Development Update January 4, 2006

We have been working for weeks to determine the causes of ongoing texture issues. Issues we have isolated have been fixed as we have found them, but problems continue to exist. The good news is that we had a breakthrough late last week, and I would like to share the details with everyone here:

During some development work Friday night, we discovered a bug where we weren't spending as much time decompressing textures as we could every frame, resulting in slower texture loads. The fix for this issue will be in 1.8.0. (It can be seen currently in Preview, version 1.8.0(5) and higher.)

While this fix should greatly improve the experience, there is another issue which is still causing problems. Residents have suggested their cache is broken because objects that have already been loaded once are redrawn each time they are seen. We don't believe this to be a caching issue; rather, a change in Interest List behavior in 1.7 is the suspected cause.

The Interest List is a collection of objects (prims, etc.) including agents and agents in other regions (who can see your avatar). We use this list to know what to display to you and those around you.

In 1.7, we changed the way objects already drawn are stored for re-use. We are currently investigating a modification of the new scheme that should resolve the remaining issue widely described as "a broken cache." Work on this issue will continue until a resolution is found, at which time I will post an update here.