client performance

I'm curious as to why we got a 1.6 update that bogged down the client more than it helped.
I'm curious as to why we got a feature to stream video, when video is generally only acceptable at 22+ frames per second and you'll only get that on a wing and a prayer.
I'm curious as to why I have menu glows, chat bubbles, name bubbles and other interfacery when I can WALK across the sim borders in the new welcome area and have the grid lose track of me.
I'm curious as to why ATI cards, which under Catalyst 5.3 have full OpenGL 2.0 support, still aren't properly supported in SL. They don't have crappy opengl support, they run everything else great. So what's the problem, still?
I'm curious as to why prim drift, a long destroyer of builds, even linden builds, has not yet been fixed.
I'm curious as to why this stuff isn't in the known issues area of support. Do they REALLY not know?
I'm curious as to why people defend this junk, like it's not broken to hell, saying it must be the person's system when things of far more complexity and processing demand render far better.

I hear you.

Maybe I'll just bump this everytime they do an update, but don't fix something on the above list. *bump*

The problem is, not everyone is having these difficulties. I can stream video perfectly fine at full frame rate. ( frame rate is going to be effected by your computer, not SL). I have seen a marked improvement in frame rate for the game in general and the graphics have improved a bit. The major problem I have right now is losing connection with the server but that is likely net problems due to Cableone having major server issues.
As for ATI cards, the way I understand it, they don't handle the way SL does textures very well. SL is unique in the way they stream textures instead of preloading them the way every other game does. ATI's implimentation of OpenGL has problems with this. For the most part, ATI cards work ok as long as you turn all the video goodies off like FSAA filtering and such. Of course, having a $200 ATI card that looks like a $30 one because of that can be frustrating.

There's nothing about the current OpenGL 2.0 that ATI's cards do incorrectly or differently or has more problems with, than any other OpenGL 2.0 compliant card. Thusly I am curious as to why people say it is opengl+ati when clearly it cannot be.

It is broken, although not to hell. There are things in SL that annoy me on a daily basis but I think they are getting better.

SL uses OpenGL 1.5, not 2.0. The latter is a pretty new standard and isn't supported on a lot of semi-old cards that are currently supported by SL. I won't try to defend the ATI issues, which seem to have been going on for an absurdly long time. I don't know whether LL is to blame, or ATI. LL has had complaints in the past about ATI changing stuff around in their drivers on new releases, but Idunno.

There are a few reasons behind the other things you mentioned. Yes, we got new interface stuff, but you can still get messed up going across a border corner-wise. Not every programmer at LL can fix that however. Andrew(?) explained that new programmers tend to get "broken in" by working on areas of their core competence. So, for example, one of the new people wrote the QuickTime support stuff because that is something s/he is good at. The next project for that individual would probably be Web-in-SL or something along those lines. SecondLife has a huge codebase, and you don't want to throw too much unfamiliar, esoteric stuff at a new (or even relatively experienced) developer - it's a good way to burn people out and possibly encourage them to quit. Additionally, having a new programmer fix another programmer's old complicated bugs is rather inefficient. So there is a definite drive to give developers projects that are within their knowledge and capabilities.

Meanwhile, we HAVE seen bugs fixed. Zillion-prim hair no longer drags the client to a standstill, ghosting is GONE (well... mostly), and for the first time in over a year, it was possible to rez/attach things and teleport places on the same day as a point release without major difficulty. There is some wierd bug that has shown up in 1.6 that apparently makes child prims ghost on objects, so that they get displayed concurrently with the actual "live" prims (and you get artifacting as a result.) LL did implement a new system for representing drawable objects and I guess that's where it comes from.

I think that 1.7 (the "Havok 2 release" will fix a lot of annoyances in SL. Maybe we'll even get that 2nd-gen rendering engine around the same time. Who knows.

The one thing I'm REALLY waiting on is the sound engine, which (broken record here) has been hosed in various eardrum-torturing ways since 1.4. Chris Linden says he's on it. We'll see how that turns out.

ooo updated without fixes, *bump*

Every release, we see this sort of post. "Why did the Lindens do _____when SL doesn't work perfectly!?"

The reason we got tweaks instead of every annoying bug fixed was because the same Lindens don't do the same things. Someone who fixes bugs is not necessarily the same person that answers the phones or manages the website. Not all the developers are interchangable, nor do they have the same experience. Different developers work on different parts of the code.

As Huns says, we got the Quicktime support because it gave one of the new developers a chance to add something that he was already experienced with, while getting used to the SL codebase. It's better to spend a few days "training" while adding something relatively unimportant than to dive into tackling crash bugs right off.

For the vast majority of users, 1.6 has either been the same or better. I know my framerate has improved significantly. Not every release can be expected to fix all bugs for all people. 1.6.2 solved, among other things:The chat history window bug was a huge deal, and it affects everyone. Yes, they should be fixing prim drift. Why haven't they? I don't know, ask them. You make it sound as though the Lindens are deliberately letting bugs slide in favour of toying around with useless features. Just by reading the release notes, we can see that's simply not the case.

I know your questions here are most likely just rhetorical complaints, not real questions that you expect answers to, but here are some answers anyway:


Couldn't tell ya. My client is running better than ever. The shadows crash bug is annoying for sure, but as long as I keep shadows turned off, everything is great. Sorry you're having trouble, but understand that not everyone is.


You're comparing apples & oranges here. Your SL framerate has NOTHING whatsoever to do with your video playback. Quicktime is Quicktime, and whether it's replacing a texture in SL or running in its own window, Quicktime's playback framerate is determined by Quicktime, not by SL. Movies play exactly the same, whether you're getting 2 FPS in SL or 22, just as streaming audio continues to play at the same speed regardless of your SL frame rate. The two things are not related.


