Bad lag, freezes, crashes

Here's something I've been noticing recently. Many times when I pull up the world map, I get the freezing/locking. Sometimes it goes away and sometimes it stays locked. Depending on how long I've been on and what I've been doing. I narrowed it down to my computers virtual memory being insufficient. (pop up on computer telling me this)
I'm wondering if there's an issue with the world map and it's ability to show real time stats. Possibly this could be one of the main reasons for freezing?...at least for me it is. Has anybody else noticed the world map causing issues?


I'm attempting to alleviate this:
I bought some more ram (512 to get up to a full gig) and bumped my VM up to 1500 mb and then my computer would just lock up or go into safe mode. Eventually, I had to remove the ram and drop the VM back to it's original setting and SL worked fine...until the map locked it up again.
I'm going to try and just install the ram today and leave the VM alone to see if it works.

System specs:
Asus 400Mhz FSB
Athlon XP 3200 running at 2.2Ghz
512Mb ram (going to 1 gig today)
Ati Radeon 9600XT 8X AGP

My system specs:
Intel Dual Core processor @ 2.8ghz
1024mb RAM
Nvidia 6600 256meg 16x PCIx
5.5mbps Cable Internet access

I still have problems. So do others I talk to daily. It is absolutely not user computer configurations. It is not "client content" (it does the same thing on sims only half full and script controlled). Whatever it is that's causing these problems, it's deep-core server-side / programming issues. People who have used Second Life for over a year suddenly now can't log on without crashing. They're freezing in place, then moving and flying across multiple sims without being able to stop, eventually crashing into limbo. There are major problems and I doubt seriously it has anything to do with your computer.

I would hope that LL is rushing like mad to correct these problems... but I've seen these and similar problems for months without being resolved. Imo LL needs to get their priorities straight and start focusing on their platform rather than adding new toys to further lag the system and cause problems. Adding floppy prims and local lighting at the expense of customers not being able to log on is not a responsible course.

yeah, I've been monitoring frame rates and packet loss and I'm just not seeing anything, then all of a sudden.....something freezes it.

That's why I brought up the virtual memory/world map issue that I noticed yesterday. If I've been on for awhile, and I pull up the map, I can hear my hard drive going skeeto...the sound of files being swapped back and forth on the hard drive...as if the computer is trying to make more space. At that point, everything freezes until the swap is complete and I can continue....but if I keep pulling up the map, the same thing happens except it never recovers....

Seems to me that the data of the world map could be made as a picture instead of a real-time visual data base. Maybe a new picture taken every 30 seconds or so which would then be viewed by the user for information. That way, the users computer doesn't have to work so hard.
I'm no software whiz so maybe this idea isn't feasible, but it's something I've noticed that might help some people.

Indeed, I sent an email discoursing the entire event of the weekend, and got a reply, with details, and a sincere technical interest. I also pointed out this forum as one of the resources, and the multiple folks with the problems, and recieved a personal reply in about two hours. I must go to work, so sleeps calls, but I will maintain posting here the results of this priocess. SO far:

requested avatar actions (for things I have tested myself, but I will walk the line on this)
requests for start up logs

I must say, in gamers terms, thats a fairly quick response, with some token action as well. I do not, however, recommend live help for anyone with a serious techinical problem such as this. I instead recommend a detailed email of your system and your actions to date, with as much good puter data as possible.

Wayfinder, you said you knew multiple folks with the same problems, lets get everyone to send in as much info as possible, or even just post it here, so LL can see the accounts crash logs and other vitals to try and debug this.

Excellent advice, as is the advice about live helpers. Live help (and I am one) will do our best but the advice is basically the same as here. We don't have much different access to Lindens as here and here the problems can be collated easier.

Truthfully whilst the problems look bad MOST people don't have any problems of note ( biggest one most people have is crashing on hi-res screenies which is a known issue but obviously not a critical one ) you ARE unfortunatly the minority. Doesn't mean the problems don't need fixing, they do but to have a go at LL is unfair. ALL MMOPG's have issues when big patches are applied, sadly go's with the territory and what's important is how LL respond. And they do seem to be putting effort into fixing these issues. What's bogging them down is reading crash reports from unsupported hardware.

