How many prims ?

Can anyone tell me what the upper limit of prims its possible to make avaialble on 512 sqm of land is. Is 117 the limit ?

My own opinion is that the current limit which seems to work out at less than 1 prim a sq m is stingy . I think it should be upped.

On mainland, yes 117 is the upper limit.

On an island, it can vary depending how the estate owner has allocated the prim allowances - but a region/island can only contain a maximum of 15,000 prims, so if one plot of land has a higher allocation, another would need a lower one to balance things out.

Gomez

Yes, on a 512, 117 is the limit.

It's not stingy, it's just the reality of the hardware (on both ends). The position of every single prim in the sim has to be tracked by the server, not to mention, your client has to render all the prims in your view minus occluded objects. Everyone seems to think LL is stingy or money hungry about the prim issue, but the reality of the situation is that computer hardware has it's limitations, and LL has decided that 15000 prims per sim is the best mix between sim performance and building capabilities of content creators. If you want more prims, you'll need to buy more land, and if you need more than 15000 prims, you're out of luck.

Personally, I started with 512 square meters of land, which was enough for my initial creations. There were times when I'd hit the prim wall, but you're best bet is to look at it like a challenge. One of the earliest things I did was to try and create lower prim versions of the same thing. For example, I pulled out a freebie coffee table I had obtained, and noticed it was 9 prims. I unlinked it, and saw that it was quite wasteful with the prims. I then proceded to build a lower prim version, and soon had it down to 5, then 2, then, via some creative usage of texturing, got it down to 1 prim. I had reduced the prim usage by over 88 percent! Now, on a 9 prim object, that's only 8 prims, but when your upper limit is 117, that's almost 7 percent of the prim allocation.

Don't try to build an object entirely out of prims. Sit back, and think about what detail you can create via texturing, and use texturing to add alot of the detail. Examine things you see in world to see what I mean. Also, sculpted prims were a major advancement to SL. I shaved 18 prims off of a grandfather clock I had made using sculpted prims, and the clock looks 100 times better, not to mention, sells better than the orginal one ever did.

Want more prims? Get Photoshop or Gimp (which is free), and there's the solution to your problem.

I cant help wondering if instead of opening more and more sims (when there seems to be plenty of land avaialble for sale) wouldnt it be nice to improve things for existing customers by upping the amount of prims to 'play with' on the 'land' that is already there.

Ive had to cut back on prims and I think it sacrifices detail which makes a property look good - a rope barrier around my tower had to go and a causeway of basalt columns from a cliff to my beachfront instead of steps had to go to...

If it were feasible Id have said each one square metre of land should have 1 prim attached to it.

As Johan has already said, there are finate resourses on the hardware... It's not just a case of LL setting the limit to make you buy more land, is beause of the limitations of both the server, and to allow the mojority of client PC's to be able to "see" the objects. Not every user has cutting edge PC's.

With the current hardware limitations, the only feasable way to allow more prims per sqm would be to make each region smaller in size, which would have it's own issues...

Gomez

How is 117 prims for 512 sq metre less than 1 per sq m? It's nearer to 4.5 per sq. m.

Hm, I think you should take a look at your calculations again

I think that is turned around. I calculated prim allotment at 1 per 4.5 sq. m.

512 goes into 117 4.5 times? o.o

Anyway.. I'd like to see someplace loaded with a prim per meter lol... then try rezzing it in a reasonable amount of time.... harder than just rezzing 117 prims that take up more space yeah? But anyway, while the prim limit can be annoying if aiming for extravagance, its generally plenty... I don't think anyone who can't afford 1024m or so should have a large house. If you can afford 512, make something size appropriate. I have 2800m or so, and I've got a 3 story home, 2 gardens, and I have 75 prims left... I'm more than happy with my prim alotment compared to the size of my property (I'm more bothered by the shape lol)

If I loan you $117USD, will you pay me back in 4 monthly installments of $512?

