The SL ervers are not up to the job

Two years ago I was told by a not unknown IBM employee, whose work is in SL, that LL try to squeeze as much as they can into the sim servers - 4 normal/full sims per server - to the detriment of smooth running. Right now there are just under 5000 scripts running in the mainland sim where my store is, of which I own just over 3/4, and I'm getting fed up of waiting for script events to fire. E.g. click an object for the menu and wait so long that it looks like the menu isn't coming. So click again, wait, click again, wait, and then they all come together. That's just an example, but such delays are far too common. That's when only me and mine are in the sim - no other avatars causing delays, but even if there were other people, they shouldn't cause delays like that. The sim server should be up to doing what's asked of it, when it's asked. In other words, LL's sim server setup simply isn't up to the job.

Now they are about to limit the number of scripts so that the sim servers have a better chance of keeping up. But it's not that the number of active scripts is too high. It's that LL cram too much into each computer, as they always have. They are selling systems (sims) that are simply not up to doing the job that the systems allow. A mainland sim is suppoed to hold up to 40 avatars and run fine, but that's never been possible. get a dozen avatars around you and you get lag - not necessarily at your end (downloading stuff) but at the server end - unable to keep up.

In short, LL's sim servers are unable to do the job that are sold to do.

Their current project is to put upper bounds on script memory usage, not the number of scripts. That is the only sensible thing to do, unbounded memory isn't workable no matter how fancy the hardware is.

Are you sure it isn't all those bots?



/me ducks and runs

I'm sure All but 3 of them are inactive. Three avs walking around should not cause the problems. It's LL still cramming too much into each computer that causes the problems. It was probably fine putting 4 sims in each machine some years ago, but things/content have developed and it it's far from fine now.

This is not really a problem that I have had.

I agree, but still cramming 4 sims per machine is too much for today's SL. The servers are just not up to what they are being sold to perform today.

Do you have any numbers to back that up, Phil? IIRC, LL uses quad-core Opterons in 32-bit mode - I've tested these, and they are pretty darn fast. As for your friend - after all, IBM has their blade servers to sell, which LL doesn't buy, so their folks may not be completely objective as to the capabilities of generic servers.

I haven't observed any particular degradation in sim performance over recent months. However, if you are still using a lot of temp-rez, Phil, it is not beyond imagining that SL may have decreased the temp-rez headroom per sim, without mentioning it.

Another possibility is that your sim is experiencing that "ghost script" issue, where scripts continued to consume resources after being terminated. It was fixed for a while, seemed to come back, and now I personally am not sure where it stands. Ordinal may know?
.

There haven't been any temp rezzers in the sim for a very long time, so that's not the problem.

A couple of months ago, I told someone in a thread to come to to sim - there's no lag here - and there wasn't. I wouldn't suggest that now. The only things that have changed since then are, I've been building on the ground, so it's no longer bare rock, and I have 3 active bots (castle guards) that walk around the new castle and the sim. But they are just like 3 normal avs - they shouldn't be causing any difficulties on the ground, but script events are often slow to fire (e.g. I have a 10 second timer in one script that, when there are more than a certain number of avs in the sim, tells me the number. It's not uncommon for me to get 2 such messages at the same time - one is 10 seconds late).

The sim allows 15,000 prims. Less than 10,000 are used - I have more than 5000 spare prims. When only me and mine are in the sim, there are fewer than 5000 active scripts. I had a Linden here a couple of weeks ago to check the top scripts and there were none that stood out as being heavy users. He even restarted the sim to see if it would make a difference to the script time, but it didn't. I cannot come up with any reason why the script events are often so long delayed - collision events too. There is plenty of spare capacity in the sim - theoretically - and I believe that the sim server system simply isn't up to the job.

:0 humm, i've seen this before at my places (all mainland) - kinda mostly before/during the last server rollouts. have ya requested a sim restart yet??

outside of that, slightly plying your suspicions, do you/simmates have any extensive, chronically-firing 'out-of-sim' comms, like http or email? :\ i'm thinking 'outside-of-quad-core' comms; i'm assuming shared busses on the servers (ether i presume at least; anyone can tell me what wiring there is interconnecting?? if there's a bottleneck, maybe there. but i would think whatever/whereever the bottleneck is, it's not hardware; maybe firmware (if it -is- an interface ish).

presuming all sim servers are now 'on the same page', i dunno - i've got good response-time now, but i -have- seen it recently, before the last sim rollout/resets. but not lately at any of my working locales...

