Bad lag, freezes, crashes

As others have posted here, I am experiencing extremely bad lag. This is not on a packed sim full of user content... this is on a sim that is way under prim limit, script-controlled. Not only that, but this has been experienced grid-wide. I have questioned other users; they are experiencing the same thing. The common experiences are:

* Severe stop-dead lag coming out of nowhere for no discernable reason on a regular basis.

* Sim stats in both Time Dilation and FPS dropping down to near zero.

* New symptom: FREEZING. Playing the game, apparently nothing at all is wrong, but suddenly people no longer answer your chats. If editing items, can't get edit changes to work. Everything seems ok, but then when user tries to move avatar... stuck in place. Can rotate. Can look at surroundings. Everything client-side seems to still work. Best description is how a user put it yesterday: "It's like the network has been disconnected but it's still up".

* Sim crashes almost daily.

My best guess: SL has gone from 25,000 to 200,000 users in the last year and the servers simply aren't set to handle the load. LL appears to be cutting corners to do so (manifest in poorly rezzing objects and NO rezzing of some objects past 20m... how many bald avatars have I seen lately?). We can no longer see our archery targets past 20m. Seems to be serious server-side and programming issues that are affecting users across the board with common maladies.

Thanks for the detailed info, Wayfinder. I moved this to Technical Issues so we can keep an eye out for these should other estate owners with well-managed regions experience the same things, and respond in kind.

Some of what you describe sounds like avatar attachment and object culling--is that possible? If you rez a plywood cube and walk a ways away, you'll notice it'll suddenly disappear, surprisingly near. PREFERENCES > GRAPHICS DETAIL has sliders that can help with this when cranked to the right.

Yup, that's one of the things noticed. I have a killer computer with cable internet rocking at 5.5mbps. So I can slide all the sliders to max with no deteriorative effects--when things are running well. When things aren't running well, doesn't matter where the sliders are. Time Dilation of .03 and FPS of 0 is going to stop even the best systems.

The point you mentioned about the plywood cube disappearing is valid. Trick is... it used to disappear at 30m... now it's disappearing at 20. We couldn't even hold valid archery tournaments anymore because the prims disappeared at distance. (never fear... working up a workaround... such as attaching targets to large, invisible prims to keep them visible. But still.. excess prim usage to accomplish something that shouldn't be happening at all).

But as far as these aspects of lag, avatar freezing, etc... these things are going on grid wide. I've asked members.

The sims I've been primarily testing them on are Elf Haven and ElvenMyst. A quick visit to either of these sims will show that half the sims are blank land. Not excessive use of scripting (in fact, our market in ElvenMyst has strict script control guidelines... to the point that we require specially modified vending devices). All in all, both sims should be running like clockwork. But we experience these problems there all the time. Both sims are on different servers. So doubt it's the ol' "user content", "excess scripting" or other standby scapegoats. There's a problem system-side or with code.

As a note, same thing seems to happen with the forums too. Sometimes they'll run peachy and fast, and then suddenly wham... extremely slow response. I wonder if the problems might be related? Myself, I think you all might have a network server or bandwidth problem. Something very basic and very deep core.

BTW Torley, I've noticed how helpful you've become on these forums. Just to let you know that's appreciated.

I decided to reply here to not clutter the forum with a similar topic.

I was offline for about a week and came back and saw the new build was ready for download. Since I have run the new build, I have experienced several freezes and shut downs of the program for no explainable reason. On one occasion I was attempting to teleport when the program shut down. A user in the area I was TPing to said I was there and my AV was spinning. When this happened and I attempted to relog, I received an error message along the lines of the area was reseting and try to log in a few minutes, however, users in the area said the region did not reset. This error message happened twice. Crash reports have been sent.

I have not had this kind of problem in all the prior builds.

System Specs......

