Philip Rosedale Next Virtual Reality-Based World Aiming for 100 Millisecond Latency

Mitch Wagner has a good InformationWeek interview with Philip Rosedale on the virtual reality world technology he's building in High Fidelity, some of which I've seen but can only coyly talk about here right now. Biggest thing that jumped out to me was this line:

"The systems that are using 3D online worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft, they're typically up at about 500 ms. Those systems are markedly impacted," Rosedale says. "Our goal with Hi-Fi is to be down around the 100 ms point or less. This piece is working well."

That's a bold statement, which I'm making bold for that very reason. Because by way of comparison, 100 milliseconds is literally less than the blink of an eye, which clocks in at something like a slow-ass 300ms. But like I said before:

While I can't get into any specifics yet, I think High Fidelity's most impressive innovation is the solution Philip and his team have created to minimize lag and latency. It's so freaking brilliant I think it'll probably be imitated by a lot of other companies, both for MMOs and beyond.

Oh what an excellent time to be working in virtual reality. It is, it is.

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[Jess]

I've spent days on the mainlands riding the railroads,
enjoying pod rides on the main roads,
Boat rides you name it..
looking at over 10 years of residents building the world,looking thru thousands of profiles residents who left..
Why sould we all give it up? because he gave up on second life and found another dream? he abandoned us to start something that second life with proper direction could have grown into being

Sorry Phil after investing thousands of dollars into your lost dream I'll be sure to pass on this and fight for what's important Second Life & Open Sim !
your old dream is ours now to hell with your new dream!

[Iggy]

Jess, my last mainland road-trip attempt in an SL vehicle was a friggin' disaster. Region-crossings are still broken. The core software needs replacing; I'm no software guru but I can guess LL can't do that without breaking tons of UGC.

Now Rosedale has a clean slate with this new project.

If he can conquer the lag beast, more power to him.

[Jess]

@ Iggy, Was your road trip anytime in this decade?
because region crossing issues are long not an issue even on mainland unless a region is set to idle. Just so you know second life has overhauled the entire backend system so no that's no longer the issues from yesterday,
Why would linden lab invest 90 million in new server's (class 8 & 9 servers ) plus spend millionS on all the overhauls including server side baking / complete Http upgrade with an upcoming upgrade to the marketplace..
Plus the new rift and smart phone viewers coming.
To close because phil had a dream?
they would not its a competing product!.

We will look back one day and know Rod was trying to save second life..

Glad Phil left he is a liar and not second life's founder but a co/founder but he sure did erase the other 2 guys from history even when they really created the whole foundation while phil stood inworld like a king looking over the valley pretending he did it all with a magic wand.. LOL We all know the only one whoever had a real magic wand was starax..smiles

Your comment has a lot of merit but second life is not the broken technology it was..
My reply is just my view right or wrong but I bet one thing others will share a similar view and even yours as well..

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Tools-and-Technology/Raising-the-Roof-The-HTTP-Project/ba-p/2416075

This Blog has some interesting points even against many of mine but still worth the sharing of views..smiles

http://cityofnidus.blogspot.com/

[Orca Flotta]

I just did a speedtest from my home in Cape Town, South Africa to Dallas, USA: 266 ms ping. And that's even before my data gets mangled by LL's servers. In world I rarely am below 300 ms. So I guess Philip's 100 ms goal is only valid over in the states, no?

[Oink]

80ms network ping time is needed for a Server/Cloud to compete with App-Internet, a key threshold for visual perception...

The Cloud Streaming people mention 80ms Ping Time in their video http://ht.ly/tg0ao

[elizabeth (irihapeti)]

@Iggy - to be fair LL have put in a lot of work into HTTP 3.6.13 viewer

i have been waiting almost exactly 1 year for this work to be completed

is this car driving game in SL. Sistiana Starchild Rally. when the HTTP work first started end of 2012 then the Sistiana Rally got completed for the 1st ever ever. Had been attempted since about 2007. The winner was Hugsy Penguin

Was a new challenge set. Cliffoed-Pounce Starchild Rally. lots of people tried that as well end of 2012. All failed. Then new HTTP beta viewer finally arrived December 2013 and made it into the release channel January 2014

The Cliffoed-Pounce Rally has been completed. http://i59.tinypic.com/iw1bib.jpg

Is not perfect bc can still crash on crossings. but not anywhere near like before

+

Just a tip for people. Watch the minimap when driving in really quiet areas of mainland. When quiet the sims sleep. So when next sim fully updates on minimap then is ok to cross pretty much every time. Don't rely on onscreen visuals. the new interests lists thingy can fool you. the sim can be painting from cache already and the sim is not yet fully awake to take you and your vehicle. So drive/wait on the minimap

[Oink]

Garry's Mod Server Latency Question

02-04-2010 "Recently, I started a Garry's Mod dedicated server. I had some problems but I was able to search around and fix them. My server is now showing on the steam list and I've had a few people join. Today, I just noticed that my latency is staying between 15 and 50, usually around the 20's. The server is in my favorites, and it seems that when it gets below 20, it disappears from the main server list but not my favorites. I'm pretty sure that higher is better... If so, is there any way I could increase it? In March, we may be upgrading our internet package. This is what I just got from a speed test..." http://ht.ly/tgaEd

[Iggy]

Thanks, folks. I gave up two years ago on mainland road-trips, but it may be time to try again. Seeing what folks are doing with their properties was once an unalloyed pleasure of SL. I'll pull my favorite car out of inventory, get my fastest possible connection, and report the results in my blog.

