Something's not right! (Community)

Something's not right! // Community

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lady nighthawk

Oct 30, 2003, 9:05pm
When my aw browser crashes, and it does alot (yes, even after I completely
delete my cache, and yes I just did the recent upgrade), I should NOT have
to red/l every single item in a world all over ago (unless of course I did
delete my cache which is not related to a crash since the cache still
exists). What the heck good is a cache if it doesn't remember items
previously seen and d/l?

D/Ls in my world are enormous whether at GZ or at my landing zone (that I
moved from GZ due to the huge d/l). Even still it's quite a wait and no one
does actually wait before leaving the landing zone to go to GZ. Nor will
visitors stay long due to enormous d/ls. So what is one to do, have a naked
GZ, which doesn't spark any interest in your world either?

My beef is this ... for me float = 110 meters (approx). Why o why does aw
have the standard set at float??? Why not have float = 30 meters if you must
make float the standard??? People should have more control over WHAT they
d/l in any world don't you think? Can't you make float=30 meters instead of
100 which can be enormous d/l ... especially for those on dialup?!

Or perhaps make it so a user can make the choice of what is minimum d/l (in
meters) from the Options menu? Something other than forcing a d/l of a min
of 100 meters per world? And yes, I know that you can set (if your lucky and
really fast) the vis to whatever as soon as you enter, but not everyone
knows this, especially not tourists of which I get many. AW, can you fix
this?

LNH

lady nighthawk

Oct 30, 2003, 11:11pm
OK to clarify ... I do know about the following settings:
Client: Options, Settings
Perfomance tab, Visibility
Frame rate at 30 frames per sec.
and "don't let visiblity drop below" is set to 30.
Server: Options, World, Features
General section, "Minimum Visibility" is set to 30 also!

With that in mind I wanted to try to determine what my Float equaled, I did
this ... delete
your cache, come into your, or any other, world and stay still (as in Don't
MOVE) at GZ
until you've loaded everything. Then once you've loaded everything, and
still not moving, up
your vis to 30 (see if you d/l more), 40 (see if you d/l more), 50 (see if
you d/l more), 60
(see if you d/l more), etc, until you notice at some point you are beginning
to d/l more.

For me that point is 110 meters, at that point I begin to d/l more ... thus
Float = 100 -
110 meters for me. Now I know you can enter a world and immediately set yer
vis to 30 or 60
but you have to remember to do that ... and Float is meant for that purpose,
or so I
understand it ... otherwise why have a Float at all!?

Perhaps, as it has been pointed out to me, AW's idea of "Float" is different
from what I
think it is. To AW "Float" may mean to "float between the min / max
settings" or it may mean
"float the d/l according to pc ability, or even connection speed". Whatever
their
definition, it still stands to my reason that "Float" should at least be
determined by the
settings you have set in your browser ... should it not? This is not the
case for me anyway,
and I consider it a bug! Just my thoughts!

LNH



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jstone2004

Oct 31, 2003, 1:35am
float is determined by how your fps is doing, and AW puts it into some
equasion and thereby determines the exact nature of your float :-) to see
exactly how far you are seeing, then press F12, it will give you an exact
reading :-)

However, sometimes, if your world settings are set wrong, it can cause you
experience the d/l ing you are talking about, particularly the Object
Refresh. If it is 0, then everytime you view the object again, it will
redownload :-)

Does that help any?

J

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technozeus

Oct 31, 2003, 2:42am
Another thing to keep in mind is that if you leave your avatar sit in one place and not move, there is little for AW to do, so it will tend to download a bit extra of the surrounding scene as a preperation, rather than waiting until you're moving and then having to try to keep up when it could have prepared in advance.

TZ

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kf

Oct 31, 2003, 6:17am
You can limit your _maximum_ visibility by using a fixed setting from
the "Visibility" menu (not "float", but like 20m, 40m, etc.). In this
case, only items withing the visibility range will be downloaded. The
maximum visibility must be set new every time you enter a world, since
it will automatically always reset to "Float".

