ARC - So When Is It Too Much?

I resolved to myself, when ARC came out, that I would not be an ARC nazi. Well at my small club tonight, with a small audience, I noticed my computer just suddenly slow way the heck down, as if there were suddenly 50 avatars. I turned on the ARC monitor, and saw that of my two guest who just arrived, one had an ARC of 5000+, and the other had 13,000+. And wow, when they showed up, the performance of my computer went from smooth to dead.

I don't want to be an ARC nazi. But is there an ARC number that's just so insanely, astronomically high that I'm compelled to talk to someone about their ARC?

This is going to be fun to watch.

Just so you know my arc score is conssitantly in the yellow, often in the red. It's mostly my hair, and probably my skirts that I make. A little is my blingy earrings and scuptie heels. I don't intend to change my dressing habits for anyone's inability to tolerate my score of 3000.

The number is too arbitrary. I have a million ARC avatar that doesn't affect anyone's frame rate at all and I have a 1600 ARC avatar that will turn your client into a slide show. (=_=)

Personally, if my ARC is below 2000, I start to think something's missing. (^_^)y

No.

But, I suppose, since it is your club, you can do as you please and talk to people about anything you want. Personally, I might toss people out for bling or gesture spam, but I'm a bitch like that sometimes.

Here is a very long, technical discussion of lag: http://analutetia.com/2009/06/22/anatomy-of-lag/. I am not savvy enough to understand all of it. But it makes a persuasive case that most of what we believe about lag is wrong. I.e., even the highest ARC hair has only one or a few textures that don't affect lag much at all.

The ARC can (or it used to) change depending on how close you were cammed in on a person. I haven't played with it since it first came out, so it might be different now.

I deliberately pushed 14K+ and no one suffered any lack of performance.
What is funny is that people will complain about how a few particles might crash the DJ before they will complain about the 14K AV.

I did ask everyone there. *Shrugs*
Normally I am around the 3 - 5K mark. I like ~5K AVs they are normally the ones worth looking at.

I'm going to be controversial here and say that high ARC is never too high. If *your* PC slows when you view someone with a high ARC it means that *your* PC graphics system is too poor so upgrade your hardware.

Second solution is not to view that person.

Third solution is to use the Emerald viewer and derender that person.

The article referenced about anatomy of lag falls far short on many points by completely dismissing scripts as a problem.

Right now scripts are a HUGE problem see JIRA SVC-3895. Anyone with lots of mono scripted attachments will stall a sim when they teleport in. Scripts are also still a shared resource so where that article states "scripts will slow to a crawl first while the physics continues" is a rather pointless statement if you're at an dance event for example and it takes two minutes for the dance menu to come up because someone has a badly scripted item taking all the script time.

Scripts are also a big problem right now because of their memory requirements, see the thread on Script limits.

So yes, basically ARC is *your* problem and yours only and by choosing to remain in the 1990's with hardware, you're electing to maintain the view that SL doesn't need a high end PC (graphics capability), yet are in self denial that it does. ARC affects you and you only (or others like you with poor hardware), scripts affect the memory usage of the sim and that's everyone.

Want to see the script nazi's... that's coming!

You really have to ask that question? Green means good, yellow so-so, and red bad. Duh.

... and as a bonus you'll know if it was really that av, and if not you can unmute

Not really. Every once in awhile I turn it on for the fun of it, but it can be too easily gamed (both accidentally and on purpose) to really say anything.

Hair often results in a high ARC but you do not see many people that are bald or with linden hair because of the ARC. The same for any other "must have" attachments for various avatars, people are not going to suddenly detach them en masse for no good reason.

Watch your on-screen performance first, ARC later. If you're not lagging, why worry about numbers? If your having fun, why monitor the statistics? (^_^)y

Yes but it's all in the eye of the beholder

ARC is client side so it's your PC that is having the issue, that's not to say someone's ARC score isn't over the top, just that different people will see different scores. Also, checking ARC places load on your PC too.

Flat textured curl hair results in a high ARC, normal "prim volume" hair generally doesn't tend to be an ARC hog.

(Not that ARC is a good measurement if only because it doesn't take the complexity of prims into account at all)

I was sitting around chatting with some friends the other night. One of them got bored and turned on ARC and started comparing our numbers.

