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How can you tell if a SIM is a new server or old? I want to buy land.

Chilly Charlton
Registered User
Join date: 15 Jun 2004
Posts: 483
04-22-2005 19:00
I'm looking to buy some more land but I have no way of knowing if the land I'm looking at is on a new or old server. Is there some way to find out? Someone please help!
Roberta Dalek
Probably trouble
Join date: 21 Oct 2004
Posts: 1,174
04-22-2005 19:26
You can tell by going to Help -> About Second Life. It will say something like:

You are at 252129.7, 255260.6, 24.7 in Rue dAlliez located at sim451.agni.lindenlab.com (69.25.104.137:12035)

This means that I was on sim 451 which is quite a new one. The higher the number the newer the machine.

However - the machine the sim is running on changes everytime the sim reboots or there is an update.

To be honest sim performance is more likely to be affected by your neighbours - how many scripted/physical objects there are - whether lots of avatars are in the sim - is there a club/tringo place in the sim?
Prokofy Neva
Virtualtor
Join date: 28 Sep 2004
Posts: 3,698
04-22-2005 20:22
From: someone
the machine the sim is running on changes everytime the sim reboots or there is an update.


But the Lindens claim they no longer do this switcheroo anymore. I do see the sim numbers changing, however.
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Lordfly Digeridoo
Prim Orchestrator
Join date: 21 Jul 2003
Posts: 3,628
04-22-2005 21:43
From: Chilly Charlton
I'm looking to buy some more land but I have no way of knowing if the land I'm looking at is on a new or old server. Is there some way to find out? Someone please help!


The lindens have different server "classes", basically groups of servers that each area of SL draws from, according to its age.

So the earliest sims (Dore, Ahern, Tan, etc.) have the slowest machines (theoretically). Sometimes it goofs and throws in a wrong server, but not often.

The newer the land area, the better the machines.

LF
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Jim Lumiere
Registered User
Join date: 24 May 2004
Posts: 474
04-22-2005 22:06
From: Roberta Dalek
... This means that I was on sim 451 which is quite a new one. ...


Is there a sim 1? Do we have a "point of origin"?
Lordfly Digeridoo
Prim Orchestrator
Join date: 21 Jul 2003
Posts: 3,628
04-22-2005 22:24
From: Jim Lumiere
Is there a sim 1? Do we have a "point of origin"?


Yeah, Grignano boots to it every once in a while. As far as I know, it was the first Sim machine put into general use (late 2002?)

It needs to be taken back behind the Colo and "Old Yeller'd". It runs everything like pea soup.

:)

LF
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Nimdoq Samiam
Registered User
Join date: 6 Apr 2005
Posts: 8
04-22-2005 22:33
From: Jim Lumiere
Is there a sim 1? Do we have a "point of origin"?


According to the SL History Wiki:

From: someone
Da Boom

The first sim to be added to the grid, marked as sim number 1 (sim1), however recently the server it runs on was replaced and now it is most likely on a different server/sim number (as seen by Help - About Second Life). Da Boom is a Mature rated sim and has been home to many clubs and events.

Named after the alley De Boom which was located next to the first Linden Lab offices on Linden Street. The spelling mistake between Da and De was not realized for some time. The mistake remains one that has gone unchanged, unlike Cordova and Abbotts among others which were corrected.


-nim
Khamon Fate
fategardens.net
Join date: 21 Nov 2003
Posts: 4,177
04-23-2005 05:45
From: Roberta Dalek
To be honest sim performance is more likely to be affected by your neighbours - how many scripted/physical objects there are - whether lots of avatars are in the sim - is there a club/tringo place in the sim?

This is true. Your fellow sim occupants will have a far more profound impact on your land owning experience than the hardware.
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Adam Zaius
Deus
Join date: 9 Jan 2004
Posts: 1,483
04-23-2005 06:09
From: Prokofy Neva
But the Lindens claim they no longer do this switcheroo anymore. I do see the sim numbers changing, however.


No. It happens, it's just they stay on similar performance machines now.

