Media Induced Lag

How much of a performance hit are all these media screen and movies going to cause? Any ideas?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that (display) media functions much in the same way as streaming audio - that the server only tells the client to connect to a given URL and provides the means of decoding and connection management, again, within the client (or, at present, also routed through Quicktime's executable). I don't think the sims proper have much to do with the process other than, again, handing off a URL by parcel.

So, the layman answer would be very little noticable impact sans what you get, at the client level, when you begin to download an actual file on a parcel. But, then again, I'm not a Linden to answer such things.

Edit: And I'm not going to even TOUCH some of the later responses I'm seeing to this thread with a ten-foot pole. Moving along...

The internet is not configured to handle high capacity media streaming on the consumer end. But wait, I hear you cry, you can easily stream videos and flash from websites. Well each video on each website takes some time to download and possibly load. And you're putting that time on top of the already considerable lag of just viewing prims or streaming music.

Yes, lets make the problem worse by adding a completely unnecessary feature that everyone is sure to use.

FFS, fix the grid. Fix the lag. Fix the rendering speed. Then get back to adding 'features' once you've cleared the bug list.

I would dearly hope peeps check the bitrates of streaming media before playing for an audience... things that are meant to be downloaded first are going to have a hard time cutting it, not to mention the unpleasant chaos that would erupt when some people on slower broadband wonder why the movie hasn't begun playing for them. There is a certain procedure of sorts that's advised to be followed: part of it includes making sure you've been in the area for awhile so your bandwidth has first been used to download the surrounding environs, then stay still in the parcel with the streaming media. Bandwidth meters when you're in "Run in a Window" are handy.



My understanding is that this, along with the other bugs, is an ongoing process. As Lindens are not interchangeable, they are assigned to different specialties and are working together as a team to better SL for us as a community. Those involved in features and marketing and Liaisons may not necessarily be the expert Bug Hunters of the family, for example. I get what ya mean tho!

Can anyone please tell me what they mean by lag and how they expect LL to fix it?
The only person who can fix lag is yourself.
Get a better ISP, move closer to america, upgrade your graphics card, buy land in a faster, emptier server.

That brings up a good question. With a live stream or quicktime reference movie, quicktime will automatically select a stream that is appropriate for your bandwidth (based on a preference in quicktime control panel). However, if you set the media URL to a reference movie or live stream, does it do the same thing for each client in second life?

Now that's just ignorant. Do you expect me to get a T1? An OC48? I still don't think that'll help. Nor is any system today capable of rendering an average scene in SL at refresh rate. Considering that the game has news archives going back to 2003, I'd expect they'd have done something by now. Maybe if I magically transport hardware from the far flung future, I'd have a system capable of playing SL at a tolerable level (30fps is tolerable, but barely).

I could point you to some popular benchmarking software or even benchmarking games that test and score internet, video and media performance, but as it stands, with SL as a benchmark, pretty much nobody passes.

just turn off media if you dont want it or lag too much.....
i havent had a problem in 1.6 with lag at all and theres media everywhere
but i have crashed playing bad media like wmvs
-LW

Yes, turning it off does solve it, as well as make it entirely purposeless. If we have to turn it off to continue using SL, why bother with it? (audio streaming has the same problem, tried flying from one place to the next with it on?)

I think insted of adding a Mini-Map button they should place a Media On/Off button that way you can turn it off when traveling then turn it on when you get to your destination

you have other options Siro

well still i am not lagging flying around
went in today to see if flying over all the
videos would lag me... are you on dialup?

I flew from Morris to Oak Grove today, except that I didn't quite make it to Oak Grove. I just kinda stopped about 10 or 20 meters in and stayed that way until it rubberbanded me back to Morris because the first stream it has tried to stream hadn't finished yet. NO, I'm not on dialup. I'm on the best rated DSL my area has to offer (because the cable in my area has extremely poor performance in latency versus the dsl, I could show you some results from dslreports.com if you want). The honest to god next step for faster/better bandwidth is a T1 and that's pretty excessive. So is it my video card? Nope, tested, checked, benchmarked, and rechecked. Is the particular sim I'm in laggy? Maybe, but maybe that's the problem? Move to another sim? Nuh uh, overall performance benchmarking doesn't work by excluding portions because they perform badly.

And Champie, you're right, I DO have other options. I'm just interested to see if anyone is interested in SL having decent overall performance . . . ever . . . before I move onto those options.

Good call Eggy.

Removed angry rant about people who make generalizations about "lag" and "bugs" and yet don't understand what they're generalizing about.

Icon, what further bothers me is when you try to calmly explain to someone the deeper inner workings of "lag" or "topic X" and they just get angrier and more hostile, insinuating that you're the one who doesn't have a clue. A more productive approach would to have an open mind and be receptive to new knowledge.

This puzzles me because why else would they be calling out for help in the first place? It's kind of like a desperate individual holding onto your hand over a smoldering lava stream, telling you to hold on tighter while shouting obscenities and cursing your lineage.

"Help me so I can help you, please!"

SL is about connections... in many senses.

True, but there's also the effect that allows politicians who've never used the Internet for more than email to sign bills banning say filesharing for example.

Yes. *nods*