Cartoon of The Day: Walk of Lag

 

 From American Cancer Society3. After the Relay Kickoff, I was working on something while seeing a dragon in the distance, moving around. After several minutes, he was still there, and curious I panned over. It turned out the dragon and two companions were ghost images, people who had lagged until they hit the sim boundary and continued the "walk of lag" until they crashed. But somehow the images remained for some moments until after about a minute of me looking up close they vanished. 

 

One of those odd little things about Second Life.

 

By Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Cartoon of The Day: Horse Water Walking

 

 Taken at the Relay Weekend. Some of the time, I went on horseback. And well, when I did the "walk of lag" into past the sim border and into the unrezzed area, it looked like the horsie was walking over water. 

 

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

EOTB: Linden Lab Acknowledges Some Residents Are Having PBR Related Issues

 

If you've been having issues with the viewer in Second Life since the PBR (Physical Based Rendering) updates, you're not alone. Numbers of people have complained since it's introduction of increased lag, longer rezzing times, and crashes.

 

In their latest post on the official blog, Linden Lab was basically acknowledging there was a problem,  

We are always striving to add more improvements to Second Life and we’ve been particularly excited to roll out integration of PBR Materials, which has the potential to improve and modernize much of the look and feel of our virtual world. However, the introduction of PBR has not gone as smoothly as we would like and we have heard community frustrations and feedback with recent PBR-enabled Viewer releases of both the Official Second Life Viewer and Firestorm Viewer.

We share your frustration and are taking steps to make things better for everyone on both lower-end and high-end systems. This means that we’re actively focused on improving the performance in a variety of areas including improved FPS, VRAM management, texture loading, alpha blending, and even how lighting is rendered within the world. Additional fixes are already in our development pipeline and will head to QA soon.

Of what to do, the Lab suggested that those using the Linden Viewer download this update (link).

If you are having issues with the Official Second Life Viewer, you can immediately download an update here that addresses many of the issues affecting performance, particularly among those who may be using older or less powerful computers. We are continuing to work on additional fixes that will further address texture loading issues and low framerates. If you don’t update proactively now, you’ll soon see a prompt when you go to login to Second Life in the coming days encouraging you to update. 

 

For those using Firestorm, the Lab stated, "We are working closely with the Firestorm team to coordinate the rollout of updates that will improve your performance." They would mention that Team Firestorm made the decision to keep their last pre-PBR viewer around indefinitely .

 

The next release of the Firestorm viewer will include all the performance fixes we are working on. You’ll be prompted to update your Firestorm Viewer once it is ready in the next few days, but you can also be one of the first to try it by joining the Firestorm Preview Group inworld and continue to stay connected with their development progress on the official Firestorm Viewer website and its dedicated download page.

For the blogpost in full, Click Here. 

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of The Day: Low Lag Avatar

 

 

 Taken at the Moon Dance on June 6. Someone showed up as a stick figure. Since lag is often a problem in Second Life, extremely simple avatars would have some use. 

By Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day: Laggy Halloween

 

 

 Taken at Club Scorn. Sometimes it can take a while for someone to fully rezz. And at this time of year, a half-loaded avatar can look a little like a Halloween appearance.

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

It Came From Bellisseria Chat: Ways To Die In Second Life

 

 

Posted by Margo Heartsong in Bellisseria chat, one of her Halloween decorations showing ways to die in Second Life. For those who have trouble reading the tombstone, it says "Caught in a laggy region." Margo would say, "This one is the worst (kind of) death" in Second Life. Someone would add, "A slow and painful death."

 

Cartoon of The Day: Lag Thick Enough To Walk On

 

 

 Taken at the Relay Weekend track with the help of Charlee Shuftan. After a sim crossing, the result was the "walk of lag" going slowly up.

