Avatar Rendering Cost: Change Your Habits?

To answer the orginal question posed in this thread.......No, I haven't (and see no reason to) changed my habits since ARC came out.

I finally logged in using the most recent RC and checked my ARC score which is approximately 1276. I piled on some prims and bling, put on my body lights, donned some 100% alpha textured attachments, put on some flexi heavy silks and got my score up to 5000. Since that 1276 score is pretty indicative of my normal outfitting I feel I'm not contributing much to anyone's lag........that's assuming, of course, they have a computer that is reasonably speced to meet SL's requirements for acceptable performance in world. There is nothing I can do to help those who simply do not know enough to maintain their personal computers......and, to be honest, not I want to to help those people.

All I see this ARC business is about is finger pointing by LL. Most, if not all, avatars I saw while monitoring my ARC were less than 2500........my system handled it quite well with as many as 16 avatars near enough to me to show on my radar atttachment. My draw distance is 256 on a nVidia 8600GT with 256 on board RAM. My system is maybe a little more hefty than most, but not by much. LL would have been better off "educatiing" us about the need for a robust system, regular maintainance, and the necessity to keeping background programs to a bare minium.

Why should anyone care about someone's 7 year old P4 800 meg processor, with a video card that has 64 megs onboard (using the drivers that came with the card when first purchased 5 years ago)? Why should I care if they have a 30 gig hard drive with 3% free space that has never been defragged? People who happily reveal they don't update their Windows because it's too much trouble.....takes too long, etc (hell yeah it's going to take a long time when you've never done it). Why do I need to concern myself when they have MSN messager running, skype, their web cam, and downloading music from iPhone? High scores will probably play hell with their experience in SL.......but if they worried as much about own systems as much as they whine about lagging they would have a lot less to contend with.

People pointing fingers at people with what they "think" is excessive ARC scores are waiting my mute button. You do not need a top of the line computer to play SL......but you need more than what was available 5 years ago. Dumb the game down so they can be happy and you loose your population.......educate, but educate about the real reason many have problems playing the game.

An alternative.......take the tools away from us that allow high ARC scores. Like being able to upload textures larger than 256, or create prims containing alpha channels, take the bling away, do away with flexi hair and clothing (take all those waving flags down while you're at it). It's not the creators fault, nor the consumers.......it's LL's fault.

Think Second Life will survive such a change?

That is exactly the kind of attitude that will get someone on my ban list in a big hurry. If you're causing problems (e.g., ARC over 5000, when people are having problems) and you're not in the least bit interested in helping deal with the problems that you're causing, then you're outta here baby.

Fine, we should all take sensible measures ourselves before pointing fingers.

However, not all of us are fortunate enough to have a hot system. Many of us run with draw distance set to 64 most of the time, with settings configured for maximum performance, and have serious frame rate issues due to overuse of attachments in public places. It's elitist snobbishness on your part to assume that simply because you have good hardware, everyone should be able to have it. Come on, show some concern for those less fortunate. And what if, after taking those measures, your frame rate was below 3? And there were severl seriously overwrought avatars? It's *good* to be able to know who the offenders are.

My point is there's a balance here. Yes, ARC will be abused. But ARC helps to counteract the fact that attachments are often abused. Of course, they are, it's human nature. ARC gives us the clues we need to help deal with it.

You can visually mute everyone with a high ARC and be done with it. They don't have to loose their attachments, you don't have to render them. Everyone's happy.

Or you can turn to face the other way and their ARC is irrelevant. You can even choose to just not render any avies at all.

Could be a bit lonely is all

As I explained earlier, no matter how efficient LL makes the software, we will load our avatars down until the performance is merely bearable. This is human nature. The only thing they could do to avoid that would be to put strict limits on attachments. If they'd done that, you'd be rather upset at the limits on your appearance. I say we should be given the choice and try to use it wisely.

You're misinformed concerning systems that have performance issues with SL. For example, my system has a 2GHz Mobile Pentium with 533 MHz FSB and 256GB video memory. It was a very hot laptop 18 months ago. In any populated place, I'm lucky to get more than a couple FPS, with video settings turned down to the most efficient.

THAT is why they care: because a substantial proportion of the SL population do not have a hot computer less than 2 years old. Most of us have average systems, over 2 years old. And imagine the furor if they reduced the number of prims we could attach!

Bad display performance *is* caused by product makers and consumers. No matter HOW efficient LL makes the software, we will bump into the same issue. Trust me; I've been writing software professionally for over 30 years. They keep making hardware faster, and every time they do, makers of products and consumer desires put more demands on the hardware. In the end, computers only seem fast when they're new. We can't blame the hardware designers for this, any more than we can just blame LL for video performance issues caused by too much and inefficient user-created content.

Do me a favor, Lear, type in my name and ban me now..........I don't want to accidently wander into your realm and piss you off. While you're at it ban my alt too.........Peppermint Dumpling,.

How do you do that?

You still see them, it just looks like a gray cardboard cutout of the avie without their attachment.

And do you turn on the lag monitor under help? To see what it says about server, client and network or tell the ones complaining to?

