Kotari Elytis

Kotari, Thank you for taking the time to reply, but I am afraid that you didn't address my questions. What you said makes perfect sense to me if I were asking why textures/objects take longer in SL to load than in WoW, but that was not the question. The question is why the number of textures/objects would affect the way that they load--in other words, the problems with textures failing to rez completely, objects, especially sculpts, not rendering properly, avatars failing to load, etc. If all textures and all objects are rezzed by the same software (in a given viewer), the number of different textures and objects shouldn't make any difference except for the amount of time required to get the information (as you said). You're welcome, I'm sorry I didn't do a very good job of explaining before though! Again, its a matter of things being saved to your computer versus being loaded via servers. In SL everything is stored via their servers, everything is using up your bandwith. However, if the files are stored in your computer then there is a lot of bandwith being freed up for other things like movement, gestures, scripts, ect. Its why things don't just load faster but are less likely to fail/glitch. In SL the reason things don't load sometimes is simply because your bandwith is struggling to do everything at once and then eventually it just gives up or thinks its loaded completely even when it hasn't. I've used SL with cable internet as high as 50mbs but I've also used it with a connection as low as 4mbs. The difference in performance rises drastically the more bandwith you have to use. Essentially, lag is the root of all evil! Note, that SL DOES have a place to store object/texture data (the cache) but its maxed out at 1gb versus the aforementioned 20+ for games like WoW. You can read more about that on the SL wiki under "cache".

TriloByte, I have heard that sort of statement about games like WoW for years... and I still don't quite understand the reasoning. I'm probably misunderstanding what you mean but let me just ask: 1. In what way does the number of different textures/objects have anything to do with the way in which they are rendered? Aren't all textures rendered by the same engine(s)? Aren't all objects rendered by the same engine(s)? The server feeds information into the viewer, why does it matter how many different textures/objects there may be? 2. In connection with #1, aren't all avatars the same basic object as well? Being rendered by the same engine(s)? Doesn't the server just send the "modifications" to the avatar object? Why should the behavior of the overall system change from one day to the next? Now obviously the amount of time required to render a given scene/texture/object can vary quite a bit, but that in itself isn't the question. I always thought that my "custom content" was stored in a database and otherwise treated as any other object/texture would be. Other than the time factor (perfectly understandable), how do the comments about WoW vs. SL have anything to do with loading/rezzing failures in SL? I am not being critical, I am asking so that I can understand. I never expected this to be my first forum post ever, being that I'm not terribly technical, but the answer is that its a simple matter of finite versus infinite. All those MMO games like WoW have only a "set" of textures/objects/models and all of them are installed onto your machine, so the only data you request from the game servers is where/when/how those assets are implemented. WoW currently takes up 20+ GB of space. I couldn't even fathom how large SL would be if they tried to cram every texture/object/model ever made onto your hard drive. Since MMOs and their ilk only have a limited set of assets, the designers intentionally try to make use of a single asset as many times as possible. The "Flimsy armor of cowardice" might have the same textures and model as the "Armor of Legend +10", but they hope you don't notice the palette swap or how it looks WAY different when combined with other items. In this way your machine only has to render one instance of “whatever” and copy+paste to the rest. However, in SL no matter how close those two avies look, each one has an independent ID and the computer doesn't pay attention to the aesthetic similarities. It just loads each one as it comes down the assembly line, with each one having to be downloaded (unless they're stored in your cache of course). Anyways, I hope I didn't ramble too incoherently!