Prims attached to avs

What do you think is a reasonable maximum number of prims to have attached to your av? I don't want to create excess lag for those who may cross my path, or myself for that matter.

Reasonable..maybe 10

Max 250 per attachment location

Shadow

Well, I wear something like 700 at last count... So anything below that and I wouldn't say anything.

Nobody bitches when I have 1,200 on. Mostly trapezoids tho.

Don't worry about limiting yourself for reasons such as lag. Be creative and use as many prims as needed. I wear between 700-1000 prims in body jewelry (mostly facial ).

Where your prims proudly!

Briana Dawson

It's got more to do with the size and kind of prims than the number. My mech suit is about 140 I think and it consists mostly of either boxes or moderately large curved surfaces. I don't notice a change in FPS with it on vs. off.

In contrast, a "hoochie hair" attachment consisting of the same number of prims - but where they are all tiny curved surfaces - will absolutely kill my framerate, even with the changes that were made in 1.5 and 1.6 to better support that sort of thing. My guess is that generating all the vertices at different levels of detail is a hell of a lot of work. A box has only eight vertices but of course a curved surface can have hundreds depending on how close you are to it. Multiply that by 100 or more for particularly detailed hoochie hair and you wind up throwing away a lot of CPU time on one attachment.

239 for most of my birds. Mostly in the feet and wings. In a total of 12 attachments.

Note to self: Add Briana Dawson to banlist, Reason: walking lag bomb.

Awww. At least you always tell what server she is on. Walk into the LL server rooms and look for the server with the smoking hard drives. Briana, if sims still don't tremble in your wake; add more jewelry. Oh, and don't forget the bling. What's 1000 prims of jewelry without a similar number of bling effects?

I dont seem to have enough things attached to me! PARTICLE JEWLERY TIME! WOOO

I think I'll make myself a Stay Puft suit where each sphere has at least another 50000 nested inside like a matroska! Lag bomb? Hah! Server killer!

Put more stay pufts into each of the small spheres. Then spheres into them end then more staypufts into them.

And then make serveral Stay Puff pets with same prims. All set to follow you.

Stay Puft fractals! Oy!

The "reasonable" number of prims is a really tough call, since it depends on so many factors. I would say as a rule of thumb, the following factors apply:

- Server Performance

Pretty obvious one there. Naturally, you'll have a better time with a lot of attachments on the fastest of sims than the Preview Grid.

- Client Performance

Some people just like to run wide-open with their older computers (like me). Insert your own line here.

- Sim Usage

Enter the first tough call - Sim Use. Depending on what someone is doing to a sim at a given time, how many avatars are in there, and how many rendering operations are firing on one's getup, the prims can vary considerably.

In the perfect world, people would have fewer than 100 prims attached from the sim's perspective. As we know, this just isn't the case.

- Personal Usage

Now for an even more opaque area. I'm going to go out on a line here and "guesstimate" some averages that I think are "fair" and "average," based on their primcount.


- Typical Averages, Total Prims by Avatar Use:

0 - 25: Standard newbie avatar or Minimalist.

Notes: I fall into this category. There aren't many of these people around.

25-100: Standard Scripter or Casual User.

Notes: This seems to be the happy medium for both user bases. Many Scripters, Residential/Casual Users, and even Lindens fall into this category.

100 - 200: Typical Socialite, Club Frequenter, and a few usually from the 200+ camp. Bling is optional.

Notes: This is by far the most common group. Most of these prims are devoted to attachments like jewelry and clothing add-ons, as well as prim hair (read: "hoochie hair).

200 and up: Most Mechs, Furries, Robots, Cyborgs, "Artistic" Outfits, or "Mixed" Costumes (for example, a mech or furry in Darklife armor).

Notes: While not as common as the 100-200 camp, this group is still pretty damned common. And likely more vocal, from the responses here.


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As for the perfect world, I'd rather see this:

Minimalists: No Change. 0 - 25
Typical Scripter/Casual User: Little Change. 25-75
Socialites: Some change. 75 - 150
All other categories: Fewer than 400 prims total

I think 400 prims is a fair "upper bound" for everyone, and would encourage people to be more conservative and thoughtful in their attachments.

"Hoochie hair" does not need a prim for every strand of hair, for example - creators like Starax have come out with fairly good looking hair that only uses a few prims.

Furries, Mechs, Cyborgs, and Darklifers especially (being large categories) also shouldn't need more than 400 (or at worst, 500) prims unless the creator is just being sloppy or neurotic about detail, in my opinion. I say "shouldn't" because it's not a perfect world.

After all, textures are there for some reason. Right?

Anyway, that's my $0.02.

My favorite quote on this from an unnamed Linden: "Some residents have the equivalent of a Quake map attached to their avatars now. It's amazing how far technology has come."

Yeah, I'm with Huns here. I mean, the difference between a plywood box and a tortured torus... please.

Just going by quantity alone is misleading -- similarly with using Sim FPS as the only basis for performance in a region. It leaves out so many details that it's basically like eating alphabet soup that only has the letters A, B, and maybe a C in the mix.

And remember, there are also client-side things that can be done when things get really bad, like reaching for the Debug menu and turning off alphas... even easier with a few snappy shortcuts. Sure, the view sucks, but bear with it until the framerate gets better.