I thought I'd mention you don't need a super system to run SL necessarily. It's been a while but I believe I have most of the graphic options unchecked. All the same, I'm running an AMD 2500+ with a gig of ram and an Nvidia 6600. I think that is hardly cutting edge though not junk either. The mentor's meeting this morning was a little slow - I think there were 40 people there. Otherwise I seem to get decent frame rates.

Actually, your system is pretty decent. While the AMD 2500 isn't leading technology, you do have it supported with an Nvidia 6600 card and a gig of ram. Like you said, not junk. However, to be honest SL actually should be able to run (to attract the greatest number of users) on a Celeron system with 256 meg ram and an Intel 3-D graphics system. Now I know some will disagree... but this has been a point of issue all along. What is the purpose of SL... to serve the broadest community or be a technical wonder to a few?

Not everyone has high level Nvidia or ATI graphics systems. Not everyone has a gig of ram or a Pentium 4/ Athlon chipset. The vast majority of computers out there are general all-around decent systems that really should be able handle anything the internet can throw at them. To push technology beyond that might (arguably) not be in the best interest of the Second Life community at this time.

I'd rather for the things that exist to work well and everyone be able to log on that have a buggy system that prohibits use because people don't have a high-level computer. That's just my opinion of course, but I do believe the community in general would be better served if LL just stuck to basics--- and did those well. Want to impress the majority of users on SL? Kill the lag monster. Stop prims from disappearing on screen. Stop the "limbo" glitches. Improve log-on speed. Improve linking and inventory. Speed up texture rezzing. Give us improved group functions. It doesn't have to be ultra-fancy. Just make the game foundation work properly. The day that I log on and don't lag and don't crash-- that will be impressive.

Actually, your system is pretty decent. While the AMD 2500 isn't leading technology, you do have it supported with an Nvidia 6600 card and a gig of ram. Like you said, not junk. However, to be honest SL actually should be able to run (to attract the greatest number of users) on a Celeron system with 256 meg ram and an Intel 3-D graphics system. Now I know some will disagree... but this has been a point of issue all along. What is the purpose of SL... to serve the broadest community or be a technical wonder to a few?

Not everyone has high level Nvidia or ATI graphics systems. Not everyone has a gig of ram or a Pentium 4/ Athlon chipset. The vast majority of computers out there are general all-around decent systems that really should be able handle anything the internet can throw at them. To push technology beyond that might (arguably) not be in the best interest of the Second Life community at this time.

I'd rather for the things that exist to work well and everyone be able to log on that have a buggy system that prohibits use because people don't have a high-level computer. That's just my opinion of course, but I do believe the community in general would be better served if LL just stuck to basics--- and did those well. Want to impress the majority of users on SL? Kill the lag monster. Stop prims from disappearing on screen. Stop the "limbo" glitches. Improve log-on speed. Improve linking and inventory. Speed up texture rezzing. Give us improved group functions. It doesn't have to be ultra-fancy. Just make the game foundation work properly. The day that I log on and don't lag and don't crash-- that will be impressive.

Then, once they get the foundation rock solid... maybe then it will be time to add toys and pretties.

Actually, your system is pretty decent. While the AMD 2500 isn't leading technology, you do have it supported with an Nvidia 6600 card and a gig of ram. Like you said, not junk. However, to be honest SL actually should be able to run (to attract the greatest number of users) on a Celeron system with 256 meg ram and an Intel 3-D graphics system. Now I know some will disagree... but this has been a point of issue all along. What is the purpose of SL... to serve the broadest community or be a technical wonder to a few?

Not everyone has high level Nvidia or ATI graphics systems. Not everyone has a gig of ram or a Pentium 4/ Athlon chipset. The vast majority of computers out there are general all-around decent systems that really should be able handle anything the internet can throw at them. To push technology beyond that might (arguably) not be in the best interest of the Second Life community at this time.

It may be true that those who are having problems are in a "minority"... but they're a large minority. I run a group with 600+ people and I have been getting a lot of feedback on this release. People think floppy prims are fun... but they're not much fun if one can't log in to enjoy them or move around to see them.