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

Reader Submitted: "Patch Nakies And Faceless At Fantasy Faire"

 

Taken by Wyv the Biteypants FloxMonster™ (Wyvern Dryke). When Patch Linden had his "Jail & Bail" On Friday April 21 at 1PM, the lag at the Sambeaubee sim was so thick, many of the avatars took a long time to rezz for me, or just wouldn't at all. Patch  didn't even appear as a name tag for almost an hour. When I commented in Faire chat I'd likely have to borrow the pics of others, Wyv pointed to the link of a Flickr picture he posted,"ell I just crashed and relogged so Patch is nakies and faceless. Bad picture time X-D" then told me, "Put -that- in the paper hahahahah!" And checking the picture, it seems Wyv wasn't having much better luck than I was.

Fortunately as time went on, Patch would eventually rezz for both of us, and Wyv would send me a second picture.

And no, the black bar wasn't really necessary, but someone would have complained if it wasn't there.

Addition: This wasn't the only "nakies" picture of Patch out there, who responded with a "Help, Patch Has Lost All His Clothes" forum thread post. 

Cartoon of The Day: Not Just His Two Front Teeth

 

 

 Taken at the Christmas Expo. Once again, a crowded event resulted in a few avies not fully rezzing. While looking at this picture, it was fairly obvious what this guy would want for Christmas, and a certain Christmas song came to mind. 

By Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of The Day: "Red Hot"

 

 

 Taken at the Happy Vixen. This avatar took a while to rezz on my viewer, resulting in a mostly red appearance. It left me guessing for a few moments what she really looked like.

Bixyl Shuftan 

Cartoon of The Day: Beauty Mud

 

Taken at the SL19B. That's really lag making it take a while before the avatar skin fully rezzes. But it sure resembles something else in real life. 

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

New Firestorm Update Released

 

A few days ago on Tuesday March 22, Jessica Lyon of Team Firestorm announced the release of their latest version on their blog: 6.5.3.65658. She would also announce it in their inworld group.

A new update with some GAME CHANGING FEATURES!
Grab it before the servers cook!

Firestorm 6.5.3.65658 is finally in the wind! Wow—it’s been a struggle to get this one out, folks. But the wait is worth it, as this release comes with a couple of groundbreaking new features we’re really excited about. It also brings us to parity with LL’s 6.5.2, quite a jump from our last release, which was AGES ago. This is a major update.

As stated, this latest update brings Firestorm up to parity with Linden Lab's latest viewer, and there's two notable new features. One is the option to take 360 Snapshots, which Marcel Mosswood wrote about last month when it was in a test viewer. 

Another noted feature is the Performance Floater and Autotune, which can help in telling you what around you is causing the most lag.

The Performance Floater shows you in real-time what parts of the scene are taking the most time and slowing down your graphics (lag). In particular, this first release focuses on avatars and allows you to see which avatars are truly lagging you, and also allows you to examine your own attachments to see how they perform.

The FS Performance Floater is loosely based upon a project viewer from LL, released last June. We have completely revised the metrics behind the floater to make sure that it offers a realistic account of the rendering costs that you personally observe.

Autotune. This is the first look at this new feature. Wholly developed by Beq Janus, Autotune allows the viewer to automatically manage some of your graphics settings in order to give you the performance level that you request, and keep you there. It’s like autopilot for lag! You set the target FPS (frames per second) you want, and Autotune will do its best to keep you there by dynamically adjusting your settings from scene to scene! However, it cannot work miracles, if your computer is ancient—it can only do so much.

When TPing to a social island with a number of avatars most, of the viewer's time was spent drawing them. Clicking on avatars nearby will show how much processing time is spent on each. It also shows your avatar complexity in detail, how much time the avatar's parts are needing to render, It shows the impact of any HUDs on you, and a shortcut to looking at and edjusting your graphics settings.

There are known issues with the Mac and Linnux versions of the viewer. Also, the "Starlight Skins," an appearance option for Firestorm viewers (SL wiki link) will soon no longer be supported. 