Setting to "Float" means that the maximum visibility using the minimum
frame rate (as set in options:settng:performance) is being used, and
this can be, depending on the environment you are standing in, up to
200m.

The "minimum visibility" (options:settings:performance) and the mininum
visibility (server setting) is the range that you will see under each
circumstance - the bigger of these two settings is applied to each
individual person.

So, to download the smallest possible amount of items, you need to set
the minimum visibility to 30m (client and server) and the maximum
visibility to 30m as well (as soon as you enter a world).

The "refresh rate" in the world settings determine (in minutes) how
often items are checked if they are still actual or have changed. This
check downloads not the actual item, but only the time stamp and only if
the time stamp indicate that the item has changed since the last check,
an actual download takes place.

A senseful setting for the refresh rate is 10080 (1 week) or multiples
thereof.



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lady nighthawk

Oct 31, 2003, 8:23am
As stated in my follow up post, all settings for client / server are set at
30, my refresh is the standard 10080. I have to maintain this to be a bug
that I've noticed through many a worlds I've traveled in. Others I know have
the same issues.

Today, after doing the recent upgrade, I've crashed the browser some 5 or
more times. Thus having to d/l my whole world five or more times in one day.
With over 1000 obs that is pretty exasperating. I'm on satellite which is
pretty comparible to cable ... thank God for that small miracle at least.

Thanks for the clarification of float btw. I'll try to MOVE on enter and set
my vis to 60 immediately ... other than that I still maintain (for me
anyway) it's a bug LOL. One thing I did do tho, and may be advisable to
anyone else having these issues, was to d/l as much as I could in my world
then back up the cache, d/l more, back up cache ... until I got ALL the
files in the cache cleanly. I know will use that back up should I crash
again. I'll completely delete the corrupt one and replace it with the good
one. Then the only things that will d/l is anything I've added thereafter. I
hope this works for me for now LOL. Hugzzz...

LNH



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codewarrior

Oct 31, 2003, 11:18am
Since the 'float' depends on what you set your 'don't let the framerate
go below ??', why not try setting your desired framerate very high.

Also, why not look into using the Settings->Advanced->Local Path
feature so that the browser will look for objects on your local hard
disk before trying to get them from your actual HTTP server. If
you are willing to do what you are doing backing up your cache,
using the "Local Path" option is definitely what you should do
instead.

Finally, if your object path is serving objects out through a PHP script,
there is a pretty good chance that no matter what you do, objects will
be downloaded every time you go into your world. This isn't AW's
fault.. it's the server and script's fault.

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lady nighthawk

Oct 31, 2003, 8:34pm
Thanks for the info, I'll check into your two suggestions. As to PHP, I
believe my host site is not PHP.

LNH


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sw comit

Oct 31, 2003, 9:54pm
Well when the browser crashes it corrupts the Index files which tell the
browser what you've downloaded. I wish AW would just set an automatic index
backup to avoid this. Right now I do it manually by coping them
periodically. They are:

activeworlds/cache/ - copy of the whole properties folder, and the two world
files
art/the world you want/ - and then all those .dat and .idx files (none of
the folders)
art/misc/and the .dat and .idx file there

And then you just restore them when you crash.

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lady nighthawk

Nov 1, 2003, 1:40am
Thanks for that info!

LNH



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lady nighthawk

Nov 1, 2003, 4:12pm
OK This is how I backup except I've been copying the whole folder which
includes the dat and idx files. So for the cache I copy it and rename it
BUcache110103 [aw filename here], BUproperties110103 [aw filename here],
etc. This way of renaming lets me know which was the most recent backup
because I include the date. I did crash again after getting all files
reloaded cleaning into my cache. The crash occurred sometime thereafter.

I've received private emails on how to track that and send a debug report to
support. I've made the ini change and will do that as well as the directx
one after the next crash. My crashes often occur during teleporting and
sometimes for no apparent reason.

