Island Sim Outrage

Stroker... I went to look at your island, and from what I can tell you ARE on a newer server... you also have 985 objects that are not set to group or owned by you, those would concern me...
Your island is gorgeous, I am sorry you having trouble with it =/

I don't remember the Lindens ever promising that Island sims would be on the fastest servers, just like they never promised that certain mainland sims would be on the fastest servers. What you were promised was a dedicated, single server to use. You wouldn't have to worry about some rogue 16sqm plot of land bringing the server down. You have lots of special Estate functions such as locking, hiding, terraforming, etc. You can choose your own sim name, and set the maturity level.

I don't remember the posts saying "Buy an Island sim, get personalized attention, and the fastest servers on the grid."

Hank that is the problem you are missing, they do NOT get a dedicated server, it has been found even at times that private islands were SHARING servers.

When I bought Aasim I was not under the impression that it was going to be put on a machine that was better than the mainland servers. Though I did assume it was to be placed on a machine that was no older than the date the island was created. This has not always been the case and was cause for major concern when we got rolled over to a very old sim and framerates were halved. ATM we are back on a newer sim, but that changes periodically. LL has stated that this problem is going to be resolved. I will remain patient and wait for that change to occur.

The apparent advantage as I saw it was that owning an island gave you 100% control of the server's resources and no crossover lag from neighboring sims. This has been the case. Any lag I have noticed on my island has been caused by objects, scripts, avatars, or textures that I allow to be placed there. Periodically we must reevaluate what has been placed there to maximize sim framerates and client download times. We try to keep the prim count no higer than 10,000-11,000 . We are constantly looking at ways to make the scripts we have more efficient. And where possible reuse textures instead of using completely different ones. It can be a tedious task but is well worth it to create a lag free environment.

Unfortunately the servers can only handle so much "stuff" before they bog down. The more scripts and primitives you have, the less avatars that sim will handle before feeling lagged. If your goal is to have a sim that can hold a maximum number of avatars, ideally it would be devoid of primitives and scripts. Unfortunately, without the primitives and scripts there is not much draw for people to come to your island. The tricky part is coming up with an acceptable balance.

I also went over to your island Stroker, you are on sim 419 - a newer one. It is a beautiful island, you've done a great job. Perhaps try to look at what is there that can be made more efficient if you want a higher framerate. While I was there the framerate was pretty good...around 800 FPS. And the sim "felt" great. But there where only 3 of us on the island. I imagine that would drop significantly as more avatars apppeared.

Can you elaborate on this?

as to the lag, you can control alot of that with what you build. even the slowest sims can be made livable, when you control 100% of the content. Sure you may not be able to host uuber club events etc easily, but thats besides the point.

Client lag *IS* entirely your fault on an island however. If you build well, the client can run very fast, if you don't well it will be alot slower. No one but you controls that content though on an island except its owner. On the mainland you do sometimes have to deal with lag causing builds, or people who set entire structures _light which lags all the clients nearby tremendously.

before ya go gettin yer knickers in a bunch, do you even know what sim you are on *NOW*? and whats the fps running on it?

as to 'sharing' sims that only happens with the newer dual opterons.. yes, you are running two sims on one box with that. But that does *NOT* hurt performance, in fact server performance on a dual opteron is *BETTER* for each sim than a pair of seperate average servers would be. rather significantly so (almost 2x)

on the flip side theres no way in hell LL can set up a dual opteron server for $980, it just probably costs them a bit less than $1960 is all, i would guess around $1450 to $1600 depending on the exact specs.

okay preliminary analysis of stroker's land is the following:

eros: sim419 (this is a late model p4 server, nothin shabby here, its not an opteron but given it was founded july 20 it is still newer than it was 'bought' at

sim fps: 525ish with about 550 active scripts, thats where yer 'lag' is comin from on the server side.

the adjoining sim, shaea, is actually on a slightly older sim than eros, sim 282. It is running much faster however, cause theres jus less crud fillin it up, theres only 350 active scripts, and its managin to get almost double eros' sim framerate. Its still a fairly heavy sim load yer puttin on the poor thing though.

as to client lag, you are using alot of alpha textures, that can add up abit.. but i know whats causin the lag there... take a look at this lil screenshot (its eros, with 'light trace' turned on, and yes, that is insane, and its whats causing any and all client slowdown issues for you. You have *hundreds* of objects set light, if anyone is foolish enough to go in there with local lighting on their poor clients will be punished severely.

