Hoochie Hair

OK, I never realized the effect certain attachments have on sim performance until just the other day.
I was in Aasim getting great sim FPS when all of a sudden BAM - like swimming in molasses all of a sudden. The only thing different was a new avatar entered the sim.
She had a beautiful prim hair attachment - probably 150 cut and hollowed tori.
I received several IM's and was told by several people the cause was "hoochie hair".

I have never read too much into the lag threads, because unless you control all the resources in a simulator, all your best plans can be laid to waste by a single 512m2 parcel w/ a poorly scripted casino/club/mall with 5 gigabyte textures. So I am not sure if this has been discussed or mentioned.

I am not at all proposing an official change to attachments, I just thought that people should be made aware of what they can accidentally do to a sims performance. People with prim hair visit all the time, with little ill effect. What causes some prim hair to be so much worse than others? Makers of such attachments should certainly be told what their creations are doing to SL.

Hrm. Schwan, that was not a female av, that was your sheep - with new and improved "sure-grip" wool.

Actually I have noticed that when I have worn a hair attachment made from lots and lots of spirals, I can't even look at myself without slowing way, way down. I no longer wear it out of courtesy to others.

Schwan - how do you know what about your attachment is affecting the SIM? Is it the size of the texture or the number of cuts and twists in an applied PRIM? Maybe both? I'm curious because I have glasses and prim attached hair. Also - would what you make the object out of (wood, rubber, flesh, etc) have an effect?

Just curious because when I am shopping for these AV attachments - if I know what to look out for, I won't cause lag.

Rose

Part of why I avoid clubs whenever possible. Sure, there a few clubs my poor machine can render, but a few..... *shudder

Hoochie Hair.... we need a solution for it!

I can vouch for Schwanson here, I was with him when the hair lag bomb hit the sim. It was like all the sudden we went from a very smooth sim to the slow motion camera thing from the Matrix I do believe it is a specific type of hairstyle that has a ridiculous number of prims in it, millions of tiny little curls that are all hollow cut and twisted torii. The vast majority of prim hair does not seem to be problematic. It seems to be a larger issue of the fact that there are no limit on attachment size, and it has been taken too far in some cases.

BTW, there is a thread about this issue here as well. Give me back my title, Schwanson, I am the one who came up with it lol.

Yes, Cris did come up with the name "hoochie hair"

Rose - I would like the answer to that myself.

HoseQueen - While all my flock have beautiful woolen coats, it is done via creative texturing not baaaaaaad prims.

you don't need extra prims for every little bump on your leather jacket. I'm just sayin'.

My little GF2/64mb can't put up with that mess. I can barely run Doom 3 at full rez! What is it with dynamic environs...

*tries to keep a straight but cracks up*

Butt cracks cause lag?
**pulls up pants**

Why do items and attachements cause more lag in SL than other MMORPG games?

Hmmmmm me thinks I know what I shall do next..hehe.

Sooo 256 per attachment and there is at least 22 attachment points so that in essence means 5632 prims attached to 1 avatar.

Thus, effectively 11 avatars should be able to engage in decent conversation in a sim with 5632 prims on board and well if a 12th comes in with that expect the sim to die...LOL


Shadow

Since photoshop causes so much lag..I think LL should come up with their own version of Photoshop to make items that cause less lag for SL.

Chris - I didn't doubt Schwansons post, I've seen this lag as well. What I want to know is how to create attractive looking things without causing mega lag. Since I create flowers and trees - I'd like to learn more about how textures affect lag as well as prims. Fortunately, my hair is only one prim, but it does have a custom texture. I'm willing to do whatever I can to reduce lag, I just need to learn what that might be. What is the best quality that one can have without contribution to lag?

Oh I know you weren't doubting him I was just making a general statement. I would say that as long as you are not making 1000 prim flowers with giant 1024X1024 textures on them and running around wearing them in your hair, you're safe. Texture size is important for reducing lag - 256X256 should suffice for a lot of textures, 512X512 if absolutely needed for detail, but nothing above that. The torus as a prim is especially notorious for its laginess, that is why its overuse in hair attachments is alarming. As long as you use prims efficiently and avoid a lot of really small, really twisted prims all in one area, you should be fine.

I didn't even know textures can cause lag. Someone told me objects set to "light" and spirals and lots of round things cause lag. And scripts of course. Someone should write up a notecard with this kind of info in it. I wouldn't want to see all of SL become a dark, cube-like place but keeping info like that in mind when i make or wear something would probably help everyone in the long run.

Hey maybe we could have a lag free bald-ladies night at Schwanson's Club!

What on earth are you talking about?

Cut, twisted, and hollowed tori's are Evol

Thats why I only use cut cubes for my pubes

Well..im not familar with how to make hair..Im not sure if it's done with photoshop or what..but whatever causes the lag from the creation I think needs to be revamped and upgraded in such a way that it will ease the lag of SL. Like I said..other MMORPG's have textures and items that do not detrementally effect game performance to this extreme. Maybe they will take some of that 8 million they get to help resolve issues of game performance like this.

You are going to poke someone's eye out with cubed pubes!

Um Blake one major falicy for you .....

Second life is not a MMORPG

This has been debated time and again but to be an RPG there has to be goals and levels and start and end points of which SL has neither.

as for the lag read up and understand server limitations in relation to online data streaming. All information is contained at LL not on your PC thus all that data has to be transmitted to every persons PC in that sim. So if a person has 5000 prims on their head the data to Rez each and every one of those prims has to be comunicated with all the computers within sight range of that avatar.

Thus meaning...if its not a static display item it cannot be kept in the cache thus meaning your pc and LL pc has to work extra hard to communicate that data back n forth.

Unlike a MMORPG most of that terrain is static and only data transmited is precalibrated avatars that are static within both the main and personal systems thus reducing lag.

Hope that answered your question.

Shadow

ROFL *spits coffee*

The reason is - the stuff in most MMORPGs are made by professional game developers, not the players. So they have complete control over what goes into an object and can balance out polygon counts for ideal framerates. In SL the players create most of the objects in world and on avatars so there's nothing holding them back from creating something completely not optimal for framerate / lag. This is a risk we take for having a lot of freedom to create. I wouldn't want to limit that freedom - but it probably would be helpful if someone (LL or otherwise) wrote up some guidelines on what causes the biggest framerate hits / lag-bombs.

And this isn't a Photoshop issue at all... it is about prim-based objects.

Just another sentence you'd never read anywhere but in SL.

umm.. TMI? *blush*

pffft I bet you haven't blushed since you were 10


speaking of TMI we're still waiting for pictures

Yup. Torri's need to be used in moderation. It's not just the hair though. The other day there were some heavily accessorized people on my plot. They both complained of lag. I just bit my tongue as their bling blinged on every crevice they can attach a piercing or chain/leash to. They must've had about 200 prims of shit on them in accessories alone.

So please don't just single out the hair.