I'm not sure what chat bubbles have to do with sim borders, but I'm assuming your real question here is "Why are new features being added when many existing one's don't work reliably yet". Well, keep in mind that all of the "new features" you've described here are not actually "new features", but are indeed fixes for areas of the interface that did not work as well as they could have. Saide interface features may have worked perfectly well in a technical sense, but not so well in a practical useablility sense. When building interfaces, technicality and practicality are equalliy important. Improvements in both areas should always be paramount.

Also, keep in mind that no company can devote its entire staff to the debug team. I'm sure LL has a group of developers and a group of debuggers. When a developer finishes something, do you really want him to just to sit on it until one of his counterparts in the debug team finishes something too? I fail to see how forcing different people on different teams to work at the exact same pace would be a benefit.


Well, I'm not an expert on this subject, but I have heard from a couple of software developers I know that they have a harder time communicating with ATI and getting help from them than they do with Nvidia. If LL is having the same experience, that could explain it.

Even though the two companies make cards with virtually identical capabilities, the ways to impliment those capabilities vary considerably. I've seen a great many games and other pieces of software that run better on Nvidia than ATI, and vise versa. SL is not alone on this.


I'd like an answer to this one myself. Prim drift, prim rot, whatever you want to call it, it's very annoying. I could be mistaken, but I think the cause has to do with cache discrepencies that end up giving objects conflicting instructions about where they are supposed to be. In any case, if it were easy to fix, I'm sure it would have been by now. I have faith that they're working on it.


Well, I doubt that they don't know. I have no idea why some things are not listed there.


I have yet to meet ANYONE in SL who wouldn't admit that SL has its problems, so I don't know who these die hard defenders might be. Most people love to complain about problems. I'd hardly call SL "junk" though. It's got flaws, sure, but it's one hell of a program. My car has problems too, but that doesn't stop me from calling it a nice car. Don't confuse enjoyment of a thing with inability to recognize its problems. There's plenty of room for both.

As for people passing blame for your issues onto your system, that's not always apropriate, but sometimes it is. Your argument that "things of far more complexity and processing demand render far better" on your system that SL does, so SL should work better too, doesn't hold water. Computers are touchy things. For example, at the local university where I took some classes last year, the newest PC's ran SL way better than my system does, but they were way worse for things like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Maya, which my machine runs beautifully. Differences in hardware, drivers, the current state and health of the OS, what other programs are installed, what processes are running, etc. can have dramatic effects on how well different programs operate from machine to machine.


So there you go, some answers for you. Call that "defenting this junk" if you want to keep complaining or try to understand. That's up to you.

yeah, that'd be defending it. Or making excuses anyway. I know they work on different stuff. I can read. That may suprise some people who don't. But despite my lonely little thread here, I am quite aware of the arguements that have been presented above in the previous two posts and many, many other places in many other threads.

You were, why wouldn't I? Oh, right because I was asking questions? Maybe I just want some accountability and the problem fixed. No more explanations about when it'll be fixed or what version or that they have to bug fix something they just added that they didn't need to.

-just fix it ffs-

Further I'd like to take a dig at Chosen Few here:

Okay so you've worked with the various programming calls and bandwidth (memory and network) requirements for both SL and quicktime in conjunction and you can state that as fact with that firsthand knowledge? I didn't seriously think so. Neither can I, but I CAN say it is total bull to expect a scene in SL to cache, load, cache, render while quicktime is attempting to do the same all through the CPU when SL is taxing it to begin with. I mean, good luck with that.

whatever

I'm curious. Do you consider all explanations to be unfounded, blindly loyal defenses and excuses, or do you ever sit back and say to yourself "Oh, that makes sense now"?


Well, in that case, just give that magic wand of yours to the Lindens so the can say abra kadabra, and make you happy. Oh yeah, I forgot, you don't have a magic wand, do you? Well, neither do I and neither do they. So I hope your demands make you feel better because you're going to have to wait while actual real human beings work as fast as they are able.

As for accountability, are you sure you're using the right word? Have the Lindens ever not taken responsibility for problems with SL? Have they ever said it's not their fault? Have they ever said they're not going to try to fix something that's broken? The answer to all these questions is no they haven't. in the year and a half that I've been here I've witnessed countless instances of Linden Labs openly admiting their own mistakes, asking for community input, and publicly declaring what they are going to do to resolve problems. I don't know where you get your lexicon from, but here on planet Earth we consider that to be the definition of accountability.

I've got my issues and grievances with some of the things they've done; don't get me wrong. They're not perfect by any means, but I'd hardly call them unaccountable.


Before I begin my response to that last part, Sira, have you actually sat down and watched a movie in SL? I mean, you are aware that it works, right? And you do know that that you are complaining about it for no other reason than just to complain, right? Okay, good. Here's my response:

I don't need to have written the software myself to know what it does. You're smart enough to know that; come on. I don't know how a reverse osmosis water filter works either, but that doesn't mean I don't know what it can do.

Just as I know through simple observation that if I put dirty water in one end of my filter, clean water will come out the other, I also know through observation that Quicktime movies play at the frame rate they are encoded to play at, regardless of what frame rate the SL client is running at. That's elementary, but let me give you some examples.

Yesterday, I was getting 15-20 FPS consistently in SL, a pretty good day. The movie I watched in my theater, which runs at 30 FPS, played the same as it always does. It restarted once after a few seconds, which is not uncommon with Quicktime, but then it played all the way through. Today,however, was not as good of a day. I was only getting 5-10 FPS all day long, with intermittent drops as low as 2 or 3. You know what though? I watched 4 movies, all of which ran at 30 FPS. 3 of them played straight through without a hitch. The 4th was very high res, so it had to pause about half way through to catch up, but again, that's common with Quicktime. In fact, one movie even kept playing right up until the last second during a sim crash. The client froze for several seconds before it kicked us all off, but the movie kept playing right up until the end. That's zero client FPS at the same time as 30 movie FPS.

So, let's review. In just the last two days, I've experienced every frame rate between zero and 20. Five different movies played at the correct speed during this time, never once speeding up or slowing down.