I'm also doing other suggestions for having aw access my cache in which I
can tell it where to look at the backup files instead of elsewhere.

In regards to my "float" problem, your suggestion is great (a backup done
from aw)! For now I will have to try to remember to *move* on enter, and to
*set vis to 60* on enter. These do help and at least give me some control of
the d/l.

LNH (Aeon world)



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technozeus

Nov 1, 2003, 6:39pm
Active Worlds was designed to handle huge worlds with sparse contents and simple objects. It was not designed to handle worlds crammed full of complex objects. As a result, if your world is too full of objects or the objects are too complex, you can pretty much expect problems. That's so much a bug as a failure to handle something beyond what the program was intended to be able to handle in the first place. To compensate, try setting your world's entry point to the closest thing you can find to a clearing. Allowing people to enter the world in a place where very little is built should minimize the problem.

TechnoZeus


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technozeus

Nov 1, 2003, 6:47pm
The Active Worlds cache was not designed to be treated as a set of separate cache components. Doing a partial cache delete or partial cache restore can lead to further problems, and cause the program to crash more often or to run incorrectly. You could even end up dammaging the contents of your world by editing builds from a corrupted cache that AW doesn't realize has been corrupted.

If you want to backup your cache, it is always best to backup the whole thing. Perhaps some day this will change, but as far as I know it was designed this way and is likely to stay this way. A zipped copy of your cache folder makes a good backup. Be sure to close Active Worlds before backing up your cache, and before restoring your cache from the backup.

TechnoZeus

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lady nighthawk

Nov 1, 2003, 9:25pm
Yep had done that, along with signs to set vis to 30 or 60 ... thanks!

LNH


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lady nighthawk

Nov 1, 2003, 9:25pm
Done, and thanks again!

LNH



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starfleet

Nov 1, 2003, 10:25pm
Zipping 6 gigabytes? ROFL

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sw comit

Nov 1, 2003, 10:30pm
6 gigabytes? Where'd you get that from, they aren't talking about
Alphaworld O_o

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sw comit

Nov 1, 2003, 10:39pm
Hmm wait a sec, I thought we were talking about client-side cache that you
download from the server (even your own server). If that's the case you
can't damage anything. Backing up your world, on the server-side, on the
other hand, I don't know anything about...

But, regarding your first statement, AW *is* designed for seperate cache
components. You have your world index cache, your misc files cache, and
your model, avatar, sound, texture and seq index caches (for each world).
They can be backed up and restored seperately without problem. I do this
quite often being on as being on dial up, redownloading is a pain X_X. As
in, for example, once I have all the avatars downloaded I don't need to
periodically backup the avatar.idx and .dat files anymore. Backing up the
whole cache folder would be quite costly lol. You only need the .idx and
..dat files.


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technozeus

Nov 1, 2003, 10:46pm
Those folders are for ActiveWorlds to be able to find what it needs, and to keep parts of the cache from overwriting each other. There is too much interdependancy between components to consider them separate.

As for dammaging your world by running your browser with a corrupted cache, it shouldn't happen as long as you don't try to edit any builds. If you try to build while running the browser with a corrupted cache, you run the risk of corrupting the world's contents, since what you build is saved to the world database.

TechnoZeus

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lady nighthawk

Nov 1, 2003, 10:52pm
What I did was backed up all cache files for my world, from the aw cache. I
did it after I cleanly d/l everything with no crashing. Then I used the
backups only after I crashed, in which I deleted the newly crashed cache and
replaced with my clean backed up cache. Thus avoiding red/l everything.
Seems to have worked fine.

And yes, I'm talking client side not server side. I'm hosted and have no
control over the server in that respect, but my host does back up his end on
a regular basis. My discussion here is regarding my client cache in my
computer and how I'm dealing with crashes for now, and my *comments about
float* LOL. Thank you all for your insight and input!