You *REALLY* need to go back through basically the entire sim and UN-SET a hell of alot of things back to normal materials that are currently set light if you wan people to have a smoother time of things

Thanks for everyones posts..I know this has been a troubling issue for a lot of us. Not just the Island Sim Owners.

When I first bought my sim I was ecstatic to find that the framerate with *NOTHING* on it was 2900, compared to Crimson which hovered at 100 fps. Thats the HIGHEST it ever was.

Imagine my surprise when I saw a MAINLAND sim that had fps in excess of 4-5000. Theres definitely some disparity between servers/bandwidth/fps.

This isnt about Island vs. Mainland (as some would like to make it) Its about value.

If nothing else, it may serve as informational to prospective island sim buyers.

Thanks for the compliment Sensual

the 985 objects are Christmas deco (makes it easy to pack, too)

Stroker: I'd love to have that server you're on! If you want a hand killing some of the lag, let me know. Killing the light objects, as eltee suggested, is a damn good start.

I don't ever expect LL to have the same exact servers for everyone, but some of the oldest sims just do not cut the mustard in a 1.5/1.6 world.

As LL continues to buy new Opterons, we'll be getting better and better. And don't forget, the Lindens have already addressed your concerns - read the snippet from Cory's townhall above. Its not done yet, but will be soon.

Good luck mate,

-Flip

this is lusk, one'f the oldest mainland sims with light trace turned on. You can see the huge difference, both in terms of the crud on screen, and the client frame rate

if you cleared that sim of all the stuff in it it'd be at least 4-5000 sim fps. you have too many active objects (objects with listens, timers, color changers, etc) thats whats makin your particular sim slow, the good news is, you can fairly easily control that, jus cleanin up some'f the stuff, or talkin with some people on how to make it look the same but use alot less resources

Thanks Flip and Eltee for the advice

I KNOW all too well how to allieviate laggy objects and scripts(light/timers/listeners/textures)

My point is...Eros was never above 2900fps with NOTHING on it, fresh, virgin sim.
Yet, there are sims with 5-6K in fps on the mainland.

And YES I am on a newer server, because I requested to be, OVER and OVER again. I WAS on #149. Shaea (until yesterday) was on server #2...wtf!!

Whats the point of having a nice build if you cant share it..or people will not visit it?

heh well that i understand completely, we've put alot in to lusk and perry now, two of the oldest 16 sims.. and we've really turned them back around. The oldest hardware, the block of original non hyperthreadin sims, is really a performance bottleneck. They should jus be expunged from the game, but then who wants to take a $80,000 unexpected loss at the end of the year? its hard to present that to investors.

as to empty performance thats kinda misleading.. as the numbers get 'higher' they actually mean less and less... the same object that takes a sim from 10,000 sim fps to 1000, would take a 100 sim fps box, to 99.. remember its an inverse metric (one over the total run time to process a frame) (1/n) style..

even a simple scripted watch could 'lock' an empty sim out of getting numbers *that* high.

The opterons are a lil more capable in this regards and as they roll out you will see more 'silly' high numbers, but jus remember they don carry alot of meaning, they are sort of a logarythmic scale, so a very laggy object will totally trash a high number, but will barely budge an already low one

Didn't the lindens say a few times now that any sim FPS over 600 or so is just fluff?

So what's it matter if someone "only" has 1000 fps compared to 4000?

LF

When you have average sim fps hovering around 600, and you have an event, the fps drop down to um... 100 or 38 and you have LAG. If the fps are up around 4000, they drop down to between 1000 and 2000 and have a tolerable enviroment to have your event in.


