|
|
|
this is necessary and voted.
I think this is a great idea, but am not going to vote for it (yet) as I believe a per avatar restriction on an OS with just one or two avatars present would be unfair compared to an OS regularly containing 40 avatars.
An Open Space sim should never contain 40 avatars, Efemera. The issue with only limiting the number of avatars in a simulator is that quite often, one avatar will be hogging all of the simulator's resources (many times unknowingly) as they are wearing many laggy scripted attachments.
Linden Labs is proposing to raise tier fees on all Open Space owners due to people who try to load an Open Space with 40 avatars. In many cases, it only takes a few highly scripted avatars to overload an Open Space simulator. This JIRA addresses and acknowledges the major issue that avatars are a root cause contributing to simulator load, but Linden Lab has never made available tools for users and estate owners to know which ones are taking more than their fair share. Quite often, these avatars with many scripted (and often unnecessary) attachments can lag up a sim to the extent that one heavily scripted avatar, by itself in an Open Space sim, would be no different than if 10 lightly scripted avatars were in the sim at the same time. If Linden Labs never takes up the effort to provide tools that allow users and content creators to easily self regulate the load they place on servers, tier costs, rents and many other services in Second Life will continue to rise in price. Because these tools have never been made available, Linden Labs is at fault for never providing adequate controls to prevent simulator overloading. If Linden Labs is culpable for this due to negligence of this long standing core issue in Second Life, the tier fee increases are in no way justifiable. Voting for this addresses the core issue that is causing the price hike, while offering a reasonable, realistic and logical solution to the problem. It is of paramount importance that Linden Labs implement these kinds of tools and metrics I completely agree with you Mifune, but the point I'm making is, that on my OS sim (rented from a great landlady, who I totally feel for right now), I think the max no. of avatars present at one time was 6 on one occasion for a small gathering. Usually, there's just one or two avatars present. I'm not a major techie - heck, I'm a fashion blogger! But what's the point in me renting a space to try on outfits and take some pretty pics as well as having a relaxing haven from both RL and the main grid, if my personal avatar "cost" is restricted to 1/40th. Rather, I would suggest that there be an overall "cost" limit per sim (with OS sims having 1/4 of the allowance) and when that is reached, sim full - like happens now with agent count. Of course, hand in hand with that would have to be monitoring tools, so estate (and parcel) owners should be able to find out who is "filling" the sim, and react accordingly.
This JIRA solution/new feature isn't suggesting that avatars are restricted to one single set "cost" like 1/40th. This is to give estate owners the power to regulate avatars and set avatar script time load restrictions according to their sim's needs, and as you said in your last sentence, so they can "react accordingly".
These kinds of tools will allow end users to be more responsible with the amount of scripted objects they wear, promote script efficiency with content creators, and allow simulator owners to provide better experiences for their users, without needing to pay any extra costs. Unlike the tier fee increases, these kinds of tools and self regulation wont be mandated, and will be used at the sole discretion of the sim owner and end user to improve the Second Life experience. While I'm all for more estate manager tools, the usage is not the only issue here. Notice carefuly the amount of increase for open space sims is exacly the amount of the going market rate for people to lease them and make a reasonable profit. Not one Linden more, not one Linden less. The choice of the price they are claiming is justified by an UTTERLY predictable "misuse" is chosen, not by a defined by cost to them. The addition of the cheap open space sims ruined the best way to make money in SL, real esate. SL effectively went into competition with its paying customers on lad sales. and they MAKE the land. The land people make the next and only predictable move by leasing open spaces, and now SL wants to step in and take THAT profit. EXACTLY that profit, no more and no less. Ask yourself what the odds are that the cost of this "misuse" is precisely the profit being made on leasing open spaces. While you debate taking more control of "misuse" from SL, you accept the premise that this misuse is what al;l this is about. It's not. Don't let them get you debating the the most efficient way to arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. ps, ty Be!!
Meg Voted.
Actually, heck, give us all that on a parcel level, for normal land owners. It makes the most sense if everybody owning any piece of land can check who, how, and what affects the sim's health in their spot. I have wanted to see something such as this implemented for years now. Yes, there are a variety of related issues regarding ways to decrease problems related to scripted avatar attachments, but this would be a necessary tool, regardless.
Voted. I this a very contructive approach. Thank you for coming up with this idea. The ARC display helped alot, and so will this i think. The more information there is, the better decisions can be made. I am always for education through information instead of "sugarbread + whip".
Voted, we need metrics available to everyone to help improve efficiency overall.
However, the description of this bug should not reference avies as being the main reason nor should it make the unfounded claim as to why this is a primary contributoer to the openspace SIM problem. If you read this JIRA, http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2219 I believe there is a strong need to provide metrics to give builders feedback on the effects of their creations. We have a strong need to let people see the effects of their adornments. This ask can stand alone and need not coat-tail on the OS issue, which frankly is more a business decision than one of resource consumption. This is a very constructive approach. I agree. So make sure you add this link to your posts on this subject in the forums
Thanks Mifune You make a good point Balpien, I'll revise the description and elaborate on the requested features a bit more. I definitely agree that these features can stand alone and have been wanting them long before the OS debacle. However, this is a good opportunity for these necessary features to gain traction, as I do feel they are related to the OS issue-- Linden Lab's blog statement indicated that overuse, abuse, and overloading of the sims by end users was the reason for their decision.
