How to Make Second Life Look Like This -- Even on a 10 Year Old Computer

Lots of conversation last week over this post on optimizing SL, with some taking issue that the sample video I included in the post only averaged 30 FPS. Fortunately, graphics expert Penny Patton is back from a blogging hiatus, and sets things straight:

You're assuming that this sim [in the video] is as optimized as a AAA game, it likely isn't. I've been able to get 30-60fps in SL on a 10 year old computer through optimization of content in the sims I was building.

I've even gotten SL to run respectably on laptops with onboard graphics.

Now, the SL engine might very well have its own issues (and it does) but for anyone who has a basic understanding of game design, there is absolutely no question at all, the lack of content optimization is a huge performance hurdle and SL can both look and run a lot better when content is optimized.

 The image above, for instance, is from a recent blog post (and build) by her:

If your computer was made in the last 10 years and includes a videocard, you should be able to run SL at around the max settings, never experience texture thrashing (when textures in SL are constantly going blurry), never experience stuttering (when SL freezes up for a moment), and if you have a reasonably decent net connection then everything in Second Life should load lightning fast. Second Life should look this good for you at all times [above].

And I'm not just talking you, by yourself, in a sim that looks as good as these screenshots, I'm saying you should be able to hang out in a sim with that level of detail, surrounded by about a dozen friends, and still keep your framerate around 30 FPS, if not better.  That's with deferred rendering, depth of field, shadows, and all the shiny features turned on.

In Comments, she also corrects a faulty assumption that "more polys mean more detail". Nah:

Most of the content creators in SL are churning out very wasteful textures and needlessly high poly models. I'm talking textures that are mostly blank, unused space just eating up your memory, and models with geometry that could easily be replaced with normal and spec maps. These can be optimized with zero loss in visual quality.

The secret? Optimize, optimize, optimize. Here's some of her recent guides to get started with that:

• Textures and Lag
• Tips for a Better SL Avatar!
• Tips for a Larger, More Detailed and Less Expensive Second Life!

 

Comments

[Neth]

10 year old build? A respectable 8 year old CPU, and a good 5 year old GPU. I'm not surprised, I had it running fine with a 8 year old GPU, but that really aint 10.

The only thing SL wont run decently on is laptops (non high end ones) and prehistoric computers. And if you have such a computer, for 200$ you can modernize and play SL and any other game decently just by throwing in a GTX1060 (GPU).

[BRITT BUXTON]

Wouldn't raising your settings for more detail burn out your graphics faster? I've had to trade in one year old computers every year for new ones because the graphics failed.

[Roxy Gellar]

I go to a lot of events. Have to derezz over half the people and outside environment in order to not crash. Sorry. I've tried everything. My Mid-2010 Mac Pro desktop proves conclusively that SL's advanced settings are beyond it's capacity.

[seph]

Where's the slurls to these highly optimized sim builds?

[Neth]

Britt no it shouldnt, it sounds like your power supply or motherboard are frying your GPUs, or something else goes wrong. It should work without a major fault for 3+ years.

[NiranV]

I can only support what Penny says.

I'm still using an 8 year old CPU, an old AMD FX 6200. I've been building my Viewer practically since i got that CPU and i've been nothing but taxing my CPU to the max every day and its still running. I can run SL with 60+ FPS if the place is good and the mentioned 30 FPS with nice graphics are easily optainable if the place shows optimization. The only thing newer on my PC is my GPU, now a 1060 was previously a 670 (also ~8 years old almost) sadly got fried when we had a power takeout and my PSU broke, the PSU took my GPU with it. My videos more than show that what Penny says is absolutely realistic.

The only thing really important for SL is the CPU, all you need is a CPU with around 3ghz and 4 cores (intel would be better). The GPU can be basically anything that can run Deferred, even a GTX 460 (i used it while i waited for my 1060) can easily run SL with all the fancies on and still get 30 FPS easily.

Prior to my AMD FX i had an AMD Phenom X4 for years with exactly the same performance as i get with my FX today. SL really isn't that demanding if people just stopped wasting our resources.

