Avatar Rendering Cost: Change Your Habits?

Thigh boots? Stuff the ARC, I want to see TRS (Trout Rating Scale)

Yes, I checked my ARC. Yes, I made some adjustments. Yes, it has made me more aware of what I can do to help as a responsible avatar. I would never consider judging others on thier decisions of what is the correct ARC score for them or whether they even want to look.

It is nice that it is actually a tool for the individual instead of the sim owner. I agree with the many who have said this is just one tool though. It is only one piece in the jigsaw.

I bought a few things from a lovely designer the other day with a store on an island that I will probably never visit again. There were three people on the island but the shop was so laggy as to be almost impossible due to no understanding of occlusion. It had tons of textures showing off the lovely goods and all the walls were glass (alpha) prims. Even turning the draw distance way down didn't help. I wouldn't have either if someone out there hadn't written a handy notecard on controlling lag.

Many factors have to come together to make a good SL enviroment, but I don't see how having more tools can hurt. I would suggest just muting anyone who is rude enough to bother you about your score and going on with you day. Like many choices in SL how you use or react to this tool is up to you. I think that is what I still like about SL.

I usually don't hang around places with more than 25-30 people, so I don't really have problems when it comes to lag or requests to leave or other factors, and I wear a LOT of crap...

*sighs* THen perhaps since this forum is, of course, loaded with people who are intent in misreading everything they can, I'll go ahead and clarify...

(a) High ARC is bad for performance. Does anyone here want to quibble with that very simple assertion? To make this really really simple for those having a hard time with it... uh... more graphics operations in each frame equal less frames per second. With a bit more effort, I could probably do this in a crayon font and get down to "FIRE BAD". sheez.

(b) There are other reasons, in fact, other significant reasons, that also contribute to poor client-side graphics performance. Some of these reasons have nothing to do with SL at all (for instance, I run on an ultra-high resolution monitor). Depending on the build, some of these reasons are way more significant than ARC. Same rules apply here as to (a) above. We just don't have tools for measuring this well yet although the frame console gives some hints (possibly more than hints if I was better at reading it).

None of those reasons mentioned in (b) above do anything to make (a) any less true. Framerates can be improved for everyone inside of the impostering limit of YOU by YOU reducing your arc. Where (b) comes in is that framerates can ALSO be improved in other ways. Sheez people. THis is not difficult. And no matter how much the anti-arc people want to make it complicated, the basic problem remains simple. There is a hardware budget and, as of now, no real way to manage it. ARC is, perhaps, the first step in that.



OK, a clarification here. To be fair, I have dropped the ARC on my hair from 3500 to 900. So that's not exactly "doing nothing". In addition, when I am going to a place that has more than a few avatars. I am conscious of my ARC... although not as much as some. I do have short hairstyles that bring me in solidly to green numbers and I wear them at certain types of events. Currently, I'm at a crowded beach running an ARC of 2190. *blinks* 2190? OK, make that 1240 and watch me toss these sneakers into the garbage can. 1240 is solidly in the yellow camp and I consider that "good enough".

What I do think though is that I probably would not have changed my hair style completely solely to reduce ARC. In fact, nobody that I know has. I can look around me right now and see several hairs that are in the 3k-5k range. In fact, without any incentive to do so, very few people will and, in general, designers who are incentivized in exactly the opposite direction will continue to produce costlier and costlier goods. I'm the first to admit that only my technical skills enabled me to make this change.

Insofar as the rest of your comments.. I'm going to suggest you either clarify your comments or just step away from the kbd entirely. Near as I can tell, you and I are agreeing.

Now.. here's the really interesting question.. 1240... is that "suzy narcissist" or not? Gee, from my perspective of coming down from around 4500-ish, that looks pretty good. It also looks pretty good compared to most of the female avatars I see around me right at this moment (I am the lowest female on teh dance floor discounting one ARC=1 complete new avatar). On the other hand, from your perspective of 450-sh, well, one of me is two of you. This is why a client side setting to control impostering is such a good idea. That way, every person can, based upon the performance capabilities of thier hardware, choose to fully render "expensive" avatars or not.

