinders the Second Life experience because you have to wait for most assets to download and render before you can actually explore the region. 1Mbit/s speed would be a valid workable speed 10 years ago when most home internet connections did not exceed 6Mbit/s but fast forward to the present where 1GBit/s connections are available for the home consumer such as Fiber Optic. my disk cache access, read and write times are exceptional, that is a non-issue, the problem is downloading assets to the cache that have not already been downloaded, the speed from the asset server is terrible. when i enter a new region to explore, i generally sit and wait for about 3 minutes for about 90% of the assets to have downloaded to my disk cache before i begin to explore the region, thats a long wait. i keep my far clip (draw distance) at 128m, imagine the asset download time if the far clip was set to 512m ? Linden Research can upgrade and update their code for the regions and viewers and their hardware that supports the regions but how about the connection speed for downloading assets to the viewer ? as far as i can remember, the asset server speed was always at 1Mbit. i never thought to question the speed because the last time i was on Second Life 7 years ago, 1Mbit/s speed for the asset server seemed appropriate at the time. i think 10Mbit/s would be a million times better than 1Mbit/s for todays standards, heck even 5Mbit/s is better than 1Mbit/s.

excuse my 7 year absence. wouldnt it be great if those of us with Terabytes of storage could download all or selected mainland/private/world/sim caches that have not already been cached to disk, during the times we are not active on Second Life ? this would greatly improve the experience when exploring the Second Life world. perhaps this could be an added feature for premium users at a small or no additional cost ? perhaps an option to download the caches for mainland only or private sims ? now if i had the entire cache for all the mainland sims (LL owned), exploring them would be pie since the hit ratio for the cache would be significantly higher only necessitating the need to update avatars and modified objects/textures stored in the cache instead of having to download them during active use of the viewer.