The Slow Rezzing World

Over the last week or so, I have received dozens of reports from long time players, on many different clients, geographically dispersed as is the SL player-base, that in-game locations are taking anywhere from minutes to forever to fully rez.

I have heard alternate Lindens both confirm and deny this phenomenon.

To the best of my ability to characterize this, it seems that it is primarily texture assets, it is independent of hour or number of active clients, sim status or sim load. When this occurs, ping times are nominal, packet loss is nil, every other aspect of the client and service (e.g. UI, chat, IM) appear to be acting normally and the used bandwith is minimal. That is, it appears that the server is not even attempting to send texture data. The phenomenon also seems to be unaffected by cache status whereby even low prim, low texture, home locations are as likely to suffer slow rez as are novel locales.

The single confounding data that I have found is that textures uploaded years ago do not seem to be so affected even after clearing the local disk cache. I have also experienced it on the most recent 1.7 preview (which I believe uses the main asset server).

I would cite the players who have reported experiencing this phenomenon but for forum rules. I've heard the question too many times "is it just me or...". So I am asking it here.

I have had more lag and more problems with rezzing in the past week and a half than I have had in awhile, So has everyone else I know. You know what that means...it should be about time for an 'Update'. I am just thankful that TP's go through on a more consistent basis, can't be greedy I guess.

I, too, have been experiencing the same problems. And most notably, my "home" location is taking just as long to rez - it is almost as if none of my textures are caching at all.

I figure there are at least two games: The one I play and see, and the one everybody else does.

This morning I went to see Burning Life on my alt and was walking around in the fog and blur as usual. Clicking on things to see who made them. Then I decided to up my draw distance from 64, all the way up! That way I could see what things really look like (except shiny, that is a grayed-out option).

So I could either (a) look around and use the camera to look around or (b) actually move and click on items to see who made them. Or switch around with different draw distances doing a various combination of the options. So I did all the above for a while till I got impatient with the whole thing.

THIS is why I play a relatively isolated game. I can sit on my land or building spot and build to my heart's content. Fortunately, I love to do that. I can go to large group things, and sit there, and even talk, as long as I don't try to move around and have just something like a tree in view.

But I can't really get the big picture of any place and move at the same time, so exploring and whatnot isn't real satisfying. I suspect a lot of people are in that boat.

This would bother me more, except it doesn't get in the way of building (or playing Bingo or chatting or some other things I do) at all. And I should be happy just building for, oh, the next 6-8 years or so, lol.

Plus, I played Anarchy Online with the wrong settings all the way up to level 60 without being able to see more than six feet in front of my avatar's face. THAT pissed me off mightily when I discovered it, so this situation here seems like small potatoes in comparison.

I do think, though, that they should lower the default settings for draw distance, etc., to the minimum, because I almost quit over that before someone clued me in, and I suspect lots of others DO quit over precisely that, especially if they don't already have friends here to clue them in.

This being a technological thread, I may not be putting these thoughts in the right place, really, since I'm kinda dim regarding technology. But it looked like the right place.

coco

I'll just chime in with a simple...ME TOO!

I also notice a difference, but I know the reason.

I purchased a new, faster graphics card recently and was able to significantly increase my draw distance. Once everything is rezzed, SL seems to run just as well at 320~m now as it did with my older card at 96m. However, my cable connection hasn't improved. So, while the card can handle more, it takes longer for the extra data to transfer. Hence, the world takes longer to rez.

I wonder if others have upped their draw distance over time, then wonder why a location takes longer to rez.

Thanks for the input Coco and DoteDote, but this slow-rez is not affected at all by draw distance. Regardless of whether my draw distance is at at 64m or 512m, the textures aren't being sent as evidenced by essentially no traffic even while the world is half visible for minutes. This goes for all I've spoken to on the matter, most of whom never change draw distance. Neither is it affected by presence or absence of streaming sound.

Still puzzled. But thanks for the additional datapoint, Lizbeth.

