Lag

I am posting this here instead of the Tech forum because this is more of a issue than a tech problem.

I have a very good machine, lots of ram. And until this latest Preview World came up, I have had only very brief problems with lag. Now, I am hit with it all the time.

My settings have not changed. infact I have reduced a bunch lower than I had them. What has changed is the addition of the gigantic preview world. And strangely, my lag started about the exact same time the Preview World started up.

I think LL should shut down the preview world. I understand the need for it but it is causing lag. And remember I have not had this problem before. And it started about the same time the preview world started.

I hosted an event last night and it was next to impossiable to move, and we had less people there, as one person pointed out. I have never had this problem there before.

Please turn off the Preview world.

Well there are several ways to respond to this. I'll try to be polite, but I've got to be a bit blunt:

SecondLife is for all residents. The Preview grid is there for people to help Linden Labs test their release to make sure it is as bug free as possible before release. Therefore, the benefit of the Preview Grid is for all. The lag you are getting may not be due to the Preview Grid. It may be in fact due to the large amounts of scripts that may be in the areas you frequent, or many other reasons.
I dont see any reason for you to ask to shut down the Preview Grid other than the fact you claim it lags you. This is a bit selfish. I dont see why they should shut down a service for all Residents because one person is having lag. If you have lag issues, it's best to ask people how to alleviate it, or even just ask people what might be causing it, than to arbitrarily point to the Preview Grid only for the reason that you started lagging when it came up.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

This is easily your best work yet.

Whoo.

Damn, hold on, catching my breath...

Engineering fact:

Preview Grid, currently runs on the cluster of computers known as "Siva" collectively, a total of roughly 40 computers by my exploration, this cluster has it's own asset server, database server, and simulation servers.

Main Grid, currently runs on a cluster of computers known as "Agni" collectively, a total of roughly 900-1000 computers by my exploration, this cluster has it's own asset server, database server, and simuation servers.

These clusters have minimum interaction, the Agni asset server is asked by the Siva asset server to start streaming inventory to a backup routine that doesn't impede the asset server's normal operations, while making a normal request for the assets imediately desired by Siva (avatar, attachments) this is a one-time function of Siva for import of your user to allow you to have your inventory ready for testing.

The simulator your event was in, likely had a large number of avatars connected to it. This means there are up to 20 people (main grid sim limit) requesting information from the simulator, which caches data locally, in a squid proxy, this squid proxy requests data from the Agni asset server, as a high importance request, if that data's not cached locally.

The simulator yoru event was in, likely also had a lot of scripted objects, which cause a varying degree of lag per script, these scripts aren't all bad, some don't do anything, but ones that are running due to certain events (say a sensor seeing someone in it's range, a listener parsing conversation, a timer that's running at a very high rate of speed) cause the simulator to have to think about what the script wants in place of giving users data about what their client should be seeing.

Additionally, avatars are a high poly object, as are some primitives (1 or more degrees twist to a torus makes it easilly the highest poly object in SL) and a modern graphics card can only handle a finite number of polygons. SL however lacks some of the pre-render optimizations for light traces and object intersections of other games, because there is no map compilation process for the SL world, as such, there are more polygons than would normally be visible in say... Half Life 2 or simular.

The preview grid, runs on Class 3 machines, these where standard machines 1 year ago, and are currently considered too old for main grid applications, single processor single simulator, 1 Gigabyte of memory.

The main grid, runs on Class 1 machines, these are the newest top of the line models and have 1 Gigabyte of memory and a dedicated Athalon 64 processor processor per sim, 2 sims total per box.

Preview Grid, does not affect Main Grid performance, as each region square on a map is a dedicated processor in what is often called a cluster computer network. (though it should be mentioend that void sims are multiples on Class 2 machines, but do not have objects in them to reduce load) Both Preview and Main Grid have their own asset systems, and preview is set up not to overload main grid's asset server.

Of all the functions that are bad for performance client side: particles, and texture or color changing are among the worse, constantly changing settext is a close second.

This has been your technical clarification by the kitsu, thank you.