AMD Sempron 3500+
2.5 GB Ram
Radeon X800 XT 256MB memory

I just want to reinforce what there saying, Iv been away from secondlife for maybe a month or two and before it worked fine on my computer with alot of settings on full and such but now even with everything turned off such as shiny and lightning and the graphics sliders as low as they will go I still experience extreme lag and crashes.
Please do something soon this is really making me want to leave secondlife again
Keno

Hi Keno,

Can you please post your computer specs, also have you updated your video drivers?

Sure, my system specs are:
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 128MB
AMD Athlon XP 2000+ 1.67 GHz
1 GB Ram
Creative AudioPCI (ES1371,ES1373)(WDM)

I upgraded my drivers about a month ago.
Keno

This is getting beyond annoying now....my system is supposed to be fully supported by SL yet now SL crashes at random intervals every 3-10 mins and so far it seems the Lindens are not really addressing the real issue. This build is flawed. If this is not addressed soon, I will no longer remain a paying customer. I was planning to buy land this month (1024m on top of my free 512) and start building but I will not support SL if SL will not support us.

My PC is only a few months old and I cannot afford another major upgrade for a while(eg: $500 video card, new CPU). How many lost paying customers is it worth to lose for graphic advancements that only benefited the few who can afford to buy a top of the line setup.

I have to disagree with this. Did you see the 1.9.1 preview? It had more lighting and made better use out of higher end video cards and they decided to drop most of it so they can support the majority of people in SL. Even though it may not seem like it to you, the majority of people in SL have benefited from this update, just hang in there if you meet the requirements, a fix will come. You dont need a $500 CPU or video card.

K regarding system FREEZES:

Brent Linden just let me know that for some reason the EDIT/PREFERENCES/CHAT: ARROW KEYS MOVE WHILE IN CHAT is being system-reset. It may still be checked, but uncheck it and recheck it. That eliminates most of the freezing.

As far as crashes, yeah, I have crashed about 6 times today already. Edit an item, crash. Put on a hud and click on a SCAN FOR AVATARS function, crash. Take a step with my toenail pointed 5 degrees southwest.. crash.

I'm sure they'll figure it out before long. But in the meantime, they're making SL so sophisticated and complex that they are going to be losing users. When you have to have a high-level machine and advanced Nvidia / ATI card to even run it... perhaps they are losing track of what is important-- the customer.

I want to add that after much digging in the forums, I came across a suggestion to uninstall SL completely including all files that dont auto delete and start fresh. For me it turned out to be my solution. I only crashed after being on for about 6 hours while doing some editing which has happened to me before on occassion. I can live with that, but those 3-10 min crashes were trying my patience. So it all kewl now. ^_^

Well looks like I have to take that back.....the random crashes have resumed. This is starting to look like a stability issue server side and I just happened to log back on when things were fine. I keep sending crash logs and I very curious as to what my system is reporting and if it can be resolved easily.

Minerva, in my year and a half with SL I have never seen an update as flaky as 1.10. And I have to admit it upsets me that LL has decided to bring "floppy prims" and "advanced lighting" into a system already plagued by severe lag and other serious problems. I mean, they hadn't even dealt with the problems brought in by 1.09... and they bring out a new release that makes things worse?

The result? People can't even log in because the system is no longer compatible with their computers (that has GOT to be infuriating). Sims are crashing on a regular basis, several times a day. Severe syrup lag is coming out of "nowhere", lagging everyone on the sim while TD is reading .99 and FPS is reading 45. What is that nonsense? People are freezing in place for no discernable reason.

Tonight was LOTS of fun. I had just set out a new Elven Drum set. Noticed I couldn't get them to play, so I relogged. Apparently while I was offline, the sim crashed. When I finally was able to get back online... the drums were gone... and people all over the sim were screaming that they had lost items.. both on the sim and within their inventory!

Imho LL is making a mistake in introducing new "features" with such a severely unstable, laggy, bug-ridden platform. PATCH THE PROBLEMS FIRST, PEOPLE. I also have to believe that "floppy prims" and "advanced lighting" were nowhere near the top of the client want/ need list.

Until their platform is consistently stable, lag removed and people happy, there is no warrant for bringing in "new features"... especially when such cause further severe problems. I may be a bit conservative, but I've always felt it's best to tune up a flaky engine before spiking it to 90.