As per their deal with Linden Lab, Firestorm 6.4.12.62831 will be blocked from accessing the Grid in three weeks.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Breaking News: Second Life's Cloud Servers Degrading, Lag And Other Issues To Get Significantly Worse

 Update: April Fools

In a stunning development, Linden Lab announced an unexpected and severe problem with the Amazon Cloud Servers that now house Second Life's data. The servers have been deteriorating and glitching, and the problem is going to get much worse.

"It turns out the servers that Amazon provided us with weren't meant to take the strain of a virtual world as active as Second Life is," the statement by the Lab explained, "Not only are we not getting the performance improvements we were hoping for, the lag and other issues such as teleport fails and inventory issues have been slowly getting worse over the past few months."

The statement went on to say that the servers are starting to deteriorate faster,  and so the issues will start to get even worse, and fast. It's estimated that within two weeks, viewers will need four to five times to load information around an avatar after TPing or logging on. Crashes an teleport fails will be several more times likely to happen as well, and items will start vanishing from inventories. Within three weeks, viewers will take ten times as long to process information after logging on or teleporting. That is if people can log on or teleport at all as fails will start to keep people from doing so for five to ten minutes. And within a month, Second Life will become unusable to those without newer and more powerful computers.

Linden Lab is working with Amazon to get better servers and transfer the data to them, but this will take time. For now, the Lab is offering a downloadable code that will allow the servers to better recognize users and their data and not suffer quite as much lag.

For more information and to download the code: Click Here. 

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Cartoon of the Day: Rocket Cart

 

 Pictures from Matt Carlton. So what would have gotten a go-cart to take off like that? Well, yours truly could think of one way.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

Taken at the Relay track with Nance Clowes. We went flying up in the air after a sim crossing. What would cause something like this in real life, I had one idea.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Reader Submitted: The Cloud Move

Kἶէმƈεlἶმ Lմἶղƈօɾἶმlօէε Kεlνმɾl (Kitacelia Resident) recently sent a reader submitted commentary about what she feels has become quite an aggravating problem: increasing lag along with bugs and glitches due to Linden Lab moving data from it's current servers to cloud-based ones. The Lab's "good idea," from her point of view, is causing a lot of problems. So she took the time to explain the problem as she sees it.

Read Kitacelia's reader submission in Extra.

News and Commentary: Coronavirus Shut-ins Leading to Slower Internet, and Slower Second Life

When the news stories of people being told to stay at home started going around, social introverts whom felt happier online than engaging in plenty of public events could be forgiven for feeling a little smug. While extroverts would have to struggle to get used to the routine, people whom already spent a lot of time on the Internet and other places such as online gaming and virtual worlds, notably Second Life, seemingly wouldn't have to make any sacrifices.

But as it turns out, Internet introverts do have to give up something: the higher speeds they've been used to.

Articles, such as one in Fortune magazine, suggests that with more people using the Internet due to the people staying at home, the result is comparable to more traffic on a road leading to slowdowns. Several services such as Netflix and Youtube are reducing movie quality.

So what does this mean for Second Life? While periods of glitches and lag are nothing new to the virtual world, a number of my friends have told me it's been getting worse. While Sony made the decision to reduce downloading speed in response, Linden Lab is unlikely to mess with the quality of data transmission.

What can be done about all this lag? The best way is to go to one's Preferences and reduce quality, draw distance, or both. For those whom it's already low, they may have to avoid coming on peak times.

So it seems for now, we're having to deal with "Corona lag."

Sources: Fortune, PC Magazine

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day: High Octane Fuel

Taken at the "Five Days of Relay" motorcycle run on the Relay sims. One case of sim crossing lag looked like a heck of a power jump that would make one wonder just what was in the fuel tank.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day

Taken at the new continent. Someone was driving down the streets of the Linden Homes, and her face was the last thing to rezz. You can guess what was the first thing I thought of.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day: Bizzaro Lag

Taken at the Home and Garden Expo. With the lag making skin color taking a while to appear, this Superman avatar is looking more like the hero's flawed and often villainous doppelganger.

By Bixyl Shuftan