So please explain to me how if "it is total bull to expect a scene in SL to cache, load, cache, render while quicktime is attempting to do the same" am I doing it. I already expressed I don't have a magic wand, so that can't be it. And while we're on the subject, how is everyone else doing it? There are movie screens almost everywhere you go in SL now. Are all the people that watch them just imagining what they're seeing? Or is it just possible that the darned thing actually works?

I should probably also mention, by the way, that I often have Quicktime movies, Media Player movies, and/or Realplayer movies playing in seperate windows right next to my SL window, and not once has one affected the other. I also almost always have Photoshop running at the same time as SL, as well as at least one or two browser windows (large dual monitors go a long way, incase you were wondering how I can see all that at once). So if you're so convinced that Quicktime can't possibly run reliably at the same time as SL, explain to me how I've been able to have a movie play in SL at the same time as another movie is playing in an external quicktime/browser window (I do this when I'm looking for URL's to capture so I can make sure it's working in SL), all with Photoshop and sometimes other programs here or there running all at the same time, and not once has there been an issue with playback? It's not because I have a mega dream machine PC, I can tell you that. It's a 2.54 GHz P4 with 768 MB RAM, a year and a half old, just an average machine.

So again, I must ask you, isn't it just possible that it works exactly like it's supposed to work, and as I said earlier you're complaining just to complain? I must assume you're pretty starved for material if you think it's worthwhile to complain about the things that actually work in addition the the things that don't. It's almost comical, really.

As for your comment about SL being taxing on the CPU, I don't know what kind of CPU you have, but I can assure you SL is only as taxing as your system as a whole will allow it to be. Quite simply, it will use whatever processing power is available to it. If you've got nothing else running, SL will use everything. If you've got Photoshop running, SL will use everything minus whatever Photoshop requires. And before you go asking me how I know that if I didn't write the software, design the CPU, manufacture the machine, etc., you're free to look it up for yourself in these forums. Besides the fact that it's just plain obvious when you think about it, that little piece of tech info has been mentioned here by Lindens before.

Next.

I don't consider all explanations to be unfounded or unreasonable. I just expect ignorant ones to be.

I never mentioned waving a magic wand. I don't expect them to suddenly delve into the mystical realms of arcane. I just expect them to proficiently deal with the problem at hand. I have seen at least one other company deal with similar problems successfully and timely.

Have I watched a movie; yes I've watched a movie. Several. Have you entered an area already playing or attempting to play a movie? Have you had other avatars enter an area playing a movie. Have you had multiprim objects enter and leave an area playing a movie. Have you rezzed multiple prims, taken them, deleted them, built with them and so on while the movie was playing? Have you had the full range of SL functions tested while playing a movie?

First off, 15 fps and below is "unplayable" for something considered interactive and on the computer and "unwatchable" for something in the movie industry unless we're talking cell phones. 30fps is more the bare minimum for computer games (60 fps is much better for certain special functions that relate to vertical sync though, which I have never seen SL get). Further, there's no reason you should ever have to deal with 1 or 2 fps in SL. I could honestly go render things in an off the shelf or free 3d renderer faster than if we're talking about comparable looks (nothing fancy) or scene complexity (nothing uber complex/unoptimized) anyway :/

And yeah, I'll go ahead and complain about things that work crappily. I'll also complain about time invested where it could have been invested better. Just be happy I keep my complaining to this one thread.

Actually, I think my answers were pretty well informed. An ignorant answer would be one filled with speculation and assumptions that did not bother to say it was not based in fact. Every time I presented a fact, I stated where it came from. Every time I presented a conclusion, I stated how I arrived at it. I'd hardly call that "ignorant". If you disagree with something fine, disagree with it, but don't call it something it's not.


Now who's being ignorant? Until you learn everything there is to know about exactly what's going on at Linden Labs, technically and otherwise, you can't judge what "successfully and timely" means. This "other company" of yours, were they working on SL? No? Well it wasn't a similar situation then. I've seen a lot of online worlds (studied them in college in fact) and every single one is unique. Each has its own set of features, its own set of problems, and its own set of hundreds of millions of pieces of code. Fixing a problem with one has nothing to do with fixing a problem with another. Again, I know you're smart enough to know that. You're grasping at straws now.


You're changing your argument now. Origianally you said a movie couldn't possibly play at the proper speed because SL's framerate is not high enough. Now that you've been proven worng, you're changing the subjsect instead of admitting as much. I'll indulge you and answer your questions anyway though.

First, have I entered an area already playing a movie? Of course. Hundreds if not thousands of landowners have their parcels set to show movies, and once that setting has been made, those movies are ALWAYS on, or as you put it, "already playing". So the answer is yes, I've entered hundreds of areas "already playing" movies. They don't actually start on the client end though until you press play on the SL media controller. Once you do that, your Qicktime client begins to download and play the stream.

Second, have I had other avatars enter an area already playing a movie? Of course. I own a movie theater. People come by all the time. People's arrival and departure has never affected the movies.

Third, have I had multiprim objects enter and leave an area playing a movie? I'm not sure if your asking about the prims the movie is playing on leaving the area or other objects entering the area. I'll answer both.



Fourth, have I rezzed multiple prims, taken them, deleted them, built with them and so on while the movie was playing? Of course. I'm probably one of the most active builders in SL. I'm always building on my land in Indigo. It's very rare that you'll find me in SL not building. That movie in the theater just keeps on doing its thing though. It doesn't care what I do in the slightest.

Fifth, have you had the full range of SL functions tested while playing a movie? I believe my previous answers add up to a definitive yes. Between the museum exhibits, the store, all the visitors, the vehicles many of them arrive in, all my constant building activities, etc., I can't think of anything SL can do that doesn't happen at my place all the time. That movie still plays all day long.