I know of a class 4 sim right now that has 7 other sims stacked ontop of it, on the physical machine and ll wont do anything about it

If you can find out, find out how much spare time is left in the sim. I have noticed with my own sim once the spare time reaches 0.0ms The sim starts having fluctuations with Time Dilation.

I have the stats on-screen at all times, and I never see any Spare Time in the sim.

An example:
A few minutes ago I was watching one of the guards that was stopped on a collision pad. There shouldn't have been any delay on that particular pad but the guard was just standing there. At the same time, on the other computer, the system was late telling me how many avs were in the sim (that 10 second timer). Eventually it told me twice simulataneously - the first one was late. At that exact moment the guard started to move again. Script events had been held up - delayed. The collision pad got its collison event very late and the timer event was very late. That's not uncommon.

I had a server restart within the last couple of weeks but it made no difference.

There is no http or email going on. The only time emails occur is when IMs are sent to me and I'm not logged in, but they are nothing to do with the sim. All of the bots are logged in on a thin client (libSL's TestClient). The only communications that go on are client to bot and vice versa - no different to the comms between viewer client to av and back - just normal communications.

An extra reply to this...

In the morning, I'll remove all the bots for a period and stop the systems that operate them. I'll check then if any Spare Time occurs, but I'm certain that there will be none. My morning is best for it because it's the quietest time of day in the sim.

I frequently remove all the bots and I never see any changes in the stats - and I do look. The extra thing I'll do is stop the systems that operate them. That's 5 scripts.

Is there any way of telling who the other regions are that a sim is shared with?

Rock

I'm sure I've seen reference to a website that gleans and publishes that information but I don't know where it is.

OK, a dumb idea, maybe, because all the tecchie stuff is beyond me, but is it possible that something in one of the other three sims that is running on your server is being a hog and messing you up? It may be nothing you are doing.

That's what Rock was thinking, and it's not a dumb question. To the best of my knowledge, there is no way within SL to find out which sims are sharing a server.

What's the script time and physics time in the sim? Number of scripts is almost meaningless because one bad one can hurt you more than 5000 good ones. When the Linden was there to check the Top Scripts list, was that before or after the last sim upgrade? Avatar attachments now show up in the list as per avatar totals, and one badly scripted avatar can bring down any sim. The other thing to look for is to see if anyone is teleporting in or out when the slowdowns occur. Lately TPs seem to hit the sim servers a lot harder than they used to.

The Script Time a variable, due to it always needing to be pushed down. For instance, right now it's 16.6 but it can often be 17.n - 19.n and even 14.n and less.

Physics Time is currently varying between 1.6 and 2.n but it's usually next to nothing - 0.1 or so.

The Linden checked before that last server update which was not many days ago.

I don't see anything resembling Per Avatar totals. Is that just for private regions? This is mainland.

There used to be neighbours.maxcase.info, but that site has been gone for a few months now...

With the latest server update, avatars are now showing up in the Top Scripts list. If you are wearing any scripted attachments, there will be an entry in the Top Scripts list for an object named Phil Deakins owned by Phil Deakins, and it will show the total script time for all your attachments. Before the last server update, the only way to see the impact of an avatar's scripts was to get them to sit on a scripted object (their script totals got added onto the script totals for the object).

:0 yah but what three other sims are -your- sim/server sharing with?? (if that's even easy to find out?)

i guess asking that, does a 'server reset' -actually- restart the entire box from scratch - four sims at a time - or does it only do a sim-soft-software restart, one sim at a time?? hrrmm /me scratches chin

This is mainland. Top Scripts can only be seen on private regions.

I know, but you had mentioned that you had a Linden check for you. If that check was done before the server upgrade, any avatar scripts that were causing a problem would have remained hidden.