Bug? Intense slow down when building - CPU spikes

well, much use of the new Mac client tonight has brought up some interesting things:

1) Lighting is amazing, and isn't slow on my intel iMac... even faster on my MacBook Pro w/256MB of video ram...

2) Building ... oh yes. It is a problem. It seems the more objects you click on, the slower the game gets. After a night of building, I was seeing CPU spikes every few seconds (on both CPUs) that would slow the game down to a halt.

Logging out and in solves it, but the problem creeps back again, making the game unplayable. This was in an area with no network lag at all, by the way!

And my memory meter showed no memory leakage or anything. I am no expert, but I always saw green in the piechart... a lot of it. (I have 2 Gb).

I am not sure if it is building specifically, or just clicking on a lot of things (as building happens to require), but either way... with this new Uinversal Binary I am seeing some serious problems with these CPU spikes.

[Edit - running on an Intel iMac 20" 2.0GHz model w/2GB of RAM and 128MB X1600... same problems on a 15" MacBook Pro w/2GB RAM and 256MB X1600, all running 10.4.6]

No crashes really in 5 hours of use, but definitely these whacky cpu spike slowdowns that get progressively worse after building.

Just to follow up... this same exact problem persists on the newest .34 release that just came out.

Something's definitely wrong when I have no problems in Windows (smooth as silk) but can't use the game on the Mac side on the same hardware....

Haven't heard anything from Linden or any indication of a fix in the next release tomorrow. Brent - have you all made any headway to fixing the stuttering issues?

One more note... when these stutters happen, in the frame info display (when set to 100% instead of having the bars go past the window), each stutter shows a small tiny cluster of colors followed by a huuuuge white bar.

The normal frames all show colors about half the way, with the other half white.

In this small cluster of colors, there's no discernable color longer than another.

I wish I could explain it more, but there's now way to attach a picture here.

By the way - I can recreate the problem -without playing the game:

If the game is running in a window, and I just run another window over it... I get the same problem. If I run the game in the foreground, and just play the game with no other windows open, I only get the stutters if I move around and click on stuff.

I didn't have these problems in the last version, and I don't have them in Windows XP on the same machine running Boot Camp. IN both versions, I run in a maximized window.

Note - I also have the same problem on the Mac running full-screen (i.e. not in a window)

I have an iMac 20" 2.0 Core Duo w/2GB of RAM and 128MB graphics RAM. 10.4.6.

Please help Linden... this is ruining the game for me.

Here's another update, this time using 1.10.1 released today.

On my MacBook Pro 2.0 w/256MB X1600... all major slow down issues have been resolved, no matter what size build I am looking at.

On my intel-based 2.0 20" machine with 128mb graphics RAM X1600... I only seem to get stuttering when I am trying to rotate around large builds from afar (about 500 prims being moved around the screen at once).

[Edit 1: On larger builds, or in clubs... once again the client is unusuable with the large CPU spikes and heavy stuttering and unbearable slowdowns.]

[Edit 2: Though it takes longer, I am now encountering the same problems on the MacBook Pro].

[Edit 3: The problem is still progressive... getting worse after the first stutter, becoming impossible to even turn around and look at anything.

NOTE - this is even the case with ALL settings turned to their absolute minimum.]

The frame info screen is much more useful, showing the largest color by far duing the slow downs is bright RED.

I still have none of these issues on the Windows side under BootCamp, with all sliders set to max.

This Mac client is still very broken.

Good, so I'm not the only one,... I'm trying to built the innards of a Airport Terminal, and it has been a chore,... Hiccups, freeze ups, stuttering movement of prims.

Sometimes I will try to nudge a prim, won't move, keep clicking on it, throw my hands up in despair, work on something, and then, when I turn around, the prim is halfway to Mexico >.<

Praying for a quick patch/fix.

Dual 2.0Ghz PowerPC G5
2 Gigs RAM
Ati X800/256 Megs
23 Inch Mac LCD

I am pretty sure now it is actualy 10.4.6. I just upgraded a little while ago to 10.4.6 and now I get SERIOUS CPU spikes. My fans kick into full gear and my computer sounds like a jet engine. I had been running it in 100degree heat all day with barely a whine. Soon as I upgrade it with full cool air blowing on it, it just takes off.

So I'm sure that these CPU spikes are something weird the new patch is doing.

I'm not seeing CPU spikes, but I am seeing two weird texture artefacts when building.