Again, you're changing the subject, but I'll indulge you once more. I agree that I'd like the framerate to be faster, but 15 FPS is hardly unplayable. It's not exactly cinema quality, but it works just fine. Even at 5 FPS, it's usable, not wonderful, but usable. Your "unwatchable for the movie industry" comment is irrelevent, since we've already established quite thoroughly that the playback speed of movies is not at all related to the SL frame rate.

30 FPS is not the bare minimum for computer games. I was ranksed pretty highly on the Diablo II ladder for 2 or 3 years. I played all the time. The computer I had at the time with it's whopping 8 MB of video memory never gave me more than 12 or so FPS and the game ran just fine. The ability for games to run at the high framerates they do today is a very recent thing, and it's important to note that the reason they go so fast is not so they look better. It's so that all the calculations the game needs to make in order to make sure things happen at the right times in relation to the visuals are able to happen properly. If a gameis running at 50 FPS or 25 FPS, it's going to look the same. However, the one going at 50 will FEEL more responsive than the one going at 25. You push a button, the game responds a split second faster, and you feel more in control of the experience. All things being equal though, there's not going to be any difference visually.

Take a film class some time and you'll learn that it's not just the framerate itself, but the difference in movements between the frames that determines whether or not the motion appears to be fluid. Films run at 24 FPS, and video at 30, not because these are the magic numbers that produce the best movement, but because these are the numbers the inventors of film cameras and video cameras came up with (arbitrarily) when they first built the things.

As for other 3D programs going fasrter, yes, they will, but Again, you're comparing apples & oranges again. The reason they go faster is because everything they do is happening on your local machine. Don't forget that the information your SL client needs in order to construct the scene for you has to stream across the internet before you see it. It's not like other games where the whole world resides on your machine and the only information sent back and forth is action commands. Literally everything is streamed in SL, and that slows things down considerably. In other words, it's not that the SL client is slow; it's that the method by which it receives the information it needs is slow. Once it has that information, it converts it into a rendered frame incredibly fast.

If you don't believe me, run SL on a regular 700k DSL line, and then run it on a T3. I've done this, and I can tell you the FPS about triples.

Here's another good example. Open up your stats bar some time and take a look at the sim FPS stats. You'll see every sim operates in the hundreds, some in the thousands of frames per second. Were you to put one of those sim servers in a closed room somewhere, and have every user plug into it directly instead of using the internet as your conduit, your framerate would go through the roof.

So, if you want to complain about framerate in SL, start by complaining about your ISP. They are your bottleneck.

Here is a great little quick resource about FPS and the human eye if you actually want to learn something on the subject.


Video doesn't work crappily. It works great. If you think that the resources spent on its implimentation could have been better spent on other things, that's a question of opinion that might make for a valid discussion, but that's not what you've been saying. Up until right now your argument has been that you don't believe it works. Now that you've actually looked at it so you know it does work, you're changing your tune. Tell me, are you capable of saying anything positive or are complaints all you can do?

About the "15 FPS being unplayable" thing.. I can attest that it's most certainly not unplayable. I very rarely get above FIVE FPS. But that's mostly due to getting gypped on the video-card I got with the PC. That'll change soon.

But even I've noticed a minor increase in FPS. I used to average between 1 and 2 FPS, now I regularly get up to 3. It's amazing what you can adapt to when you have no present alternative.

I think maybe I'm miscommunicating what I'm pissed off about. I don't care about video. I have it turned off. It's a useless feature. I don't CARE if it works at all. I don't care if it doesn't slow down when the rest of your world is crashing. I think this sums it up:


If you want to go out and buy everyone a T3 so they can run at acceptable speed, I'll get in line for my free T3. In the mean time, only so much can load in a single moment. Be it streaming music, video, or objects, or inventory, they all share the same pipe and there's little getting around that. The point is, something has been added that didn't -help- the situation any. I could do the same thing by handing out griefing kits I suppose, but I don't feel like going there yet.

Let me see if I can illustrate a few things here.

Currently we have a grid like this:

ooooo
oxxxo
oxXxo
oxxxo
ooooo

What you see in the above is that the X can move into any of the neighboring sims where he is acknowledged, but he still has to load or 'rez' in the new server.

ooooooo
oxxxxxo
oxXXXxo
oxXXXxo
oxXXXxo
oxxxxxo
ooooooo

Here we have it so that the avatar is simultaneously within 9 servers at once, however his location is in the center one. This means that each server full sees him, his objects and has them loaded. He could reach across a border line and manipulate objects with no difficulty or race back and forth across them without any problem. What would happen if he moves to his left or right, for instance, is that the associated servers that recognize him as a child server would begin loading him in preparation for arrival. Essentially, we stream the avatar seemlessly across the grid. And we could have a grid like that. We could have had a grid like that. It's not fundamentally different from what they're doing now and it's not some great leap in logic and I've suggested it to them quite some time ago. *crickets*

Now about film, fps, and why SL at 2.5 fps is utter garbage. First off, go ahead and read your own quick link. It is educational, and I recommend it, to you. SL has no motion blur. None at all. It will continue to look horrible until it gets either that or extremely high fps like most decent looking games. Unless you like just looking at static images in SL I guess. I don't like to play a screenshot though, not my thing I guess.

Actually, I think you're just pissed off, period. I don't think the "about" is particularly necessary for you. Otherwise you wouldn't keep changing the subject. Just as before though, I'll indulge your new topic for a little while.


HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Thanks for the great laugh. That's the funniest thing I've read in weeks. Seriously though, you're kidding, right? Because if you don't care whether or not video works, why did you spend so long talking about it?

Wait, don't tell me. Lemme see if I can guess. I can think of three possibilities:



Okay, I give up, which one is it? Oh, I suppose it doesn't matter. I think it's number two, but all three are pretty freakin' hillarious so every one's a winner.

Alright, sorry. I'll put away my sarcasm now. Is there a serious reason why an intelligent person would spend days debating a topic about which her or she does not care?


