 Hello everyone and welcome to the 1030 session of the 2020 Open Simulator Community Conference. In this session, we are happy to introduce a presentation called Understanding Lag in Firestorm. Our speaker is Bluezy Blyak. Bluezy has been teaching the Firestorm viewer ever since it started. Bluezy taught Phoenix before that and says, hey I am weird but I love to teach. Please check out the website found at conference.opensimulator.org for speaker bios, details of the sessions and the full schedule of events. Now the session is being live streamed and recorded so if you have questions or comments during the session you may send tweets to at opensimcc with the hashtag OSCC20. Welcome everyone. Let's begin the session. Today by the way I'm going to be the voice I have the honor to be the voice of Bluezy Blyak. Now people understand that the start of the class is a little based on Firestorm but you might find those things in your viewer as well. This class is presented in text only with audio by Lear. If I go too quickly, just yell and I'll slow down. If you're having difficulty reading the text from the no-card reader go to the avatar menu preferences, colors, chat color and change the color of the objects to something that's more legible for you. Before we get started, I'd like everyone to look at the help menu. All menus and sub menus will detach and stay open if you click on the double lines at the top of the menu until you click the X to close it. This makes it simpler to check or uncheck the options as well as uncheck anything you happen to click on either by mistake or to see what it does. Well a few things of interest in the help menu. The first is that the Firestorm wiki link which you can access with function key one, some Macs and laptops need to use the function key F1 excuse me it was F1 for Windows, function key F1 for Macs. The wiki has documentation on almost every preference and feature in the viewer plus some pages about lag, cache and basic troubleshooting. The second is troubleshooting which opens the troubleshooting page on the wiki where you can find suggestions for problems that you may be experiencing or we're getting to the lag serendipity. The second is troubleshooting which opens the troubleshooting wait whoops deja vu not huh the third is about Firestorm. It opens the the about Firestorm window which shows your system info better known as sys info, viewer credits and licensing information. Welcome to a much needed and often ignored class. We're going to talk about lag. If you have questions about the topic we are on please just put them in the nearby chat and I will answer as soon as I can. If you have any off topic questions please save them for after class. You're omniscient there during our open question and answer session. So let's move on to talking about lag. First off I want to tell you that some things I may tell you may or may not be applicable to your grid. Every grid on open sim has different peculiarities after all. So if you have questions about the topic we're on please put them in the nearby chat and I'll answer them as soon as I can. Let's move on to talking about lag. People always ask well what causes lag? Well here is the short answer first everything causes lag okay. Another common question is how do I get rid of lag? The short answer here is log out. Not liking the answers to so far are you? Well let's try the not so short answers. So what does cause lag? Well sorry to tell you but the short answer still applies. Everything causes lag to one degree or another. However it is more a matter of what type of lag it is and how much lag is acceptable to you. As for what you can do to get rid of lag well that depends on what type of lag it is. First of all let's talk about the three different types of lag. You can use the lag meter which may be accessed from avatar menu that's avatar health to help determine which of these three is affecting you the most. If you have the traffic indicator enabled in preferences the user interface and the top bars you can then click on that to open it as well. That freezes or undocks that little panel by the way. You can also use the statistics bar which may be accessed by pressing control shift and one together all three keys at once that's control shift and one to further determine the cause in some cases. Network lag. This is when you have connectivity issues. There are problems somewhere in the network between your computer and the servers wherever they are hosted. So symptoms of a poor connection can include but are not limited to the failure of your avatar or textures to res. Object information not displaying in hover tips when you mouse over them and that's assuming you have them turned on. Teleport failure random crashes and the cumulative packet loss that shows a percentage of data that is lost or failing to be delivered and it's in the help menu under about firestorm at the top on your menu bar and on the very bottom line of that menu directory the first section it looks like packets lost then you'll see a number could be 760 by 3,02154 or 0.3 percent packet loss. Now this shows the real time packet loss. The lower the number the better and the infrequent spikes may be expected. If it stays high for too long a period of time you will experience a lower performance. For some things looking at the real time packet loss will be useful. It's like watching for lag when you do something or go somewhere. For checking for overall network performance cumulative packet loss is more useful. Also check your ping on the SIM. Ideally this should be under 200 milliseconds. 