Second Life Server Updates Week 2

Here is an update on the changes happening with the grid servers.

The Encroachment Project, the feature to allow one to remove prims encroaching on their property, failed to pass its test in the Blue Steel Release Channel. That means it is stuck in Blue Steel for another week with new fixes applied. With any luck it will roll to the main grid next week.

The Le Tigre channel was testing the new Simulator Shutdown code. It passed its tests and was rolled to the main grid. This code improves several things on the server side of the Second Life Grid. Faster simulator restarts and fewer inventory problems are two expected improvements.

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New Things Coming to Second Life

There are several projects now making their way into the Release Channels and soon to the main grid. None are as fun or exciting as mesh, but they are things that should make SL faster and nicer to play in.

Faster Non-Texture Assets

Monty Linden attended Oskar’s office hours meeting. There is a small project (small code-wise) coming to the grid soon that will speed up non-texture assets moving through the system. Now is that cryptic or what?

Seems Monty means sounds and wearables. The change won’t be as dramatic as ‘Compression’ is for region crossing, but it is expected to be significant and have noticeable effects. The change has to do with making the process smarter, whatever that can mean in this case. Monty describes it as removing artificial slowdowns… which may have mostly to do with making the path things take through the system more efficient.

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Coming Server Updates

Lil Linden posted an update about changes and upgrades coming to the grid. See: Deploys for the Week of 2011-01-10.

It appears the Compression upgrade is moving to the main grid. All regions will get it. This will greatly reduce region crossing time (see previous post for graphs) and cut the number of failed teleports. Along with it comes the Encroachment feature that allows one to return prim that are only partially on your land.

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Second Life Beta Server Update

Region Crossing Compression

The Region Crossing news is hot. The new code is in use across the Magnum Release Channel. The stats on the improvement are impressive. The new improvement is referred to as Region Crossing Compression or just Compression.

SL Region Crossing Time
Region Crossing Time

There are some nifty graphs showing what is happening. Notice a little after ten compression is activated. The graphs take a significant step down.

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Second Life Server Software Updates

Tuesdays and Wednesdays, depending on your region, the server’s software is updated and the region restarted. New versions are rolled out early morning. On Tuesday it is the new Production version that is rolled out. On Wednesday a new Release Candidate is rolled out to the test regions. The Tuesday process takes between 4 and 5 hours.

The changes just rolled out and upcoming changes are discussed in Server Beta Office Hours. Here are the things I found interesting from the latest Server Beta office hours. One is a big one for builders. 

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Second Life Server Updates

On Tuesdays we usually get new software for the grid. On Wednesday new software arrives on the Release Candidate areas of the grid. The big feature for the main grid is TMalloc, which is about memory allocation and providing information to Linden Lab (LL) for debugging the software. I think this may also provide some improvement for region crossings.

It looks like we are getting caught up on fixes and will start to see new or improved features coming out. Most of these features are still in the line of problem solving, but will do things in new ways, hopefully reducing lag and other problems. 

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