Let's be really clear here. I am not against the high arc avatars. What I do want, though, is for ARC to matter in some way so that designers will at least TRY to reduce it. Right now, it's just a bit of info with no teeth attached. So we are depending on the goodwill of the community and we all know how dependable that is. In addition, while I myself have a very beefy computer and ARC really isn't a problem for me, I want a way for those with less horsepower to still get a good experience in game. And I don't see why, if I'm wearing my 10k ARC silks, they should be forced to render me in all of my primmy glory.

**boggles back at all the people boggling at her** perhaps I've said it more clearly this time. Or... maybe... our viewpoints are so divergent that it is really true that each cannot see or grasp the others. I kind of feel like both sides are saying "The sun will rise tomorrow" and then being amazed when the other size argues it. That's certainly how I feel anyway.

No... If you wish to misquote me.. that's fine.. but do it on your own nickel please. It is more akin to saying, "Eating coco puffs is bad for me so I will stop eating them.. even if I know that eating other things is also bad for me (which I will also stop). The fact that there are other factors, does not make this factor less relevant. Again, even on my beast of a computer, I can change my clothes and watch my framerate change. And that's just one avatar. In crowded situations, this is going to matter.

Your example is ludicrous. Let me rephase.. "I can construct a scenario in which ARC is not the determining factor." Hey, great for you. I'm impressed. But for those situations where ARC is important, isn't it nice to know? The problem with your line of reasoning is that there is NOTHING that couldn't be devalued in this way. I can ALWAYS construct a situation in which "thing xxxxx" isn't relevant. So then by your logic path, nothing is relevant because it isn't relevant in every possible situation and we should just ignore hardware budgets entirely?

How about the name of the hair designer Mortus? If I could find some low-arc long hair for women that actually looked good, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

If you see hair you like and want to guesstimate the ARC, I think your best bet is to turn on View->Highlight Transparent and see if it has partially-transparent textures on it. If it does, it's likely to have a high ARC.

Or you could just get the name from Mortus.

Well considering every post here stating the ARC is the tool they are going to use, and ignore the other factors to scream at someone with a 2k ARC or outright ban someone with a high one...

It's an accurate comparison considering the thread.

A venue owner saying if they have X arc (which still has no true metrics on what kind of hardware it's intended for... lowest end, mid range, recommended..) but makes no mention of even considering the venue's construction in the witch hunt.

ARC as it stands is not even a decent tool for determining the full load of an avatar. Your client has to render sculpties, and they are not included in the arc score (as a furry I've seen it take minutes to load avatars because of the sculpties rezzing), nor is the total prim count (so they can have full prim counts and little textures resulting in a low score but heavy GPU load for those near them... and the persons with the mid range ARCs will be yelled at by the inquisition)

I keep posting scenarios that show how the tool is broken in it's current incarnation, due to lack of information and limited metrics.

Limit the current one to the person till they get it out in a full featured tool set to pinpoint the problems. "Give a man a hammer and every problem is a nail"

As it stands ARC is still smoke and mirrors, most graphical lag seems to be with the client settings and the builds around them. Avatar costs are part of it, but not the be all and end all most seem to think it is.

Oh really? For instance, I said that. I am, as we speak, building my new store. And yes, I am VERY concious of occlusion, texture load, transparency calculations, lighting, and any other issues I am personally aware of in terms of optimizing the shopping experience for my customers. But, until you dragged it out, it really wasn't relevant to a discussion about ARC now was it? Once again, a leap of logic on your part unsubstantiated by any facts or reasonable deduction chain.


Witch hunt? In general, when people start using inflammatory terms like that, we can assume that they are no longer making a reasoned argument. I, for one, am not hunting for witches. I am hunting for those who are consuming more than others out of the global processing pool. And, I'm not even wanting to punish them in any particular way, I just don't want to have to render them and (depending), may wish to not allow them into my crowded event becuase, in my determination, it will improve the global experience for everyone else. Although, actually, with a way to force impostering, that would seem to become unecessary.


