Prim limits is just part of the issue - should we have more limits?

Everybody talks about how they hate rotating for-sale signs.

Nobody does anything about it.

I suggest merely taking it out of the library, i.e. not putting it in every newbie package. I'd more just putting it in stores, selling it even. That will reduce all the frivolous use of it.
Juts puts a curb on it. I didn't speak of banning it. I'm just trying to come up with ideas to reduce its' excessive use.

I am not intimidated by tekkies. Tekkies are merely people who learned something in a sequence. Many people could do that. As some of them have said themselves, you sit down, you study it, you do it. So big deal! We can question it, and get some rational answers.

I am constantly reinforced in my perception that NUMBERS MATTER. I go to a laggy sim. I look at the FPS in ctr-shift-1. I see a number greater than 300, often 500. This always correlates. Always. It's field experience. I realize there are differencees in scripts. But I'm telling you my experience. Stop discounting it. Few of the people mouthing off here and trying to preserve the enclave of the scripterati actually go around in the world and take the FPS pulse as I do.

Of course I am well aware that scripts are not the only issue, and KINDS of scripts are at issue. Run times are at issue. Lots of things are at issue. I'm just reporting on what I see as a correlation.

But Jesse, that's how it all works now, already. The server tells your client where, and your client draws the picture. You don't imagine you are downloading the picture you see, like a movie, do you?

As for caring where the prim is when it stops rotating. What if it is 10m square, and it is designed to stop either barring entry to a building or not? You see, the difference between that and a pointless sign spinning down and stopping is significant to you, but it cant be to the system. It can't take differences like that into account. It doesn't know.

It cant tell whether a prim which has just stopped rotating is of critical importance to everybody, or doesn't matter at all. So it has no choice but to assume the first, and keep everyone synchronised by running the script itself, and telling us all what happens.

The only reason this isn't necessary for particles is that they really do have no significance. You cant bump into them, you can't move them around, they dont have scripts in them, they dont really exist except as temporary eye fodder which follows a predetermined track and disappears. Everybody knows we all see different, so no-one relies on us seeing the same.

So these, the server really needn't care about. It tells the client how they must be repetitively generated, and how move. It then backs off and lets the client get on with it until (maybe hours later) some script tells the server to say stop.

Did you know that once you have run a script in a prim to say what particles should flow from it, you can even destroy the script,and it just goes on happening for ever. To stop it you have to put another script back in, to tell the server to pass on the information that enough is enough. The damn things can be difficult to get rid of.

I didn't discount your experience, Prokofy.. I discounted your uneducated definition of the issue. You, and I, are not qualified to speak to the technical side of this issue. I'm not discounting that there *is* an issue, just that we are not the best people to speak about *why* it's an issue and about ways in which we should rectify it on the technical side.

So, when can I expect to see your march for a tax on excessive AV's on a per-parcel basis?

I am very familiar with how it works. What I read in this thread though seems to be a concern about scripts using to much of the servers process. Something that seems to not affect other games.. yes I realize that there are far more user created scripts in SL then other games. All I am saying is LL needs to utilize the CPU of the client more effectively. How they do it is of no concern of mine, that is what they get paid for.

If this downward spiral of less is better (prim limits, which I understand was a different issue in itself and now limiting of scripts) you are not going to be attracting alot of new players into the world where you are suppose to be able to literally do anything you can RW.

The answer is not to limit what we have already but to figure out a way to make it more efficient and one of the ways is to utilize resources going to waiste on the average users computer.

I believe I have seen it explained elsewhere here, by someone who has greater technical knowlege of many different games than you or I, that SL is unique among games.

It is this uniqueness which gives it its appeal, but which also forces it to do so much more in the server than other games. We can't stop it without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I believe its because almost everything here is user created and user removable. In other games a substantial portion of in world objects (and robots) are created by the game designer. No-one can delete them, create them, or define their behaviour. So the clients know where most of the objects will be, without the server having to tell them. They know how to work out the robots behaviour. The only things they need to be told about are what the avatars are up to, and about their inventory items.

In SL anything can change any time. Objects, positions, behaviours. So obviously there is much more responsibility on the server.

Things aren't of course quite as clear cut as this. Other games do a fair bit of what SL does. Its a matter of degree. SL just needs to do a lot more of this than the others, otherwise it simply wouldn't be SL.

