1.22.rc9 full cpu when not focused or minimized

I noticed that the new 1.22 rc9 client does not behave the same way as the SLim client (1.21.7) does when the SL client window is not in focus or minimized or on another KDE desktop that is not visible.

I'm not sure if this is due to any bug regressions or not.

I see high CPU utilization on either client when the SL window is active. However on the SLim client, this drops really low if I minimize, unfocus or switch to another desktop hiding the SL window. On the new rc9 client, the CPU usage stays high even under the same circumstances where the SLim client would have backed the CPU loading way off.

I don't see anything setup differently in preferences between the clients. And I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas as to why this new client behaves differently?

I'd like to see rc9 client ease the CPU loading back off when the SL window is not visible, so that other things can be done on the machine and the responsiveness of programs running in the foreground is snappier.

Testing 1.22.9 here, sleeping behaviour is identical to the 1.21 behaviour you describe. I think I'd need more info to investigate - anyone else with the problem?

Same problem with me I think (if i understand Electric Dreamscape well).

I changed my PC to a new one on 1st Feb this year : Core2 Duo CPU @ 2GHz, 2GB RAM on XP.

SL worked well until my upgrade on the 5th Feb on 1.22 RC8.
Since then i've been experiencing high CPU and memory usage causing critical lagging and regular crashes. On my Task Manager Performance windows, I notice that the load balancing between the 2 processors is badly managed, not well equalized, and that results in high global CPU usage (around 50%) when memory usage exceeds 200 or 300 000K.
I tried to uninstall the RC8 and go back to the SL normal official version but same problem occured. Now I'm back again on RC9 with the same problem.

There's no problem with the sleeping behaviour : the problem lies on the normal usage of SL, RC or normal version. And I haven't changed any of my PC configuration since the time SL worked well with RC7.

One of my fellow uses Vista and uses less than 10% CPU. I'd like to go back to such CPU usage levels with the next RC please.

Thanks in advance for your quick and efficient support.

I haven't really kept an eye on my exact CPU utilization, but I think I will to try to test this out. I do know that when I minimize or take focus away from the SL viewer, my CPU speeds remain ramped up, BUT my core temps drop by almost 15 degrees Celsius.

How do you see CPU utilization in Ubuntu 8.10?

Run "top" in a terminal window. Should work in almost all *nixes.

There is panel applet which you can use easily. just right-click on any panel -> add to panel, select systemmonitor

Very, very interesting!

I tested system load using three different applications, and each one says something different.

top reports 57% CPU usage when SL is not in focus, 74% when it is in focus.
The top two CPU utilizers:
do-not-directly-run-secondlife-bin: 80% (SL in focus), 31% (SL not in focus);
SLVoice: 82% (SL in focus); 100% (SL not in focus).

The little system monitor applet reports 82% CPU usage when SL is not in focus, 100% when SL is in focus.

The System Monitor itself reports 73% CPU usage on core 1, 100% usage on core 2, when SL is not in focus, and 100% on both cores when SL is in focus.
Top CPU users:
do-not-directly-run-secondlife-bin: 45% (SL in focus), 21% (SL not in focus);
SLVoice: 47% (SL both in and out of focus).

Top and System Monitor both implicate SLVoice as a major resource hog when it is running.

Maybe I've yet spent too view attention to the %CPU column in `top', but ... ... shouldn't that add up to something less or equal to the total CPU usage?
in focus: 80% + 82% > 74%
not in focus: 31% + 100% > 57%
(I guess the sums of more than 100% are due to multiple cores?)

That's what I'm thinking.

Has someone from Linden Labs been working on that issue which is becoming critical now : I'm awfully lagging as soon as I login, even on quiet sims, and crash after a few minutes ? Thanks in advance for your support...

I think that if you want them work on your issue you should provide many more information about your system, the viewer version you're using, driver version, name of the sim where you experience crashes and date/time, and relevant logs. HTH.

1.22.11.113976 is doing the same thing, CPU useage does not back off when SL is not in focus or is on another KDE desktop and not visible.

Not sure what changed, but the previous FL viewer behavior was the way to go, the client should back off CPU useage when it is not in focus. It just stays full useage now again.

Is anyone working on this issue?

Isn't 100% CPU usage an expected behaviour when you're running an (heavy) application only? Don't you want your CPU work at its full potential?

I'm not stating any fact - I'm just asking, because I want to learn more / understand better.

Yes, 100% CPU usage is to be expected when the app has focus.

When it does not, the CPU should be backed off, as there isn't anything showing on screen to need heavy and fast updating, and generally even the multimedia is suspended (per the preferences) when the app is not in focus.

These last builds do not play nice and reduce overhead as the older versions do. The CPU should back way off when not in focus and go up to 100% again when in focus.

Not in focus could be minimized, or maximized but not visible because the app is running on another desktop. I often do this with KDE, switch away from SL, and can still see the applet's taskbar tab flash if I have activity, but the CPU usage backs way off so that I can do other things on other desktops.

These last builds don't behave right. There is no need to keep the heavy CPU stuff going when no one is looking at it.

I see that the newly released RC viewer has the same issue as everything but the SLim viewer that you aren't allowed to use any longer.

1.22.11.113976 takes full CPU utilization when the SL window is minimized or not in focus, i.e. on another KDE desktop.

Can we have the SLim client behavior where the utilization backed off please? Or just allow use of the SLim client?

Not sure why this still isn't fixed. It's been a few releases since the issue was observed. Anything we as users can do to help with this at all?

If it's SLVoice that's taking the bulk of CPU usage, I think that's one of it's new crash modes (freeze and hog cpu). Normally it shouldn't take more than 2-3% CPU, (or 10% with pulseAudio).

Running "killall SLVoice" and re-enabling it from the preferences fixes that until the next time it happens.

I find that when i run this viewer and Banshee, its messes up pulseaudio and its hangs it. The sound continues to stutter till i kill SL and Pulse....this only happens if i listen to music at the same time as SL....Listening to music is fine on its own and other tasks but not with SL.

Ubuntu 8.10

In my case, the machines still do not back off CPU usage even when SL voice is not enabled in preferences. I don't know if this is enough to stop the voice issue or not, but the enabled and non-enabled voice tests are the same. This is across different machines, some of which use PulseAudio and some that don't.

Just checked on one machine that I have handy, and SLvoice is not running on the client with the voice disabled in preferences. So in this one case, it isn't why the client is not backing off when not in focus.

If anyone can confidently correlate a significant increase in CPU eaten (or a drop in frame-rate) with Voice being enabled (and/or SLVoice itself), please add further data about this and your system configuration here:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-12070
Thanks!