A bit of an update. Did some more troubleshooting and I think I found a possible cause. Not fully certain what this means, but I turned my clock speed of my CPU/RAM down and now SL has remained consistently stable. My only guess is the current SL version may have been putting more strain on either the CPU or RAM and was causing the program to fail to run properly. Since I had that extended run without crashing during a time when it was cooler in my house, I suspect the other times that they were overheating and losing stability affecting the program that was putting the biggest strain on them.

For others with similar issues, I recommend blowing the heat sinks with canned air to improved cooling efficiency or doing the same if you know how adjust CPU/RAM clock speed to see if this resolves the problem.

It's been a long time since I messed with clock speeds. Would you reveal how this might be done? Worth a try anyway.

Oh, and you're right... if a system is running even a little hot, it can really mess with a program like SL. One trick I've pulled consistently through the years (and recommended to my clients, with good results) is to remove the computer case and put a small desk fan blowing directly onto the computer bus/cpu area. It's the best way I've seen to dissipate trapped heat pockets and has cleared up many a problem.

Some folks will respond, "But what about dust?" Dust gathers where there isn't enough air movement. A fan keeps the dust blown off. What small amount may gather is very easy to remove with a light vacume... because the case isn't there to get in the way.

The big problem can be chipset overheating, never mind the CPU or RAM.

Sadly most motherboards with fan cooled chipsets use really cheap 'n nasty fans which, besides getting horribly noisy, loose speed, and your chipset can then become unstable.

Most of the time it won't affect things too much, but SL does hammer the system, especially since the advent of Occlusion Culling, and this may be contributing to many of the continuious crashng problems of late.

My old ABIT IC7 Max3 was particularly bad at this. Fortunately it wasn't an issue after I replaced the chipset cooler with an aftermarket device. And my latest motherboard (DFI LanParty nF4 SLI-DR Expert) has a MagLev bearing chipset cooling fan which runs very smoothly (and quietly) and a very sophisticated chipset temp monitoring/fan control system in BIOS.

My advice to anyone with a motherboard with a doubtful chipset cooling system is to go take a look at the Zalman website and consider one of their aftermarket chipset cooling solutions. They aren't that expensive and they DO seem to work extremely well, even the fanless solutions - though as Wayfinder points out - there is no substitute for airflow through the case...

Oh, and overclocking REALLY can cause chipset temperatures to jump, especially if you don't get it quite right

Wayfinders advice isn't particularly good. Dust WILL collect in Heatsinks and exposing them to the air will just increase the likelyhood of that happening.

Best option is to have a proper fan setup and ideally a decent quality case. Not to mention ensuring fans are working correctly and Heatsinks are dust free.

Ideally you want an extraction fan ( 80mm minimum, 120mm is nice as they are quieter ) positioned at the back of the case below the PSU. Then ideally 1-2 input fans, one at the bottom front ( problem here is cheap cases will restrict the input airflow BADLY ) and if possible one in the case side about the area just below the Northbridge and Graphics card ( Northbridge will be near graphics and usually have a HSF on it ).

If you can afford it a quality case ( Lian Li PC7 II+ are comparativly cheap and EXCELLENT quality as are the Super Lanboy's) with 120mm input and output fans is WELL worth it as they have input filters which keep internal dust to a minimum and a well designed airflow path to keep air flowing and things cool.

I'll beg to differ. I've been using the open-case system (in heat problem areas) for years with no ill effects and little or no collection of dust on heat sinks. What small amount of dust there is (there is always dust except in a dust-free environment) is very easy to vaccume out.

Conversely, I have seen case after case of closed-case systems that built up dust up to 1/8" thick. Why? Because no case is dust proof. No matter what fan system you use, no matter whether you have an inflow/outflow system or just a couple of 80mm outflows... dust still enters the box and settles, because there is not enough airflow to pull it on through. I think anyone who has ever opened a computer case after a year of operation can attest to that.