400 milliseconds is actually what linden lab considers too high. You'll have to check with your server administrator because what gets displayed in open sim may be a little different. So what is supposed to be here? Well I do not know. This is also known as latency and if you're experiencing wildly high ping times ask others nearby if they are as well. No one else is nearby. We'll ask a friend or ask folks from the group to come by. If you are all seeing high ping times it is a server issue and the region should be restarted. If only you see high ping times you might try rebooting your router your modem or your pc. You can also try to mitigate network lag by adjusting your bandwidth. Too high or too low a setting in your bandwidth can cause performance issues although we do find that too high can be a lot worse than too low. For more information on how to determine your optimal bandwidth refer to the site http colon slash slash wiki dot phoenixviewer dot com slash fs underscore speed test. And I'll put that in the chat as well so you know yep there it is. Now we generally recommend the following as maximums. Wireless which is any kind of unwired network including home wireless and public hotspots 500. If you are hardwired to a DSL service or device 1000 for your settings. If you're hardwired to a broadband device like cable or fiber 1500. I may have to go adjust mine. Note that cell phone satellite and ymax are generally not well suited supporting the kind of connections required by a virtual world. Aside from the network issues I mentioned some programs may inhibit or interfere with a good connection. Some firewall software and antivirus programs are known to do this. You may want to temporarily disable them and see if the situation improves. Meanwhile client side things you can do on your system but everything you see has to be drawn by your graphics card. When there's too much to draw your computer cannot keep up and you experience client side lag. Avatar complexity is part of client side lag as the name itself says symptoms of client side lag include jerky or sluggish movement and typing delays. Now there are many things you can do to reduce this without having to ask people to adapt to you. Generally speaking the better you make your world look in the virtual world the more client side lag you will have. So reduce your draw distance to suit the current need. If you're inside a club for example you don't need to try to render objects outside the club. Something you may not be aware of is that your draw distance is a radius dimension for a sphere. The viewer collects render data for everything in that sphere not just what's in view and when you double your draw distance you increase the volume of that sphere by a factor of around eight. That means you're looking in all those directions even though you're inside the building. So be sure that avatar imposters is enabled and this will make drawing of distant avatars much faster by rendering them at a reduced quality. Reduce the number of max avatars on your graphic settings. Reduce the maximum complexity. Now this determines the level at which a complex avatar is drawn and it becomes a simple low res jelly doll on screen. Now these last three options are in preferences, your graphic setting tab and the general sub tab. Disable atmospheric shaders which serves to drastically reduce how much your computer has to render as the sky alone is very graphics intensive. Now if need be inhibit the rendering of other avatars with the advanced menu, the rendering types and then select avatar and just remember to turn that back on afterwards or de-render them. A good way to remember is to detach the menu. Client side lag is local to you. It is a direct result of how powerful your computer is and it's no one's fault if your computer can't handle a specific situation. So if you're in a high lag setting, adapt temporarily as I described. Now it must also be pointed out that client side lag neither affects nor is affected by things like scripts at all. It has next to zero impact on a region's performance. Meanwhile, there's particles. Contrary to popular belief, particles do not lag a region. Their effect on a region or on the servers is in fact close to zero. Particles are entirely client side. They are rendered on your computer by your graphics card and the fact they do not require a script to keep them going. They need a script to start or to change the effect but then the script may be removed and the particle effect will keep on going forever until another script is dropped into the end or to change them or if the object is removed. If you find that particles are lagging you, you can stop that laggy by turning the particles off in the graphics tab. That way others who are less affected may continue to enjoy them. You can disable your particles in a number of ways. On the advanced menu, rendering types and particles. On