How to use the time in difficult times

Becose of the fact that when the online residents are more than 22-24K teleporting, building, scripting, buying, selling, attaching, searching, rezzing, flying, driving and sailing turns into very difficult or even impossible tasks, What things you can do with your second life to keep the interest when you are waiting a lower online resident count?

I was thinking in things like:
* Chat with those who are stuck in the same sim.
* Send IM to your friends in order to keep in touch with them.
* Practice the gestures commands
* Clean your cache.
* Practice how fast you can log-out and re-log.
* Reading all the menu items for one minute, then close the menu and count how many items you can remember.


I know this thread sound like a joke with lots of cynicism but really, when the count exceeds 20K my second life becomes a second-living hell and I can do nothing so Im trying to think what things can keep the interest when the perspective is more and more people online and, aparently, not enought technical resource to support it. In this days, if I see more than 25K I already know that I wont be able to work in my products.

So, how do you manage this situation? There are others resigning SL working time in peak hours?

You forgot something... a very important one even: Cleaning and sorting your inventory!!!!!



Morwen.

What gets me is the number of times I glance through my inventory and find clothes in the wrong places and think 'I'm sure I sorted this last week!' Hmm, not a million miles from RL heh heh!
Yes Morwen, an appropriately time-consuming activity for the teleport challenged!

Checho, I sympathise with your post but did enjoy reading your list.
I find now I've kind of dipped into all the utilities and activities that when lag reduces them to painful levels I resort to IM-ing and chatting. With my short list of favourite places I'm rarely far from meeting a friend and have spent many happy times barely moving from the spot. One such is a pub with a dance floor. I find sitting on the wall just outside the door you get a clearer and smoother view of those entering and exiting and a few of the regulars have the same idea.

Oh no, all my inventory is named "object" so I have to rez it. Rezzing is a no no when we reach capacity.

(TIC)

A

Having your entire inventory contents named object wouldn't require sorting then .. would it?

I shut dwn SL and bail out over to CoV or CoH.

Doh!

Well when you're right.........

A

I'm "scared" to even touch my inventory except for changing when the grid load starts to become apparant. I think it's probably much safer to do inventory sorting on the slow hours than the busy.

If I crash, I usually come here to forum and read for awhile.

But I haven't really experienced lag of such magnitude that I can't do anything, only in a few malls with lots of screaming ads and garish decorating, in which case I just leave. Those aren't fun places to hang out anyway.

Judging from the complaints/comments I've read on this forum about SL being unplayable, a significant source of the problem is individual computers with either marginal specs or inappropriate preference settings. I have fairly decent computer, with 2gb of RAM and a mid-level graphics card, and only in the most severe cases do I encounter problems. So while other people are screaming about not being able to get in, not build, not TP, whatever, I'm logging in to build and shop as usual.

This isn't a "nyah nyah" post, just a reminder that SL requires more than an average computer system to run *well* and that you can improve performance even with a marginal system by making some compromises to compensate. Keep a lean inventory, clear your cache often (not just when you're having problems), don't overload on HUDs and bling and prim attachments, and study your preference options to find the best profile for your system.

PS: I've logged on with 23,000+ online and not had problems, so it's not JUST a Linden issue.

The only time I was consistently unable to teleport somewhere was when it turned out that the sim I was trying to go to was down. After 3 failed teleports in a row I teleported to the next-sim over which happened quite quickly, and from there I could see that the place I wanted to be, wasn't there (just 'ocean').

So I 'ditto' what Regan said - I think a faster / more powerful client computer seems to make a big difference. I've noticed problems now and then with lag in chat and moving around, but most of the time I can build, script, teleport without problems.

When I really can't get in though (i.e. SL down for maintenance) I work on LSL scripts offline.

For what its worth, I'm using an iMac Intel 2.0GHz dual core with 1.5GB of Ram. On my older / less-capable computers, I do notice things are much slower and more problematic.

-Atashi

Believe me, I have a computer like yours and I still have this problems. Sometimes one or two, some timer combinations of more and yesterday and before yesterday, the most of them. But I think the computer you are using does not explain the suffering in peak hours even for the less ocuppied sims becose, for example, yesterday I was in my own land, I was the only person in all the Sim (Hallasan) and I was still having the problems. Looks like the Rush Hour does not affect only the load in populated sims but in all the grid.

From what I've seen of the First Look viewer (an SL client still in beta testing), there may well be significant improvement in performance for computers on the edge, enough to cross the line from compromised to acceptable playing conditions without upgrading one's computer system.

There are any number of intiatives under development to help scale SL to deal with both numbers of residents and the limitations of resident systems. They just aren't going to happen overnight.

I'm so deep into SL that I actually built a new computer so I could improve my inworld play, and the contrast between my old eMac and my new custom build made me very aware of just how many issues residents unwittingly bring into the game.

There is a point at which it isn't your comp, but seriously on Linden's end. *sighs* They need to upgrade to guinea pigs rather than hamsters for the asset servers farm.

So, what do I do?

Hmm...

1) CoH/CoV if I get disconned and can't get back in.

2) Work on textures and visit the Preview grid if it's up to test them.

3) Read a book.

4) Listen to the kid ask me 50 times if he can vacuum...

5) Do some *gasp* housework.

In world, I'll chat. One of the sims goes down and I wind up in another, where we sit there and snicker at the other sim going down. Hey, it makes great bonding material!

Oh I'm not discounting that there can be delays and issues, especially at peak times. I apologize if I gave the impression that a powerful computer can solve all the woes. I just think that it's a major factor some people might overlook.

Another factor has to be one's own internet connection and their ISP. Peak hours for SL probably concur with peak hours for other internet uses as well, so one's ISP might be contributing to their lag / packet loss.

At work we have a full T1 which is 1.5Mbps in both directions... great for what we do at work but it's actually not quite fast enough for a lot of multimedia stuff, like SL, that I might want to view. At home I have something like 4 or 5Mbps download (upload is tiny of course) but it's the download speed that counts, and I'm sure this contributes a great deal as well.

I don't think geographic location should be an issue, but who knows. I'm in Canada, eastern time zone, so a long way away from California or Texas.

-Atashi

Agree on many of the issues coming from resident computers. I just got my new system this week and it's a whole new world....really. Totally different experience.

However, I will say that there *are* most definitely more issues when there are a lot of concurrent users relative to the mornings for instance. Even on my machine (which screamsssss in SL now), I get lagged in highly populated or poorly built sims, and also get significant packet loss that I never get in the mornings when users online is a bit less. Just two examples.

If SL becomes unplayable, I shut off my computer and go do something in RL.

Gillian, please send me the specs for your computer. I really need to order my new one this week.

To the original question, I keep trying to build even when there are 25k on (and even on my old computer). But I am seriously thinking of trying to build in the daytime instead.

coco

Hi Coco - I got a notebook. Dell Inspiron E1705, 2G RAM, Intel Core Duo processors and 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900.

It's great so far. Let me know if you want more specifics beyond those.

What's that?!? ...... <cleaning monitor screen .... from the inside>