B-b-b-b-ut... The preview grid LAGGED ME!





Nice work there, Ice. Quite definitive.

I haven't been studying the way SL works for a year for nothing (though I still have to learn C before they'll seriously consider my resume )

Though I forgot to mention: SL can't do pre-render because it'd break the building system, since we can basically change the world with a click of a mouse.
HL2 has to create actors for anything that is to move in it's system dynamically (yes even Gary mod)... vehicles, actors, objects, etc, though has limited support for moving of doors, elevators and some vehicles, it's still very limited and locked into the map file.
I for one love the lack of limitation in SL, so I cope.

Script free zone
I am not the only one to have sudden lag.

Therefore this is not a selfish request.

Shut down the Preview grid is the only option I see

Okay... where where you holding this event... because I think you fail to grasp that there are over 1200 servers in SL and one server's performance does not affect another server.

Let me repeat

1. Have had events in this area before, The Amount of Lag encountered was nowhere near the lag of last night. No where near.

2. Have had no problems with lag until the preview worlds came on line. none

3. No scripted objects in event area. none.

next?

How exactly is shutting down a group of test servers, unrelated to SL's main grid in any way going to reduce the same types of lag we've had since beta?

Well, all I know is that my massive lag started almost to the day that the preview world came on line and that preview world is gigantic.

What else could cause Massive Lag? I have had hardly any lag. The last time I had lag and thought it was a problem I did file a report on it (It did not last long Compared to this ongoing lag and it would rate a 3 compaired to last night of 100,000,000)... But now that incident cannot compair to last night. Last night was off the scale.

My mates dog farted last night. Let me know when your other events were, if he didn't fart at those times, that MUST be the cause.

Seriously, its most likely to be high prim hair and scripted attachments.

You know what else is gigantic? Whales. Maybe whales are causing your lag. Ever thought about that? Whales are *enormous*. Even more enormous than this dratted "preview world" you speak of.

So, you know, I'm going to blame whales on this one.

Allow me to school you, in elementary logic.

Event A, and Event B happen at the same time, this does not imply causation, that is, A does not nessecarily have anything to do with B.

You keep identifying an event, how many people where there? How many people are in the simulator (square on map) normally? Does this lag continue at 5 or less avatars in the sim? Have you confirmed that every inch of the simulator is no-script?

I consider this a personal attack.

Whoa, what if this canine flatus is somehow connected with the whales?

This bears investigation.

Never fear, Magnum, we're going to get to the bottom of this one.

18 people

We use to have a gate but its gone now, only scripted object on the event site.

Indeed, very fascinating.

I consider ducks to be worthy political opponents.

Let us continue our sharing!

I request that this post be locked and deleated. It appears that one or two are having fun at my personal expense.

I do not like being made fun of.

ok, lets try looking at this from another view, what kind of lag are you speaking about ?
(Not lag is just a slang term that can related to a few things)

Is your computer having problems rendering ? (ie when you spin about on the spot will your view stutter?)

Is it network packet related ? (ie, every time you move it takes longer then it should, this can be hard to spot because you can have the same affect with rendering stutter)


It may just be that your ISP is doing work and things are not as they should be, happends to me all the time, I have a crap ISP.

It could be a new program/ driver you have installed that is having an adverse affect on your computer.

Ow, one last thing, the 2 grids are not connected to each other for security reasons, and what I knew of not even on the same physical network. Unlike the teen grid that is just a set of hidden sims and a custom client. (my ducks from the linden fire)


God knows how I can still be nice

But, I say, Magnum, how shall we identify the connection between whales, dog flatus, prim hair, Shiva, Agni and the dreadful lag you're experiencing if this discussion is thrown to the dustbin? We must not be stopped!

Someone took time out to post a lengthy decent reply to your original post. From your reply, you obviously didn't take a 10th of that time to read it. What do you expect?

Uh, splat, who cares if the two grids aren't even connected to eachother? Hello?! The "preview world" is HUGE. This obviously makes the total lack of interconnectedness irrelevant.

So ... if she weighs as much as a duck, she's a witch!