Avatar Rendering Cost: Change Your Habits?

Hey. Ever since I found out about the new Avatar Rendering Cost feature, I changed my habit of wearin a ton of gear, to minimal, and I still don't "look like a noob". My clothing textures look good, I rock low-prim belts, low-prim shades, low prim hair, low-prim boots...

It really does help speed. It helps SO much, that when my av gets close to somebody who's ready for combat, or most RPers, etc...my system almost grinds to a halt for a second, then about 30 seconds later, goes right back to normal "choppy" SL mode. Without anybody around, it's as smooth as a Playstation 2.

Have you, as a builder or a shopper, switched to making & buying lower Prim attachments for your av? It CAN be done without u lookin like u just came from OI.

Here's the link to the LL Blog for those who never saw it:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/05/01/who-me-yes-you-couldnt-be-then-who-introducing-avatar-rendering-cost/

Oh I read the blog. Before I did I thought they wanted to charge me for wearing attachments and prim hair. I would go broke. This is a good feature for those Live concert venues. I won't go near those places because of the lag. But this may effect sales for some people. If your making stuff thathas a High rendering cost then your going to get some negative publicity from this feature.

I think, to a degree, male avatars have it a bit easier on this one. You can wear shorter, non-flexi hair and no need to fuss with flexi skirts and such. So, yeah, not too difficult to find males in the green or barely into the yellow.

I wear just some basic, not over the top, jewelry and I tend to favor longer, straighter hair styles and, frankly, the non-flexy or minimally flexy versions of these look more like stylized combat helmets than hair.

I have friends with low bandwidth or metered connections so I am sensitive to their problems but I have a hard time even getting below 4 digits when wearing a dress.

I will do what I can but I'm not going to uglify myself in the process.

once the ARC becomes less a novelty no one will pay attention to it. The only way it will matter is if LL limits it.

Just found an interesting glitch.

If you have an item that has "hidden parts"... turn them on, and your score DROPS... how insane is that? 100+ prim item, if you HIDE it, it doubles the cost.

It just amazes me how people "glom on" to little excuses to be rude to each other. This statistic is such a joke.

Nope, not giving up my hair.

I might wear simpler shoes in a very busy place but there are other ways of reducing lag without making people look like noobs. The avatars are the single most important piece of SL (just try running it without any people) so why turn the clock back on how they look?

I suggest sim owners take a closer look at their builds, toys and embellishments to see what's making the place lag.

That is because this stat hits prims that are 100% transparent the same as it does a complex texture of see-through lace. If it is a 32-bit texture, they ding you for it, on EVERY PRIM. 100% alpha should not take a hit, but it does.

Hiding items sets their textures to alpha and that is one of the most costly things to render. So that is why un-hiding them will lower the render cost.

No. If I am too primmy for a place, I'll leave upon request. There are plenty of places for me to go.

I can certainly see how something less than 100% transparent would crank up the rendering cost (both reported and actual cost) but I'd think that the rendering code would just ignore stuff that's 100% transparent. Why should it bother with it at all??

To answer the OP: no - my normal look usually puts me between 600-1200 on the ARC stuff, which I think is acceptable.

As Brann said, I wouldn't quit of my hairs nor my female alt will... she have some flexy hairs and clothe... blings I never use, so I won't quit anything... and I still think that after this LL will try for us to delete all inventory, them probably reduce everyone to the primary AV lolol what a joke

I'd probaby react the same... of course, the chances of my EVER returning there again (much less spending money)... probably close to zero.

No, I've not switched to buying things that would give my avatar a lower ARC score. If I see something I like, I will buy it and wear it regardless of it's supposed impact on the scoring. Most of my avatar appearances are well within what I would deem an acceptable numerical value. If a landowner/business owner doesn't like my score and asks me to change or leave, I will gladly leave and find other places to spend my time. I am not completely blind to the impact an excessively high ARC score can have though, so if I know I am going somewhere where lag is a problem or is exceptionally crowded, I won't purposefully go with a ridiculously high ARC scored avatar, and will adjust down to a more reasonable level beforehand.

In a word, no.