1) If you select a texture and resize it on a prim (change the number of repeats per face) it often takes up to 1minute to redraw.

2) The return of invisible prims... select a multi-prim object (sometimes just select), move it (drag or shift-drag to copy). Not every time, but 75% of the time at a guess one or more of the prims will vanish. Sometimes it is clearly a texture problem as *everything* in the object with the same texture will vanish, at other times it is less clear what connects the disappearing prims for multiples. Again that "about a minute" to redraw - although there is still the blue outline to show you've not picked something with odd links.

Oh, that's on a G5 2.7GHz DP with a nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra and 2GB of RAM.

I posted this to a related thread but no one seems to have tried it or replied there...

When your MacBook Pro starts slowing way down and stuttering, please try the following and see if it helps as a temporary workaround. (Leave ripple water on or off, it doesn't matter for this test.)

1) Go into the Adv Graphics tab in preferences and select the radio button just below your maximum/recommended graphics memory. (i.e. if it defaults to 256MB, set it to 128MB.) Click OK.

See if that doesn't correct your stutter/sluggishness and please report back here. It seems to work well for me.

The cause of this "long white bar" in the fast timers display is that some of the texture memory is being swapped out by the system and paged back in. By reducing the VRAM setting SL is less agressive in filling that memory and the swaps shouldn't occur.

Please try it when your system hits the conditions described above and let us know if it works for you. I'm sure Linden Lab will address this problem if they can confirm its source.

-- Joey

p.s. You can see how "full" texture memory is by hitting shift-ctrl-3 in debug mode.

I posted this in another thread after Brent Linden found what the problem was.

Shut off "rippled water".

That's it.

A fix is in the works, but there is "no timetable".

Remember... rippled water wasn't even available in the Universal alpha/betas... and now I see why. It's broken.

We can play the game no problem with it set off... and if we (intel Mac users) -realllly- want rippled water we can boot into Windows using BootCamp.

-Beth

[P.S. I haven't had a chance to try the suggested tweaks I have read on a 256MB graphics machine like the MacBook Pro]

I don't have these problems on any of my three Macs in any program except for SL when rippled water was turned on. Even then, no fans kicking in...

I have tested this on my 128MB-based intel iMac.

Scenario 1:

Ok OK... I have tested this on my 128MB-based intel iMac. Here's my results:

Scenario 1: Rippled Water set ON, graphics set to default of 128MB

Result: moving around in in circles or using the camera at my home results in crazy stutter and cpu spikes. I can hear the hard drive agressively paging in and out, despite the fact that I have 2GB of system RAM. I think Joey is right here.

HOWEVER the shift-ctrl-3 console shows the video RAM is never full (it never gets "red".

Scenario 2: Rippled Water set OFF, graphics set to default of 128MB (Brent's suggestion)

Result: moving around in in circles or using the camera at my home results in no perceptable slow down over the average types you will see with heavy geometry and/or avis in your view

The shift-ctrl-3 console shows the video RAM is never full (it never gets "red". In fact, given the same scene, the video RAM requirements are lower.

Scenario 3: Rippled Water set ON, graphics set to 64MB (Joey's suggestion)

Result: moving around in in circles or using the camera at my home results in no perceptable slow down over the average types you will see with heavy geometry and/or avis in your view. HOWEVER, the system seems to be much mroe agressive in LOD usage. Textures get detailed at a much closer radius, as does geometry. In real world usage, though, this doesn't seem effect much... (I only tested this for 20 mins though.)

Note! The shift-ctrl-3 console shows the video RAM is very often full (it often gets "red", in this case... but there is still no visible or audible paging to/from texture RAM.

Joey, I think you have isolated the bug!!

A) Rippled water definitely plays a factor... it may be broken, or it may use much more texture RAM than is necessary. Not sure.

B) There is something broken (?) in the video ram usage code. It works right when it is given less RAM to play with.

Hopefully, Brent and the team can use this excellent information to fix things!

In the meantime, to enjoy your Mac:

A) shut off Rippled Water and leave your graphics ram at max
or...
B) keep ON rippled water (it looks prettty...), and lower your graphics RAM one notch down as Joey described. You'll see some LOD artifacts and some textures loading more often, but so far it doesn't seem to effect much in your field of vision...

... except it speeds things up. A lot.

More testing is needed in different builds, and I will try late tonight.