Look, it's obvious you're smart enough to know what my point was here. It sure would be nice if you'd stop pretending you're not. However, since that's the route you've chosen to take, I'll spell it out for you. The point is you can't be justifyiably angry at Linden Labs because ISP's are behind the times. Phone companies and cable companies have been EXTREMELY lax about keeping their networks up to speed. If you want to aim all that anger of yours at an appropriate target, send it towards them.

In the mean time, I hate to have to paraphrase a bonafide moron like Donald Rumsfeld, but I think the applicable phrase here would be "you don't go online with the internet you want; you go online with the internet you have." The fact that SL works at all when so-called "high speed internet" is SOOOO slow is really pretty amazing.


That's true in a very general sense, but ever heard of multiple streams? You know how you can open two browser windows at the same time, and they can both load seperate pages just as fast either one would alone? It's the same for music, video, and SL. I've had SL running while music is playing, video is playing, and while I'm downloading large files, and SL has never suffered for it.


Well, it didn't "help" the speed, no, but it didn't hurt it either. They can't spend all their time working on only the things YOU want (that's where the magic wand would come in). They work on all kinds of things that everyone wants. Lots of people are thrilled that we have video now. It makes the SL experience more enjoyable for a great many people. It's just too bad you can't count yourself among them, but c'est la vie I guess.


I'm not quite following your diagram here, so my response to what you're saying might be a little misdirected. I'll respond to what I think you're trying to say. Maybe you could draw something and upload it if it turns out I'm missing your point.

I think what you're trying to say is that you believe currently only the particular sim an avatar is standing is aware of his existence, and not until he makes a border crossing does a new sim know about him. I believe the answer to that has been mentioned on these forums by Lindens in the past. As I understand it, each sim does talk to each of its 4 ajacent sims constantly. That's why when you're standind in Indigo you can see Crimson, Olive, and Majenta (4th side is just ocean), and they can see you.

I'll agree that inter-sim communication could be better, especially when physics are involved, but the communication does exist, and it is something they seem to be always working to improve. In know the "working to" part drives you insane with rage, but as you pointed out, no one can expect magic. They can only work at human speed and they've got a lot on their plate.


Hello, 3D animator here.

Motion blur is a nice tool to increase realism, but you don't NEED it in order to see fluid motion, even at a low frame rate. The reference to it in the artical was simply an explanation of why motion in cinema looks so much better than motion in games. By no means did it say that motion in games doesn't work, even at low frame rates. If anything the author was cautioning the reader not to expect a cinema quality experience from a video game. It's to be expected that games will not look as good as movies, but they still work just fine.

I've already agreed with you that I'd like SL's frame rate to be higher, but the fact is it is functional and believable at anything above 5 or so FPS. I was averaging about 8 for months (much better now) and it was fine, not great, but certainly usable.

And yes, the lag spikes which drop it to 2.5 FPS are garbage. It's unfortunate that computers don't always cooperate, but that's the way it is. 99% of the time, I'd hardly call SL "static images" though. It's fluid enough for what it is.

Oh, and by the way, I noticed a few months back when I upgraded my mouse that SL instantly felt 100 times better. Other people I know who have followed my advice and bought the same mouse have said the same. The Logitech MX 510 has the highest refresh rate of any mouse on the market, and it makes your gaming experience (and your computer experience in general) much, much better. If you read that whole artical, it even mentions the importance of a good mouse there. Maybe that's your problem.

I have to most heartily agree...

I put up a post in another thread somewhere, will past the URL when I can find it... and I had mentioned I do find it sort of silling, that with something as "leading edge" as Second Life... why it's only 100% supported/written for such a small percentage of systems out there. Let's break this down shall we...

Runs only on WinXP or Win2K... well, not everybody has these OSes... and I love how people complain, "we're in SL because not everybody has the money to upgrade to super-computers to play those steroided MMORPGs"... right, yet those people have $100-$200 to drop on WinXP at a hair's notice so they can keep playing SL? Not to mention, and I will be honest in saying I cannot possibly fathom WHY, but I'm sure there's people out there that prefer or are comfortable with using Win98 or WinME. In fact, the other thread I refer to that I posted in... I made reference to, is Linden Labs ready to make partial refunds to those people who were accessing SL with WinME, who now suddenly have paid for membership, sims, land, etc and can't even use it anymore? (I actually know a few in this boat.) And yes, their site says, it won't run on ME... but certain lucky configs allowed it to, this is true, however, with all the "updates" SL is doing, they should have put in a low-level system-probe a LONG TIME ago... like how Final Fantasy XI or other such games do to get specific system data to make sure you have the system specs required (would also help with so many "gray" areas like ATI cards, etc, etc). Or have it do so as soon as you go to register... before accepting a person's money, I know I like to make sure I can meet my end of the deal; thus, before accepting the end-user's money, SL should have made sure that somewhere down the road, there wasn't going to be some "small update" that keeps the end-user without, but Linden Labs with (money).
Not to mention no purposeful support for Linux, beOS, etc. And I say purposeful, because I have gotten SL to run to a limited extend under Linux, as have others. And it's nothing new that it's sometimes a chore to get things to run properly under Linux, (I blame the monopoly of Windows for that!), however... I will say, SL is one of the more "sketchier" setups to run/config under Linux unless I missed something terribly simple... and that's even using an emulator. NOTE: I also find it hilarious )nothing against Macs, they're great machines), that SL does support running on a Macintosh (not alot these days as far as I can tell does), but no support for Win ME/98 etc. I mean most software runs on almost all Windows flavors (with the exception of some few newer titles), and not on Mac.

