Eye on the blog

“…Who me? Yes you! Couldn’t be! Then who?…” INTRODUCING AVATAR RENDERING COST
OK what the heck is this? and do I need to know?
To find out what it is in detail click the logo above but in brief this gives Residents the chance to take responsibility for their own LAG!
What causes lag? :
"One of the costliest things for a GPU (the part of your machine that does the rendering) to do is state and batch switching. Put simply, this means the more times the GPU needs to render *different* things (read: non-shared textures, non-shared geometry, etc.), the slower the experience becomes."

So simplified further the more prims/attachments/textures you are wearing the more lag you and others around you will suffer. This is not a new discovery for most of us but some do not realise it - this new method gives you a score based on what you are wearing in the hopes it will make you responsible for yourself although LL were quick to point out "this isn’t an attempt to offload our big responsibility to make the viewer more efficient! It’s a way to start educating Residents about how 3D art should be made- these are guidelines that hold true in every modern 3D realtime system today. We just figured you should have an easy way to see how costly certain pixels really can be!"


On a practical level what does this mean?
No you don't have to walk around ruthed or with newbie hair, just be aware of the cost to others around you that your outfit could cause.
For example the first time I tested my av I was wearing a low prim outfit and removing my jewelry and shoes gave me a basic score of 129 just changing my hair style shot this up to 429!
Next i tried a basic outfit that included things i always wear - my usual hair and jewelry plus HUDs, ok so now my score had reached 646 but I had forgotten shoes; I added fairly low prim sculptie shoes I often wear so on average my score would be about 713, not too bad i thought.
Then I thought what if i was going out and wanted a formal look? I put on my favourite flexi prim formal dress and my score shot up to 1210, hmmm still in the yellow but I forgot I would rarely wear my short hair style with this I added my formal locks and whoa................. 1942! I had fun playing around and trying different outfits and seeing what my score was some really surprised me and really explained why sometimes I was laggy when others said they were fine.
I took a quick tour around to look at others scores this one picture shows you don't have to be wearing a lot for your score to be through the roof!

Is this a useful idea? Or is it LL putting the blame for lag right back in our laps? Whatever your opinion these scores are likely to impact the way we dress and how we shop. Low prim Low cost in more than one way may become the shout of the masses. Maybe rendering cost police at events ejecting avatars over a certain score? We will have to wait and see but I can't see anything wrong with making Residents aware of their responsibility to others around them - 'Your world, Your imagination' doesn't mean do whatever you like and hang the consequences after all its not just others your outfit could impact its your own experience too!