I read somewhere, sometime, that textures are kept on the asset server of the sim in which you were standing when you uploaded them. Is this true? My concern here is that a lot of stuff is first built in sandboxes. Could the popular sandboxes be struggling under the load of servicing everyone using these textures?
Introvert, you mention old textures working fine - could you try uploading a new texture while standing in a quiet, lesser used sim, then build stuff elsewhere using that tex and see how it fares over a few days.
(Would do it myself, but over my line EVERYTHING lags and drops packets anyway)

That is a useful suggestion, Ben, and I will endeavor to do so, especially as the world failed to be not mostly invisible for me and my associates again last night.

If anyone knows how to interpret the Ctrl-Shift-2 graph-of-no-description regarding texture loading, information or pointers would be appreciated.

How's the object rendering speed and texture loading speed doing since 1.8.1(6)?

I haven't been in much to test it, but I am curious to know if the latest upgrade has made any difference to those who have experienced the texture rendering issue. I didn't realize that this problem had started prior to the 1.7 upgrade as indicated by the date of the original post. I personally did not have any issues until 1.7, but this is a very good description of my experience since that upgrade.

Since I've had almost *zero* problem with texture rezzing (periodically, start up will take longer than it used to while textures rez) I can't really give you much insight. I logged on briefly last night twice, and it seems my start up texture rezzing was slightly faster (maybe took a coupla seconds, as opposed to 20 seconds maximum). But that's a sample size of 2 logins.

I replaced my old hub with a new router because a Linden staffer attributed my gray loading textures to network problems.

The router does seem to have essentially eliminated my out of order packet messages in the debug console.

Unfortunately it hasn't done doodly-squat for the gray loading textures and the extremely slow object rendering.

Can't fly at unaided flight speed along a highway and see the highway until you have passed it, I have to stop and look backward to see the road rez.

Nope, because no matter how staunchly Linden Lab wants you to believe that their asset system isn't overloaded, it is.

Ask me how many times someone has teleported to me and said "hang on, rezzing". No don't it is too many to count.

Linden Lab has ceased denying that there is an issue and have simply gone mute on the subject while their customer base just becomes used to it. Grey Life® has not gotten any better, indeed it has gotten worse. The customers have just gotten tired of complaining about a problem that there is no answer to. It has reached the point of being irritated at the tides; be annoyed all you want, they aren't going to change.

B4 the last update I NEVER experienced the texture rez probs so many people describe. Sure there were places where, at a really busy event, it might take like a count of 5 to get everything visible. I feel fortunate to almost always have fps around 10-15. Lowest ever has been like 5. But since this update.....seems I've got the texture rex blues.

Especially worse when first logging in. Everything is grey boxes, lines. Need to wait a full 2 to 3 minutes for everything to fully rez. I have started loggin in and then walking downstairs to get coffee. And if I pop over to the neighboring SIM after it does rez, and pop back, it starts all over again. Granted the second time it's faster (1 minute) but this never never never happened b4 the last update to me.

I still get high fps. Almost no packet loss. Bandwidth is the same.....but the other is the pits. I also have an older laptop I use if I connect from downstairs which renders the textures BETTER. But my main computer has tanked texture wise since the update.

You're not alone Horus.

Last week's (Jan 27?) update made SL unusable for me. This week's update didn't do a thing to correct it either.

I too NEVER had any problems, until last week's update <frown>. Now, it takes FOREVER for the local area to rez (being teleported or simply flying to a new area). And I've set ALL of the graphic options to UNchecked and set sliders to MINIMUM values. Not much to see at these low levels <sigh>.

Also NEVER had a problem with packet loss, but since last week, any time I press a movement key, Packet Loss goes to 100% and it takes my avatar 10 or 20 seconds to respond.

My system is an Intel 3.06 GHz CPU, 1 GB of RAM, an ATI 9700 Pro graphics card with 128 MB of RAM, a 512 kbps DSL line, and plenty of empty disk space.

Sure hope Linden Labs does SOMETHING to fix whatever they BROKE, and SOON!