I've seens sims lagging... and gotten hissed at before the arc for my standard avatar which is low ARC... for being a prim whore furry... well I told them turn on the lag meter...red sim not client or network. Helps when the active scripts are not over the number of objects in the sim...






If you chose to ignore the recommended settings the client tells you for your hardware... that is your problem because you know it will cause client issue.

Besides, try going to the many malls... you can be the only one there and will lag because of the multiple textures and prims used to build them.

The arc is not a complete tool, it's not even very good at handling the fact that a no texture avatar can lag out everyone around and have a low arc to boot.

It'd be quite easy since iirc even prims hidden inside the body are drawn by the clients around them. So micro prims could be used to hide the offending attachments and none would even know Ruth was griefing their clients

gottcha, but I dont even have to use avatar imposters. So all I see is its basically helpful if someones system cant handle it. Ive been told before my av is the worse theyve seen, but never asked to change simply because I wasnt causing anyone issues All we will gain from this is ARC Nazis and they just give me giggles

Don't worry, I'm not so easily pissed off, and I'm not banning you.

And to do this automatically (shameless pjira plug) : http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-7165. I seriously think this could be the best use of ARC possible, whatever flaws it may have.

1276 is too much? I don't think so..............if someone's system cannot handle that (and maybe 5 or 6 others within view at about 2500) then they have serious problems and it's not avatars.

Of course I do, that and more. I prefer to solve problems, not point fingers.


I agree 100%. ARC is just another tool in the box. Like all the other tools, it can be misleading or misinterpreted.

Turn on Avatar Imposters, when you mute someone they'll turn in an attachment-less gray cut-out.

Or misused.

Fun part is the tool causes client lag and doesn't really seem concerned with anything other than textures... yet it doesn't give rating for builds on the sim though. (which would be really helpful for builders since they can see the rating as they build attachments and such without having to wear them)

Plus that would allow folks to see that it's not the 3k arc rating on George but the 15k rating on Bob's hoverboard lagging folks out (which don't affect him in mouse look mode)

Or Sally's 150k rating on that half sim castle.

I said that when RC0 first arrived already .

Introducing ARC/"shame" by itself makes no sense unless they're planning to tie it in with avatar imposters down the line (on the plus side, it makes complaining about someone's ARC completely irrelevant).

Is there a downside I'm overlooking? I don't want to be hyping something without understanding its negative impact. If the impostering threshold is under the control of the viewer, even if the measurement isn't a great predictor of client lag, still it means *something* and could help with one of SL's worst market vulnerabilities: its poor performance on midrange and lower machines.

Yes, I have made changes! I tried on many of my outfits, hair, jewelry, bags, etc. to get an idea of their ARC. I found that there is a huge difference between things that work equally well on my avatar. Most of my stuff was fairly low, but I had some hair and some dresses that pushed me way into the red. Most of the dresses in my inventory that had a high ARC were freebies. I went shopping for new hair and dresses (any excuse for shopping!) and found low ARC options that I like better than the high ARC stuff. Now I always check my ARC before going out.

After hours of hard work, I managed to better than triple my ARC. I plan on seeing where that max is soon.

Then I'll contact ATI and nVidia and start them bidding for advertising on my avatar. "Frame rate low? You need a new video card!"

It'll be on by default (just like avatar imposters is a default setting).

Right now - going by the defaults since that is what most will be stuck on - someone doesn't really have to be all that far away to turn into an "imposter" which means the ARC limiter would need to take effect on an even tighter radius;

Pastrami considers "Green (Good), Yellow (Eh), or Red (Meh!)" so if I had to guess: on low settings only green renders fully, on medium yellow renders fully and on high everyone renders fully.

Considering how most regular residents are in the "eh/yellow" range rather than the "good/green" range, people will see everyone (including themselves if they cam around at all since it's based on cam position) as a sprite by default except for the wandering newbies who'll be the only actual 3D avies walking around.

'Maybe they'll get it right" just doesn't even come into the picture as far as I'm concerned, they couldn't even get the number to be accurate and represensative. Implementing it further is just going to go down the same wrong path, especially given all the other visual degradations they added with WindLight to try and save some face with "it's faster, really!" .

Having said that I have changed my habits, let me add that I don't check other people's ARC and woudn't dream of commenting on anyone else's number.

Perhaps you won't............but someone already said on this very thread that "inconsiderate" avatars with and ARC of 5000 (what I believe to be very arbitrary) would be banned in an instant.

That's the very real danger of this ARC farce. But, hey, if someone decides I'm too high on my ARC score and they ban me for it........that's fine with me. I spend a few lindens in this game and they won't get any of it.

Half assed "tool" that will only be used to confront people by people who think they have all the answers. A comuter that is reasonably maintained and updated properly should run SL fine......even a 6 year old machine ( I know, I have one that still can run SL with about 15 fps).

Oh PLeeeeze... 2 reasonable bracelets, a simple necklace, 6 prim sculpted shoes, and my favorite hair and I'm over 5k.. with no other attachments except a HUD. That's my norm and it's probably going to stay that way.