Edit: Oh yes, I remember one more significant difference from other games. Because anything in SL could be, or become, transparent, the server has to send us many more of the out-of-sight textures, even if we are shut in a closed box. Most games know whats transparent, cos its fixed, so don't need to do so much in case.
Pretty sure I've got this right. With a bit of luck the person whose brain i"m picking might pop up in a minute, and put me straight.

I have Prok on ignore, so I didn't see the original post, but I can say this.

A basic rotation has ZERO impact on sim performance, except for when it is reset.

All of the rotation is client side. The rotation of the prim(s) is just another attribute that is sent from sim to client. If your client is not within eyesight of a rotating prim, then you won't notice ANY difference in performance.

And you certainly won't see sim FPS change (or any other sim metric) degrade because of a rotation script. You may see client side degradation, but that only happens if/when you actually have the rotating object in view.

- Ace

I'd like to hear more about the child agents and their looking into the next sim and seeing what's going on there, and how that affects that sim's performance.

And frankly, whether the spinning affects client-side or server-side, what's the difference? My game performance is still degraded by some fucktard with spinning cubes in my face. I've paid for 16k of a sim, let's say, and I am paying tier on that, and have paid the upfront purchase price. I might have a top-of-the-line computer. But the decision of another player on a mere 512 or 2048 to use a lot of spinning junk then degrades my game's performance. It's against my will. I didn't chose to have it. Having the problem occur on "My" side of the fence doesn't take away from that appalling fact. Someone else, with a mere 512 or even a 2048 can make these hedonistic decisions to put loads of spinning junk all over the place, and impact my game.

I want to point out here that most tekkies think they're "done" with a problem when they can dismiss it as "client-side". What a load of crap! WHAT a load of crap!

I notice that my perfectly fine computer, DSL connection, and ISP, do fine when they're in a new sim, or a sim where people aren't messing up the server with loads of bouncer scripts and spinning junk. I fly into an area where there is crap like that, and I slow down.

Now you can follow the usual tekkie arrogant techno-solution to this problem and say "go get another computer, loser" "re-do your bios/drivers/graphic cards/ asshole" etc. etc. etc. -- which is what tekkies always say (and masochistic tekkies will do themselves when another tekkie tells them to do this).

But why? It's not a techno problem when a fucktard spins a lot of junk in the sky. In fact, tekkies are the FIRST to say "Oh, let's have user education" *the minute* you so much as touch the idea of them having to curtain their hedonistic licentious use of scripts.

But why? The game/entertainment/metaverse company has to look at what they provide here as a common space. And they have to take steps to make sure that common space is available on a more or less equal basis for all. That means that even if the spinning cubestirs only fuck up the client-side of the equation, they still have to ponder the issue of how *they have let that happen* because it was *not my choice to have that crap on my client side*. Therefore they could be taking measures to curb the free and liberal use of this stupid assasine script, that 9/10 puts something annoying and stupid in the world.

My simply suggestion was to take it out of the library, i.e. stop distributing it for free to all and sundry. Instead, only have it available in some places. That right there will mean that the weekend trial account griefer will be somewhat curbed. It's not going to make a big dent in the problem, but it was just a quick and obvious solution.

Linden Labs needs to care what happens to people client-side, too. They need to manage this common space in such a way that people aren't impacted unfairly by some of their customers who are pigs. It's just that simple.

Your arguments are ridiculous, Prokofy. Did someone here on this thread tell you to go buy a shiny new computer to solve your problem? Maybe I missed that post, please point it out. Thanks.

Additionally, just because a few people toss up the annoying spinning sign, YOU want to remove it from the library because you think it will curb the issue? You're dreaming, Prokofy. That rotation script is *everywhere* and easily obtained.


So... when is your march against excessive AV's per plot going to start?? I mean, if you're gonna go after lag - start with AV's... they produce more lag than just about anything.

Nope, you're wrong Juro.

People tell you to go buy shiny computers all the time. They are regular unbearable assholes about that. I wish I had a dollar for every time they did that, starting with my very first post and its very first answer from the smug know-it-alls on these forums.

I think removing the script from the library is just one of those things that can mitigate disasters like sims taken up with loads of that crap. Mitigation. Not solution. Mitigation. Harm reduction.

