Debugging a Second Life Region’s Lag

I suspect many of us have visited a region and had our FPS (Frames per Second) rate drop to low single digits. Innula Zenovka is managing a region that has the problem and started looking for help figuring out what was wrong with it. I suppose managers like Innula get handed some real messes to deal with.

Innula says her viewer usually runs at about 30 FPS. But, in the problem region it drops to 2 to 3 FPS. I hate it when that happens.

See the thread: Advice, please, on reading consoles and debugging a laggy sim.

There is some good information and tips in the thread.

Ctrl-Alt-Shift-T Read Out
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-T Read Out

One tip is to select an item you think may be using a number of large textures. A simple right click on it will do. Then press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-T. This will send a series of notifications. You will get a list of the textures used in the item as a list ordered by each object in a link set. The notifications tell you the size of the texture and which face it is applied to.

You can see the result in the image: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-T Read Out. 

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Firestorm Meeting 2013-37

The Firestorm team is having the meetings they promised. Saturday the 14th they had a meeting Q&A. In this meeting there is lots of good troubleshooting information. There is a video of the meeting that runs 2 hours and 12 minutes. I’ll get to the link later.

I’ve paraphrased the information given in the meeting. Several subjects came up more than once. Speakers also wondered off into various subjects then come back to the main topic. That happen in a live discussion. I’ve tried to get all the information on a subject into a single section here.

Ed Merryman spoke about viewer settings. He is stressing less is more. 

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Second Life Integrating with Facebook?

Daniel Voyager came up with information about Second Life™ adding more integration with Facebook. Daniel has apparently found some of the leaks I use to learn about what is coming to SL. From what he has found the Facebook Floater is apparently due out in viewer 3.6.6 next week. I’m not so sure it will be next week or in 3.6.6.

Second Life's Facebook Page
Second Life’s Facebook Page

I just don’t think it will happen that fast, but it might. Viewer 3.6.6 is already in the viewer pipeline and you can download a copy from the Beta/Alternate Viewers page*. I’ve been using the Ribbon Viewer 3.6.6 (280938). As best I can tell this feature is not in it. 

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Ribbon Particles in Second Life

These have been the works for some time. The server side was completed earlier this year. The Wiki was updated in the spring. But, we have not had a viewer that could display the particles. That is about to change. We should get a RC Viewer tomorrow, Friday. And as usual that might not happen.

Server Beta Meeting 2013-37 - Particle Demo Object
Server Beta Meeting 2013-37 – Particle Demo Object

Or you can go here now: Ribbon Viewer. If you choose to get and use this viewer, turn off all automatic updates. And leave them turned off until you reinstall the main viewer. This means if you have the main viewer installed, disable ‘willing to RC’ and auto-update. Then install this viewer.

Realize you will most likely break your current install pipeline until you do a default install of an RC or the main viewer. So, install at your risk.

This version is not likely to be up to date with other viewer updates and fixes. It is very likely behind. So, if you do try it out, get the RC version from the pipeline tomorrow.

Do NOT call support if you are using this viewer!!!

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Second Life ToS Change

In August the Linden Lab Terms of Service for all their products changed. One change most of us missed is now a point of considerable concern.

Access the Second Life Terms of Service
Access the Second Life Terms of Service

I’ve been watching discussion of the change in ToS that explicitly states we grant Linden Lab the right to sell any content uploaded to Second Life. I am not seeing what I consider a good explanation of the situation or clear opinion on it. Inara Pey has an article that shows the EXACT change and highlights the pertinent sections. See: ToS change and content rights: Lab provides statement. 

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Second Life Chat to Speech Program

Yuzuru Jewell gave me a copy of his newly released program IDOBATA Pro. This is a simple, no installation program that converts text to speech using the built-in Windows speech service.(Reference) It is a standalone program so you can run it from a USB drive.

You can get the Second Life Text to Speech program here. It has a 3-day free trial period. The license can be purchased in world in Phasic Foo. The cost is L$1250.

Second Life Chat to Speech Program
Second Life Chat to Speech Program

IDOBATA Pro allows you to point Windows at the Viewer’s chat file. It detects changes to the file and sends new text to the speech conversion service. The result being you hear what is being typed into chat.

The program is designed for Windows 7 and 8, 32 or 64 bit versions. My thinking is that if it run on Win7 it will run on Vista, but I haven’t tried that. I am getting accustomed to Win7 and have not booted over to Vista in a couple of weeks. 

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