Latest update gives me the jitters

Updated to the latest version of SL Last night (non essential update, but we will annoy the hell out of you until you do...) and now I am unable to run SL on my machine more than once per reboot.

I have a case of the jitters - that is to say any significant movement will create a "stutter"-like effect, a bit like the border crossing "snapback" in fast forward.

Please note: this problem did not exist prior to any of the previous upgrades to SL, just this latest one.

I am currently running a 7800GT Card, using latest nvidia drivers, and I must say I am beginning to grow tired of the graphics related issues I am having right now

Yeah, me too. Though I have been getting it ofr a few days now.

At times I press the forward button, and have to wait 20 seconds before my avatar moves. And if I am lucky then I will only get the stutters described above.

All my vehicles are now useless and SL is almost unplayable.

My connection speed is around 400kbps, and my FPS is about 20. I dont think this is a network or graphics card problem on my end.

Chage, are you running a Dual Core CPU?

curiously,
Dan

Hey,
Having the same issue as you said. Getting quite annoying unfortuantly, game is unplayable with teh constant jittering around. Emailed Tech support with the following, but no response as of yet. Perhaps someone here knows how to resolve this issue?

Here is what I sent in the email:

"
Hello,
Thank you for taking the time to read this email. I recently join SL at a friends recomendation. After installing the game and running it for the first time, I logged into the world to find I could barily move, character movement/animation was jerky, and would skip back and forth for some reason, looking at other avitars as well showed the same result. I checked the frame rate and it was hovering around 25fps, all options enabled for graphics quality, running at 1280x1024. This issue continued no matter what I did. Tried all combinations of grapics options, from everything off and 640x480 rez, to all combinations of things on and resolutions. I checked video card drivers, and they are up to date, as well as all other drivers in my system for chipset and so forth. Computer specs are as follows:

AMD 64 4400 X2 Processor(Overclocked to 2.6ghz, but experimented if this was causing an issue and dropped it back down to stock, still jittering animations)
2x Geforce 7800GTOC BFG Graphics cards running in SLI mode (experimented with having SLI on and off, and various rendering options with SLI enabled)
2 Gb Corsair PC3700 DDR
Raid 0 Western Digital Raptor 10k RPM 74gb Hard drives
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Board
SB Xi-Fi Fatality edition sound card
Windows XP professional Service Pack 2

While running the SL game, nothing is open what so ever. Only process that runs on the computer is Norton Anti-virus. The computer is used for nothing besides 4 games, so nothing else is installed but windows, those games, and an anti-virus software. Other computers I have fulfill web browsing/work/programming/etc needs. So there shouldnt be any outside programs interfering with SL.

This issue continued for about an hour or so untill for some reason, it cleared up somewhat. Jittering was still there, but it was minimal. Nothing in the system changed what so ever in that time, no background programs were active, no driver changes, no setting changes, nothing, just cleared up. Was able to play for about 3 days with mediocore performace, still jittering slightly, but just low enough that I could play and move about. Now, I get on today, and download the new version as told and the issue has returned, but is even worse now. Trying to move is pointless. Charater avitars, for lack of a better way to put it into words, jitter around when moving, like bouncing back and forth in their animations. World objects do this as well, such as scrolling text, signs, etc, anything that moves, even when Loading into the game, the bar that shows status progress, the bar progress will jitter back and forth constantly. I once again ran though all possible options that I could think of with no sucess. With everything disabled as far as graphics options, Im running at about 60fps in a crowded room with lots of objects, and about 140 or so with nothing but a blank room to have to load, network bandwith being minimal at 5kbs at those times.

I am at a loss as to what to do at this point. The game is quite fun, and I would love to purchase a membership and monthy account, but cant justify doing such if the game cant run correctly. I am requesting any help that can be given so as to resolve this issue. Please let me know if there is something I can try yet. If needed, I could Fraps (video screen capture software) the game play if you need an idea of what Im refering to by jittering.

Yeah he is... hehe... Chagey, set your affinity to only one core d00d.

General info for anyone who's curious... an easy way to manifest this "stuttering is to hold Alt and click on various spots on the ground, as far away from you as possible.

Call up Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Delete), PROCESSES tab, right-click SecondLife.exe and Set Affinity to one of the two CPUs listed--I go with CPU 1 because I already have a bunch of things on the first core.

This info isn't widespread that I know of, and I thot it was a graphics card issue at first too.

How long have dual core processors been around?

You have provided a link to a means to set the affinity status for Second Life.

Might it be more efficient for Linden Labs to incorporate the needed affinity setting code into SL itself, or at least include instructions on the download page that tell you how to make SL's legacy code work with common modern processors?

It's certainly be EASY PEASY!

I do not know of what plans there are for this, but I like to assist in any testing I possibly can--and if I can help facilitate it, I will. Seeing as how I got my whole dual-core computer in the first place for Second Life.

Whoaaa I just notice what Wombat posted shortly before me.

When I get back from work Ill give the processor affinity selection a try. I hope that solves the issue. Any other suggestions ?

YES! Here are more suggestions.

BTW, keeping in mind things may yet change in the future--these are a couple steps I took towards this "dual-core stuttering" issue. My personal experiences:


1. Update your AMD drivers to see if this fixes the stuttering for you:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_13118,00.html

I did, and it made mine stutter *less*, but I'm still got oddness like Fast Timers not displaying properly when SL is set to run on both cores. A picture is provided below, to see if that's what happens to you! It doesn't update and remains quite frozen with the ludicrously high numbers.


2. Consider using an automatic .BAT file to set SL to run on one core, as Hugsy Penguin most excellently describes here.

Get the mentioned IMAGECFG here.

This will make it so you just DOUBLE-CLICK this .BAT file with each new version of SL, and the changes will stick until the next update. I use a variant of this, personally:Below is what Fast Timers looks for me. Pardon the large image. I sent an earlier bug report about this but my knowledge wasn't what it is today, now that more Resis have been discussing it--over a month later. I will be sending in a new one for the adept bug hunters like Dan to dissect. I would encourage everyone else experiencing the same problem to please do the same so we have more info.

Inworld, that's HELP menu ---> REPORT BUG.

Best of hope and thanx graciously!

I have a computer here in the office that exibits the AMD dual core affinity problem. We're looking into solutions. In the meantime, please use the workarounds that Torley suggested.

Dan

Thanks folks. I'll look into after work today.

First day back at school for 70,000 students today, so its going to be a busy one....