Sure, it's everywhere. But the 7-day trial griefer asswipe won't know that.

I don't need to march against excessive AVS. I'm well aware of that typical scripterati off-load of the lag problem on to "people".

But "people" are different. Some "people" use stupid dumb spinning scripts and bouncing scripts and loads of other annoying scripts. They should pay more for that privilege. Other "people" who own more land don't use them, and don't see why they should endure their use in others, when it is a chief culprit in lagging the sim where you live.

Do you live in the world, Juro? Do you live in a world of only sanitized, high-end, pre-screened, certified players who are more conscientious about their scripts? I'll bet your do.

Bad peformance from SL can be attributed, many times, to a machine that just doesn't cut it. Suggesting a new machine isn't, necessarily, a snide little comment. If you're running a system that barely meets the criteria - it might be worth looking into an upgrade to help solve some of the performance issues.


I'm betting that most of the annoying signs are from players who are more than 7-days old.


You should. It is the #1 cause for lag. If you have 15 people over to your 512 or your 4096, you are using a dis-proportional rate of server resources and lagging the shit out of everyone else. Of course, you would probably never tackle this beast because it would put you directly opposite of club and mall owners.
[/QUOTE]

Your comments about choice raised up an interesting idea in my mind. What would it look like if we could choose to /ignore/ the objects owned by or created by someone, by avie name, just like we can choose to mute some residents.

Would that take us anywhere? Or is that more just ignoring (pardon the pun) the base problem.

I also wanted to comment on an interesting thing I observed about the CTRL-SHFT-1 info pane. Try having two avies standing next to each other, and a scrubbie, and compare all the numbers.

I for one found that my FPS, as reported in CTRL-SHFT-1 is lower than it might actually be, which I attribute to being on wireless.

So, I think that a really big part of the problem is that we have lots of observations and experience, but it hasn't been adequately correlated into data ... and much of what I've read about what causes lag, and what doesn't cause it, seems to be on a par with tribal lore.


Hard to solve a problem in these circumstances.

Of course it's true - "lag" meaning CPU/memory consumption Even an INACTIVE script will, at the very least, consume disk space.



Ouch. You picked up one of the worse possible examples, Ace. Just FYI, setting the hovertext is on the top list of laggy things you can do with a script A better example would have been a script that just whispers something once, and then shuts up forever. That would be one of the lowest-laggy scripts.

Anyway, the mere existence of scripts in a sim - inactive, active, or whatever - *will* lag a sim. A sim with no scripted objects at all will lag less than a sim with tons of inactive scripts.

But there is a "tax" on avatars per sim - you can only have 40

I think it's the sim being taxed at that point. </rimshot>

Jim,

Scrubbie never says the same thing as ctr-shift-1 and looking at the in-game list of performance numbers. Scrubbie is often lower. And Scrubbie himself, in listening, is helping to lower performance, so I think he's useless.

I wasn't aware that 2 avs standing next to each other get different numbers, but I don't think that has to do with those numbers merely reflecting what the client side does.

I think the simple answer is that the FPS is constantly shifting, it can be 800 and 1200 in the next 30 secons. So two people on slightly different speeds in the game can get wildly different numbers at one exact "time" which is a relative concept anyway.

I used to see this funny phenom in TSO all the time, when I logged on two avatars, something you can't do with SL. One would be in the "future" and could see something happening in "the future" and call it back to the other "in the past". It was hilarious. One could see a glove coming, and the other could dodge it, etc.

Here's where the poll is at this point in time:

YES! This is really the way to go to reduce lag and stop abuse with laggy scripts 17

Polls are nothings, they are discredited, blah blah. But there it is.

On the other hand 12, people are saying with the usual blase yawn that we are all getting this with Havoc 2, Mono blah blah.

Well, there's 17 people empowered to say what they think and know to be their experience in the face of the 12 experts. My work here is done.

My solution is to abandon my house and former workshop area for my stores which are less laggy. What is really sad is my store is in a commerical sim, 200 meters from a telehub and always fast and lessy buggy than my home Sim, with less than 1/2 the scripts. Ohh, well. I guess if I didnt own other land I would just sell the land I have, but I wil hold on to it and hope it gets better


I think this conversation right now is pointless with the new changes that will be coming to SL.

