What can I do about this lag?

Get more RAM 512 Mb appears to be a bottleneck on your system.

If you ever walk by someone and lag out, its probably because their bandwidth is too high.

I think what happens is that the person with the high bandwidth monopolizes the server and makes everyone else LAG. Technically I cannot see how that could happen because the server should 'round robin' to service all the clients equally. Unless of course the code is badly written

So,

If I run with a draw distance of 256 and a bandwidth of 1500 and receive FPS as I write this of between 43 and 51 is that bad for others or just good for me?

Maximum Bandwidth - Move this slider to the right to increase the download rate for data within Second Life. Decrease this slider to reduce download rates. Higher numbers may result in objects and avatars appearing more quickly. However, very large values may tax your computer and reduce performance. Residents often set this value to slightly less than their upload rate, or find the maximum value that doesn't result in excessive packet loss.

If you check there is a neewbie packet with Lag reducing tips. And here they are.

"1. Reduce your bandwidth to 500 or less go to: edit - preferences - network.

This setting is super important because it effects everyone around you as well as yourself. If you ever walk by someone and lag out, its probably because their bandwidth is too high. Turn around and mention it to them or IM them, they will end up thanking you for it.

2. Turn your draw distance down between 64 -90, go to: edit - preferences - graphics

The lower the setting the faster it is. Imagine your computer having to draw an entire sim at one time, ouch, thats a heavy strain.

3. Take off all the weapons and other scripted objects you arent using them. All shields MUST be turned off.

All those scripted objects will slow you down - do you really need your hug attachment on when raiding? Xcite is also a majorly scripted object and a bit embarrassing if you accidentally leave it on. Unless you were ordered to wear it constantly by your Mistress, i suggest removing it while not in use.

4. If you are really brave and hate lag, just get rid of the AO. Detach it, don't just say "ao off". AOs are one of the biggest lag monsters out there.


Other tips include (which may make the world not quite as pretty)

lower your particle count (lower the better, should never go over 1500)
set your terrain to low
Make sure your outfit composite is not over 2 and could be at 0
Set cache at 200
Uncheck Anisotropic Filtering"
And they do work.

Oh, the cache thing - a more techhie friend explained that when the cache is big and full the computer has to search through a lot of things to find something that is in cache. That slows things down - at some point it's quicker to download it again than to search through a big mess of cache. No clue where the break-even point is, or even how true that is.

Here are a few more suggestions I highly recommend.


1. Firstly if you have a DUEL CORE PROCESSOR it is of major importance to you that you disable one of those processors because LINDEN LABS does not support them!

Here is how to disable.
CTRL>ALT>DEL
HIGHLIGHT SECONDLIFE.EXE
RIGHT CLICK - New box pops up
CLICK on SET AFFINTY
You will then see CPU 0 and CPU 1
UNCLICK CPU 1
Hit OK and close out the rest of the boxes.

WALA....... you have just given yourself %50 of resources back to SECONDLIFE to operate on!


Another thing I do is dump the clouds ….

CLIENT MENU (top of screen, if it’s not there do CTRL>ALT>”D” )
RENDERING
TYPES
You will see several options in this menu. It depends upon what you find most important to you inside Secondlife as to what you disable. I suggest disabling: CLOUDS! Clouds are a huge resource eater.

The other thing that helps is to Dump your cache! Sign back onto SL and you have a clean Cache, of course you will still have to drive around the sim once so that your computer can recache the graphics but its well worth cleaning your cache once a day.

very well put Kalderi …..

On top of what Kalderi wrote ….. You can also think of it this way,

Lets say you have your cache limit set to 500mb, and as Kalderi said your computer has to search for the texture on the hard drive .. but lets say that texture is not on your hard drive and your cache is at 475mb, now this new texture is 50mb,,,, your computer has to first scan the hard drive to see if its there, if not it has to write to the drive, but first you only have 25mb of space available in your cache, so the computer needs to dump/delete/over write some of the cache in order to save it on the hard drive. This all effects performance, because of the various task your computer/hard drive have to perform. So if you have a clear cache … it just saves to the hard drive and you off and running

Interesting about the dual core processor.

I can assure you that SL does support dual core processors. There was even a post by Torley explaining how to get SL to work properly with dual core processors back in 2006!.

And taking the affinity from CPU1 actually takes 50% of the CPU resources away from the SL client, and gives it back to the computer.