I know I'm an ARC hog...I love my prim hair and other multiple transparent textures. But I was shocked when she told me I was at 12,000.

It turned out to be one jewelry item...one which was, at the time, invisible. All those tiny, transparent prims gave it an ARC of around 7,000.

I took it off, and have been spending the last several days noting my performance and the overall subjective lag. I've seen no clear performance improvement.

It's all those resizer scripts the rest of you thoughtless people insist on leaving in your attachments. So there. Nyahhh.

I have to totally agree w/ this. We have surf sims and comps and if you don't strip down the scripts you are wearing it affects all the riders in the comp. Also if you have scripts you aren't using on a sim, you are gonna hit pockets of lag that will bring ya to a stop for a sec. We try to stay on top of our residents about leaving pets out, scripted furniture, boards out that aren't on display mode, etc. As much as I love my scirpted stuff, if I notice the lag conditions get bad, everything gets shut off.

My guess on that is because 100% transparent objects don't get rendered. I don't have solid proof, but, I've run a few experiments and found that once a collection of objects/prims/whatever hit 100% transparency for the entire face they seem to no longer impact FPS. (^_^)

But!!! They still count in the ARC scoring method. (^_^)y

I have one formal gown that's DEFINITELY a lag monster. I've never been able to wear it anywhere without slowing everyone down to a crawl.

Just for fun, I should wear that and see what its ARC is. I should probably peek at the content too. I don't THINK it's loaded with scripts, but I've never checked.

It's elaborately textured and certainly has lots of flexiprims and alpha textures, but I've never really understood why this one outfit is so ferociously laggy.

QFT

It seems a perfectly reasonable use of ARC scores to observe a slow-down and then look at the scores to confirm an observation, as the OP reports. What one then *does* about it would depend on one's role, I suppose: If responsible for keeping a venue pleasant for a number of customers--not all of whom can be assumed to have the fastest graphics cards--then one might have a gentle chat with the ARCiferous visitors.

Or one could make a public announcement: "Hey, save your GPU, everyone! De-render Suzy Blingificent and Sally Primtastic!"

There are all sorts of problems with the ARC score, so yeah: it's not a great tool to monitor as an early indicator of anything, but if one already has evidence that a particular avatar is causing pain to one's FPS and those of one's guests then I'm not sure ignoring it is a reasonable response.

Qie is always so reasonable and thoughtful.

Then there are the knee-jerk responses:

"You have EMERALD! You're a copybotter!" BANNED.
"You are SHORT! You're a child avatar!" AR'd.
"You are a child avatar! You are a PEDOPHILE!" AR'd.
"You are looking at my profile! PERVERT!" BANNED.
"You are carrying a weapon! You're a GRIEFER!" BANNED.
"You have a high ARC! You're lagging me!" BANNED.
"You are standing around in my store! You're copying my STUFF!" BANNED, AR'd.
"You wished me Happy Thanksgiving! You are an insular YANKEE!"
"You are not responding to me! You are an insensitive bitch!" (hey, I'm in twelve IMs!)
"You are wearing BLING! You are a NOOB!" Oh wait...that's my line.

LL should never have given the masses a tool like the ARC meter, called it "Avatar Rendering Cost" and stuck it in the main UI menus. It's way too easy for a kneejerker to misuse it.

It's referred to as "avatar) shame" in the code... "avatar rendering cost" is a vast improvement over that .

But, Lindal, don't you know we all should consider the folks who are running SL on a $149 Netbook.........I mean, after all they they spend those $L's they so patiently sat on a camping chair for 24 hours to get. They also deserve tools to use to find the inconsiderant folks who can actually run SL at medium settings or higher so they can whine and scream that we just don't care.

Well, guess what...........I don't. You don't need a top of the line computer to run SL satisfactorly. All you need is to accept that you are playing a game that requires a computer capable of a little more than web browsing, email checking, and Yahoo messenger.

My take on threads like this is that people are too concerned about how considerate they are.........and expect people like me agree. I'm not an inconsiderate person. I will take off sciprted items (actually, I never did use much of those anyway). I will remove excessive bling (but not my earrings ). But I won't worry over someone's inability to play simply because they do not have a machine capable of running SL unless everyone around them puts on the default avatar, removes all prim atttachments, shuts down all their AO's to accommadate that problem they have......they can suffer with what they have or they can upgrade to something better.