Like I said cut back on all the unecessay building of new sims - theres plenty of land avaialble as is - and give something back to those who want to enhance their properties and make em look good.

I have 8000 sq m approx and yet less than 2000 prims. After rezzing a tower and my sky station its all gone. Nothing left to beuatify the land or enhance the coastal ecosystem. On an area of land the size I have Im supposed to make do with a hut to live in ??

A hut!? How big are your tower and sky station!? I have way less than half your prim limit, and yet I have two gardens, a full 3 story home, and am adding in an office sky box. What are your buildings made out of!?

With your prim limit I could make a tower leading *to* your skystation and back, and still be able to have my current house. You just have to use your prim limit effectively, and not use prims where unneeded. Oh, and Linden trees are your friends. One prim, nice trees, even sway...

Theyre big but then who heard of a small tower and a small space station ... (feel free to visit Chilispoon and look my tower is on the shoreline and IMPOSSIBLE to miss )

I think to enjoy sl I need at least 16000 sq m...but VAT put paid to that. I might have to bite the bullett dig deep and see what extra funds are availble but I definately think there is room for Lindens to up the prim count even an extra 50 per 512 sq m would be nice.

This isn't quite true. Prims can be allocated on the mainland just like an Island. In my mainland hotel, I'm giving tenants between 200 to 400 prims for each of their apartments. Their prims plus the building are about 5000 prims, and the whole hotel is sitting on only about 1100 sq meters of land. If 117 were the limit per 512 I'd only have a useless 234 prim hotel. So I'm allocating prims from the rest of the sim exactly like an estate owner does. The estate owner can literally allocate the prim limits on the parcels (I think), but this difference is transparent to the end user.

Exactly, a single parcel on mainland, if thats all you own there, however can only have so much. Ever.

But on a private island, with only one parcel of 512, you can have more than one parcel of 512 on the mainland. You aren't allocating prims to parcels on mainland, you're just allowing them to use your excess from your land.

Yes, i can see what you are saying, but it's not the same as proper allocation - the best you can do is tell your tennant to only put down X prims - you cannot physically set a hard limit per plot land like you can on an estate.

But I do agree that it is one way of making it appear that you can place more than 117 prims per 512sqm, although the "primitives parcel supports" would still show the 117 limit.

Gomez

Isnt the correlation between 512 and 117 rather odd anyway ? Im sure there must be some mathematical reason for it- but what ? 117 isnt for example a fifth of 512 I could perhaps understand if it were.

Is this limit set as a result of a line someone typed into a piece of software or is it determined by the 'memory' in lindens computers ?

I wonder if someone sat down and decided 'right we're going to have 117 prims to 512 square metres of land' - not 100 to 500 for example or anything more seemingly more logical.


The figure seems rather arbitrary and as such Im wondering if it could be changed.

No, Maelstrom, it isn't really totally arbitrary. 256 is a nice number divisible by a lot of factors, so make that the standard length of a Sim. Square that and you get 65,536 sq meters total.

Now, 15000 is a really nice round number of prims that everyone can remember. Divide that out by the 128 512 parcels in the sim and you get the strange looking 117.1875.

And yes we all wish it could be more!

okay Im going for a lie down now

Could you please fix the national debt...?

Which also begs the question - where DO the other 24 prims go if you carve the region into 512's

Gomez

My calculation is wrong, original post is right. Don't know what I was thinking, must have been confusing my differential calculus with my euclidian bi-polar trigonometry!!!LOL

If you buy more land in the same sim, you can use the prim allocation from that additional land on the 512SM plot that you are building on.

and then I can buy another plot to use the prims on the plot whose prims I used to sort out the first deficient plot ....

and then I can buy another plot to do up the previous plot...and then I can ...


heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy NOW I GET IT what an ingenious way of selling land

No, the prim allowances for all the plots you own on a single sim are "pooled", so you can use them where you like, aso long as you are within the pooled allowance - again up to the 15000 limit assuming you own all the land on that sim.

Gomez