Club Sims

I know theming has gone the way of the hipposaurs ... but I think a/several club-themed M sim would solve a lot of problems the M sims are experiencing as far as lag is concerned. I recently moved out of M to PG because the lag was unbearable. If all the clubs were stuck in "club sims" I think we'd see a dramatic increase in speed of the M sims where they currently reside. In Real Life there are strips in cities which are basically the club strips, all the popular bars and clubs are on that road, or a few blocks etc, why not in SL?

hehe... flame away.

It would never work. You see what one or two clubs do to a sim. Now imagine 8 clubs in a sim. Wouldn't bother me but I doubt it will ever happen.

If we stuck them all together they'd have to learn how to fix the lag problems they cause ... but yeah, proly would never work ... it was a silly Monday morning idea!

I like the idea. Heck, give them more powerful servers if it de-lags other people's land... tweak the servers to handle a ridiculous amount of textures, and give out notecards at the clubs telling end users how to tweak their SL client to handle extremely annoying particle effects.

Disclaimer: I don't mind clubs/lounges... I rather quite enjoy some of them! I'm not opposed to creating lag by having a huge club event two or three times a week. But I think its long past time to give a place to clubs that run constantly; its obvious people enjoy them, but let's not do it to the detriment of the club owners' neighbors. Give them their own space to host their clubs together! Besides, if they're all next door to one another, imagine the flame wars we'll get as entertainment! <grin>

Regards,

-Flip

LOL, Flip! And the taunting billboards across from each other!!! I think the best side effect of this is the club owners would need to really invest time and talent into making their club better, their event better, since you can just hop over to the next club a few meters away. Competition is good! Thanks for not poo pooing the idea After I hit send I thought I might regret it!

LOL!! Um, Taun...You were building a skydeck above my club last night. Isn't that promoting the cause you so vehemently oppose??

For the record, I think we should make each sim host at least one major club so that residents can learn how to cope with lag no matter where they may be.

J/K

See you in-game, buddy.

Ah, there is the difference ... ABOVE It's a lot less laggy at 300m up! But the sim you live in is basically a club sim anyway, so the the heck eh ? See ya inworld prolly tomorrow, a lot to do tonight (might sneak in around 6 or 7 at work shh!)

heh, i suggested a similar thing liek this is my thread a few days ago, but every1 seemed to deteste the idea of shops refrined to specific sims... it would b a good idea yet im sure theres the majority who will disagree with ur idea

I personally think that the issues with this approach are:

1. There is an established "no zoning" mindset in SL.
2. There would be mutiny if you tried to apply this to existing sims.
3. Enforcement would be very difficult, and if you think the Lindens are slow to respond now...

Maybe the Lindens could, however, create a few special sims with restrictions. I just don't think it's a good, across the board policy or approach.

Flip:


I'm sure servers are fairly well tweaked as-is. However, Flip, I think you're on to something... specialized servers has potential I think, but it'd take some inside knowledge to know what is possible.

In any event, club owners really need to take several steps on their own to reduce lag:
1. Buy a large enough plot so that they can create buffer zone around the club so that people in the club won't be loading neighboring plots.
2. Move the main floor of the club into the air 100 or 200m, and provide teleporters / elevators to the top. (For the same reason as number 1)
3. Pick a quiet sim.
4. Reuse textures wherever possible (Juro Kothari's Cannibus Cathedral was an example of a great low-lag, great-looking club build, for this very reason.)
5. Pre-compress your textures before uploading, where feasible.
6. For the love of Philip Linden and all that is holy, please please stop using lots of particles.

---

Paolo

I agree, but it'd be about incentives. If there was a club "zone" or sim, consider:
A. People would be likely to go to the sims knowing that they are fun.
B. People would club-hop, so neighbors would benefit.
C. A trial of this could be done - I agree nothing should be mandatory, but perhaps if people were given the option, they would see the value of this idea.

Granted, this would take some sort of optimizing measure to limit lag.

-Hiro Pendragon

I agree that the current SL servers are probably very well tuned, Hiro. They obviously have some VERY BRIGHT folks working over there. Specialized servers, with say a dual processor but no higher prim limit could definitely help. Also, I'm sure there are some ways to help improve this (not sure on feasability) if there were to be clubs instituted:

- dual processor box (at least)
- lower prim limits to 10,000 per club sim
- texture limit of say, one megabyte of textures per 4096sqm

This would allow for what, 100 in a sim without too much lag? Sure, avatars are the biggest lag creator in world, but a necessary evil. Other things can be reduced / reused to make more space for AVs. Just an idea.

Regards,

-Flip

Out of sight is the key.

If people place clubs at staggered heights in the world (100m, 200m, 300m, 400m with an mid-point 2nd sit-teleporter etc) they will be less laggy. I've placed a floating platform thingie up 200m over Paolo's Boyz Cellar club in Paloup (where the lag from other clubs hurts us it does) and avatars move very fluidly, lights work well, particles dont slow ya down etc.

The textures thing is KEY too. I use almost no textures (all about clean lines) and just color controls. My lights have a faded alpha texture to make them appear to fade out.

VERY IMPORTANT ... shut off lights if noone's there. A very simple sensor script can determine if someone is in your club and start up the ruckus when they walk in. Could also lead to some really cool startup programs for the club.

USE LLTARGETOMEGA() !!!! NEVER EVER use physics to control your lights, no matter how cool it is to swing them 90 degrees and back! Repetitive physics like that will make your club a lag factory.

Streaming music: use this instead of those evil jukeboxes. Loading sounds into the client hurts a lot more than just streaming from a parcel. It also allows for some very basic lighting sync (manually done of course). I've done it before, makes the club experience a LOT cooler than just to have lights blinking and rotating without any regard to the music.

Don't use material type Light if you don't need it! Local Lighting is a huge resource sucker (i think on the client side, as if I have local lighting off it doesn't really slow me down as much). To make things appear lit use extremely bright colors with no shinyness. The glow around the edges is nice but oftentimes clubs turn one color because of a bar that has lit accents on it when a really bright colored prim would fit the bill too.

Any other suggestions for less laggy clubs post them (hey did i just hijack my own thread?!)

Think we will ever see a dual processor client? Or a 64 bit client? I want to be able to use SL on my Powermac to it's fullest pottential.

llTargetOmega is not a physics function unless the object has been set to physical. For non-physical prims it is merely a client side effect and mostly harmless.

Whoops shoulda made that clear, I meant USE LLTARGETOMEGA!!! lol. I'll edit the post, thanks for pointing out my failed communication, Eggy