Ah yes. I must confess that I had some programming classes back in my college days. We were initially taught that a computer is a machine and, thus, predictable. They run things sequentially, one bit (or should I say byte? word? whatever...) at a time. The same input through the same algorithm produces the same output. That was something even I could understand.

At the end of those classes, students were expected also to learn a bit about programming in multitasking, distributed environments. The first lesson we learned was: "forget about predictability -- it doesn't apply in this sort of environment".

So, yes, it's "tribal lore", and not "science". Several programmers I met (and I'm constantly meeting new generations of them) call what they do an "art", never a "science".

I think that mathematicians call similar environments "chaotic" "Chaotic" does not necessarily mean "unpredictable". It means you have so many different variables, that statistics don't apply to the system -- like trying to "predict" weather beyond 5 days (the time it takes for a mass of air to circle the planet, according to what I read). It goes impossibly complex beyond a certain threshold of unknown variables, and statistics fail completely.

There are not many "working models" for dealing with chaotic environments which accurately predict what exactly is going to happen when you deploy, say, a popular Web site. The same applies to everything we do inside Second Life. A sim may have over 300 scripted sims, but they're in a peculiar "configuration" (ie. a sort of "balance" between them) that they don't lag much. Add a few avatars running to and fro, or just an extra script, and the balance topples suddenly, with catastrophic results. And there is no way you could "foresee" it.

Although Prokofy's way of dealing with issues is not "scientifical" - he jumps to a sim, checks Sim FPS (and dilation time, and other things), and compares things. Sims with under 100 FPS lag. Sims with over 300 active scripts lag. Sims with over 15 avatars usually lag. This happens in each and every sim as an average. And it's also very, very true that the faster your machine, the less you feel the effects of lag. I know people who are able to "squeeze" 20 fps on sims with things like less than 10 FPS with over 30 avatars standing near them...

Of course, all of this is pointless. You cannot define, before you use a script in a certain environment, what its "lag factor" will be. What you can do is limit the CPU usage per script according to the script owner's land usage on that sim. So, we could argue for years and years if a hovertext lags "more" than a (client-side) rotation, and never reach a conclusion -- or instead ask for a fair usage of sim resources, according to what people are willing to pay for them (in this case, by paying land usage fees, tying scripts to land area).

The purpose of this poll was to get a perception on where people think that the evolution is. It seems that a large number believe (and have voted so) that by speeding up the scripting engine, the problems will disappear. I must side with Prokofy with this. It'll be a temporary solution only - people will just use more and more scripts, if they're able to run them, and the problem will be postponed, never "solved". Yes, we'll enjoy, for a brief while, an increase in overall performance - until the "next generation" malls and clubs come over and do incredibly amazing things with the new available scripting power! I even fear the worst. Nowadays, a "quality script" is one designed by an experienced programmer who knows how to do amazing things while keeping lag low. Sometimes whole algorithms are tweaked and stretched just to squeeze a bit more performance out of a sim and keep lag down -- you can see several hints on the Wiki on how to do this.

But if available "script running power" increases by a hundredfold, people will be much more careless with their programming. This is exactly why nowadays companies deliver applications needing several Gigabytes of disk space, when the very same application, ten years ago, would just need a few dozen KBytes to run, to do basically about the same. This is what will happen in SL as well -- sloppy programming, just because you can afford to do it.

And if popular opinion were so important:
The world is flat.
The Humors need to be balanced or you will have disase.
The full moon is linked to crime, suicide, mental illness, disasters, accidents, birthrates, fertility, and werewolves.

Nah.

Thing is, I'm one of the 17. I am certain there are several other technically minded types who voted for controlling script resource access via land ownership. I've no doubt many of those 17 are of the technically-minded variety. Resources always need to be carefully controlled lest one selfish type (and there's always one) wreck it for everyone. We know this. The resistance has been to using a seperate taxation as method for control, not to controlling access.

I fully agree, Jillian

"I used to see this funny phenom in TSO all the time, when I logged on two avatars, something you can't do with SL."

Sure you can, Prokofy . . . or could, if you asked around and found out how to do it. It was amusing to come across this offhand inaccurate statement in the midst of your opinions on other technical points you don't understand.