Ah yes, the ever-popular, because it is not perfect, it is totally unusable argument. The only fly in the ointment here is... well.. this little detail of FACTS. FACTS say I can change my outfits and watch my framerate change. So can you. The ARC, while not perfect, does give a reasonable predictor of framerate changes. I hope they improve it over time.

Actually, no you do not. At least for me, what you are posting is an impassioned plea based upon smoke and mirrors. In YOUR mind you keep posting scenarios. In my mind, I've heard nothing that refutes any of the key points... (a) we all share a limited pool of GPU capacity (obviously, different for each client). (b) some people are consuming significantly more of it than others. (c) ARC does, in fact, give a reasonable, if not perfect, predictor of that.

Actually, I agree with this. It was nice for a while to see everyone's ARC. It has helped me a great deal in understanding how different avatar features impact framerate. Interestingly, despite all the panic from the furry community, most of the furry avatars I see are not the problem. Not unless they're also wearing long "crimp" hair *laughs*. But at this point, what I want is just a tool to control rendering of other avi's based on ARC. At that point, I don't really care what YOUR arc is, only that I can tune my system to display optimally for it's capabilities.. just like all the other graphics sliders. Interestingly, once I have that tool, I care more about my arc than yours since I will always pay the price for mine.

Was referring to more than just your posts. And since it is graphical lag on the client side that the ARC is supposed to show... but only shows it for the avatars.



When you have people stating they will ban people from their lands if the arc is over X, then there is an issue with the tool being used for harassment in public venues. After all calling someone a blingtard can get you AR'd for harassment.



And turning your camera in a sim can do the same, but there is no tool to show the sim's load on your graphics is there. Just one to show how people affect it.

Nor does the tool look at the fact a person may have turned everything up to max, and starts screaming about the lag from Bob who is 2.5k ARC





I know most of the furry avatars are slim on the ARC rating (some of the macro and larger do cause some lag with their builds), the sculpties can be a bit of a problem at times though.

Yes you tune yours, but not all do and use the tool as a way to hassle others.

I get upset hearing a bunch of people with 512m draw distances and all sliders max complaining on the grid because so and so had 2k+ on their arc and is causing them lag.. when it's just 6 people in the sim. And I know what it was because my friend AR'd and ported out... and they still complained... so I asked them what their settings were... and I quote "oh we maxed them out to see things like they should be"

So basically what some of us are saying here is because a handful of idiots will use this tool incorrectly we need to ban it or restrict it's usage somehow?

When did we become Democrats?

Limit it till it's a full featured tool to just the beta clients (till they have a full kit)

Instead of showing just the arc ratings, do like the lag meter.

ARC Composite Scores (single color for scores instead of an arbitrary colors on the numbers, available by digging into the options)
SIM Composite Score (so you see how much the sim's graphical rendering affects you)
Settings Score (So you see how your settings are compared to the recommended for your hardware...)


In other words instead of a hammer, give people a toolbox

/me points to her signature, which asks for mainland owners to be able to see the cost of scripted objects on their land. SSC! Sim Scripting Cost! Vote now!! Make alts and vote again!!

If anyone said that, I sure missed it. Some people who evidently don't read very carefully seem to think I said something like that (and even quoted me, showing the obvious mistake on their part ... sigh).And shouldn't, for the reasons stated above.

There are a number of variables contributing to frame rate. The build is one. Avatars are another. You're saying that we shouldn't get information concerning the latter, and I respectfully disagree, since it's useful.

Just because we have ARC doesn't mean it's only use will be witch hunts. Sure, there will be witch hunts -- there are already. ARC won't turn decent people into assholes, and the lack of ARC won't do vice versa.

Don't confuse *rendering cost* with *downloading time*. Big textures take more time to download. Sculpty maps take time to download. However, once they're downloaded, they don't have the same effect on frame rate. Yes, I believe sculpties do affect frame rate, but not in any way like the example you're giving, which is beside the point. How much? I sure couldn't say.

