Upgrading the Terminus ALIFE sim

notice from the ecosystem working group:

Our ALIFE sim, Terminus, basically a void sim, has been pushed past its operational limits.
Considering it is a low prim/low script sim, this was inevitable. It is, however, amazing what we've been able to build there thus far, but we've reached a point where the large numbers of scanning animals and plants there (Plobs, fish, cannon plants, gridlice, jellypods,foodshrooms) are really slowing down script execution. The result is this: animals, when hunting, will miss their targets. Response to user inquiries of animals is slow. Reproduction isn't aligning well with food supply.

As it stands, the sim just barely works now. Populations are relatively stable. Addition of another species, though, or bursts of population growth could send it spiralling into lagquakes.

We need to upgrade Terminus to a real sim, ASAP.

kerunix Flan has kindly offered to upgrade the sim for us. We can rent a real sim for approximately 250$ US/month.

Here's what it will take, then:

We'd love to get 25 people willing to shell out 10$ a month. Or 10 people willing to shell out 25$ a month. Or some equivalent combination to ease and share the financial burden. We'd create a new group consisting specifically of dedicated donors for this cause. Development privileges could be awarded based on one's financial commitment.

We'd like to hear some feedback from group members about this. Please discuss here.

You're running aLife experiments in a void sim???



It's either void or it isn't. Which is it? Void sims run 4 per cpu, are designed to fill in void areas between older mainland sims, mostly have building turned off and are there for asthetic reasons only.

A "low prim" sim, really. Not technically a "void sim", as you can build there, I guess, but the specs are similar (4 to a CPU, etc). Used by the owner for light scripting and boating originally, IIRC.

The owner has 4 low prim sims, is a member of the FFRC and donated it to us at the behest of the FFRC. We've tried to keep the number of animals low, use a very small number of sensor events, and the number of prims used in each very small (no more than 2-3). And it's worked reasonably well until now. But if we want to make the experiment any more complex, we need to upgrade it. We're probably starting to suck resources from her other "low prim sims", which isn't really fair as this was a goodwill gift from her for this purpose.

A sim is still a sim, even if its a "void" sim.

4 Void sims together have the performance of one normal sim. And one normal sim has quite a good performance, so don't expect the void sims to be really really bad. It just depends how well one uses the resources given.

If you are still looking for funding, I would suggest starting a group of campers dedicated to paying for the sim. It isnt too hard to get $15-20 / month from camping when you arent on your computer.

No they don't. Void sims are severly restricted both in available prims (less than the 1/4 prim allowance you're expecting) and in general performance.

A normal sim running one per cpu just about manages to keep up with physics demands, data comms (keeping the client updated with graphics, passing av/object movement data, sim-sim comms, etc.) takes up most of the remaining resources leaving a small percent of cpu time to run scripts.

Running 4 sims per cpu adds in extra overheads simply to make it happen so the available cpu power is reduced before you start. 4 physics simulations WILL reduce performance by 4 times.