The common theme in most of these tips is overly memory consumption. Basically if the software on your computer requires more memory than is available in RAM, the operating system will try to substitute parts of it with disk files by shuffling contents of memory from RAM to hard disk (virtual memory) and vice versa. While this allows software to run that the computer otherwise would be unable to run at all, this comes at the price of slower speed.
1) Use a viewer that does not leak memory: Sorry I couldn't resist here, but the memory leak seems to be among the #2 reason for bad performance (if you're wondering what #1 is, that is server and sim lag).
So far my viewer is one alternative, another would be to compile your own with a recent version of libcurl (available from my download server), but
2) Use a reasonable setting for Adv. Graphics, Video Memory: This is a complicated issue, but I'll try to stick with as little detail as possible. This setting does not only affect the memory usage on your video card but also regular memory consumption, so performance does not necessarily get better with higher values.
Think of it like this: The memory consumption of the viewer will be 350MB plus a RAM buffer (regular RAM not video RAM) for textures in the size of this setting multiplied by a factor 1.3. This RAM buffer stores textures for short-time reuse and will speed up things, if ... and only if ... enough main memory is available. A setting that is too high, will slow down the viewer even if your video board supports it.
This means, that on systems with 512MB main memory or on systems with two or three viewers running at the same time, you should use a low value, down to 128MB or 64MB or even less. Even on my system with 1.5GB RAM I am setting it just 256MB (although my video card offers more).
In fact I am not sure if the 512MB setting will do any good at all, unless you have a high end computer (2GHz CoreDuo, 2GB RAM and a state of the art video board (ATI or NVIDIA boards with numbers ending on -800 or -900, like ATI X1900, NVIDIA 8800, etc.).
3) Use the Disk Cache: Unless your hard disk is in a woeful condition (slow, full to the brim, fragmented all over the place), disk caching should help you. If the partition where your virtual disk resides (usually C:) has more that 25% free space and was recently defragmented (right-click Harddisk, Properties, Tools), set the cache to max. You might even consider to use a higher setting, via Debug menu (Ctrl+Alt+D), Client, Debug Settings, Cache size.
4) Make the Network setting match your connection: There is a setting for the network througput in preferences. Make it match your internet connection, a setting of 1000 roughly equals a 1MBit connection, like DSL-1000 or 1500 is an Americal T1 connection). Trimming the slider a bit lower (10%-25%) may make sense in the case you usually have in-world music streams or in-world videos active.
5) Reduce Draw-Distance: Draw distance has huge impact on speed, lower settings are generally faster, especially on laggy days.
6) Close programs in the background: If you have software running in the background, close as many of them as you can. Web browsers, email program and all those little tools in the taskbar in the lower right corner, especially anti virus software.
If you are willing to throw money at the problem, here is what to buy:
7) Upgrade to 1GB RAM: If possible, upgrade main memory to 1GB. More is not strictly necessary (well, not with a viwer that has the leak fixed), and any RAM added above 1GB will have less and less noticeable impact, but the difference between 512MB and 1GB will most likely be worth the money (about $30-$50).
8) Buy a $100 video board: If you want to buy a new video board, those in the $100 region are sufficient. Look for ATI or NVIDIA boards with numbers ending with -600 (ATI X1600 or NVIDIA 6600 or 7600) and 128 or 256MB memory. My current preference is the NVIDIA 7600GS because at the moment NVIDIA seems to have the better drivers and the additional benefit of being available as fanless versions. Of course there are more powerful boards, but the price/performance ratio isn't that good ... with the -600 boards for around $100 you'll get the most bang for your bucks.
11 comments:
- 1gig ram: check
- graphics card ending on '600': check
- programs in background: only firefox
- draw distance: high when snapshotting, otherwise 64
Still slow, though. *sobs*
I forgive memory leaks in others as long as they will forgive mine.
vint,
how slow is "slow"? Sometimes "slow" is just bad/overloaded sims (like Phat Cat's) and the best viewer in the world can't change that.
Slow is 'fetch your spaghetti, warm it, eat it, .. ow look, my camera view has finally changed'. But indeed, maybe the sims are to blame.
Vint, that sounds more like a metaphor with those system specs (like the camera not changing for 5 minutes).
What internet connection? How does it perform on empty sims?
Cable connection. On the empty rezzable sim it's more fine, still I actually even 'hear' the PC going into overdrive when running SL. (I wish I had a better way to describe this.)At the same time I can resize a 100mb PS document without troubles. (As for a technical comparison. *grins*)
On a complete empty sim it's better still camera movement is still 'icky', 'with stuttering' lately. (Ever since 1.15)
Vint, if you press shift+ctrl+1 and watch the topmost gauge, what FPS rates do you get after a teleport and let's say after waiting two minutes for things to rezz?
Also, the overdrive could be your processor or graphics board fan. Try download a tool named SpeedFan and see if you can monitor the temperatures. Some NVIDIA boards seem to make pauses when they get too hot.
I have a PC which is optimized for commercial 3D development: 2 Gig Core2Duo, 2GB Memory, Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT - still the viewer "freezes" occasionally for as long as 10/20 seconds, while the harddrive starts to spin like crazy.
I had drawing distance on 512 'cause I like to pan and zoom a lot. Graphic card memory was set to 256.
I set it now to 128 and drawing distance to 256. Let's see how this works out.
Hi Nicholaz.
Thanks for your work and regular articles. I've been having problems with constant crashing since v.17 was introduced. Indeed I did have a huge memory leak and your patch sorted it to some degree but even still with yours or 17.3 running I'm still getting memory leak, CPU running @100% and a crash every 20 mins even with graphics bottomed out.
Anyway, I wanted to clarify your advice on the cache size. You say make as big a cache provision as possible given the HD's condition but I've seen this article by Torley Linden saying the opposite. Given that it dates from 2005 could you clarify why you both differ in your views or whether XP has moved on now?
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=233&highlight=overclocking
"Another note: if you are running Win XP, don't adjust the Disk Cache Size to greater than 200MB because Win XP decides to "help" with "performance" by loading the whole cache into RAM at system start (hence the big burp when you first connect in XP)."
Sy,
dunno what torleys reasoning or information was, but today there are there levels.
1) texture buffer (this is the memory that relates the adv.video setting).
2) fetch texture from disk cache
3) download texture from net
It is obvious that 3) will take ages longer than 1) and 2) so setting 2 as far as possible will avoid a lot of network access.
It's basically the same as the "temporary internet items" in IE. It reaches insane sizes and is still quicker than downloading pictures from the net again.
I'm not promoting insane sizes, but I'm sure a 1GB SL cache will do more good than it can hurt in most of the average environments.
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