All residents in Second Life are painfully aware of the lag problem, especially when you travel around a region fast, sadly enough, driving any kind of vehicles is doing just that.
There are some tips to minimize lag, and optimize you're driving experience...
Off course you dont need to do all this, driving a kart suppose to be fun, and if youre not going for the fastest lap, or driving in a race, if you are just driving for fun, and dont care about some lag, don't bother..
just have fun...
First of all let me tell you that there are different kinds of lag, and not all of them can be prevented,
The time it takes for data to travel between the Second Life servers and your computer, try to minimize other data traffic if you are on a limited bandwith connection, you can test you speed towards San Fransisco using speedtest.net, it test your ping time (the time it takes for a data packet to travel to the destination) and the upload and download speed.
Ping times depend on your distance from the server, with every hop (from one network to the other) response times decrease, someone in the US will have pingtimes between 45 and 80 Ms while europeans ping between 120 and 250 Ms, it depends on the amount of steps your data have to make before reaching its final destination.
tracert test
You can open a Command screen and trace the hops and times towards the destination, start > run > type cmd > enter. or in Vista/win7 search for cmd and enter.
In the black (Command) screen type tracert secondlife.com hit enter and see the hops and times. it usually looks something like this:
windows command screen
To run multiple tracerts in a row and have tha abillity to copy the results to your clipboard, so you can paste them in a email or blog, you can use a tool called WinMtr, no installation needed, just unzip and open the exe.. (file is coming from SourceForge)
Tip 1 De script you're avatar
Tip 2 Remove flexible prims
Tip 3 Turn viewer to daylight
Tip 4 Optimize Graphics settings for driving
Tip 5 Re log you're session
Tip 6 Clear cache
Tip 7 Defragment your hard drive
Tip 8 Close unnecessary programs
tip 1:
De script you're avatar
Remove all scripts, scripts on an avatar are notoriously laggy, normally you don't notice this, but when moving trough a region fast every script uses recourses on the region, and adds lag to it, useless to say that we require from every racer to be script free when you sign up for an official KJ Racing event.
how to de-script:
right click your avatar and select take off and then detach all, don't worry, you wont end up butt naked on the track, as long as you don't select clothes then more then all clothes..
you can find several "Am I scripted" objects on the track, too see if you are actually unscripted.
all attached objects could be scripted, like bling on accessories, hair, skirts, etc.etc. but don't forget your HUD attachments as animation override, radar etc.
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tip 2:
Remove flexible prims
Remove flexible prims, as the position, wind effect, shadow, and shine has to be calculated every single frame that is rendered on your computer, you're better off without them.
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sponsorkart
tip 3:
Turn viewer to daylight
Turn you're viewer to daylight, We do not have lights on the track, when it becomes dark in SL (this is mainland so we cannot override the daylight period) you'll find it difficult to navigate you're way around the track, stopping and turning your viewer to daytime in the middle of a lap will definitely ruin your lap time..
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tip 4:
Optimize Graphics settings for driving
graphics, Your graphics settings make all the difference, by changing these settings alone you can save several seconds per lap press ctrl-P or go to Edit > Preferences at the top bar of you're viewer to open the preference box,
open the graphics tab and follow the instructions below:
graphics1
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tip 5:
Re log you're session
Relog your session, When you have been traveling around on Second Life you're memory is filled with textures of other places, when you relog you're session the memory will be cleared and responds faster.
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tip 6:
Clear cache
Clear you're cache. press ctrl-P or go to Edit > Preferences at the top bar of you're viewer to open the preference box,
open the network tab and follow the instructions below:
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tip 7:
Defragment your hard drive
Defragment your hard drive. To prevent your cache being written in bits and pieces all over your hard drive, which in its turn prevent optimal read and write commands def rag your hard drive on a regular basis, by the way, when you defrag every week, the overall performance of your computer will increase considerably.
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tip 8:
Close unnecessary programs
Close all unused programs, programs like your e-mail client, browsers, periodical update checks, uses bandwidth on your internet connection, turn off this software, be aware that back-ups, anti virus scans, periodical de fragmentation etc, can severely impact your computers performance, when you race make sure you checked these programs and possibly prevent them from starting during racing by changing the start schedule.
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There are of course more components and situations that can cause lag on a region, it is for example useless to de-script your avatar when there are 20 scripted avatars hanging around on the track, lag could be caused by a slow network connection towards Second Life, a too old graphics driver on your computer, or lack of processor power in your system, if you however have a reasonable system and network connection you can, with the tips provided above, drive pretty lag free.
Second Life system requirements
ATI Driver update page
NVIDIA Driver update page
If you have other tips you miss to optimize the driving experience in Second Life please let us know, we will be happy to add them to this list.
