overshooting when flying

I don't know if it's just me, but I have a probelm with not being able to stop flying This is both Linux AND Windows, so it is not really an Alpha Client problem.

If I go to a new area, I often get loads of bad packets. This could be due to my location (Germany) needing LOTS of hops to get to the Linden Servers.

If I wait for the bad packets to settle down to zero, and fly somewhere, I often get a huge bad packet rate again, and if I was incautious enough to fly a longer distance, I overshoot my destination and cannot stop.I get values of (-1500, 27.100) for example as my position.

If this gets too bad, SL forces me out. If not, I eventually stop, either at the point I stopped pressing the up arrow, or at the point I have reached in my involuntary overshoot..

I had this a bit with 1.8, but in 1.9 its worse.

It COULD be just me, since I had had bad problems with the bad packets lately.

Anyone else had anything similar? Any advice?

I have had something similar happen to me, but I'm tempted to blame my crummy ISP - If I restart my net connection and SL all is fine again.

I enjoy blaming my ISP, too

But ideally, I would like to be able to fix it, or something...

In the meantime, if I log off and on a few times, I get a really good connection! ...unitil I TP to a new Sim, that is

Hit the "Fly" button, then hit it again "Stop flying". Sometimes helps. The issue itself is lag-related, I think.

Thanks

I will definitely try that tonight, when I get on.

Sounds fairly applicable, too - during these "150%% Packet Loss" phases, my frame rate does plunge (but never below zero ).

I don't have TOO much hope, though: because of the lost packets, most of my keystrokes take a few minutes to get from my client, to LL, and back to my client

Sim and User pings of 6500 ms say anything to you?

6500 ms ping?

Whoa ... do you think we can arrange a connection check to your place sometime? It sounds like your line itself is faulty and that would be either an ISP issue or a local configuration problem. If you like we can check upon this. I have one or two servers that can do things like that.

That connection test sounds good, Zi! Thanks I will get onto you for this. Can we discuss it In World?

The 6500 ms ping time only comes up with the very high bad packet levels, though, and at those times, everything (including pings) is being resent a few times, until the client gets it cleanly. At those times I also get 0.3 fps framerates (instead of my normal 6 or so).

I have some kind of local network problem on occasion, with 200ms ping time being reported by winmtr.exe to my internal router now and then (1 in 20 run throughs). I think the switching hub I have between me and my (multiport) router may be too cheap :\

Funnily enough, even when I have bad packet rates of 150%% (to name one value), winmtr.exe usually shows clean transmission (run of 20) to linden labs servers. I am beginning to suspect something strange in my system, since I get these bad packet levels under linux and windows, lately. And then again, as I stated above, sometimes a relog gives me PERFECT packets, even with transmissiion rates over 1500 mbps, same hardware, same software, only (perhaps) a new data path. This would also explain why I start getting bad packets again after a TP - a new "logical" path to LL from my computer, different ports on the big routers on the way.

I am upgrading hardware soon, starting with the CPU (1800 Mhz Duron -> 2200 MHz Athlon XP, memory from 133 (266) to 200 (400) DDR. It MAY be simply that the stuff is getting lost because the CPU can't handle the data as fast as it is coming. (Maybe). Next step, my NVidia FX 5200 - only bought to make sure SL runs at all, as a replacement of the NVidia TNT2 - planned replacement, NVidia 6800 GS.

Those extreme ping times are only during the gross bad packet phase I sometimes get; the rest of the time I get around 240 ms, which is normal from Germany to California

PS. On the Overshooting issue: a) I ONLY try to fly bigger distances when my bad packets are zero, and ping is normal; b) it ONLY really happens if I recently arrived in that sim, by TPing or logging on; c) it seems to really be a problem after I cross a sim boundary, and even without any bad packets showing (last time with the windows client), I overfly and cannot stop; eventually I do, as described in the first post, or get exploding Bad Packets and get forced logged off.

It is much less of a problem if I have already flown over the area in question, or if I have been on in that place for longer (10 minutes or so). This is with the windows native and linux alpha client, by the way.

It may simply be the "new release" problems we sometimes see, until all the caches in LL are properly rebuilt.

Sure, we can go about it in-world whenever you like and can reach me

Get another ISP - see if you can try SL from a friends house / work and see if its any better, if it is, start kicking your provider!

Hi Zi, I will take you up on that

Hi ninjafoo, I actually have done this I used my daughters ISP, since she is hardly ever online, to test if it was better. No such luck. And that is a "better" ISP, from a larger more established provider.

I guess I have to look at my side, to see what I am doing thats wrong, or if I have dud components. Maybe Zi's test offer will help

if you don't have an obscure provider i do not think that should be the problem.

My current suspicion is, that it comes from me running out of RAM with my client. The problem is only acute, when my client is around 700 MB resident

So I am goin to hunt THAT down, before I look at anythinge else.

Thanks for all the support, everyone

... though it is ALSO a problem with windows ... strange

BTW: Is it possible to log the RAM usage and the top processes that consume the RAM?

I have seen some graphical outbput for analysing what application is using how many time at boottime, but thats not really it. I think it would be nice to record

1) CPU usage
2) RAM available/used
3) hard disk activity
4) timestamps
5) the applications

So that one could follow what happens when you run a program. I am sure that this is possible. It should be like "top" but do recording. Anybody know this kind of tool?

There IS a way to get top to record. Type "script top.txt", and then start top, with a refresh of maybe 60 seconds. When you quit top, type "ctrl d" on the command line, and the screen outputs will be in the file "top.txt", or whatever you called it.

Top can be set up beforehand to show only 10 lines for example, or the statistics you want can be set up. Type "?" in the top display, and "W" (big) to save the setup in .toprc .


My values I reported here are from "top", and refer to secondlife.bin.

If anything crazy was going on, I mentioned what xosview showed.

For the rest: my system is in my signature

The "free" command outputs total memory usage, you could just write a cron job to append its output its to a file once a minute or something.

By the way, just to get back to the main topic (sorry everyone, it was really getting interesting hehehe), my overfly problem is still there, but FAR less when I have draw set to 128 instead of 512.

It is not a bad packet problem; I do use an "xflight" type script to speed up the long lonely journeys... And it is new to 1.9 (or so, but particularly 1.9.x).

Overshooting when flying is more prominent under SL Linux than windows; in windows I tend to be jerked back to where I stopped pressing the "forward" button. On linux I often end up quite a way away; but I do manage to stop most of the time now Before, I often overshot the destination my 5 sims or so... (more than that and I got logged off.)

It also only happens in areas where all the graphics are not loaded. When I have been in an area a while, and seen all there is to see, I can zoom at jet plane like speeds and I still have control...

I will see if the faster CPU brings relief; but it may be a new performance "feature", which works great for everyone except me...