Kokua viewer is working on 4gb video memory support. Contact Hurana Ugajin if you want to know more that effort.

The problem the Lab has hit in using more video memory is in detecting the amount of memory the card can use before it creates problems. The detection systems previously used all failed causing way more problems than they solved and have been removed from the Lab’s viewer.

Can I Help You?

Oz says he is not putting a detection system back in the Linden viewer. However, he modified that by making it clear he will work with anyone that wants to develop such a system. But, warns the code will be subject to a brutal QA. They do NOT want to add those problems back into the viewer. So, before they add detection and higher memory use, they will have to assure their selves it works well… solving more problems than may be created.

The Firestorm Viewer currently uses 1024mb. They have pushed that to 2048mb. But, they lose viewer stability around 1512mb.

The Lab would tolerate a manual setting for users to adjust video memory provided it gives a understandable error message when the setting causes video to fail.

SIM Crossings

There are sim crossing problems. From Lab Chat the Lindens have gotten some complaints about problems they need to work on. They have a couple of lines of investigation underway directly from Lab Chat.

When it comes to SIM Crossings scripts are still a big problem. Eliminating scripts, running scripts especially, are the number one step to take for reducing SIM crossing problems.

BUG Reports

Summer vacations mean SL bug triage is on pause for a week or two.

Interesting

Ongoing activity by the Lindens is to look for limits set a long time ago. They are examined periodically to see if they can be changed. I.e., group limits. The process is low priority but, ongoing. It fills the free minutes that come up at various times in the work plan.

There is also ongoing work to throttle resource usage by individuals in a regions. Those people that repeatedly hog resources are targeted. Mostly this is a matter of adjusting how many requests the servers will accept from the individual and increasing the wait time before another request is accepted.

Chat Lag

The only change to chat in the last 2 weeks is, if someone gets removed from group, they get removed from that groups chat. No performance changes made. The group chat blocking requires one extra check before a chat is accepted for the group by the chat servers. Being to check whether are you still part of the group. Oz and Rider Linden will review chat performance metrics to see if performance has degraded. But, all believe the check is fast it should be unnoticeable.

Script Limits

There is a newly adjust limit on the number of scripts allowed in avatar attachments.

Bento Lag Test

In a recent Bento pile-on test for performance problems with the new wings and tails, they found it was not a problem. Apparently no measurable loss of performance in a large crowd of avatars all running wings and tail animations.

The Bento animated tails are way different than the current set of animated mesh tails being used. Some of the current non-Bento tails are considered total evil. They make use of multiple models of the tail and make then visible and invisible to create the illusion of motion. The result is enormous polygon counts. Thus the impact on performance.

As Bento comes on line and Avatar Complexity values start to reveal actual cost of items to users, I expect the new mesh tails and wings to become very popular because of their low ACI.

Stats

In stats it was asked if the Lab has a stat on what setting people are using for Max ACI. The Lab doesn’t. They only report and record how many avatars are over whatever limit people are using.

The viewer reports when an avatar is over its user’s limit. The server reports its evaluation of an avatar’s ACI to allow the viewer to decide whether to render or not.

Flash and QT: Bye

Flash and QT are pretty much out of Second Life. It is possible to get them to work with some SL viewers. But, the Lab no longer supports them. Nor do they consider their not working a bug.

Oz says there will be more media support in the Linden 64-bit viewers. At least that is the plan as of now.