See the videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/NiranV/videos

[Veruca Beck]

How. How how? What am I doing wrong that I can't my computer

[Candy68]

The problem is this guy does not want to face reality life changes so do graphics and you cannot live on a 10-year-old computer anymore. A computer for years old is already obsolete the technology comes out so fast there’s nothing you can do but to upgrade. This news reporter need to get out a second life he’s not happy with it he has made that clear he wants to be a noob the rest of his life and that’s not going to happen and be happy here there are many other worlds he can go and be all by himself if this world bothers him that much.

[Pulsar]

There are bottlenecks of course.
You could see some difference from an old middle-low end 640M. From a 1060 to a 1080 or a RTX 2080 you probably won't see much difference in SL, especially if the resolution isn't huge. There the GPU is already fast enough and the bottleneck becomes the CPU. SL wasn't really made for multicore processors in mind, though, so an high frequency CPU does its job; the other cores would mostly work for the OS and whatever multitasking you are doing.

Ten years ago, instead, you could upgrade a Radeon 9600 to a HD5770 graphic card and the difference was like night to day. Let alone a laptop with Intel graphic to a decent mobile AMD or Nvidia GPU.
BTW: I saw some people running SL on dual GPU laptop (e.g. Nvidia Optimus), forgetting to assign Firestorm (or their viewer of their choice, that often isn't assigned automatically) to the Nvidia GPU. It's very advisable to set the right card, as the performances are decisively better.

However, there are elements like shadows that have a serious performance hit, and that's mostly the graphic card job. Vice-versa there are other things that are processed by the CPU and a new graphic card won't improve that.
In SL you have also the network speed to keep in mind.

But what I noticed mostly in the past 10 years was an increase of RAM and VRAM usage. A 4Gb laptop that was running pretty well 6-7 years ago, and could even handle 2-3 clients per time, in more recent years it was crashing consistently, running out of video memory, experiencing texture trashing, and running out of RAM too. On a 16 Gb machine, with more video memory too, nope, however textures can still remain gray for a while etc.
Most of that happens because an exponential use and abuse of unoptimized texturing. i.e. that 4Gb machine would die on crowded gacha yards or in places where every item and avatars carry tons of 1024x1024 textures unecessarily, to download, decode and apply.

[Penny Patton]

@Candy68

No, you're missing the point. I was illustrating that when graphics are optimized to be more efficient (something that is not at all difficult to do if you already have the skills to make that content in the first place) Second Life today can both look and run better on a 10 year old computer than most people will ever experience on more modern hardware.

If you do have newer hardware then you should be able to run SL at its highest graphics settings and never experience slow down, stuttering, excessively long rez times, texture thrashing or any of the numerous other graphics issues every SL user, regardless of their hardware, encounters on a constant basis in SL.

[mimi]

Ok, I must be doing something wrong then. I have two 1070 gpu and 32 ram. Yet I go to sim and thing stutter on highest setting and texture will be gray for a bit like one of the comment said above. 6 cores. But probably because I'm in a sim with really crappy not optimize avatars and texture etc....my internet is 50mb and only one using the internet. Not sure if VRAM usage need to be increase.

[jackson restar]

Well, try a modern wedding sometime! with all the decorations and 30 + mesh avies all dressed up in their finest, 12 FPS would be a dream come true!

[Lee McKay]

If you're not running in Ultra, you're not seeing SL as you should. And you are NOT....repeat NOT going to run Ultra on a 10 year old system with "a videocard." Lots of very poor info in this article...and the comments.

[Richard Rawson]

I am running an sort of old computer. When I say "sort of" I have upgraded it as necessary. OS is Windows 7 64 bit. My graphics card is an NVIDA GeForce GTX 1070. My processor is an Intel i7-4790@ 4 GHz. This feeds a pair of Dell S2716DG monitors. I am often also using an Asus gaming laptop with Windows 10. Both are running between high and ultra. With that said, I have found that most problems are as follows: 1: Over crowding in SL regions, especially in social/dancing spots. 2: Some areas have too much detail too close. 3: Restrictive bandwidth. 4: Overly complex (with blings) avatars, with some spots restricting this. There some areas that I will use only in the early morning or during a week day. Some I have stopped visiting all together. I hope that this helps someone.