I've Got the Jitters!

Techie question here...

First off, here are my specs:

Second Life 1.22.5 (107013) Dec 31 2008 13:30:40 (Second Life Release Candidate)
Release Notes

CPU: AMD (Unknown model) (2204 MHz)
Memory: 2047 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 7600 GS/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW!

Now, here's the problem. No matter my Graphics preferences (all are turned down or off, draw distance is 64 etc) or my attachments (all AOs and HUDs are detached, and nothing scripted is worn) or my location (can be home or somewhere totally new) I'm totally jittery. My movements are jittery, all camera pans are jittery, all particles (when I've got them turned on) jitter across the screen. It's very frustrating.

I've done all the usual; cleared cache, deleted the entire Application Data directory altogether, reinstalled the client, and updated drivers.

It is NOT MY NETWORK, as the other computer can run SL very smoothly (it's running two 8800 Nvidia cards.) Is it my card? It's 2 years old; is it just dying on me? Or is there something else I can tweak?

I have a computer laying around with those same specs. I can confirm "jittery" to be the performance I get out of it.

And yeah that card isn't the best. Sorry

Try less caffeine?

I've got a 7800GT which is better but not THAT much better, I think, and usually run pretty well. That's with mediumish settings and in a 1600x1200 window in a packed club. It's not great but it's not bad.

If you sit on a cube and move it up into the stratosphere where there's nothing around, do you still have the problem? If so, you might want to look into what else is running on your PC. Do you have anything else eating up CPU cycles? Do you have a virus scanner and if so, have you added SL as something that it should ignore?

After some research (you mentioned this the other day, so I did some bookwork) and the consensus seems to be either something interfering with the monitor line, or the power line. Apparently, this symptom shows up because of uneven power being delivered to the CPU itself, or more likely, the monitor.

Is your computer sharing the same house circuit with the fridge, or the big screen television? Try putting the monitor and CPU on a different circuit. This is a big guess, but if the situation improves then you need some sort of line conditioner.

I keep telling her, always use conditioner.

/shakes head

Would it mean anything if I said that this only really started like a few weeks ago, and nothing else re: TV, etc has changed?

I am running a Nividia 6800 with no problems at all.

Chris, what are the rest of your computer specs? Are you running the RC, or another client?

AMD Athlon XP 3200 2.20GHz
2 GB RAM
Windows XP SP2 (I refused the upgrade)

SL release
1.20.17 98669

Unless you've got really lousy power at your place or your power supply is starting to die, I don't think this sounds like a power problem. The voltage regulators in your PC should smooth out all but the most nasty of these sorts of problems. Do you also notice lightbulbs flickering or dimming?

I've seen this sorta problem when scheduled background tasks start to run. My DVR, which talks to software on my PC, downloads new info at midnight every night. If I'm on SL when this happens, things get all jittery and annoying for 10 minutes or so. Once the DVR is happy, SL smooths right out again.

Holy mackeral, yes. And that just started a few weeks ago as well. Happens maybe once or twice a day. Those lights are the ceiling lights; they're not plugged into the wall, and yours truly looks at the circuit breaker box and just sees a bunch of switches, so I couldn't tell you if they're on the same circuit. Should I call the landlord and get the handy guy out here?

And this started a couple/few weeks ago? Do you also live in New England?

Yep. Call the landlord, after you check the lightbulbs and make sure that they haven't wiggled out or anything like that. It could be that the supply to the house is flakey/underpowered or that there's something wrong inside the house.

This isn't overly good for your PC or any other complicated electronic gizmos. If you don't do backups, this might be a very good time to start.

edit: and don't get too excited yet. My bet is still that you've got something else beating up on your CPU..

No I live in Washington state, with Puget Sound energy, which is notorious for bad connections. Re: light bulbs... it's not just one ceiling light that dims, it's the entire house (including the fridge) that momentarily slows.

As far as other programs running on my computer, here's a screen shot of my ctrl-alt-del "owner" programs...



What can I safely shut down?

I don't know whether the power fluctuations are causing the SL problems, but I encourage you at a minimum to get a surge suppressor.

Better yet, get a UPS (battery backup, not a parcel shipment company). These are not only for power outages, but also for brownouts. They'll use the battery power to maintain level voltage levels. This is really a more important benefit, because typical home UPS systems can't power the computer for more than 15-30 minutes during a blackout. Consumer level UPS systems can be found for $50-$100 (US).

Try this:

http://www.optimizingpc.com/optimize/windowsservices.html

http://www.codecavalier.com/blackviper/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Work blocks flickr..

/me seconds Kidd's suggestion to get some sort of power protection.

edit: in task manager, click the Processes tab and make sure "Show processes from all users" at the bottom is checked. If there's no column for CPU, click View -> Select Columns... and put a checkmark next to CPU Usage.

Click the column that says CPU to sort all the processes by the amount of CPU they're using. When you're running SL, SL will probably be on the top of the list. Is there anything else that's showing a usage of more than, say, 1-2?

Washington had a lot of snow not too long ago. I would also ask the neighbors if they are having the same problem and call the power company. It could be something outside of the house causing this problem. You never know.

That's why I was asking about New England.. We had about a million people without power a few weeks ago due to an ice storm. Many, many power lines down and much rewiring to be done. Given the rush they were in to get people powered up again, I could see some getting a less-than-perfect repair...

Me too, even if they weren't in a rush. The power was out all over the NW during this storm.

Well a little update: I called the power company and they said that they've had some issues in my neighborhood and will be out later.

Also, I tried Brenda's ideas regarding disabling XP services at the websites she provided, and boom, SL runs smooth as silk. At least for now. We'll see as the day goes on.

Which ones did you disable?

Only the ones that this site

http://www.optimizingpc.com/optimize/windowsservices.html

listed as being okay to disable. If I wasn't sure, I left it as automatic or manual. For the most part, they were things like wireless automatic setup, etc.

Using that site, I can get down to 14 running processes, which helps my little graphics card out a lot.