Bandwidth settings?

ok, i've read thru a few dozen threads talking about bandwidth and what to set the max bandwidth to and am still confused. i am only slightly techno savy, but can most likely understand if someone can explain in plain english.
my system is an old Dell Dimension 2350, with maxed out RAM (1GB), upgraded PSU, nVidia 8400 GS video card and i have DSL 1.5kbps inet connection (hopefully will decide whether or not to get FIOS soon tho).
it runs SL fairly decent, and i have had help making the settings in preferences optimized for my system, but this "max bandwidth" thing still confuses me.
i've read ppl say that it should be set to 500.
and then i see ppl say to set it at the max your isp's bandwidth will provide?!!! what the heck does that mean?
right now, mine is set to 900 but other than spending alot of time (which i dont have alot of free) changing settings a little at a time to see if or what difference it makes, can someone pls give me some guidelines for what the max number should be for my machine?
Thx in advance for any assistance.

Set it low - if you set it high its like asking for a river to come out of your sink faucet - your plumbing will get backed up and scrambled, and it will take twice as long trying to put the pieces back together and figure out what was missed down the wrong pipe and needs to be ordered again...

ok, but what number is considered "low"?
i want to maximize my experience and was kinda looking for a particular setting suggestion based on my system and connection.

500 is the default. For a 1.5 meg pipe you should only use 750 about 1/2.

But try experimenting since bandwidth settings also depends on how good your Internet service is between you and SL not just hardware.

Open up your Statistics Bar (Ctrl-Shift-1) and crank up the network speed. Keep a watch on Packet loss and FPS. Try TPing to different sims and when you found a setting that don't reduce the numbers, that's the one for you.

I've had mine set to 1500 every since I started using a viewer that let me set it that high. I actually get much better performance with it this high. My indicator lights almost never hit yellow and I pretty much never experience any packet loss.

You should set your bandwidth to the highest your system/ISP can handle (for optimum performance). Most systems can handle the maximum LL allows (1500 kps or 1.5 mps). The limiting factor is usually the ISP's speed. You are extremebly unlikely to get your advertised speed with any consistancy at all. You say your connection speed is 1.5 mps.........in a perfect world you could max your setting in SL. But it ain't a perfect world so your setting should probably be somewhat lower. Someone mentioned 50% of your connection speed......as a rule of thumb that is probably a good, conservative guess.

The best way to know your connection speed is to test it. The linked sites offer tests for free.....easy to do and don't take a lot of time.

http://www.speedtest.net/

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

It's best to do several tests to different test centers and take a general average......San Franscisco has a test center which is where the bulk of LL's servers are. There are co-locations scattered around the world. One is in Dallas, TX and I believe there are a couple in Europe (though I'm not sure about that and have no idea where they might be if there are servers centers). So testing San Francisco and Dallas would be logical. In order to get a good idea of the real, consistant speed you should test a few centers at different times of the day over a period of a week or so. Just to get a generalized speed for all times of the day. It's not necessary to set your speed exactly what your connection speed is. But to avoid the chances of excessive packet loss it's best to keep the bandwidth slightly below what your maximum average is. It doesn't hurt anything if your bandwidth is set over your connections speed........in fact, you probably won't notice any difference. Only if you are extremebly over what your ISP can deliver will you see excessive packet.......that is MOST of the time (sometimes even a little above can cause problems).

There is no hard rule about bandwidth settings. Too low probably doesn't slow you down much anyway. If you don't want to go through all that testing and getting an average, setting it to about 1/2 or 3/4 of your advertised speed should do you fine.

Thx for all the info...
first, i have done that speedtest thing recently from several different websites (including the ones listed here), and my average (with 1.5dsl) seems to be about 1.3, and as i said in my original post, i have my b/w setting in SL set at 900...so, it seems that judging by what all you've said, i am probably at my optimal setting right now.
Thx again for all the replies

Ok, question... I did the test to multiple locations on both coasts and Texas. Average was 6133kbps/414kbps. That is 6.0 million bps right? So considering that my husband plays WoW often while I'm on SL would I be correct in dividing the 6 by 2 = 3 million bps then dividing that again by 2 = 1.5 million bps since we're splitting our bandwidth?

The bandwidth you tested at is the total for your connection through your ISP to a designated test server. That total can be one computer or a dozen computers.....you won't get more than the speed your ISP provides. Your router will divey up the bandwidth for each computer connected to through it........probably evenly split. Using both SL and WoW at the same time I don't believe will slow any data transfer rate to either game. LL only allows 1500 kbps ...........I don't know how much WoW allows but it's probably about the same. The total between the two isn't even close to the speed you tested at. Both computers, one on SL and one on Wow, won't exceed your bandwidth............and won't slow either game down.

Remember though, that test speed is determined by downloading from a designated server so your speed to LL and WoW may be different......though that should be close to the speed tested.

Thank you very much.

Am I getting confused because I thought that "Band Width" and "Download Speed" were different.

I had a look at the Statistics Panel and it showed that my Band Width was running at 3 to 4kbs. Is this good or bad. I am connected via DSL on a broad band that is surposed to be 10m but tests show it is anything up to 6.

I'm certainly no expert but my understanding is the first number is the download and the second number is the upload number. So my high speed DSL connection shows 6133kbps and my upload rate is 414kbps thus the 6133kbps/414kbps average I received when I did the test. There are people here who are a LOT more knowledgeable about this then me so perhaps one of them will correct me and/or expand on my response.

First, go look at the Statistics Bar page:

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

The two relevant numbers are Bandwidth and Packet Loss. In addition to not maxing out your internet connection, your computer has to *do* something with the data as it comes in. If it can't, then some data packets can get dropped or overwritten before they are handled. So if your bandwidth setting is too high for your computer, you will see packet loss go up from 0. Anything above 0 is bad, since it forces the server to send the data *again*. That makes it work harder, and just clogs up your in basket more.

Sometimes packet loss is due to other causes than your PC, but you can watch the value in the Stats window as you play with the bandwidth setting.

Sorry for the stupid question, but should I be looking at the download speed or the upload speed, or what, when I try to check my performance? Download, I take it, is SL sending stuff to my computer (around 9.5Mbs, it seems, between the US and me in the UK) and upload is me sending stuff back to SL (around 0.5 Mbs). Ping is about 160 ms. What settings does all that imply I should be using?

I got this info from a thread over the road:

"Lets head over to http://speedtest.net/. Run the test there and write down your download kb/s. Move the decimal one place to the left. That is a safe number to use for "Maximum Bandwidth" in the Network tab of SL. For instance mine is 6047, so my Maximum bandwidth is 604. The SL servers need to know how fast they can send information do you, so setting this too high will only cause you to get a lot of packet loss, and lag. Too low and it's not optimal."

Is that good advice? Seems way low from the replies I've read here.

This means you have a pretty good network connection, and can set your values high.

But, as always, if your packet loss is over zero, back down the bandwidth setting.