Interesting analysis, but it seems to me that in general, alpha prims on attachments don't do enough occlusion for this factor to be meaningful.

However, every alpha texture gets added to the alpha sort list, and as I gather (not being any kind of expert on this) that's a costly algorithm -- so much so that they use optimization tricks that cause things to appear in front of other things when they're not.

I'm just guessing here, but I suspect that the charge on ARC for alpha has more to do with the alpha sort than due to its lack of occlusion.

Could be totally wrong too -- when it comes to hair with lots of alpha, there could be a considerable amount of occluding of other hair locks. Not so much occluding prims behind the avatar, but of other attached prims. However, you'd think that prim count would matter more if that's true.

Still, I have to believe that the guy who came up with the calculation for ARC did so with considerable detailed knowledge of actual rendering costs, while keeping the cost of calculating it as low as feasible. It won't be perfect, but it should be a good first-order approximation.

For the record:

I would not ban someone outright for a high ARC. I haven't ever banned anyone yet, but if I did, it would be for unconscionably rude and disruptive behavior, including muting someone (like me) who was politely trying to resolve a problem.

Peggy said she'd mute me (without having any idea how I would approach the subject). I said that if she did, I'd ban her -- for *MUTING* me when I'm responsible for the smooth operation of a sim, and she not only isn't cooperating, she isn't listening.

You have to be a pretty big asshole for me to ban you.

So please stop this unfounded talk about someone saying they'd immediatly ban someone with a high ARC. Nobody said that in this thread. I didn't say it, and on searching the thread just now, nobody else did either. Stop beating this ridiculous strawman to death. It never lived in the first place.

Let me help you with your search Lear...........Post #76 (my first post in this thread)
Post #77........where you DID, in fact, say you would ban someone with an ARC score of 5000 (who you thought were causing problems and being inconsiderate because of that)
Post #81........where I invited to manually search inworld and ban me and my alt (since it appears that you just may find me causing problems and being inconsiderate with my ARC score......which, by the way, is still less than 2000, mostly less than 1500).

So, I'm not cooperating? Probably not with you, but I really am a cooperative person. I simply find you combative.......I seldom cooperate with that type. And, just WHO IS NOT LISTENING? Reread those posts.........I believe you were referring to them. This time read them slowly.......especially, when you go off accusing me of something that is blatantly false.

Plus, I cannot for the life of me remember ever saying I would mute you....if I hear constant whinning, I will mute ANYONE. I never singled you out, my friend.

Here's something you/anyone can try:

Go to a build where you get an average frame rate (there has to be enough to render already, a platform in the sky with nothing else to render skews the results too much) and that's guaranteed to stay static for as long as you try this (your own house would be perfect, really nothing can change).

Rez a pose stand (it needs to be a pose that keeps your head locked rather than following the mouse), View / Statistics Bar, Advanced, Render and the Ktris/frame statistic which is just a metric for how much geometry is getting rendered per frame.

Zoom in on yourself somewhat and try to minimize any fps flux, you really just want things to be static when you don't make any changes. Now switch between hair styles and note how the ktris/frame affects your fps.

Or just follow along (baseline with no hair for me in my house - 425.3ktris/frame / 17.8 fps), I wore 4 random hairs I have, each with increasing complexity (combination of prim count and prim type).

Hair 1: +52.3ktris/frame ; 17.3fps
Hair 2: +78.6ktris/frame ; 17.0fps
Hair 3: +92.8ktris/frame ; 16.8fps
Hair 4: +251.8ktris/frame ; 15.9fps

Spot the pattern? The more geometry needs to be rendered, the lower your fps gets (it's far from the only factor, the things ARC does take into account *do* matter as well, but geometry is quite significant as well). Something that really should be obvious.

Now the respective ARCs for the hairs:
#1: 357
#2: 33
#3: 87
#4: 397

If you judge on framerate as some want to do in this thread, you'd really want to be around me when I'm wearing hair #1 since it has the least impact, followed by 2, 3 and 4.

