1.8.1 : Rejoice! Or flee in terror!

Second Life 1.8.1 Jan 11 , 2006
======================
* Property Lines option is now turned on and off by pressing
CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-P (Windows) or CMD-OPT-SHIFT-P (Mac), or by using the
View > "Property Lines" menu item
* Linden-owned Welcome Area and Sandbox regions are no longer displayed
in the list of high-traffic areas
* Fixed a crash that occurred when teleporting
* llGetMass() now gets the mass of an avatar instead of an attachment
* Description field for newly created landmarks is now properly greyed out
* Resolved an issue where editing a single prim using Edit Linked Parts
would negate movement and rotation settings
* Implemented several server-side and database updates to improve
stability and performance
* Added some small interface changes to improve usability
=====================

I for one welcome our new less crashy overlords.
I'm only saddened by the lack of llTeleportAgent();
Meaning, damnit, I still have to WALK PLACES.

Fat, lazy American.

* Added some small interface changes to improve usability

I wonder what this is. SL needs a bit more than "small" changes to make it more usable.

I dunno. This all seems like minor fixes.

What about the fact that I freeze every two seconds and jitter when I turn (since 1.6) or the texture thingie, or the cache, or the interest list bug, or the music bug, ...or or or.... *sigh*

I'm pretty ticked off that there isn't some sort of asset/rezzing fix, and the fact that they picked my only damn day off to 'update' But hey, as long as the sandboxes aren't listed in dwell anymore...

FIX THE FUCKING TEXTURE CACHE. I'm so tired of having to wait for places to load just after i visited the place minutes ago.

I went to Nominee, waited for all those damned textures to load...Left the island.. Returned 5 mins later and had to wait AGAIN for all those damned textures.

again, FIX THE TEXTURE CACHE!

It's no surprise Wells Fargo bailed out.

* Resolved an issue where editing a single prim using Edit Linked Parts
would negate movement and rotation settings



/me cracks open the champagne

It would be nice to know what bugs or conditions are being addressed under improve stability, performance, and usability.
.

This isn't necessary LL's fault, it's a hazard with user-created content. The cache size can only get so big before something has to be lost. Often arriving in a new sim, especially on the mainland with surrounding sims, there's more than enough crap to deplete the cache, especially if you don't have it cranked all the way up to a gig, which is sadly the max. The problem is that texture uploads are unlimited, you can upload a 2048x2048 targa with photo realism and alpha channels and slap it on a prim.

In my sim, there's a store that has verging on 100+ mix of 2048x2048 and 2048x1024 textures just in that one store. On a 1024m plot out of the whole sim, plus sims on all sides. I try to keep all my textures down to 512x512 or (usually) less with decent compression, but you can only go so far without serious quality loss. When you teleport back to where you were, often it has to redownload anything because it had to flush it to make room for where you were in the interim.

Plus I'm sure it's caching more than just textures. It has to cache sounds (which are wave files, even), object information and all that fun stuff too.

When I first got here in Feb '05, someone was quoting a Linden as having said that the content in one area could easily exceed 512 megabytes. Your mileage will vary of course, but again, hazard of having the freedom.

EDIT: Disclaimer: Not saying it ISN'T LL's fault, just saying, it's quite likely our own damn faults.

I second that. Happy Happy.

Yeah. That bothered me to no end. Like 'use grid' unchecking itself.

You are totally wrong. This *IS* LL's fault. Prior to 1.8.x there were zero texture caching issues. I could teleport to the same place multiple times and not have to wait for textures to load. AFTER 1.8, the waiting began, textures take forever to load and the caching is virtually non-existant. It doesn't take a degree to realize that texture caching was fine prior to 1.8.

And yes I understand you are not saying it's LL fault, but saying that it is most likely our own fault is ignorance.


Edited: The most obvious proof of the borked texture cache is texture load speed on logging in - your last location should be cached therefore having a zero load time on login.

And "someone quoting a Linden" is hardly a source of legitimate information.

Prissa Flower

For all of you who are griping, this particular item covers a lot of ground.

But I know, you're only happy when it rains. What a bunch of whiners.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: if it was SL itself that was intrinsically broken, I think we'd all be having more or less the same problems. There are issues, yes, but not all of them are found within SL.

I have a decent computer, but BY NO MEANS top of the line (AMD Athlon XP 2700+, ATI Radeon 9600 video card, but I *do* have 1.5 GB of RAM) and, while I do occasionally experience the so-called "GreyLife" problem, it doesn't happen very often nor does it normally last very long.

If you are trying to run SL with less than 1GB of RAM, consider upgrading. RAM is cheap these days. And before you jump down my throat, I mean I remember the days (in the early 90's) when a power user's machine would have a 386 chip running at 25 MHz with 4 MB of RAM, and it cost $50 to $70 per MB to upgrade it. (OK, I'm old, shut up.)

I was running 512 MB of ram up til about 2 months ago. I added two more 512 sticks, which cost me less than $90, and was completely shocked at what an amazing difference it made.

If you're trying to run SL with only 256 MB, I don't even want to hear your gripes. Flaming me here will get you put on my ignore list immediately. I would, however, welcome rational discussion.

I'm serious; grit your teeth, pry open your wallet and get some more RAM. You will be amazed. It may not solve all your problems, but it will make a huge difference.

P2

All right!!! let's be 1) more vague in the future and 2) really get in there and fix those important things - like WA and sandbox off the high traffic areas!

First of all, this is a typical features list for a point upgrade.

Second, getting the WA and sandboxes not to register on traffic areas IS important. If these locations, which have lots of residents in them constantly, show up in the high traffic areas listings, it skews the numbers for everyone else, and can cost the users who operate "real" high traffic areas real $$.

P2

you can use debug to find texture sizes and politly ask folk to stop using 1024x1024 textures on .005 m cubes.

... on nonvisible sides.

"Real" traffic areas....."real" as in "camping clubs"?


- Newfie

Of course!

It's pretty obvious that fixing this problem, which is apparently NOT the cache is nontrivial. Simply ordering them to fix it does not make them work faster or harder at fixing it.

I hate them as badly as anybody. I TPed to see a friend today only to find her in a camping chair. I very openly stated my disdain for such things very openly and nearly got kicked from the casino.

But yes, "real" as in "non-Linden owned."

P2

It's actually much cheaper than that. I just bought two gigs of ram for my laptop - $80 per gig.

Wow, and laptop memory is usually more expensive... mind if I ask where?

P2

Point well taken.

The one thing that I really don't understand is why the move from P with text box closed to get property lines to CTRL_ALT+SHIFT+P... oh well, they changed it, no sense whining about it

I was kidding about it replacing walking. But it would be nice to precision teleport an assault team around a perimeter.