Tag: SL Issues

Properly prim(med)

Posted on by Inara Pey

Tateru Nino speculates on the future of the megaprim on her blog, in an entry that is ironically amusing in its timing.

The megaprim has been around in various forms for years. Early megas (prims bigger than the 10x10x10 SL limit) were highly questionable, having come about through an exploit that meant their dimensions were so tortured as to be highly suspect and / or that actually played games with the physics engine. A 50×50 (x,y) mega, for example, may have looked like it was 50×50 in size, but it actually registered with the sim as either a 50x50x? or 100x100x? mega, depending on how the original had been tortured and where the “centre point” lay (either along one edge of the prim or in one corner). Push such a prim up against a sim boundary, and you risked destabilising the sim as you had a physical object effectively crossing the sim boundary. Such megas also massively increased the number of collisions on a sim as avatars walked on them (or more usually – again due to the nature of the beasts – through them as far as the physics engine was concerned.

LL, as Tateru reports, itself was split into two groups: those that wanted to ban megas period, and those that wanted to let them in to a greater or lesser degree. With the coming of Bay City and Nautilus, the latter group partially got their way: a “legal” exploit was used to create megas that could be tortured without the issues surrounding earlier attempts. Thus was born the plethora of “legal” megas we all know and use today. They are not perfect: you cannot resize them without them “snapping back” to 10×10(x10); but they can be cut, sliced, tapered, etc., like any other prim.

Now, Tateru speculates, the era of these megas might even be coming to an end. AS I’ve noted myself, the “legal” prim size is due to be increased to 64x64x64 with the introduction of Mesh (although I thought it was 60x60x60 when I blogged on the matter). Further, LL are implementing a new toolset that will enable people to return prims that encroach upon their land.

Had I read Tateru’s blog in isolation, I’d have dismissed it; it is hard to image LL wiping all mega prims from the grid, given the chaos it would cause. And yet…

Last night (my time), mega prims – and anything they were linked to – started vanishing from the grid (I was actually one of those affected when the main section of my house vanished out from under myself and a friend). While the situation was apparently stopped by Maggie Linden, it was nevertheless perplexing, and afterwards, theories started appearing on various blogs as to what happened. These seem to have comprised the following:

  • It was because LL had banned the prims belonging to one “Crowley Avro” (or “Auro”), and that these were being systematically wiped from the grid, OR
  • That “Crowley Avro/Auro” had been banned with the result that all megas made by them were being blacklisted, OR
  • That LL were wiping out all 50x50x?? prims our larger, OR
  • That is was restricted to a specific size of prims around the 50x??x?? size.

LL are, unsurprisingly, remaining quiet on the subject. Personally, I have issues with these theories, because:

  1. All of the megas I used in the section of my house that poofed (which I later recovered via a re-rez from my backup rezzer) were created by Research Project not Crowley Whoever
  2. The section of the house that vanished didn’t contain any 50xanything megaprims in it: indeed, the single 50x50x1 prim I’ve used in the build was untouched

Thus, it would seem all these theories floating around as little more than guesswork; as are these two alternatives:

  • Someone at LL simply boobed (although why they should be focusing on megaprims is itself an interesting question) OR
  • Someone boobed inasmuch as they pushed the button to early – that is, there are plans to remove megas at some point down the road – someone at LL just accidentally jumped the gun – and as such, Tateru is correct.

On the one hand, it is hard to conceive of LL “banning” all current megas. Not only would it piss off a lot of people, it would create a heck of a lot of work for them – or rather their moles – given both Bay City and Nautilus use rather a lot of megas. But this doesn’t necessarily rule out such a move – there might even be valid performance reasons for doing so; and even if not, LL seem to have a habit of upsetting users, even when they don’t intend to.

Addendum 3rd Feb

While the exact cause of the issue remain unclear, LL posted the following on the Grid status page, which actually hadn’t shown up on my Dashboard when I posted the above:

We are aware that some megaprims were removed from the grid which have affected builds that contained the megaprims. While mega prims are not supported, we understand their value in builds.  The issue has been resolved and the object can be re-rezzed from your inventories at this time.

It’s interesting to note LL understand their value in builds but also reinforce the fact that mega prims are not supported. So I’d say the jury is out on the subject of eventual removal, but possibly swaying towards not banning them. Even so, I’ll still be reworking my builds when the time comes…

Lagging behind the times

Posted on by Inara Pey

Frank Ambrose – FJ Linden blogs on the technology side of SL; and for once I have to wag my finger at him. This is a rare occurrence for me, as Frank is one of the most straight-up and openly “honest” (for want of a better word) Lindens who posts on the blog. But this time, part of his post does not reflect the realities of the SL experience.

Before getting to the wagging however, getting feedback on the technology side in SL is always good – and to be sure, Frank has led the charge behind the scenes in making the infrastructure a  lot better and more reliable; and some of the news he brings is good. Specifically, it is good to know that Group limits will soon be increased to 40 (albeit with a caveat). Raising the current limit has long been one of the highest-rated requests from residents for as long as I’ve been back in SL. That it has taken so long to get around to is a little inexcusable – but it is very welcome news. I just hope it doesn’t mark the return a familiar trend of LL opting for “easy” fixes (and yes, I do appreciate more is required under the hood than flicking a switch to achieve this) that amount to throwing crusts to the crowd in appeasement in the hope we’ll overlook the bigger and more painful issues.

HTTP texture loading is also good news…and one hopes that all TPVs will be able to absorb the code sooner rather than later. I’ve already commented on the Mesh beat, so no need to dwell on that; same with Display Names.

Improvements resulting from Project snowstorm I’ve yet to experience. I use a TPV, and I think it will still take a while for benefits from Snowstorm to flow outward, rather than inward. I’m sure there are a lot of LL-side benefits from the new server deployment process, but the truth is many have yet to seen real benefits in terms of their overall SL experience; but we’ll give it time.

No, the “wait, what?!” reaction to FJ’s post can be found in the first of his “update paragraphs”, namely:

Here’s  an interesting factoid: there are about two million teleports in Second  Life every day. Previous to our recent release of Server 1.42, when an avatar teleported or crossed into a new region, everyone on the  destination sim would experience a “lag” event as the simulator stalled  while processing the incoming avatar. This was often experienced as  “jitter” on the sim, especially evident when many avatars arrived at the  same time, such as for a live event. In the new simulation code, this  slow point has been moved to a separate thread. Our simulator  performance profiling tools show that this lag pain point is almost  entirely gone, greatly improving performance for highly trafficked  regions.

WUT?? Frank, shame on you. If you really believe that this lag pain point is almost entirely gone, I can only suggest that you and your team need new “performance profiling tools” – or better yet you need to get your little pixelated bums inside SL and try Tping around the grid for more than one or to attempts.

What has happened is that the pain point has simply shifted – not gone; and rather than giving a self-congratulatory pat on the back, you could at least admit that while overall sim freezing *has* improved, lag and tp issues are still prevalent and need further investigation. Issues such as:

  • Avatars universally arriving in mid-air and getting stuck for anything up to 5-10 seconds, unable to land or fly
  • Avatars freezing immediately after landing
  • Nearby avatars *still* experiencing a (albeit momentary) lock-up when someone tp’s in nearby in a crowded sim

Over an above this, and while not the focus of FJ’s article, lag in general remains a major headache within SL, with many residents reporting it to be at least as bad as pre-1.42, if not worse.

The sim-wide freezing  – down to a Mono issues – has gone by-and-large; and this is worthy of pointing out. But to use it as a blanket to cover the wider issues is not neither fair, not what we expect from you FJ, and it rather undermines the rest of the positive news contained in your blog.