FPS dropping down really badly...

Hey, I've been having issues lately with my Framerate just arbitrarily dropping down to 1 to 2 FPS. It didn't start doing this until a short while ago. I think somewhere around the time of 1.6.12. Anyways, I've got an ATI 9550, and it seems to be ok. But I keep noticing my Ping times are way high, instead of like 100-200 range, its like 800 and upwards.

If I quit SL, and log back in, the system goes away, but... its annoying as well. Is this just something that happens, or is there an issue others are having too? I just had it do the same thing to me after I went to APPEARANCE and saved my outfit. Then whammo, FPS drops like a rock.

Help. And yeah, I'm running the newest ATI drivers too. I thought that might have been an issue so I got those updated.

Hmmmm. You done a spyware purge lately? Virus scan and the like? You may be doing some things you aren't aware of and it is a very good idea to check.

i ran sl on a powerbook 17" w/ati, and it seemed that after awhile, the framerate would drop in places that it shouldn't... however, i never did cache-clears myself, and it seemed maybe to just be 'random' sim-drops (maybe someone in the same grid doing some scripting experimentation that hung the whole thing?)

good luck... sometimes it's hard to tell whether you can do anything about!

I did some cache cleaning, when the problem started up, but its still be occuring. According to others in the same sim, they weren't lagging. Hrm.

Salen, did you recently uprade to the new 5.9 Catalyst drivers that were released about a week back?

I did this a few days ago and my framerates dropped like a rock off Hoover Dam. Seriously... from about 20fps to less than 1.. and it ALWAYS started happening (oddly enough) when I did any pulldown menu from the top.... And it sounds like it's exactly how you described, too.

I went back to the older Catalyst 5.7 drivers again and things cleared right up again.

Just in case it helps. I'm very disappointed with ATI. But happy I got it resolved either way.

Actually, Psyra, I went TO the 5.9 drivers because I was having similiar issues with the 5.7 drivers. But yes, I was having similiar issues as well, it seems. I'll try going back to the 5.7 drivers and see if that helps.

Incidentally, your minimum ping is always the inverse of your framerate. So at 2fps your ping is at least 500ms, and at 1fps it's 1000ms.

There's always the possibility of your video memory being overloaded. The average scene in SL has about 128MB of textures. If what you see has more textures than your video card has onboard memory, it'll use the computer's memory instead, which is a big performance hit.

Sorry to confound your theory, Lee. But, I have noticed the degradation of Sim FPS in many, many sims recently - and listened to people freaking out when the FPS suddenly drops through the floor with nothing really going on, and only, say 4 people on the sim, when this occurs. I have seen similar fluctutions in Stat Bar indicators on my sim recently, too. LOL, I even tried to blame my buddy/resident for bringing in corrupted scripts. ;-p

I run a Big Mac Dual G5, with 2.5GB RAM and a top of the line vid card with 256 MB VRAM. Nothing has changed on my side, except my cable provider recently upped speed from 4Mbits/sec to 6Mbits/sec. I can't imagine an increase in broadband speed could cause my observed problems with sim Stats and performance.

Bottom line, my set-up FAR exceeds the SL minimum requirements and NOTHING has changed on my side of the equation, other than a much faster connection. I, therefore, am beginning to suspicion something else is going on at the network/grid level on the LL side.

(Nope, i do not have a firewall up, or a network setup, wireless modem or router.)

What else could be causing the downturn regarding performance? Granted, load is an issue, but recent performance fluctuations are very erratic and don't seem to correlate at all with load / number of residents in-world.

I've returned to SL after an enforced absence of a week or two, played for a bit tonight on a brand new machine (so definately no spyware) and too noticed that it was occasionally grinding to a halt, by which I mean eggtimers and the UI was unresponsive, though the rest of the system was fine. FPS would drop to about 1 or 2 as this happened too.

Something doesn't seem right.

So, Lee.... using your calculation, a fps of 20 should have ping time of 50ms. so, why is my fps around 20 and ping tims of 170-220ms? And Sim FPS all over the map, and run tasks at 65%?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Don't forget, i have the BIG Mac, no firewall, hardwired cable at 6Mbits/sec.

As I said, minimum ping, i.e. the smallest number you'll see. Obviously, if the data does take 200ms to travel from us to you, that's the ping that'll be reported, not the 50ms it takes your computer to finish drawing the scene and acknowledge the data for the next frame.


True SimFPS is 45 frames per second. Any SimFPS report over 45 is a flaw in how we report SimFPS. This is an entirely separate issue from your ping.


Run Task percentage isn't important, the time in ms is. You'll see Time(ms) just below Time(percent); click it to open it up. With Time(ms), <1.0 is great, 2.0 is fine, 5.0 is high, and >8.0 is bad. These reflect actual performance; Time(percent) does not. Again, this is a separate issue that doesn't affect ping.

I'm going to throw in the random thought of asset server issues, because of the logins and the problems the other night, as well as the problems i have with my inventory, when i open it and wait for the items to list in it seem to freeze and stutter my machine, not only that for the last week i have been receiving objects that i havent owned land on in 4 months, linden trees is all, but linked with that, what happens if the asset server is overloaded an you fly into an area request a new set of textures and buildings etc and it just cant deliver them, does it time out or slow you down?

Edit: And the land was cleared personally by me when i sold it, so no idea where these trees are coming from every day, they always get returned while im offline, so cant go see who's there

Thanks, Lee.... appreciate the info. Will the false performance indicator for Sim FPS be corrected in verson 1.7 ? It sounds like Sim FPS reading will be capped at 45. Will Statisitics Bar show Sim FPS readings below 45 FPS? I have seen several sims below 45 recently....

Checked my "Time" detail. All looks good.