As far as ATI cards go... heavily agreed on this part here... for ages all I heard was ATI and SL are duking it out, etc, etc. Really now... of all the companies out there, ATI is going to be spending personal slobberknockers with SL? *ponders* As the original poster put... yes, with the latest Catalyst ATI does have all the needed OpenGL support, and as far as the tidbit I cought about the uniqueness of ATI... that's somewhat true, but all cards as well as all hardware have unique registers... it's the job of the programmer to recognize each. How many MMORPGs you think would still be in business if they said they'd only run on a Hercules 3D Prophet card? So another tid-bit to look at in that small percentage is nVidia cards. From the specs and what I've read, yeah, nVidia seems to be a very good card, with outstanding specs. And I must THANK the poster of this thread big time, because after using SL, kept seeing people say, "wow, it takes FOREVER to run SL on my ATI system, but on my nVidia system with the WEAKER and LESS MEMORIED card it runs like lighting"... through the use of SL, ATI is become defimated, as well as losing their reputation. ATI has been around for a long time, one of the longest in the business in fact... I remember using an ATI 8mb card back in my old trusty 80386. It's a shame a program like Second Life, for whatever reasons, lack of support, or what not, put out their "explanation" that ATI doesn't support OpenGL, and then say it's just unique registers, etc... (notice the song keeps changing?)... and in turn take a classic like ATI and really drive them into the ground. After reading such posts as the one I stated above with the nVidia system running so much faster, after you see so much of it, you start to get semi brain-washed... I've been thinking, "wow, ATI really must have gone to hell if this is true... when I upgrade to my next video card, I HAVE to get an nVidia"... which as the poster so-well put it, isn't the case. Don't let the horror stories fool you, it's true, ATI runs other stuff awesomely... and yeah, sometimes maybe a bit "slower" than would be liked, but heck, for all the graphic rendering power and performance it's putting out. it'd be like saying you want a Harley Davidson big-block cycle to purr like a kitten, it's just not gonna' happen, there is a bit of needed overhead behind it. I'll also note here, I saw a Linden themselves reply to a post where someone asked about ATI support as well as other Windows flavor support, and yet another story about, "why take the time and overhead to suppor other Windows OSes when we can more quickly and efficiently use our time to support onboard video on motherboards", etc. And yes, there are many flavors of onboard video, that I can agree with. But they came right out and said their taking effort to try and support so many video types, yet the ATI issue has been around for quite awhile, and still not much effort or talks on trying to support it. Alot of programming has reference libraries and databases for specific hardware: ie - "if (vcard == "nVidia" call nVidia.dat", etc, where the register types and hardware info/strings are stored and used.

Sound cards... yes, I know SL doesn't require any specific type of sound card; however, for the record, I've been out of SL for quite awhile... and yes, I was running the new 1.6 fine... download the "update" to it, suddenly no sound whatsoever... no footsteps, no wind, my door sounds around my house don't work, can't get streaming audio to work (and have a nice stereo in my SL home that has a listing of stations so had plenty to test with). Checked the sound settings in SL, as limited as they are, nothing's changed. Every other sound on my system works fine, and I've got a nice sound system setup on my system, so it's a shame I'm now stuck in virtual deafness. And it's a rather common card, so I don't want to hear any stories about "unique registers" again or lord help me, I'm gonna' make a personal trip to the Linden offices myself. (btw, see my system specs posted at the end of this for sound card type).

Which brings us along to Quicktime required. Yes there are "lite" versions of it out there, but not everybody likes Quicktime. I have it on my system, yes, though, I never really use it much. Saw various threads about people who after spending headaching hours removing Quicktime, all its hidden hooks, etc out of their system, found they had to reinstall it and were none to happy... and you can't tell me quicktime is something that's majorly dependant, to an extent yes, but the days of required Quicktime were long ago... I remember when games used to require it... not really much urgency for it now and days though.

So now to recap that... a person to 100% successfully run SL with no problems, no quirks, etc, needs the following:

WinXP or Win2k not NT, not 98, not ME, not the many flavors of Linux), preferred (and this is a strong preferred) nVidai video card, not sure what's gonna' happen with required sound, Quicktime, etc. And yes, these specs aren't that differently read than most games... but let's recap here. Most games... this is a virtual community, not your typical game. And most games that prefer nVidia can still run most all, if not all, graphic support on other video cards. Being a network technician/engineer I can understand the hard times between NT-based Windows and non-NT based windows, but once again, most programmers write their software to run on all Windows system.

My system specs:

- WinXP Pro, (Dual-Booting RedHat Linux 8.0)
- Pentium4, 2.53ghz, 1GB RAM running on an Albatron MB.
- ATI Radeon 9200 AGP 128MB VRAM
- Sound Blaster Audigy mp3+
- 6 speakers (4 150watt Kenwood speakers channeled into a Crescendo Midiland subwoofer, 2 20watt GE UltraSonic speakers channeled into a second GE Subwoofer... with both subwoofers channeled into the sound card on front/rear channels.

But seems the more they "update" the slimmer it gets on what works and what doesn't. I've had a good amount of friends that have WinME that can't afford to upgrade to XP etc, who can't access their accounts anymore, one of which I'm paying for their account... my money that's being shelled out for something that's now longer voided until the person (or myself) can shell out $100-$200 to upgrade the OS!? As I said, most claim they do virtual communities because they don't have the "super computers" to run the beefed out MMORPGs... but then turn around and defend SL when people are having to do the same exact thing for SL.. how much sense does that make?? Don't get me wrong, I love SL to death, I think it's an awesome program, think it's got alot of potential and promise... but NOT if they keep slimlining it so much. Not sure what their expenses versus their profits are... but for what's being paid for land ownership, sims (especially this one!), and accounts, would think they might be able to hire on a few more programmers, or broaden their horizons. The future is about evolution, evolving to meet and work with new hurdles, new boundaries, etc. To be successful, you have to broaden, not narrow. I mean, I can roughly imagine how much the user-base has shrunk from WinME users and such no longer able to access SL, as well as some Linux users I've read about that can't either.