Myself, I'd rather for the things that exist to work well and everyone be able to log on-- than have a buggy system that prohibits use because people don't have a high-level computer. That's just my opinion of course, but I do believe the community in general would be better served if LL just stuck to basics--- and did those well. Want to impress the majority of users on SL? Kill the lag monster. Stop prims from disappearing on screen. Stop the "limbo" glitches. Improve log-on speed. Improve linking and inventory. Speed up texture rezzing. Give us improved group functions. It doesn't have to be ultra-fancy. Just make the game foundation work properly. The day that I log on and don't lag and don't crash-- that will be impressive.

Then, once they get the foundation rock solid... maybe then it will be time to add toys and pretties.

Truthfully you don't need a technical wonder to play SL. The Intel chipset is NOT something anyone would consider a '3D graphics system'. It's an old, 2D card with limited 3D capablity and no game/3D environment is going to support that.

A card to work with SL can be as much as 5 or 6 years old and work quite happily. Cards which are considered ancient work just fine. ATI 8500, 9x00 and Nvidia 4x00 for instance both will work just fine with SL and are years old chipsets. Hardly technical wonders.

I think somewhere one of the Lindens has said that the crash reports from unsupported chipsets make up quote a large percentage of them. However in terms of percentage of users who use them it's tiny ( couple of percent maximum ).

As for texture rezzing, I improved mine a LOT by turning up the bandwidth. Most users will be able to run this fairly high. Something like 4mb download ought to be able to support it set to 1000 - and it's makes a BIG difference and is easilly overlooked. Mine was set to 321 ( or thereabouts ) and when I ramped it to 1000 suddently everything was MUCH snappier.

I will agree to an extent... however... I have used an Intel 3-D graphics card and it played SL just fine.. at one time. Dunno about now, truthfully.

I've had my bandwidth turned up to max for ages (my system and cable can more than handle it). I still get slow rezzing textures... sometimes as long as 10-30 minutes. That tells me something's buggy.

there is something buggy on the clothing front. That's for sure but I knew the bandwidth can make a difference. Just make sure it's still maxxed as mine got turned down somehow.

I run SL on an HP TC1100 tablet, 1GHz CPU, 1G RAM, NVIDIA GeForce4 420 Go 32M. Still works pretty well.

Why use this? Cos my main opportunity to run SL is when I'm stuck in hotel rooms. At home I have family to spend my time with. I also run an Acer Aspire 1800. Neither has new drivers and neither can be "upgraded". With the proportion of laptops constantly increasing, any suggestion that problems can be solved by replacing a graphics card is very misleading.

I ran SL last night on a friend's computer: 64bit Turion processor, ATI 200 graphics card. Lagged like a fiend. Very glitchy graphics. Moved in spurts instead of smoothly. Was on a very high-speed cable feed. Now agreed a Turion is not the fastest processor on the market, and an ATI200 is not the most advanced graphics card available. But it's leading technology and it's not an old Pentium with an old graphics card. So if this new-tech computer can't handle SL, I'd say that the system is more system-demanding than the average computer user is geared to handle.

Not that it means anything, because all the pointing out of this fact in the world is not going to change the way LL does things. It's a common fault of techie-based computer companies to forget that their customers don't have all the latest computer toys sitting on their desks.

An ATI Radeon 200m is based on the Radeon 7000 chipset and as such does not meet our Minimum System Requirements.

Which is the point. LL's minimum system requirements seem to be increasingly excessive. People who have been using the system for more than a year can no longer log on.

I understand that all systems have specific minimal requirements for operation. I just think that LL might be pushing those minimal requirements too high. I have used Unreal on a wide variety of computers, using a wide variety of graphics cards, with no problems. The guy above was using a Nvidia 420 with 32meg ram... yet an ATI 3-D board with 128megs isn't sufficient?

Whole point of the issue.

Which is the point. LL's minimum system requirements seem to be increasingly demanding. People who have been using the system for more than a year can no longer log on.

I've been away for about 3 months. When I came back a couple days ago, I was amazed at how well everything seemed to be working.

Then of course...an update.

Sigh. Does this really have to happen on every update?

I can barely walk around. Things blink in and out of existence.

Culling is a good word for it.

Cull (kl) tr.v. To remove rejected members or parts from.

Jeez.. the system requirements HAVE NOT CHANGED.. the 200M is just a rebadged 7000 ( perhaps the 200M needs adding to the list though Lee ) and as such is right down alongside the Intel Chipsets in their spec. The amount of ram doesn't mean a thing if the spec of the hardware using that ram is insufficient.