Avatar related simulator load cannot necessarily be ruled out as a factor of causation in "Open Space overuse" until these tools can be provided. Once provided, the inherent technical problems of Open Space sims elaborated and documented thoroughly in SVC-2219 (I have also noticed these spikes of time dilation going down to 0.20 in my sims) would indicate that Open Spaces have been a flawed product from the beginning and would make it harder for LL to justify the price hike. (Granted, LL reserves the right to raise prices at any time without reason or needing to justify the cause according to the TOS, but without doing so, it is simply bad business practice) Voted.
Support your point 100 percent Mifune. I also agree with Chalice Yao: "Actually, heck, give us all that on a parcel level, for normal land owners. It makes the most sense if everybody owning any piece of land can check who, how, and what affects the sim's health in their spot." There should be a set of tools like those described by Mifune for individual parcels as well as entire sims. At the very least half-sim increments, depending on how far you can go without defeating the purpose of a set of tools like that. Revised some of the language presented in the Issue that implied that avatar-based overloading of sims was the "main" contributing factor for the increased tier fees on Open Spaces. Avatar-based overloading of sims is an issue that affects all sims and is one of several factors that is contributing to Linden Lab's proposition to raise tier fees.
Great idea. Thanks Mifune.
Voted. Could not agree more that this is absolutely necessary and I have wished for something like this for a long time. Mifune, you have documented this thoroughly and expertly, including a number of points that I wouldn't have thought of.
One thing that might be worth adding is the ability for estate owners to see the names of scripts or scripted objects worn by avatars, including on the HUD attachment points. Currently, "Top Scripts" only shows scripts running in standalone objects, not attachments, and yet there are many scripted attachments, as noted here, that can severely impact sim performance due to shoddy scripting. It is even more pernicious when these items are worn on the HUD, as the sim owners have no method for detecting them at all. This can make it difficult to figure out where the extra offending IPS...oops, EPS now....originate. Let's remember that this is about more than just the recent OpenSpace tier fee raise. Poorly coded scripting (or sometimes tragically intentionally coded scripting) that uses excessive sim resources and leads to sim lag has been a problem for some time now. Some regions that require simulator performance for their games (Pure Combat and Mooz come to mind) have taken the steps to restrict scripted attachments some time ago in an effort to combat this problem. It would be excellent if Linden Labs were to give estate owners and managers the tools to better enforce this rather than having to essentially go on the "honor" system. Voted on this with a huge YAY.
This is a huge problem and I am sure for most Estates. Having that ability to self regulate what an Avitar brings with them would be increadibly valuable. I know we are Prim and Script watchers and are constantly vigilant on excesses. This would give us a huge tool to improve on what is already available. Thanks Mifune! This is something that has been needed for a very long time. I have seen avatars in my sim with a script time of 8ms. No kidding. And the only reason I was able to see it was because they were sitting on a poseball at the time. I then started wondering about all the others and of course had no tool to see. This is badly needed and I do hope a Linden acknoweledges this and decides to work on this. A lot can be done to help keep sims more stable if sim owners had the ability to see who is creating the most drain on the resources and properly educate them about it. Voted.
/me links to svc-835. If you like this issue, vote for that one too, please!!
 Here's a datapoint: I went to a fashion show event with 25-44 avies sitting on chairs. As I have estate priviliges on that full SIM I had an opportunity to observe avie script loads since they were linked to trackable objects. The SIM's top scripts load ranged from 22 to 43ms. Anyone standing could only move glacially. Each of the avies were creating script loads ranging from 0.5ms to a high of 6.0ms! Yes, one person with some advanced continual pose changer and SIM-wide scanner created a sufficient load to cause noticble lag all by herself. Imagine this person walking into an openspace SIM. One person can totally lag out one of those OS SIMs, yet we would not know even with the current estate tools.
Now the difficult problem was explaning to these people just how much lag their attachments were creating. Not only are the tools limited to estate managers, one cannot copy and paste the status window! I had to manually write down the numbers. If the Lindens want to see "abuse" ended, they have to provide the tools to everyone to measure the load created by their objects and attachments. I agree on the per parcel check by the owner only of the parcel. I think most of us are responsible and if we know we're lagging the whole sim by all the scripted objects in your own home and yard, then it would let us decide that maybe I dont really need that roller coaster on top of my house running all the time or leaving scripted lights on all the time, or whatever, which i think most of us if we could measure and compare our lag times with same size parcels, would put that effort out to try to reduce some of the unesseccary running scripts. I dont think normal and established people living in residential sims want to be the neighbor that is lagging the sim twice as much as an average parcel owner of the same size.
