Statistics Bar Explanation Wanted

Can anyone explain the stuff that appears on the Statistics Bar - about the bandwidth and FPS, etc, and how I tell if it's good or bad.

I'm trying to work out why I am getting more often than not sudden 1 frame a second viewing, and then sudden sporadic moves then back to the old 1 frame a second. It is making SL really hard to deal with.

I've had cleared the Cache, had the computer, the network checked etc, and all come back fine - but something is wrong, and it all started with the database issues. But that is supposedly to have been sorted - so I need to check for other sources of problems too before I think about logging another ticket.

Please be warned - I am not technically minded, so can all answers be kept simple to understand

Thanks in advance

Some flux is based on a number of criteria - how much "SL" you're processing (draw distance, number of triangles, etc), fluctuating bandwidth, and so forth. I think your case is a bit more drastic, though. It sounds like there's something bogging down your system - the video cache maybe, or just the OS - to the point where SL only seems to work in spurts.

Id begin at the beginning. How many other programs are running when you typically start SL? Also, what sort of computer and video card do you have? How much RAM?

I'm suggesting a video on the statistics bar to Torley, though.

I think most or all of it is explained here:

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=4004

I'm getting an error message on that URL ...

/looks to see if there's another way to get to it

Stupid KB, makes it difficult to link to specific articles at times. I've pasted the whole thing in here.

== paste ==

Well, NO, I *won't* be pasting it in here, because of the stupid forum bug that hands me a 403 Forboden error when certain words are in the post.

ARGH. Well, I tried.

Just go to the support page and do a search on "Statistics Bar Guide".

Oh yeah, I forgot about the. Once you actually get into the stupid KB, then you can paste in the link and it works.

I tried posting a bit of sound advice om Mainland buying in answere to a query a while back.
I put the 403 down to borkiness at the time. Very frstrating after going to the trouble of typing a few paragraphs.

THe mind boggles at what this word list might be.
LL's own KB contained banned words???
My 403'ed post was purely technical. It would take time and guesswork to find out the offending part.

Does anyone know the general flavour or words that get a 403?
Think of it! We could create a whole WTF scene by always spelling out c.e.r.t.a.i.n words.

Time to put the child to b.e.d sort of thing.

i think this page is fairly up to date as there are a few new things not in the kb article like "spare time" and new definition of "total frame time" in the 1.25 server deploy:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Statistics_Bar_Guide#Reading_the_Numbers

these are old articles but i found them helpful in interpreting all that stuff and what you can potentially do to resolve things:
read all 4 pages: http://www.massively.com/2008/09/29/massivelys-guide-to-reducing-your-second-life-lag-your-compute/

http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2006/12/18/under-the-grid-simulator-frame-times-and-lag/

lag myths: http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2008/02/16/lag-myths-dispelled/

Thanks to the links and a bit of searching, I found this:
https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=4004

Hope the link works, but in search box at the top right of the screen that one of the windows opened up at (it opened as error message) I entered Poor Performance, and cross referenced from there.

I found it all interesting even if I didn't get half of it, but it tells me that the Client Frame Rate is below 10.

I need to call my brother to look at this and sort it out - lol - it's his computer, and I think it would be better for him to try and sort it out - he is the computer savvy one afterall. hehehehe

Thanks for your help