Since having Events is at the core of how this system works, sims need to be able to support them.

And as for what is on the sim previous to the event, well SL is major eye candy, thats its first draw for many, so sims need to be able to support that too.


fen-

wow that's four of us in the beta club now. i'm beginning to feel sane again.

hanks point is well taken. the codas have spent around 128kL (~$500) on 32ksm in zoe and would likely spend another $500 worth of lindens to purchase the other half if it were ever available.

we'd practically own a sim, other than the sacred corner and a small patch of governor land. we'd be on the mainland bordering clementina and a nice inland sea. but we'd be stuck with a forty meter landscaping limit, those old original ground textures, the name, the rating, and no way for people to teleport directly there. it makes buying an island look pretty good by comparison. at least it did.

hiro's points are well stated as well. i've rented web and email accounts in addition to entire servers on the net. questions of service guarantees have always been my own responsibility. get it in writing and make sure it says what you want it to say. however, there's no option here. no company other than ll currently offer this type of environment.

but a lot of people are working on it. ll's biggest job right now is to steel themselves against that competition when it hits. maybe private island owners aren't a large enough future market for them to be worried about right now.

*disclaimer: i don't own a private island so feel free to ignore my opinions if that's a prerequisite

Okay, so build more efficiently

If your 3000 listener scripts are grinding your sim to a halt... use less listeners.

If you have 40,000 unique textures in a Sim... use less textures.

There's many ways to optimize a build, a sim, a script. That would go a long way towards alleviating most perceived server headaches.

LF

I agree LF, but building efficiently is a learned talent, mostly by trial and error.

LL should compile an efficient building manual and hand it out with every land purchase.



fen-

I will reiterate..my island sim with NOTHING on it...no listeners..no timers..no textures..NOTHING, was never above 2900..neither was Shokra's or Shari's. If these are "newer" servers then why is the the fps in the toilet out of the box??

Not discounting the fact its always the "endusers" fault...poor building..too many prim..too many scripts..thats BULLSHIT!

If the servers cant handle them then get some that can! Why even bother buying a whole sim if you cant put anything on it? Not to mention have anyone visit it.

Sure I can build a really nice island paradise with a few prim trees and plants..maybe even have an event or two that doesnt freeze everyone in place. But why on earth pay $200 a month for that, if you can do that ANYWHERE in SL? Whats the use?

I should just build smarter...LMAO...I should get the FPS I pay $200 a month for!!

Whenever you complain about lag its the same ole crap...dont use this, dont use that...
So how much does it cost to use whatever you want? $400 a month..$1000 month??

I'm sick and tired of everything being blamed on clientside.

he adjoining sim, shaea, is actually on a slightly older sim than eros, sim 282. It is running much faster however, cause theres jus less crud fillin it up, theres only 350 active scripts, and its managin to get almost double eros' sim framerate. Its still a fairly heavy sim load yer puttin on the poor thing though.

This is BS sorry .....when I first got my island I was runing 1500 period with nothing on there and with same stuff as now..but never above 1500. Then one fine day my island was down, I was told they working on it to be back asap. I landed on server #2 with a fps of 169 to 160...yesssss and nothing had been changed on my side.
Im tired of of being told is user end fault...no matter what the deal is...whats the point of having any land anywhere , when u cant even put something on it.'
Get adequate equipment already and stop trying to passify people with blaming end user bullshit.

If you don't have or watch the performance of an island you really don't understand whats happening... Le Cadre had the same problem... one day we would have 800+ FPS and the next thing we know we had 100-250, and this with out changing anything at all... Lindens would come and say it was this or that causing the problems.... we would delete whatever they told us and it never made a difference to the sims performance... there was a memory leak in the servers, which from my understanding is fixed now... but I am unsure.

I am most curious about the shared server issue.
Did LL ever state that these islands where to be on their own servers?
That was certainly what I remember being said, perhaps I am mistaken.
(I have a memory leak as well)

The shared server issue was a bug, glitch, mistake... whatever you want to call it, but it has happen.

So are all the islands on shared servers still?