PS - at the time of this posting... think I've somewhat worked out what the issue for my sound is, and I do apologize on the SL thing for this somewhat... it may be windows, (however sound WAS working before I downloaded the update... now oddly right after installing it and running SL, sound throughout my system isn't working... joy of joys, off to track down this little glitch. Might have to blame Microsoft for this... which for the record is another I'd love to make a personal visit too and break my foot off in "something".)

CONFIRMED - my sound card issues were because of SL... here's how I came to that conclusion, please correct me if I'm wrong here. Figured I'd do the obvious reboot before messing with cables and drivers, never know... as it rebooted, the logout sound played, I was like holy heck... what's up here. So having my suspiscions, I brought Windows back up... heard login sound, etc, opened a yahoo messenger chat box... clicked on an audible, heard it fine... launch SL just to the login screen... try the audible again, no sound. Close the SL client without logging in... click the audible, can hear sound again. To double-check, load up SL to login screen, try again, no sound. Almost don't want to log into SL now... first off if there's gonna' be no sound in it... and secondly, it does take a bit to reboot, between entering my set bios password, my set login password, everything configuring on boot/login, etc... don't want to have to do that everytime I run SL... and from what I could tell by the last post, once logged in, whatever it *squeezes* stays squeezed... gonna' test it now to make sure (will login, sit around for a few minutes, then close SL... was only in it last time a few minutes too).

EDIT 01: Well, this sure is getting intersting... just went to login, and it's making me download the update... AGAIN!? o.O
NOTE: I do find it kind of silly they have the option to detect video card settings when not all full video effects are supported on all cards, yet no option to detect other hardware... like "sound cards".

EDIT 02: Confirmed... it's second life!!! Downloaded the update again, started SL and logged in, no sound anywhere on system!!! Closed SL, sound works again (so at least I don't have to reboot everytime I run it). Come on, sound was working fine before the update!!! And I really HOPE I don't hear that the Sound Blaster Audigy is no longer supported cause how old it is with Audigy 4's coming out... especially since there's still alot of software that still support SB Live, etc!!!

EDIT 03: FOUND THE PROBLEM... GRRRs @ SL... dunno if anybody else has this issue or if it's just me. But when I set sound settings from Quadrophonic to Desktop speakers, sound works while SL is running... but I can only use 2 of 6 speakers!!! I hated the fact I couldn't use quad in There... at least however in There, with Quad on I could still hear things (albeit it faintly and voices had an issue being heard)... as well as sounds around the system... but now with SL it totally nerfs out sound if using quad!? Don't tell me we're going to have to start having SL-specific system setup too! I really don't want to have to reconfig everytime I want to run SL, not to mention drop down to just 2 speakers... COME ON!!!

PS - Why is it, in SL, everytime there's an update, another small group of people get SCREWED... as I said above, with 1.6 ME, 98, even some Linux users got the shaft... now with this new update, quadrophonic sound users are gonna' get the shaft!? This is getting nuts... it's becoming more a job keeping up with the SL requirements than relaxing... even beefing up a super-computer for an overly decent MMORPG isn't this frustrating!!!! I paid Linden Labs, in all honesty, I paid Linden Labs for FOUR accounts... my account (full user), friend's account (full user), and 2 basic accounts for 2 other friends. At that time, I met every system requirement, but had a few shortcomings with my video card and no AGP acceleration support... those friends met the requirements too, except the other full user had ME. Now the other full user can't get in... and I've got even more shortcomings with SL... if we the users are paying Linden Labs, I must ask, why is it us having tp change our systems to meet their requirements... if we're the paying customers, shouldn't they be writing the code to more compensate those paying for it!?!?!?

Rayne, lemme see if I can help. I'm also using a Soundblaster Audigy card, running quadrophonic, and all 4 speakers are working just fine. It sounds like you're having a driver issue. You might want to download the latest driver from Creative, as well as the latest version of DirectX, and see if it helps.

Also, if you're running Norton Aniti-Virus 2004 or 2005, it has a known conflict with Creative software, which can cause all kinds of bizarre behavior for both. It's certainly not outside the realm of possibility for Norton to decide to go haywire when you're updating a program. There are some resolution steps on the Symantec website. You might want to try that as well. Just do a search for "creative" and I think you'll find it.

As for the 98/ME thing, are there many other modern games out there that still support 5-7 year old operating systems? There comes a time when you just have to move on. I don't mean to sound harsh, but if a grown adult can't afford a hundred bucks for an XP upgrade, they probably shouldn't be spending $30-50 a month for broadband either. If someone is still using an antiquated OS because it's their choice, well then it's also their choice not to be able to use a lot of current software. It would be nice if all companies could continue to support ancient technology, but if dropping it means better features, then I'm all for progress.

The reality is that buying a computer means spending money from time to time in order to keep current. You wouldn't buy a car and then not change the oil because you're too cheap or too atached to part with the oil it came with, and you don't invest in a computer without being willing to upgrade when what you have becomes obsolete. I still have DOS 6 sitting on a shelf. Should SL run on that too? Right next to it is Windows 3.1, OS/2 Warp, Windows 95, 98, and ME. They all work just as well as the day they were written, but is there really any point in using them? Absolutely not.

I have never changed the subject from those outlined about my complaints. I have attempted to clarify for you just what those mean, but you're just not getting it. For instance you originally assumed that I was calling SL junk when I simply meant that the bugs were junk. Which they are.


And this is where you're just flat out wrong.
I spent so long talking about video because you can have only so much bandwidth on dsl or cable. You can have multiple streams going and such, but when SL is taking up nearly the entire thing (loading a new area for example), then you add an audio stream, then a video (or download or torrent or anything) you're done, that's it and everything slows down by virtue of congestion. SL suffers for it, your downloads suffer for it. If you haven't noticed, you either have a truly awesome connection (free t3 for me too?) or you're just not sensitive to it. Your mileage may vary on what you're doing, what you expect, and such. So no, I don't care that video works, I care that it uselessly takes up bandwidth I could be using to load something else more useful. Can I turn it off? Yeah, but then I care that they spent valuable time and energy writing something into the program that did nothing toward fixing previous bugs. Do developers have specific skills? Yeah, people won't stop telling me apparently even though that was a given. Could they have better spent the time reading the docs and learning the code to help fix the bugs? Sure they could, but hey, they didn't.