[Oink]

SL, Opensim, and High Fideliy have missed the train versus Garry's Mod 13 since 2010 with regard to Latency, ladies and gentlemen...

How about Benchmarking more features and items in a competitive overview?

[Hitomi Tiponi]

Philip's vision relies on people being willing to give up computer resources to run the world for him. But even with that, the capabilities of the internet (even those projected in the future) and transmission protocols will not make 100ms latency possible in practice - unless you are sat on an office LAN, as they are in his nice little non-virtual world.

[Imagin Illyar]

I don't think that Linden Lab considers High Fidelity a competitor considering they are one of the groups funding its development. Google is also funding it. I suspect that Phil sees possibilities beyond what is possible with Second Life and that is why he is creating a new virtual world. I suspect SL is reaching the limit of what it can achieve with the platform it's built on.

[Ajax Manatiso]

90% of lag is client side. Have your viewer set up to a 250m draw distance? Set to a max of 10,000 particles? Lag happens when people have their viewer set beyond what their video card is comfortably capable of (or their bandwidth). I never experience lag in SL but constantly hear people in open chat complaining about lag here or there. Get a decent video card and some decent bandwidth! Your crapulent computer will still be laggy with Hi Fideility or anything else. It's the client, almost always!

[2014]

@ Ajax, amen!! I totally agree, but most still will blame SL, and not their 4 year old laptop.

[Henri Beauchamp]

100ms ?... That must be when the client computer is on the same *local* network than the servers it talks with...

In *real* world, over Internet (and overseas), the very best ping times I get from *any* SL server is 160ms (and I do say *ping*: I'm not even speaking about the added latency incurred by SL protocols processing in servers and viewer) !... And that's with a fine-tuned connection (with proper QoS and traffic shaping), using a fast ADSL2+ link...

[Metacam Oh]

Here was my take on Phillip's new vision

http://metaversetribune.com/2014/01/16/open-letter-to-philip-rosedale-regarding-high-fidelity/

Basically, to me, Phillip has to explain what went wrong with SL for me to dive into another venture.

[Pussycat Catnap]

There are fundamental flaws in the structure of SL that will prevent it from ever being a mainstream VR option.

The viewer is a clunky creature under the hood.
The very concept of a Sim is a flawed one.
The avatar is horrendously bad in the most basic anatomy - and animates very poorly.

The entire thing looks like a late 90s MMO with a million bandaids on it... which is exactly what it is...

But these are not actually the reasons SL has not done as well as it could have. They are just reasons SL cannot now overcome and take back ground.

I agree with Metacam that Rosedale needs to fess up to why SL itself never quite reached its potential. BUT I will add that he has to do that without shifting any of the blame onto the residents.

The customers are NOT the flaw - as LLs seems to often imply. And if they still think they got the wrong customers - that's STILL on them and their marketing / customer service.

[elizabeth (irihapeti)]

about ping time

i have ADSL2 on copperwire to my local exchange which then goes to fibre. The ping time to my ISP server is approx 40ms. 60ms max. on a bad day. Have optimised all my hardwares incl modem/router and network card. Have 64 bit Win8.1. GTX660. 16GB RAM. i7. When it goes it flys. even 32bit SL viewer

My ADSL2 connection on my gears tops out at 13mbs down and 1mbs up. Is theoretical ADSL2 max of 14 and 1. I cant get fibre to my house until 2016 when will come down my street. So is not much else I can do about it

like Orca says tho. As distance increases then ping and round trip increases. to Australia then 100-120ms. to USA approx. 160-250ms depending on network routing. Used to be slower than this but between what I could do and my ISP/telco have done in recent times then is pretty much maxxed out improvement-wise from ordinary customer pov. Most times the packets go direct via Southern Cross cable altho sometimes get routed thru Australia-Singapore. Is when they hit USA that it starts to get random. Packets sometimes get routed thru New York area. Is a dead spot for me when that happens. Dunno why exactly

in ideal situation, like if was a local server close by then 100ms is easy doable. For realworld global then is a bit dif

My suggestion to HiFi enginners would be:

If HiFi can also factor in 300ms (slow mode) as well as 100ms (fast mode) then will be pretty good. Like make 2 network modules and have a switch. Learn from LL experience. Dont try to force everything thru one mode (as fast as possible) and will be all good from customers pov

[zzpearlbottom]

Main question is, will High fidelity allows adult content activities?
Without those no virtual world can be called that!

[Adeon Writer]

ZZ: I seriously doubt the Burning Man attendee would be too posh for adult content. So get ready to bump voxels, if that's your thing. (Shrug)

[Oink]

GMod 13 uses Havok / Vision Engine > Vision is a multi-platform 3D game engine that was first launched in 2003 by the Germany-based middleware developer, Trinigy. Now in its eighth version, the Vision Engine is currently available for Microsoft Windows (DX9, DX10, DX11), Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and Wii U, iOS, Android, Sony's PlayStation Vita, and most major browsers (IE6 and up, Firefox 2.0 and up, Google Chrome, Opera 9 and up).

Trinigy and its Vision Engine was acquired by Havok in 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Engine