the preferences menu you can go to graphics, general, max particle count and just set it to zero all the way to the left. Server side. Now the server side lag is caused by several things and they're independent. There are two major causes. All others are secondary and negligible. They are in the order of impact on a region. The first is physics. People even wearing nothing at all with the minimum possible avatar complexity and no scripts will lag a region. The region needs to keep track of where each avatar is to prevent them from walking into one another or through one another, through floors, walls, etc. And every time your avatar moves it, it collides. It collides with something other than when you are flying or sitting or each collision gets calculated by the server, thus creating more lag. Sitting down reduces this lag significantly. Your avatar becomes linked to a prem that you're sitting on which means the server can ignore you until you stand up again. So using the ground set will also cause you to become a non-colliding object as far as the servers are concerned. Meanwhile, there's scripts. It's common knowledge that scripts can lag a region. What isn't so common is that the number of scripts isn't the important factor. It's the amount of time and, to a lesser degree, the memory consumed that is most important. A thousand scripts doing nothing is less of a problem than one script that is extremely busy. Scripts do not run on the viewer, nor do they run from an inventory. Scripts run on the server and only when added to a rest or worn object. Now the prem containing the script doesn't itself cause lag unless the prem itself is affected by the script, such as movement, shape, texture, etc. So moving away from a scripted prem will not reduce the lag caused by the script running. Taking the prem out of view, however, may reduce its effect on your viewer. So no matter where you are in the region, the effect of that script running, and that is the time taken to run it and the memory it consumes, well, it will be felt on the entire region. So if you're going to an event before you leave for it, check your attachments, not your hair, your shoes, etc., and to make sure that they are unscripted. Now if you're going to be running an event, we strongly suggest that you have the attendees do these same things. Because a badly lagged region affects everyone at the event. Note, as stated earlier, lag caused by physics, primarily avatar movement, well, that is the number one cause of region lag. So if physics lag is bad enough, scripts simply will stop running for a time. An avatar movement is considered more important than script execution. And lastly, if there are 40 people at an event and many are not sitting, it will be laggy, even if none of those people are wearing scripts. And thank you, Gimisa, for that comment. It must be stated that this material is a simplification of the true situation that is far more complex. But the intent was to be brief, simple, and yet sufficiently correct. This available, this info is also available on our wiki page, on lag, at http colon slash slash wiki dot phoenixviewer.com slash lag. For more detailed explanations, we'll see the following webpages, and we'll be putting them in the chat. There are five or six more links for you to enjoy. Now any questions on anything Lucy has covered today, I'm going to scroll up and see if there have been any questions. It's interesting when my mouth is open, I can't seem to read. So I'm looking, looking, looking. Let's see, any issue from VPN? That was a question for Lucy. I'll collect it and advance it forward. So let me put that down in the text chat. And I'll scroll up and look for some more. So that was from Serendipity Seraph. Thank you for that question. And I noticed Lucy had already answered with, yes, sort of Serendipity. Well, sort of is one of my favorite questions. That's right up there with it depends. I noticed on virtual private networks VPNs that many things break erratically, such as music says Jaga Meredith. Any other thoughts or comments from our, from our community? Is these are good? And Galen adds that's why we need that darn scrubbers because particles and other like texture animation scripts will continue to run after they've left the object. That's right. And of course Galen reminds us this is why we ask you to sit as soon as you get into the keynote regions. It's to help reduce and manage lag. So everyone has a great experience. Truel says, I've been told that using a dance ball or an animation will act like sitting. Let me repeat that comment later in the talk just in case we have further to talk about on that. And then let's see art blue has something here. I learned a lot. I have the jelly dolls syndrome. He's he's saying his avatar rendering cost is over 200 7000, which makes him the most complex person in the world in this world at least. Firestorm shows that I have first rank. He says, can anyone top me? We're going to go for big for big in beyond big hair. We're going for big avatar cost. And of course art looks to Juliet. You have third rank, which means visa B, right? 