Development Update December 1, 2005

Issues addressed in 1.7.4(:

The 1.7.4( rolling update was performed today, and the results seem positive so far. We found a memory leak in the simulator while processing images, which caused low "time dilation" and high "total frame time" and "inage time." We will not know if the fix released today is the final resolution for this problem as it takes a few days for the leak to make itself known.

Another known issue that should be resolved today is that of regions becoming disconnected from the main grid. Residents would not get kicked off the simulator, but it would lose contact with the rest of the grid -- money transactions, teleport, region crossing would all fail.

If either of these issues continues to occur, please report it to us using the "Report a Bug" option in the Help menu! Be sure to include as much detail as possible about the problem.

Some issues we are working on now:

We are having ongoing issues with World Map generation. We are working on improving the process, and will try to keep everyone updated on the status of the map as fixes become available. As the code that creates the map is generally autonomous from the main code, we can make changes to its creation without deploying server or viewer changes.

Viewer crashes are always high on the list of things to fix, and the next update is no exception to that rule. It will include a fix for a crash that occurs when one declines an inventory offer. Additionally, the update will fix a crash that happens when you select a texture for a region by dragging a texture into the selection window.

Some residents have reported duplicated folders in their inventory. We know that this can happen when a resident receives an inventory item while logging into Second Life. We are tracking down the cause now, and hope to have a fix soon.

We also looking into a problem with the Finder. The issue causes residents on slower machines to experience a period of lag when opening the Finder window for the first time each session; viewer FPS drops during this period as well. We will update everyone when a resolution is near.

Karen - Thanks for a great update. Crossing fingers on the TD issue

Thanks for the update. I do want to point out, however, that the above bug has nothing to do with machine specs. I get this on a 3.04Ghz w/ 1GB RAM every time I open CTRL-F. HOWEVER, on the exact same system, with SL installed on a brand new drive and fresh Windows, the lag does not occur.

I still don't think it is necessarily an SL issue, but maybe a Windows issue.

I concur. Athlon 3500+ and also a gig of ram, same issue.

And I also agree, mine is a 3400+ with 512 MB and I also get that weird lag, which didn't happen before

This is porbably do to how the inventory loads. What is likely happening is an inventory item is being recieved before the second level directories of the inventory structure have been recieved. So it doesn't find an "Objects" folder (or what ever the folder is) and creates a new one, then the inventory structure comes in and creates the local copies of the folders.

Two Solutions:

1. Send the inventory second level folders and make sure it has been decoded before sending inventory.
   
2. When inventory second level folders are created merge them with any existing folders.

I've got a 4200+ dual core dealie with two gigs of RAM, and I get the same thing. Look someone up, get mad packet loss and framerate gets killed for several seconds.

Not really happening to me at all.i have a 3200 amd and 1024 memory........ I running pretty much at full level with little problem at all.

Not wanting to Jinx myself but, It appears that this update has stablized the Blue Stone sim. We have had are first 24hours without a crash in 6 weeks. Thanks to you all for your hard work. *crosses fingers*

If, right now, Baku is showing close to 50 milliseconds on Images Time, does that mean it isn't fixed? Time dilation was dipping below 0.5 for a while.

Wow it looks like its time for me to upgrade..but i am running a 2500+ and 768ram and getting the same lag with CTRL-F ..not what i consider a slower machine.. until now..lol.. ..

Also has anybody noticed an increase in bandwidth usage since the last update?.. i havent seen mine go below 175kbps in 2 days. It used to settle to almost nothing after a couple minutes even on a full sim but now it just keeps going.

Not sure if they are running supercomputers or something and think even mine is slow but this finder bug was reported on at least an athlon 64 3500+ with 1gig ram, RT#149790

The slowdown seems to be caused when the connection is open to the landsales part of the database, ie after experiencing your initial slowdown, goto land sales tab and click search again to refetch all entries.

I have reported this problem to the Live help but not sure if it has been resolved as of the last update. I have noticed that the SIM FPS which can be viewed in the STATISTIC area drops from the 45 FPS down to as low as 0 at random times. I first thought it was FPS/lag but after viewing my statistics window i noticed that when the slow down / stop movement happened I also noticed the SIM FPS drop to 10 or less.

I don't know what is the cause and cannot say that I have experienced this problem since the last update (. But thought it was, once again, worth noting.


UPDATE: Yes it is still happening. I went to a sim and found my SIM FPS drop between 7-12. It eventually came back to 40-45 after about 20-30 sec.

Hmmm... thinking about another common problem...

I wonder if there would be a way of sending *textures* before *objects* to the client to eliminate the "loading texture" issue completely?

Texture issues still (this isn't the loading textures, but rather the issue that textures seem to take more of my limited (can't update due to being a laptop) texture memory). I notice that wasn't listed as an issue at all. Again this is at about 1/3 or less performance than pre-1.7.

I would like an official reply of some sort as to wether or not that's considered an issue, ie. should I go elsewhere for my fun or continue to be patient?

Wow this kind of information and interaction is really primo. Good Job Karen.

From what I noticed with the Finder lag before is that the "first time" (being the first time after logging in maybe) I opened it and did a search it was quite slow as reported. But after that it was faster to search.

The problem with that is then you have object indicators all over the place while you wait for the textures to download. Active Worlds (another online chat/build 3D environment) used to load this way (with black triangles all over the place) but now does it like SL.