Linux client much slower than Windows

Since Linux has been OpenGL for ages and SL is also OpenGL, you would think SL would run faster in Linux than in Windows Vista.

I have an AMD Phenom 9500, 3GB RAM and an 8800GT. Using the Linux client I average around 15 to 20 fps. In Wndows Vista I average 30 to 50 fps.

Any tweaks or ideas to get SL to run faster under Linux?

Check the startscipt if there is a # in following line, otherweise set it:

#export LL_GL_BASICEXT=x


If there is no #, much of graphic functions are disabled

One of the main problems I find is that some of the advanced graphics features are often not fully supported by the Linux drivers, so it either thinks you have fewer resources to play with, or it tries to emulate the behaviour via some other means. Shaders tend to be the biggest culprits, because they are a comparatively new and complex innovation, but generally not essential, so they are somewhat lower priority when drivers are being developed or ported.

If you don't mind sacrificing some effects for sake of performance, then try disabling all SL features which use shaders, reflections, or special avatar rendering stuff (like hardware skinning and cloth). That should improve performance substantially, at which point you can activate them one-by-one again until you identify which one(s) caused the most problems.

I installed openSUSE 11 last Friday and installed the Novell/NVidia supported driver for my 8600GTS. It came with a nice utility to adjust the advanced graphics features of the card.

I then decided on Sunday (yesterday) to install Ubuntu 8.04. The NVidia driver is basically bare bones.

Running the standard and RC versions (and then patched with the Cool SL viewer) on both, I found that running the RC patched with the Cool SL viewer on openSUSE 11 obtains the best performance I have seen of any viewer period!

I will be switching back over to openSUSE 11 today.

I have tried enabling and disabling features in the SL script. Tried running with everything turned down. Tried disabling anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing in the nvidia driver. Made sure I had the latest proprietary driver from nvidia. Tried the cool sl viewer. I get poor performance and constant crashing.

I wonder if running OpenSuse 11 64bit might be the problem. There must be something different about my setup if you guys are all running good and I'm having problems. I wish I could pin it down.

SL runs great in Vista for me. I hate to boot into Windows any more than I have to though.

I'm checking the logs but they are long an much of it makes no sense to me.

Odd. I use the RC client on Ubuntu 8.04 64 bit and a 7-series GeForce without any trouble at all, performance is better than Windows. Perhaps it is the 8-series driver that is the issue.

I am running the Cool SL Viewer on Ubuntu Gutsy AMD 64bit 2Gb Ram and Nvidia 8600GTS 256Mb with the Nvidia Experimental 173.08 drivers and I am getting 45-60fps with all graphics options turned down to the lowest and 20-30fps on the ultra settings with all turned on.

I'm using Nvidia driver verson 173.14.09.

The 1.20x viewer with Cool Viewer is pretty fast but crashes all the time. I can run for about 30 minutes then it crashes on me. The 1.19.05 with Cool Viewer I get 15 to 20 fps with graphics turned down and draw-distance at 64m. At an altitude of 1000m staring into the void, I get 25fps. Go to Sanctuary Rock and I'm at 6fps!

I don't know what's wrong but I can't run SL like this.

I'm running SL on Ubuntu 8.04 and it's much faster than in Vista on the same machine. Much smoother over wireless especially.

I sure wish I knew how to make it work. I've been trying for months. I just installed the Nvidia 177 beta driver. My 2D problems are fixed, but SL still won't run right. For now I'm going to have to give up on it.

I think the crashing may be related to streaming media. Replication goes like this:

1. Run SecondLife_i686_1_20_12_90824_RELEASECANDIDATE
2. TP to Greenies
3. Click the Play Media button

Result=Crash

This looks interesting:

(<unknown>:6695): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "qtcurve",
./secondlife: line 100: 6686 Segmentation fault LD_LIBRARY_PATH="`pwd`"/li b:"`pwd`"/app_settings/mozilla-runtime-linux-i686:"${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}" $LL_WRAPP ER bin/do-not-directly-run-secondlife-bin
*** Unclean shutdown. ***

I think installing Gstreamer 32bit screwed the pooch. I'm going to install Suse 32bit and see if that helps.

That's right: having a hard time giving up!

Looks like my card was dying. It has now started to go blank and even leaving the machine off for hours I get no video.

I installed an 8400GS and am getting pretty good FPS.

Guess I'll have to get a 9000 series when I can afford it.

using 7100 (nvidia) SLviewer 20-15, 2.2Ghzdc, 4gb ram and ubuntu 64bit

Vista = 15-17 fps at a club I frequent
Ubuntu = 20-22

it's the 8 series most likely.

I'm using 1.20 on Ubuntu 8.04, on a GeForce2 card with pathetic frame rates on a 1.8 GHz Athlon 32-bit machine. In my test environment, I was getting about 2.0-2.4 FPS with minimal settings.

I swapped in a 6200LE, which increased my glxgears benchmark over 50%. It changed the frame rate maybe 10%.

What *did* make a dramatic difference, was disabling ESD. I noticed in my "top" command readout from the terminal window that CPU was near 100%, with most of the load evenly divided between SL, GLX, and ESD.

I uncommented the LL_BAD_ESD=x line in the secondlife script. The ESD line disappeared from my "top" readout and my framerate went up over 50%. 3.6 FPS steady at the test location.

It doesn't matter if I also disable OSS on my setup, just ESD.

That said, the Linux client client is STILL much slower than on my laptop, which has XP and an ATI X1300, 1.5GB RAM and a 1.8GHz dual core, over the same wireless network.

Turns out Gateway sent me a computer with a bad motherboard. Had to send it in twice before they finally fixed it. The 1.20.x viewer runs great now; haven't had to boot into Windows in ages.

Bad Mobo FTL.. I hate getting bad motherboards. (my emachine had one, it now sits in a corner of my room, fried)

Another followup to my previous posting on ESD and CPU utilization. I have since upgraded the card to a 6600 GT and, after going through upgrade hell, have a setup which is comparable in speed to the ATI/Windows-based one on my T60 laptop.

The key elements seemed to be Option "NoPowerConnectorCheck" "True" (to get it to run at all) and Option "RenderAccel" "True". This has dropped my CPU utilization down to 30-40% and tripled my frame rate, with the new(er) card. Oddly, glxgears is now back down to about 2/3 the speed it ran on my MX 4000.

I'm still running the 96.xx driver.