But...give the estate owner or the renter owners the option to compare your parcel to everyone elses is not fair. Some individualsmight have the most beatfiul houses in the sim and people want to move there cause all the nice houses, which very nice houses and outdoor things raises land value, but becuse somones house is scripting a little too much, there made to remove half there scripted objects or be forced to sell and move?? I dont think we all need that hanging over our heads. Give us individual parcel owners away to compare and see how much we are lagging the sim compared to others. Actually you could make a tool that would check lag on all parcels in your sim and not show positions or whos parcel and show how you compare. Not for sure if that is possitble. Anyways, this should be kept on a parcel owner bases only and for his/her knowledge only and not let someone else decide if you need to sell and move to another sim becuase your land has all that nice stuff in it but its lagging a little more then the others. A tool for the avatar him or herself would be nice too on the total of prims and lagging there causing. Im not voting for this, becuase its subject seems to be mostly for estate owners to check and make there choices of weather to warn you or force you to sell and move or tell you to remove half your stuff and thats not fair and i dont think any of use want that being held over our heads, becuase even if you have extra prims and you have been warned once already, you would be wondering if you should use any more prims to make your place a little nicer and more entertaining. Got my vote. Just tonight I ran into a situation where the sim was at over 8,000 active scripts and choking. No attachments loading, etc.
Restart the sim, and its normal operation is a little over 3.5k active scripts with 1.00 time dilation. I run a popular location, I NEED a way to pinpoint a problem avatar and request them to reduce their scripts or leave. Otherwise, it's in the hands of every resident that visits to control the smooth operation of my sim! Finally! I was checking top scripts in my sim and discovered it now lists the avatars in the sim as well as their script times. Thanks Lindens!
Avatars have been in top scripts for the past few months. It's not perfect (we need drilldowns to show which scripts/attachments are causing the lag) but it is a big improvement and meets the needs of this JIRA issue.
Reopening as the issue is not truly resolved. Yes, having avatar script load summaries now appear in the estate tools, but this JIRA specifically asks for nobn-estate users and content creators to have the ability to get to this information. So, part 1 or 2 is fixed, thanks to the LIndens hard work, but part 2 of 2, making this available generally has not been addressed.
Thanks for reopening Balpien--
Linden Office Hours transcripts are way backlogged, but word is that the Lab is working on a parcel level solution for script usage, where a parcel cannot use more than their fair share of cpu time, unless allowed by the estate owner, something similar to object region bonus, but for scripts. This would go in line with usage limits mentioned in previous LL blog posts that covered usage of Open Spaces / Homesteads. Real happy when they finally included avatar script metrics into Top Scripts; crossing fingers they'll go the whole nine and allow lag auditing for all, with LSL functions for scripters. As I understand i, the per-parcel and per-avatar limits will be based on script memory usage, rather than on CPU time or any sort of EPS/IPS type limit. That will certainly address one problem, which is that large numbers of unnecessary scripts can gulp up a lot of script memory. Unfortunately, we do not yet have a sufficient metric to even calculate memory load at the moment, so we have to wait for LL on that one.
However, those usage limits would not address the issue of CPU load, script time, script EPS, and other runtime-specific stuff. I do not know what exactly will be done to help Estate and Land Owners deal with resources other than memory usage, though. I wish that there were a way for everyone, not just an estate owner, to see an avatar's script time above their head, in a similar manner to the ARC score. Except that unlike ARC, this would actually be a meaningful value that would allow people to make informed decisions. I play mostly in combat SIMs ... that means scripted weapons, some of which take a tremendous cost on the servers. The ARC mechanism is helpful for tracking avatar load, but it would be so much better if ALL users had the tools to analyze the script/prim costs of their avatars, and the avatars around them. Certainly, SIM owners and estate managers may need more granular data, but ALL users would benefit from analysis tools built into the client, so ALL users could be informed buyers of scripted objects. [In fact, I'd LOVE some sort of verifiable lag-rating that all builders and scripters would have to assign to their objects at the point-of-sale ...I'm sure there are many objects in my inventory I would never have bought if I'd understood their server cost before I purchased them.]
I support this issue as it is the biggest contributor to lag on my island. The biggest issue is with resizable hair and shoes, radars, HUD's, etc. Avatars and creators without access to private islands desperately need a way to track their script time usage. Also, it would be nice for an island owner to be able to cap the amount of script time for each avatar to .1ms for example. I regularly see avatars using .6ms - 2ms and I'm forced to IM them and/or ban them.
If we are talking about the optimum solution it would be as follows:
Allow estate owners to set the following: Disable Script Capping (checkbox) The ability to disable the capping is so that during some events you can easily disable/enable the check. How you determine WHO is a member of a sim would need some thought. Probably people that belong to a group listed in the Estate panel. Of course we are still waiting on the ability to have some group members objects still be affected by auto return based on a role setting. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
New Feature
Reopened
Major
Improve Estate Tools and provide a Metric that calculates an avatar's Script Time / Simulator Load so that avatars and content creators can self regulate the load they put on sims and the grid. 
This measure could only improve SL for everyone. The ability to view rendering costs in the newer viewers is a step in the right direction, but it's not nearly enough. It just makes good sense to provide people with easy to use and understand tools that help them understand their impact.