Is anyone else observing what's happening with Time Dilation ?

I believe I am correct in saying that the "Time Dilation" figure and the Physics fps, given in the online "Statistics window" is nothing to do with the client. It is simply a report of how the server is doing running the sim.

So if we see it in trouble, this is real.

I do - I see a huge deterioration. In sim after sim, I see Dilation coming down from 1.00 to 0.6, 0.4. and even 0.3. With only 5 or 6 agents in the sim.

This was never so before - I watch regularly, and there is now a really big new problem.

Has anyone else noticed, or am I hallucinating ?

I've been noticing lag ripples in Rosieri for the last couple of days, which according to the debug menu are exactly what you are describing happening.

Lewis

I've seen this too, flying through nearly empty or otherwise completely empty sims I see the molasses factor, check the stats and see low TD.

Yep... on the sim I live on I was the only person there (with only 2 blips on the mini map from a neighboring sim) no heavy scripts running and I lagged like crazy! Walked in one spot for awhile and had lots of the ripples Lewis mentioned.
That is VERY uncommon where I am.

Heck, I'm seeing this everywhere I go, with very few exceptions. And the exceptions that I *have* seen have all been 600+ meters in the air.

Everywhere else lags so bad that I've pretty much given up doing anything but scripting and light building. And it's especially not worth going *anywhere* that has more than 4-5 people there.

***

I haven't a clue what the words "time dilation" mean but I do know that for me for the past two weeks lag in SL has been horrendous.

I've noticed rapidly fluctuation fps (not mine, the sim fps) in various sims over the past couple of weeks, and some time dilation, too, but I don't look at that so much.

I don't much worry about any of it, as long as I can get on. I don't think we are supposed to worry about it. Besides, if we were supposed to worry about it, they wouldn't be shutting down our main conduit for discussing it and asking about it.

coco

On my island the fps fluctuates between 45 and 1 and i get lag spikes too.

Funny someone mentioned 600M in the air.

These days I have set up a workshop high up. It has helped tons on lag. Going on the ground though.. as I said earlier causes the ripples.

I may have to just grow grass up there and live like a bird heh.

Moving in SL has been like walking in molasses, and when I have a window open like inventory or search I cant move at all!

Also, something happened to graphics in the last couple of weeks. My entire screen inside SL goes crazy on occasion for no reason. I know its not my PC since its isolated to a SL problem only. Has anyone else noticed this?

Since day one, once I figured out that I *could* build in the air, that's almost exclusively where I spend my time. Especially lately

It's been nothing but molasses the last few days in Gerstle, the worst of all being today. As much as I'm not happy to hear it's affecting everyone, am relieved to know it's not just me going nuts.

(at least for that reason)

- Newfie

I've noticed it..sims that used to fly by now run like ice, rubberbanding too.

Just compare the vehicle sims to any other one...

That's interesting, just before the last update my island dropped from 70+ fps (personal) to 50+. I just put it down to the usual pre-update throttling and took no notice. But it hasn't improved and I also have noticed terrible lag in many sims I've visited. <shrugs> So. What to do, no one's interested very much in customer feedback these days...

Well, most of you are talking about your experience of lag, ie things slowing down, wading in treacle, etc.

The thing wrong with complaining about that is of course, that lag can come from many places, not just the servers. Your link, your firewall, your client etc. That's why no-one ever gets anywhere with the Lindens by talking about lag.

Which is why I posted about Time Dilation instead.

The server reports a Time Dilation figure to your client which tells you whether the sim server itself is slowing down, for everybody. ie everybody in the sim sees the same number, and it is nothing whatever to do with anything happening at the client end.

Time Dilation should be 1.00 or 0.99 if your sim is coping with its load. Anything less and it is beginning to struggle, and slow everybody down just to survive. 1 is full speed. 0.5 is half speed. etc.

If you are wading in treacle and want to know whether the problem is your end, or a struggling server - look at Time Dilation. Much less than 1 and the problem is in San Francisco. 0.8 and below, things are getting unusable.

Everybody should check TD when they see things slow down.

Here's how:

Go to top menu "View" and put a cross against "Statistics Bar"

A window will appear top right. If you cant see the Time Dilation number being displayed and updated, click on the word "Simulator". All will be revealed, including the number of agents in your sim, and also the number looking into it, who load it too (Child agents).

The question was rhetorical - however, by all means, report it, and the best of luck.

Chalky, I was talking about SIM fps. That doesn't have anything to do with my personal fps. Does it?

I've seen a lot more sim fps's vacillating to like, 38, 42, 38 and so forth, than I ever did before.

coco

I'm not really concerned to report anything.The important thing is to be sure where the problem lies. If you're in treacle and the server is fine, there is point tweaking things your end.

If the server is dying on its feet for everyone, and things used to be better for you - don't bother hunting for something wrong your end.

Yes Coco, exactly. The sim fps tells you too.

For those who haven't seen it, Chromal Brodsky has a sim performance monitoring site here.

It seems that at the time I'm posting SL is close to the record no of people on line, with 8374, see here.

Maybe the population density is getting too high, with population rising faster than publicly available land area. Maybe there is a big increase in child agents at peak times (ie ppl looking into a sim from the adjacent ones.)

Maybe. But it doesn't seem to be an adequate explanation for what I observe.

Ugh. No kidding. That's been worse in the last week than I've ever seen it. I only *thought* it was annoying before. It's so bad that I try very very hard not to cross any borders at all. Of course, that doesn't allow for much in the way of fun

the grid is being dismantled, behind teh scenes...
Langoliers?

I've had problems with spiking 'image time' crippling sims for a few weeks now, but this last week certainly has been the worst. I asked a Liaison about it a couple of days ago, and apparently they're aware of it (and hopefully working on a resolution).

And although everyone is reporting the *effects* of time dilation grid-wide, you think maybe we don't know the difference?

I am currently 723m in the air in a region that has at most three people in it (according to the map), and I'm getting TD 0.63 or roundabouts

Even one week ago this area never got below the .9 range. WTF?!?!?

shutupshutupshutupshutup, lalalalalallaalala I can't hear you

Just an honest answer for this problem please...its going on all over SL, many sims have reported in...we know your reading the forums...so please can this be addressed ??

1024m is a good height!