There's five(four?) classes of sims that I know of (actual specifications may not be exact, lindens have never quite specified anything in detail of the differences between the classes - a lot of deduction involved, class zero and one, may be the same class, either way, they no longer exist, or are voids/linden sims only):

0: Pentium 2.2 Ghz Machines, now entirely retired. (numbers 1-32 IIRC)
1: Pentium 2.4 Ghz Machines, now mostly retired (linden sims only) (numbers 33 to 75)
2: Pentium 2.8Ghz Machines - still active in older colour sims (76 to 150?)
3: Pentium 3.2Ghz Machines - large number of these (150? to 450)
4: Dual Opteron244 Machines - all newer machines (450 to 700)

So: if you see a number switching, it's switching within the same 'class'. The switching, believe it or not, is infact a good thing. Instead of waiting 15 minutes for the sim to reboot, another sim takes over while the other is rebooting which shortens downtime in sim crashes dramatically. The crashed sim then becomes availible in the event of another crash.

-Adam
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Prokofy Neva
Virtualtor
Join date: 28 Sep 2004
Posts: 3,698
04-23-2005 08:24
From: someone
So: if you see a number switching, it's switching within the same 'class'.



Then why is the performance degrading, why is the sim crashing more frequently, despite not having an increase in the number of scripted objects?

I'm mystified why the FPS goes down when I can't see scripted objects going up above about 300. In my experience it usually only deteriorates badly when it is above 500. Of course *the kind* of scripted objects could be a factor.

I just have trouble understanding why sims that are relatively new deteriorate so quickly when they only have a few landowners on them, lots of unsold land, no clubs or malls, no large numbers of visitors. It's just extremely vexing.

And I think the answer is simple, the sim has gotten stuck with a faulty server or a server not functioning at optimal performance, whatever its literal newness or class.
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Adam Zaius
Deus
Join date: 9 Jan 2004
Posts: 1,483
04-23-2005 10:17
From: Prokofy Neva
Then why is the performance degrading, why is the sim crashing more frequently, despite not having an increase in the number of scripted objects?

I'm mystified why the FPS goes down when I can't see scripted objects going up above about 300. In my experience it usually only deteriorates badly when it is above 500. Of course *the kind* of scripted objects could be a factor.

I just have trouble understanding why sims that are relatively new deteriorate so quickly when they only have a few landowners on them, lots of unsold land, no clubs or malls, no large numbers of visitors. It's just extremely vexing.

And I think the answer is simple, the sim has gotten stuck with a faulty server or a server not functioning at optimal performance, whatever its literal newness or class.


Class Four is a little bit special - in that you share the server with another sim, now before anyone jumps up in flames at how their server isnt their server. You should take into consideration the power of these boxes. With the SL server program, it runs /four/ times faster on these machines that it does on class 3. Even after splitting the server between two people, you still on average should have a machine twice as fast as a similar class3 designation.

Generally a lot of that degredation is going to be your neighbours. Without mentioning any names, Abbotts very frequently crashes as the result of a physical scripted build (much to the dismay of the large landholders there), it's not faulty hardware but a scripted build which periodically executes and usually brings the sim down.

So in a lot of cases, your neighbours might be to blame (physics is the easiest way of killing a sim, so look there before commencing scripted object witchhunts), or in rarer cases the other sim you are sharing with (due to the way this is setup however, it is highly unlikely that the other sim would be able to eat more than it's fair share of resources, especially not to the point that it crashes the whole machine)

-Adam
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David Cartier
Registered User
Join date: 8 Jun 2003
Posts: 1,018
04-23-2005 16:20
From: Lordfly Digeridoo
The lindens have different server "classes", basically groups of servers that each area of SL draws from, according to its age.

So the earliest sims (Dore, Ahern, Tan, etc.) have the slowest machines (theoretically). Sometimes it goofs and throws in a wrong server, but not often.

The newer the land area, the better the machines.

LF


Dore actually has a higher number now, no doubt needed for the new Welcome Area.
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Gwyneth Llewelyn
Winking Loudmouth
Join date: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1,336
04-23-2005 23:28
Hmm, Io is *almost always* on sim5, does that mean that it's a class 0 machine? ;)

It certainly is a painfully slow sim. I like to think that I'm renting land on a box that has seen the original Closed Alpha software one day...
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Nexus Nash
Undercover Linden
Join date: 18 Dec 2002
Posts: 1,084
04-23-2005 23:41
From: Prokofy Neva

I just have trouble understanding why sims that are relatively new deteriorate so quickly when they only have a few landowners on them...


Your answer is in there, people cause sims to deteriorate by what they do to them. Like Adam said, 99.9% of the time, people (your neighbours) are to blame.
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