It's an interesting tool, and I will use it for crowded venues, but on a daily basis... I run around 1200, and I'm happy with that.

Not a chance.

It's interesting to see the score of whatever I choose to wear, but I'm of the same opinion as Garrett. If someone thinks I am hindering their sim, I'll clear off, never to return. Hell, I may as well drag all my settings down from Ultra while I'm at it.

About the only impact it has had on me so far is to be more aware of which ones among my many avatar forms are the most likely to cause lag issues in very laggy sims. I was already in a habit of using a "low lag form", with no attachments or prim hair, when going to known laggy areas, so my behavior hasn't changed much at all.

The next time I try to change my basic hairstyle, I'll probably prefer a style that has a lower ARC score than what I wear now. But my preferred hairstyle is a strong part of my personal "look", no matter what furry species I am. So it's not something I'll change on a whim, or to satisfy some arbitrary score. Just like in RL, while I may wear a diferent style on a special occasion, for a party or whatever, most days I style my hair in the same way - the way that I think looks best on me.

If it looks good to me, I wear it, even if I get IM comments about having this-or-that exposed or that I just look "disturbing". (^_^)

But, ARC has become a fun griefing tool. I'll just sit around a sim and say "-Insert AV Name- = 2060 (^_^)" ... "-Insert AV Name- = 318... You need moar primz! (>_<" all day. Half of them wonder what I'm talking about, the other half pay me to leave. (^_^)y

Putting my "owner of a semi-popular place" 254-prim hat on, ARC is something I generally don't care about unless I'm bored and people seem interested in reducing theirs or unless the place is really busy and I see people with crazy ARC numbers and avatars that look just a step above Ruth - and I have seen people who are only a few days old and who look like they're only a few days old with +10k ARC.

In the 2nd case, I'll chat with them about it and try to explain what ARC is (or is supposed to be, anyway) and try to help them get theirs down, if they want to. I've not ejected or asked anybody to leave yet, though, and don't really have plans to.

I am not giving up any of my nice dresses for any reason.

Since the version of the viewer that I run doesn't even show the ARC, I have not a clue what my score is and will not run the other viewer just to find out.

Don't worry... I'll be sure to shout your ARC number out in the middle of a crowd of lag-jaded PentiumII users. (^_^)y

I've been monitoring my score. It's kind of addictive - I just have to know. Just because something scores high doesn't mean I won't wear it, but I do take note.

The biggest effect has been on my hair. I don't wear the fluffy long styles with lots of alpha so often, particularly when I hostess and have to worry about lag, but I've started searching out the most elaborate, imaginative updos I can find. It's a bit of a game, but I've had a lot of fun with demos lately...

I agree, Xio - it is possible to put together a very nice, non-newbie look with a low ARC. And yet I keep hearing comments about how those with a low ARC must look like "noobs" or "base AVs" or "I'm not going to uglify myself". Hey! My low ARC look is my look, thank you. I've worked very hard at it, and I'm hardly newby or Ruthy or ugly. It's not for everyone, but it's ME.

I have never harassed anyone about their ARC or their look - I wish some folks would quit being so dismissive of mine.

Same here.

ARC has had maybe a small effect on what I wear when going to live music or other crowded events. I've always tried to be reasonably low-prim at such venues (except my hair, which is a problem, but one on which I just can't bring myself to compromise). But now I think I'm a little more conscious about what actually impacts rendering cost. For example, I knew that alpha-textured stuff was harder to render, and tried to be careful about it in structural builds, but before ARC, I never really paid any attention to it for attachments.

If I sold a lot of avatar attachments, I think I'd take ARC into account in making design decisions. That is, now there's at least some consideration counter to the impulse to just add more and more primmy detail until I run out of patience or fill up the linkset. So, that's a good thing for future products, I think.

There have been several instances where I would've appreciated having arc to tell people to try dropping their prims. The various 'fair' gatherings are typically lag-tacular. I recall being at one in my low prim avatar and right next to me was a primmydonna who could freeze you in your tracks with lag.

Hi-5! I'd rather be naked than to give up my prim sucking hair.