Let me try to explain the diagrams better. First I was under the impression that sims saw child avatars along the diagonal, a shame they don't but oh well. (o's are empty of avatar's or child avatars)

ooooo
ooxoo
oxXxo
ooxoo
ooooo

So there you have what we currently use, you can see objects and avatars in small x sims (child objects/avatars) and you are located in X and only X is really keeping track of you for rezzing purposes. If you move into one of the x sims, you have to rez there (or transfer to that sim) before proceeding.

In my example, a sim controls a larger space around it which overlaps the control area of space in other sims. This way when you move from sim to sim, you don't need to spend time rezzing unless you are moving fast enough to enter a child sim (which would be over 256m away from your given starting point).

ooooooo
oxxxxxo
oxXXXxo
oxXXXxo
oxXXXxo
oxxxxxo
ooooooo

Here we have it so that now your true location is in X but X sims are still completely aware of you, moreso than x sims. Essentially when you teleport to a sim, that sim will load you, and so will the 8 surrounding sims. Then, all the sims surrounding those given sims that do not contain you as a primary object will load you as a child object, which means that someone with a very high draw setting could, in theory, see the approach of your fast oncoming vehicle from two sims away. But that's just an example. Each time you cross a border, say moving one left in this case, 3 sims would drop you and 3 more would pick you up without you truly having entered them yet. Also since the border you cross already has your full data, there should be no delay, or dropoff or even loss of grid tracking that is fairly common today.

If your "junk" comment was aimed only at the bugs, why were you talking about the junk's defenders? No one defends bugs. Everyone hates them. Everyone complains about them. Lots of people defend SL and Linden Labs when people attack them over it, but no one defends the bugs.

So which is it? Were you talking about the bugs, in which case you must believe there are people who like the bugs, or were you talking about SL itself, because that's what people actually do defend?



First of all, my connection sucks. Verizon's average is about 900Kbps, but I'm so far from the Hub, I'm lucky to get about 500. Frankly, I'm suprised streaming audio & video even play for me in SL since they claim you need at least 768Kbps for them to work.

So I'm gonna have to go with the alternative. I'm not sensative to it. I must just be imagining the fact that my FPS doesn't change when audio & video are turned on or off. I must just be comotose or something when I can't rez objects because the retchid horrible video player of death and destruction is eating up all my resources. As I said earlier, COME ON!

As for congestion, if you want to know how much bandwidth SL is using, open your stats bar and look at the meter. Most of the time it doesn't use much at all. It spikes when you move to a new area, sure, but only momentarily, and never very much. If you're having so much trouble, maybe you should examine your network settings. If you've got it set wrong, things can take forever to load.


There you go again with that word, "useless". Are we to take it that you alone determine want is useful and what is not. I personally find video to be very useful, as do thousands of other residents. I don't know about you, but I would say that if thousands of people have decided to make use of a new tool that is completely optional then by definition, that tool is useful.



So are you saying there should never be a new feature until every single bug has been fixed? Would you prefer we still didn't have groups (added in 1.2) or inventory search (1.3 I think) or animations (1.4) or fog control (1.5) or a million other things that have been added along the way at the same time as bugs have been fixed?

Do you really think that we'd all be better off if we only still had the features of 1.0? Once again, COME ON! You can't be serious.


Thanks for the clarification. It sounds like what you're suggesting is the same thing that's already in place, just on a larger scale. Instead of each sim sharing information just with its 4 neighbors (not sure about the diagonal thing), it would end up sharing with a radius of several more sims. I think that's the direction they're planning on moving in. I could be imagining things, but I seem to remember some talk about something to that effect a while back. I don't have any details though.

Perhaps tonight's town hall might be a good place to bring it up.

I am also curious...I am curious as to why I have to turn off or turn down most of the options available in preferences or I lag all to hell or just crash. I have a computer that more than meets the requirements for SL. So exactly what kind of computer system was SL really made for? I have never had an issue with my pc with anything else in the past, so it boggles my mind why I am unable to use local lighting or increase my draw distance etc etc. without experiencing issues. I know I am not the only one with this concern.

I bought an ATI card, Radeon 9550 x86/SSE, because the supported graphics cards list said that ATI Radeon 8500 (32MB RAM) or higher was supported. Yes, the ATI was cheaper than the Nvidia, I prefer to be called "budget aware" as opposed to cheapskate.

Anyway, the game was playing on my laptop until the graphics card that was unsupported quit working. So I GAVE my new laptop to my husband...if it cn't play Secondlife, it's useless! LOL!

So I bought the Radeon 9550 x86/SSE card and installed. It was like my birthday or Christmas! I was so excited to play the game without the annoying crashes, but no! The game is still continually crashing! I can be on long enough to move a peice of furniture or say hi to some friends, who have probably put out a missing persons report on me. I am continually checking for updated drivers on the ATI site. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the card, the game, my Operating System, updated all drivers . . . *sniff*

We went on a trip recently and I tried to play the game on my "husband's" laptop and it worked! I was so happy!

Unfortunately I still cannot play on my own computer and I am forever stealing my husband's laptop. Why did I give it to him? Why did I buy the "supported" graphics card?
Why am I going on and on???

I am now searching the forum for some answer to my problem with crashing, the computer nerds here think it may be a graphics setting that needs to be changed to make the card compatible with the game...

Any suggestions?

Thanks!
Picola "P"

Turn off shadows if they are on. That's the most common reason for crashes these days.

I usually like to make fun of the physics engine myself. It's so funny.