If you go by ARC the order or preference would be 2, 3, 1, 4 or in other words, the most performant hair ranks third. The difference between hair 1 and 4 is neglible in ARC while the actual fps "cost" of 4 is 400% times higher for my other puter's video card. If you saw the two hairs styles, you'd go "wow, 4 has to be laggy", it's just plain obvious it's going to cause problems except ARC simply does not indicate that it will be.

Without geometry complexity ARC is absolutely useless in judging who is eating up your fps, the two do *not* relate in any significant way.

Thanks, been basically trying to say that and being brushed off.

If you can post prim counts on the hairs as well.

Logged off to go to bed in a few minutes so will have to wait until tommorrow .

I can describe somewhat though:
1 - pony tail, medium prim (I'd guess 60-80), high ARC cause strands are flexi and alpha
2 - short style, "high" prim, low ARC since it's basically just two different textures, slow because it's 90-100ish twisted torus prims
3 - pony tail, low prim (30-40), slow because of the high vertex count of sculpties
4 - short style, very high prim with flowers intertwined with the hair (probably 150-200ish prims), slow for the same reason as 2

Prim count certainly isn't enough to make a judgement either, not all prim types are equally complex.

true, tortured and sculpted (due to the sculpt map textures) prims should be weighted in the counts. Flex also adds a good bit.

Let's chalk this up to a misunderstanding. First, I should have named Kathy rather than you, and I apologize for that. However, you replied to my post where I quoted her saying she'd mute me. Here it is in its entirety. You'll see it's consistent with what I said above, except misnaming the person.



If you read all my previous posts, you'll see that my attitude is one of trying to resolve issues and being cooperative in nature. I now regret using the term "pissing in the pool" which may have set things off in an unfortunate direction, but it is indicative of people who disregard the consequences of their actions on other people and that's what I was trying to convey. I didn't mean to say that anyone with a high ARC, at any time or place, is this kind of person, and I apologize for not being clearer about that.

It's not the ARC that gets someone banned, it's muting or ignoring someone who's trying to deal with the problem, showing a complete disregard for any kind of cooperation. If you're a cooperative type, you would not get banned. Let's chalk this disagreement up to the way things can get inflated in a forum, and a lack of crystal clarity in our posts.

I'll admit the 5000 figure was arbitrary and is definitely subject to revision.

My point above is that I'm being grossly misrepresented by people who claim that anyone on this thread said they'd ban someone outright for a high ARC score. I didn't *say* that, and if what I said lead anyone to think that, I apologize for my lack of clarity in communication.

I did a bit of a test yesterday, comparing the ARC scores caused by individual elements of a simple Human avatar and a simple furry avatar. Both were wearing the same dress, which added zero to their score. Both wore the same hair.

The Human had on a pair of high heels that added 50 to her arc score. So her total was about 150.

The furry avatar, with the same hair and dress, and wearing nothing else other than the avatar form with digitigrade legs and a flexi tail, was about 1025.

So it costs me roughly an additional 875 ARC points, just to be furry. And that wasn't for a high-end furry form that has lots of floofy flexi fur. The only flexi stuff was her tail.

I figure that anything under 1500 is doing pretty good, for a Furry. You can't expect to get much lower than 1000 with a non-human form that needs to use prim attachments.

And, my point is that, if you approach me with that "pissing in the pool" attitude, I will mute you. But you won't need to ban me because I'll be gone, never to return anyway.

I never said I wouldn't look at the ARC or use it as an aid in what I wear in what circumstances. But, I sure as heck am not going to come down on anyone else for their ARC score. Especially in the current mode where few people even use that viewer and haven't a clue what ARC is.

And, when you talk about low end machines, I know several people with G4 and G5 macs that can't even run 1.19.1.4 because it totally freezes their systems. So, no way they can have a clue about ARC.

IF someone specifically asks me about it and wants help to understand their score, I will be happy to work with them. But I will NOT walk up to someone and tell them their ARC is too high and they are "pissing in my pool" or any other variation on that theme.