The fact is that for a computer to operate ideally, it needs an environment of 75 degrees or cooler (preferrably 70 degrees)... and very few people have that. Most try to save money on air conditioning and only turn it on when they get uncomfortable. But in my experience, room temperature can get up to 80 or even 85 degrees if the computer case is open and a desk fan is blowing directly on the motherboard/cpu area. Tested it time and time again. And I've observed that dust collects far, far less than with closed cases.

Just mho.

85 Degree's O.o.. that's about 50 Deg too hot.. heck your CPU shouldn't be passing much over 50 - lol.

With a proper dust filter incoming dust is minimal. Without a dust filter I agree, my house is TERRIBLE for dust and in fact is far and away worst on PC's without a case side on. My PC7 however keeps nicely clean inside compared to my old non-filtered cases.

Problem with dust is HSF's clog terribly. Doesn't matter what the airflow in the case is, the dust being blown by a fan on a HSF clogs against the Heatsink and is a pain to remove ( generally needs fan removing ). Therefore having a case with proper intake filtration will keep fairly clean inside.

You misunderstand. I'm discussing room temperature.

And while I agree that dust filtering is available for computers, those filters have to be replaced regularly and they significantly cut down on available airflow. Since 99.999% of the computer systems on the market come with no inherent dust filtering, the logical course is to make a recommendation that can be used by the greatest number of people with resulting benefit to their system. And I have heard tech after tech corroborate the findings that opening a case and putting a desk fan blowing on it is a valid way to obtain a cool microprocessor.

BTW... the 50 degrees you speak about the microprocessor operating at? NO microprocessor runs at 50 degrees (unless of course, you're talking celcius, in which case I'll remind that most of SL is farenheit based. ). Ever touch a cpu while it's running? Durn hot. The heat sinks alone can make one flinch.

Most computers I've seen are geared to run CPU under 120 degrees F with a preferred inside-case temperature of under 75. Over that, they start hurting.

Actually probably only one country uses F.. most use Celcius . So yes I was referring to Celcius.. although some CPU's DO run at 50degF . But yeah Aircooled should be about 50defC on full load.

As for internal dust filtering. Whilst it's true most PREBUILT systems do not have effective filtration. ALL quality cases, such as the afformentioned PC7 DO include filtration and the Filtration is both effective and don't need replacing. Most of the time a quick brush off is fine ( the dust tends to collect externally and if they get too clogged their washable ).

I want to bring this message to attention, I can't even log in at this point.

system
AMD 3000+ 64
1 gig good ram
NVidia 6600 256mg pci-E
WIndows XP

ALL drivers have been updated, SL freshly installed, and I cant even log in half the time. I do log in and bam, frozen, or if I move, I fall into mathmatical infinity ( I did get one good screen shot.) Now please do not give me the performance run around, I have taken all settings to their lowest... of course, to do that it took two reboots because of the horrible crashing. And no one seems to hear my point in LIVE HELP, all I got was 45 minutes of,"... turn this setting down, did you load drivers?...." over and over, which is bull.

THis comes after investing in a shoutcast server for the game, so I am extremely frustrated at not being able to test my server. Anyone have any other ideas on this?

Just one: Brent told me that for some reason the "arrow move while chat" is being reset by the system. Go to your preferences and check this. If it's already checked, uncheck it and recheck.

There's also a suggestion to turn off ripple water. But frankly, with your system and a good cable feed, you should not be having problems. Something is messed up somewhere.

Thanks for the reminder, I had not done the check box yet for the arrows in chat, but still, it seemed it improved for a second, then it went nuts again. Same thing you described originally, the whole can rotate, watch, chat, but not move, with one exception, if I micro move I sail off into infinity on the vector I moved in. I will be emailing LL, as I cant stay online long enough to hash anything out.

Yep, those are the exact symptoms. The arrow update won't take care of it all, but it might take care of 90% of it. I'm still occasionally freezing in space and doing the micro-move-zoom-to-limbo bit. So are other people I speak to. It's been a problem since 1.09 and has seemed to increase with 1.10.