Av render cost (revisited)

I don't give a crap about what my ARC is.

This.

Let's not go off on a tangent...

At least it's not calculus. We all have our limit...

Based on what angle and distance?

ARC is a dynamic value based on angle, distance and several other things

Isn't that a bit derivative?

Lot of assumptions about what folk may/may not have done with their computers there. Like yourself, I have a pretty good machine, I run the client on the appropriate settings and I am content with the results but overloaded avs can be a drag on crowded environments when I go out. I'm sure this is the case for many residents.

I used the words 'stupid' and 'selfish' advisedly because SL is a shared experience and many residents do not have the option of upgrading their computer or the choice of a better connection is not available to them.


I'll say it again: SL is a shared experience unless you spend your time working in isolation, which suits a lot of folk including myself. From the social point-of-view, however: it is 'selfish' not to consider how your av may be affecting the environment to the detriment of everyone's enjoyment; it is stupid because you might look fine and dandy to yourself but you may very well be an indistinct and uninteresting puff of smoke to others.

Regardless of whether it's fair to have a laggy avatar or not, the bottom line is that ARC doesn't do a very good job of indicating whether an avatar is going to be laggy.

The arc is a borked tool, that does nothing really useful

And there is a limit to what steps you are reasonably supposed to take for the shared experince.

Considering there are those who lag looking at a single ruth avatar in an empty sim...

So is your avatar optimized for the guy on a 10 year old dell laptop?

Well sure there are a lot of assumptions. Because people tend to focus on ARC, as you will note in this thread, not realizing it is irrelevant if they do not have that ARC in view by switching camera angle. In reverse, you also are making a lot of assumptions that the average person tweaks their performance settings appropriately. My guess would be the average person runs it as is and expects it to work.

Sure overloaded AV's can be a drag in crowded environments, and there, you are focusing on it yourself. Around you in that crowded environment are running scripts, particles, etc etc, which add far more lag generators.




Absolutely. But the Lindens do not design for the aging computer, they have said so. I understand what you are saying and feel bad for them also, but this is not my decision, and I cannot buy them new computers or tell the Lindens to scale back, so it is what it is.



You can keep saying it, and even use larger fonts still, perhaps make it blink. You are still overly focusing on ARC, and as MortVent said, "And there is a limit to what steps you are reasonably supposed to take for the shared experience."

Again, SL is designed around selfishness, and so is your SL experience by nature. If you want to be able to experience things the way you want to, it stands to reason that so do the people with high end machines. There is no blame on either side, but, well, the programs are what they are.

Go to an "all you can eat" place and expect the average person to have one small plate with measured portions and you observe the average self discipline in action, then perhaps relate it to a Virtual World full of people escaping reality with determination. Doesn't matter if I approve or not, nor if you do. So you do what you can, but you cannot reasonably expect 70k people to join hands and sing Kumbaya for the person with the old computer.

ARC is a measurement of how YOUR machine copes with SL graphics program specs, that's just how it is.

No, and it never will be.

The shared environment selfishness cuts both ways. I'll make reasonable efforts not to make a super laggy avatar, but I expect other users to make a reasonable effort to use a computer that's appropriate for the task.

My apologies, Djamila, I don't understand how I missed your response but my post here does have some relevant responses: I'm not an advocate for ARC, per se, but it's purpose certainly appeals to my sense of how SL should work. Perhaps they will improve it - or fix it at least - along with a plethora of other flaws in the not-to-distant future.

Ephraim Kappler roars with laughter.

One point I would like to make is that the client is automatically configured on installation (or perhaps when it is first opened) to optimise performance according to the available hardware. So I'm sure many residents will be using those plain vanilla settings and refrain from 'tweaking' them.

I could take issue with your thesis of selfishness and go on at length here, but I guess that's for another thread.


