Will prim allocations ever rise again?

Doesn't look like prim allocations have risen since SL release 1.2 -

"You can figure your prim allocation using this simple formula: Primitive Allocation = 15,000 * Total Square Meters of Land Own in this Simulator/65,536 "

Surely things have been optimized since then, are we ever going to see prim allocations increased?

Thanks

do you still see lag in busy sims?

raising the limits very doubtful, epecially since the agent limits still 40

Prim allocations haven't risen because the physics engine (Havok 1 under Linux, an already poor release five years ago) is outdated and hasn't changed since launch. Each region runs a physics simulator, every prim can create a collision event, and ultimately each prim could be made physical rolling around the landscape. Until they upgrade this core part of the backbone (there have been promises of Havok 2 since long before my join date, while Havok 4 is rolling off the assembly line as I write this) there is no way for them to realistically raise the prim limit without further degrading performance, server and client-side.

I thought lag was more due to scripts than prims, but anyway....

I wish LL would put some work into the foundation of the system while adding features. If that's true about thier physics engine being that far behind, that's kind of pathetic. Considering how other MMORPGs look, SL is still very blocky and dated; granted SL has a lot more going for it but still.

More prims is more goodness. It's the "easiest" way to make the whole SL world look that much better IMO.

lag is a many rooted problem.

Scripts, textures and avies (which are often loaded with scripts and textures of course) are high impact things.

But... each prim makes polys that have to be drawn if you can see it, for the textures. The sim has to be aware of whether or not you can see it and so on...

Don't believe me? Find a nice empty sim (there are some around) and look at your performance. Empty ideally means only flat land for the whole sim. Get a fix on your fps.

Rez 500 prims. Just plywood cubes will do. No scripts, minimal texturing, nothing fancy... watch your performance decline. Make it 2500 and see again...

Sure, bad scripts, huge and many-varied textures will hit more, but just prims have some effect.

Actually, you can bring a sim to a standstill with a mere handful of prims, depending upon how they are colliding.


Prims really don't hurt things much - could probably allow 100k prims per sim, easy.

But prims *allow* polygons and textures to come out of the woodwork.



Here's where I am coming from:

- One torus generates hundreds of little polygons; a cube generates six. So a sim full of toruses places a lot higher demand clientside than a sim full of other shapes.

You can *already*, with our current prim limits, really mess up clientside rendering for low/average performance computers, if you abuse high polygon shapes.

Here's another: the real limiting factor on sims today, textures.

Yeap, every time there is the side of a prim, someone comes along and textures it with something unique. Even at a mere 15k prims per sim, it's easily possible to overwhelm the server side's ability to cache and distribute these unique textures.

I'm guessing that you could probably bring a server to its knees with just 100 prims, and some particularly bad, high resolution textures.


As it is, 15k prims is still way over the limit of "enough rope to hang yourself". But for the average user that doesn't understand any of this stuff, it limits them safely enough in general, based on typical habits.

I'm not even going to touch the problem of scripts, or avatar attachments... but it all folds in.

Another thought for the cynical: if they raised prim limits, how many of us would simply tier down because we were satisfied with what prims we had?

"1198 available" Not me we have plenty of prims but we are using all our space.

Sorry about that Desmond, I was going for my short reply *cough* where I didn't want to contemplate five tortured tori physics enabled with as many different 2048x2048 textures per face as possible.

You're right, of course, ultimately the number was chosen as an average based on what Linden Lab believed residents would build that the simulator could handle. I focused on physics for my answer bcause

1. I'm obsessed with a physics upgrade, running around in Havok 2 worlds dozens of times the size of a region with DVD-based streaming on the lowly Xbox can have your return to Second Life be truly crushing
   
2. From my own work with Havok in helping friends the optimizations of later versions (discussed in numerous other threads as well) would give a basic performance boost across the board in so many facets of the "physical" world, even helping scripts dealing with collisions.
   
3. Yup, can't shut up about dem dere physics thingees
   

Oh well, I believe Marcus gets the idea after reviving the post in "General" about Havok 4. We all wait for the obsession with the UI to subside...

Yes, I too was first attracted to the physics!

I tried to make a steam engine once, using prim 'molecules' with scripted 'heat' moving them.

It was a disaster. Before I really got the piston moving properly, the primicules escaped the boiler, blasting out and raining down all over my neighbour's lots. Alice sim slowed to a crawl, and I ended up searching for all of the little energetic nasties in a 4 sim area.

Sadly, from such experiences I've given up on physics, even relying on scripted vehicles for Caledon's train system. (this has nothing to do with the pennies that people tend to leave on the tracks, though I'd LOVE to squish them...)

Here's to dreams of Havok 4...