increasing weirdness - prims moving by themselves - and more

hi. over the last weeks my SL experience has deterioted considerable. when i rezz stuff and build, linked prims that i copy and move dont appear, then only half of them appear. then they move back, to only some of them move back. others just done rez. when i come back the next day a few of them might be there, but others are not.

I have never had so much trouble in SL in my life, and i am more than a year old.
some days i cant move at all. some times my avi carries on moving, for ages, all the way through the sim and to underwater - just keeps going without me having any finger on any key. mostly it will snap back but it feels awful.

the trouble started with clothes, the colourful mesh leaking out at the end of way too long sleeves and pants legs. i could not get a normal appearance. changing clothes was not helping - various amuonts of weirdness around appearance, like skin having mesh on it - the hands, or having black patches, or white ones.

so what i am wondering is, is this me (my particular account) or is it SL?
i know for a fact that if more people were experiencing what i am experiencing then everyone would be talking about it.
this has to be rare.
what can i do?
any ideas please?
i do theater performance in SL and I have exhibitions.
so i am at my wits end!

thank you.

sca

What you are discribing is a network problem of some kind. The walking off to oblivium is a classic symptom of lost (or very slow ) connection to Linden Lab's servers. The reason you don't hear many people complaining is that it's not an SL problem. It's somewhere between your computer keyboard and the LL servers. If you are using a wireless connection try a wired connection (Cat 5 ethernet cable). If you are wired already then try rebooting your modem and/or router (that applies even if you are wireless too). Those are the two most common causes of your problem but your ISP could be the cause too.........so a call to them might be order too (ask them to ping your modem).

We don't know what operating system you are using so no one can suggest any configuration settings for you. Also, no one knows anything about your computer. A little information from you would help a lot.

Thank you Peggy for shedding some light. I almost feel better already.

So am I correct in presuming that the buiklding troubles I mentioned are network rrelated too? That when I move a selection of prims, or a copy of a selection, some prims will move and others wont, some rez and others don't, and also that some will rez later, sometimes even only the next day.

Yes the connection is wireless. I will change that and see if it helps.

I am on vista, and because of vista itself being notorious I am never sure whether my trouble is vista, SL or my network. So far you have helped to narrow that down.
The computer I am using:
Intel quad core processor@ 2.4 GHZ, RAM 3327 MB
Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT

I will also call my provider and ask them to ping my modem. I hope they don't ask what I mean though cos I would not have and intelligent answer

Suggestion for configuration settings would be great thank you. I did a tutorial on those and do know which are the key points for tweaking but the preferences interface has changed a lot since then.

I have been thinking of reverting to XP, although have heard via via that this can not be done, ie that you cannot downgrade an operating system for some reason.... I have no idea what that reason might be or if it is true. I am not able to instal XP in the near future, but I would apreciate any views on this point.

Thanx again
Sca

You can change to XP without any problems providing that drivers are available for your particular mainboard.

Check that first, download a small utility called CPUZ or CPU-ID (same progrmam ) this will give you all the information about your computer mainboard, graphics card etc, and then look on the makers website for drivers for XP for your mainboard.

If they are there, it just remains to obtain a copy of XP, I wouild use XP pro, not XP Home, completely wipe your hard drive and install it, then install the drivers for the mainboard, graphics card, a good antivirus, ( I racommend AVG , and a good anti spyware ( Superantispyware ) Both have free versions.

Good luck, if you have any problems, look on my profile for my skype name, I use text there.

A ping to your modem is basically just a way to find how long it takes a signal to travel from them to your modem and back to them, a test of the network efficiency .
It can also tell if any packets are being lost en route, so a test to see how clean the signal is.

With that CPU (which sounds like it's the same I have....Intel Core 2 Quad E6600), your RAM, and your graphics card (which is the same as mine) you should be able to run SL with most, if not all, graphics setting maxed in SL preferrences. I don't know why everyone beats up on vista.......it works great and is much more secure than XP. But to each their own.

Anyway, try turning off all that Aero crap that comes with Vista.....it's just fluff and is a resource hog. You can do that by going to your control panel and finding the "Performance and Maintenance" icon. Set it for performance......that turns off most of the Aero features such as fading when you close windows and such. Check to see how many unnecessary background programs you have running. If you bought the computer from a manufacturer such as Dell, HP, or another major computer maker chances are they have preinstalled a ton of garbage programs you will never use and most are running in the background.......robbing you computer of resources necessary for SL to run smoothly. Close those programs or uninstall the ones you don't use.

Check which driver you are using for your nVidia 8600GT. I use driver version 175.19 and it works great for everything I ever want my computer to do graphic wise. It's not the newest but the newest is not always the best to use for each individual. Try updating to that driver.

Doing those two things plus changing to a wired network will go a long way toward helping your performance issues. But, still call your ISP too.......they sometimes do have problems and can fix them right on the spot for you.

Hope it helps.

I have made a note of it all for when I get to the point of installing xp again.
I get very mixed messages about this. Some people believe in vista, and others assure me that xp will perform a lot better. I guess I will stick with vista for a bit and see if i can achieve a better performance before reverting.
Sca

I certainly cant run SL with all settings maxed. When I bought this computer I used the specs that I had learnt I would need for doing machinima, so i am quite disappointed with this performance to date.

My provider seemed to think that wireless or not makes no difference to the signal...
I have plugged in my cable anyway to try it out.
I do seem to crash less and have not walked off into the distance since

About vista - I guess being ignorant of how to turn off the "fluff" did not help, just made me feel like microsoft was in control of my virtual life.
My igorance.
Have turned off aero stuff as you suggested.

Thanx for your time

Sca