I totally agree: having notched up healthy a green score of only 512 wearing a full complement of Selçuk* infantryman's armour consisting of more than twenty sculpted prims - all of them finely textured with nicely-tooled ironwork and some flexi-prim sashes into the bargain, I have to conclude that it is only a rough guide even when it does seem to be working.

ARC is probably subject to the vicissitudes of lag itself - and I believe it causes client-side lag when left on for anything more than a quick check. Then again the wildly out-of-whack ARC I quoted above could easily be down to this cruddy RC5 viewer I'm using, which is beginning to annoy me very, very badly.

Nevertheless, there is some value in any feature that raises awareness of how heavily textured or poorly scripted items and even particle emitters can badly affect everyone's experience of SL. And I don't think it's right to be dismiss the problem on the grounds we are paying for the privilege to do as we please.

All residents should be aware of the basic issues involved and deal with it as best they can.


That's a reasonable argument.

* The Selçuk empire waned after the 14th century owing to gross lag caused by their assembled armies.

I optimize my avatar for the tasty prey I hunt.

Love them little mousies
Mousies what I love to eat
Bite they tiny heads off
Nibble on they tiny feet.

(Kliban)

Charmin.

Generally speaking, you target the lowest common denominator. Right now, that's any machine that makes the minimum requirements.

Most would put the target at the recommended specs.

Since the minimum is marketed as a poor but usable performance level.

Claiming the minimum spec is what you should be aiming for... well then they need to redo all the newspapers and magazines for the minimal level of reading ability... in other words nothing but pretty pictures.

I received this today in a notecard today from one of my subscribe groups:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lag sucks!!!!

Ever wonder how much lag your own avatar causes? Look at the top of your screen, and find the "advanced" menu. (If you don't have it, push ctrl+alt+D.) Go to advanced > rendering > info displays > avatar rendering cost. You'll see hovertext over your av (and everyone else's) and the higher the number, the more lag you cause. If the number appears in green, you are low lag. If you're yellow, you cause a little more, orange, more, and red means you have a LOT of lag!

So how do you reduce that number? Take off prim heavy attachments, any scripted attachments or HUDs, and particularly attachments with a lot of transparency.

Even the most efficient sims will turn into lag fests when you have a lot of avatars running around with high ARC!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Many focus on ARC too much and actually believe the crap that has been said about it being THE LAG INDICATOR.

I heard you can get lag from sharing eating utensils. or from a public toilet seat even

The targeted hardware is a point, I suppose, but there's also the targeted event. One of SL's most handicapping limitations is the paltry number of residents who can be simultaneously present for an event. Even on four-corner island sims, rezzing pretty much grinds to a halt with an attendance of 200 assembled avatars. That's really a big problem, and the "true" rendering cost of the avatars does affect that number, however good or bad ARC is as an approximation to it. Just practically speaking, if one asks attendees to such events to dress to reduce lag, many will look at ARC and end up less laggy as a result. Maybe the difference is only a 10 or 20 percent larger crowd can attend and rez, but that might be just the difference needed.

To the point of witch-hunts: If anything, ARC has probably reduced the old "furry hunts," where primmed avatars (furry, mech, etc.) were falsely assumed to be the origin of great lag. It's pretty hard to blame a modern, 500 ARC furry for being a lag monster, if the accuser scores well into the thousands, stomping around in 500 prims of shoes and with full miniature furry avatars hanging as "lunch" from their neko belt.

Wish someone had told be that before I sat on it.

It wasn't in your notecard?

Minimum requirements guy is going to be lagged to bits regardless of what everyone around him does with their avatars.

I consider one shouldn't go over 5K if they don't want me to make a few snide remarks about their arc.

A high arc is always meaning you are a waste of prims/textures(/carbon? ^_^).

the opposite isn't always true.

I'll invite you to the Hangout the next time we decide to have fun seeing how high we can get.

I don't think you need arc to tell if someone's avatar is lagging you. I mean if you look at them and your frame rate drops. That's a bad sign. I'm not blind. I can see all those prims on a person.