177,000 and 35 K excuse me. Truly. Let's see. It does as you are really sitting down on the prim. Lucy answers and Lucy said less. Yes, there. What impact does the agent limit have on lag? Linda asks. And Bethany says, Hey, that's great info. Thank you. I've learned a lot. You bit, of course, teases us about some will activate a dance animation, but the avatar is still out there colliding. And of course, Robert Adams, Mr. Blue was demonstrating that to us on Friday, those wild moves on the dance floor, right? There is lag on my brain. And of course, Linda says, Is that the same as the number of avatars on a region? Is that what you mean by Linda? And then of course, Lucy says every step on the route adds latency, even when you're dancing or when you're walking or whatever that route is. GS says, Hey, did you have a short hair? No hat. Pointy ears earlier. Was that just my lag? I think that's both humor and eclectic is of course, making an interesting observation there. So Lucy adds, depending on the latency of the virtual private network, well, it can be bad or really bad. Frank adds, run on a VPN only startup took longer. So the late the delays we hear about for VPNs and for browsers accessing sites, once you're connected, you know, that's the delay. Okay, Rhianna adds, How can people help with jelly dolls syndrome, optimized avatars or attachments? And Juliet's busy smiling. And of course, our blues still count in complexity. And of course, Bethany says, you get the prize art. So does any of the information apply to the SL viewer? Is the firestorm viewer considered the most advantageous? Val asks an art blues, like, Well, now she moved to second rank, he's still tracking avatar complexity. And blue is he's like ranking is the distance to the avatar. Oh, that's so good. This is almost feeling philosophical at this point. Jaga Meredith adds using the standard dance balls causes server issues. There's an obsolete item in them that generates error messages about maleficent magic wings. And you bid ads. Well, yes, complexity is avatar mesh sizes, textures, etc. And of course, based on mesh may help a lot. He starts laughing. Linda, I meant it. Is it the agent limit equals the number of avatars? Robert's offline. So I collected why I said live long and prosper because you looked like a Vulcan. And Juliet's laughing. So we're about to we've we've exhausted the questions to date. So now the question is, do we have any other questions? Or is there something you'd like to know about lag for open sim that you might feel is unique to this experience? We have so many experts or people who are experienced here in the room, that this is really a privilege to listen to all of our banter. That's really what community is about. So Marcus adds Al scott on YouTube wonders about lag from flexi prims. That's such a good question, Marcus, because I hear that a lot. Everyone says Lear walks into a room and the room quivers, right with lag. I could be. I think it would be due to my the pointers in my inventory. Linda, excellent presentation, bluesy. She learned a lot. And Alexander, the great ads. Anybody conclude latency gained by wind generation? That's interesting, Alexander. So you're talking about wind in the sense of not just the server calculations of it, but also as people add devices that have flexi with the wind setting increased. Is that what you mean? And E. M. Jennings, while you're answering that says thanks, bluesy. Luzi adds no, the firestorm viewer is not the most advantageous one, but the one that with the most choices, the most advantageous viewer is the one you prefer. And that's always the case. Usability is in the eye of the user. You bid ads view distance also impact server lag. The viewer asks for more things than the server needs to find and send back well put. Any other thoughts or questions before we and of course you can continue this discussion, but I think we are at the we're actually a little bit early. So maybe I read too fast, right? Well, Marcus, it is true. The flexi prims add to the avatar complexity. So to add to the client side lag. And you bid ads find and send things also eat CPU and bandwidth, of course. And of course, art says thanks for the definition of what art is. Well, art is complexity. But let's face it, you're worth every bit of complexity art. And you too, Julieta. You bid. That has been covered fairly well in this class, bluesy adds. Any other questions or comments for a bluesy? Thank you, Julieta, for those wonderful remarks. And thank you to the community. Well, I'll go ahead and wrap this session and then we can still have a congenial discussion. So thank you, bluesy for a terrific presentation. As a reminder to our audience, you can see what's coming up on the conference schedule at conference.opensimulator.org. And following this session is a meal break, followed by our next session at 12 o'clock in this keynote region. And it's entitled, The New Platforms. And we also encourage you to visit the OSCC 20 poster expo in the OSCC expo three region to find accompanying information on presentations and to explore the hypergrid tour resources in OSCC expo two region, along with our sponsor and our crowd funder booths. And they're located throughout all five OSCC expo regions. We want to thank you again to bluesy and to our audience. This has been wonderful. Take the time and go enjoy the expos.