LNH



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pc hamster

Nov 2, 2003, 12:47am
Hi everyone:

This also means STAYING AWAY from GZ areas as they tend to be the most
cluttered and crowded. AlphaWorld GZ is a classic example of this.

Cheers for now :-)

PC Hamster
Mayor - City Of Hamsterville
Hamster Ground Zero Area - AW 5000N 272E
NEW WEBSITE - http://hamsterville.tripod.com/
pchamster at comcast.net
Denver, Colorado (my REAL city :-))

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starfleet

Nov 2, 2003, 5:38am
It's not from Alphaworld :P

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lady nighthawk

Nov 2, 2003, 6:40am
GZ's are generally *busy* because they are the showcase area of one's world.
If GZ isn't interesting people tend not to stay long. On the other hand, if
it's too busy and hard on d/l then people tend not to stay long either LOL.
Catch 22 eh?

LNH



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.duo.

Nov 2, 2003, 10:56am
I've compressed 50 GB...

--
-.Duo. (342836)
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jstone2004

Nov 2, 2003, 6:32pm
LOL I don't let my cache get that big, I've found that if the cache gets too
big, or if I am running out of space on my drive, AW goes *kaboom* quite
often. So, Lady Nighthawk, maybe look into that too, see how much space you
have left on your hard drive, as you run out of space, AW can do a lot of
weird stuff

J

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sw comit

Nov 2, 2003, 8:14pm
But the index files contain all the folder's information. The function is
in the name - it serves as an index of what you have and all that
information. The folder's contents don't corrupt (through AW crashing at
least, any file can be corrupted of course), just the index and data files
in the root directory of the folders, which is why you don't need to backup
the folders. When AW crashes you'll notice that only the .idx and .dat
files start over from scratch, where the folder contents stay the same.
Even though you have the contents of the world, the index files don't know
that and tell AW to download it again, which is waste of time and bandwidth
really.

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sw comit

Nov 2, 2003, 8:25pm
It's not so much a bug; it's just that the rendering engine is terribly
inefficient. With high end computers you can sorta use brute force to get
through the inefficiency. I guess that it's so laggy because it has to
render so many individual objects, whereas in games, objects are streamlined
for performance (eg a box object is better than 6 panes). Not to mention
that AW's engine lacks portal rendering as Eep once mentioned, so it renders
objects you can't even see X_X

AW uses a semi-modern version of Renderware's engine, the same engine that
powers GTA games, so it's not really that simplistic, TZ.


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bowen ten.sardna@newob

Nov 2, 2003, 8:30pm
[View Quote] > that AW's engine lacks portal rendering as Eep once mentioned, so it renders
> objects you can't even see X_X

Oh, that'd be such a dream. Dreams come with a hefty price... with the
types of objects that people use in AW, portal rendering would kill the
processor with a thousand spoons if not a thousand chunks of silly putty
too.

--
--Bowen--
http://bowen.homelinux.com
Give me ideas.

paul

Nov 3, 2003, 1:41pm
If you are crashing a lot in your world you can try this to maybe help
restrict reloading.
(1) reload everything in your world.
(2) copy your world cache folder to another drive or backup folder
Then if you crash delete your world cache folder and copy the good
folder from the back up back into the AW cache. Then you won't have to
reload unless the back up is older than the 10080 (1 week). if you don't
make many changes to your OP (new models or textures) then you could set
your world refresh to say 30080 instead of 10080 (approx 3 weeks) and the
backup wold be good a little longer.

Also try not to teleport in and out of your world or other worlds until the
downloads are done and that may help reduce some crashes but not all.
3.4 is just too buggy and does crash a lot for no reason (related to
anything in the OP, models, textures, etc. unless maybe it's odd sized
textures).

Paul

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kf

Nov 3, 2003, 2:09pm
10080 minutes = 1 week (7 days * 24 hours * 60 minutes)

Even when the backup is older than (refresh time), an update check is
not only much faster, but also will not require any downloads.




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