SecondLife Viewer 2 Standard - vs.- SnowGlobe & Snowstorm - Quick Performance Comparision

  After yesterdays post  Kirsten S(20)-(35), I decided it was time to take a look at the official LL versions of the nefarious Viewer2. This is not intended to be an in depth review, just some general performance measurements. I will be using the standard SL-V2 2-1-1-208043, SnowGlobe-2.1.0.3620 and SnowStorm-2-1-2-208809.
  The testbed computer is an Intel based P4 3.4GHz -1023 MB, Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS/PCI/SSE2 512 MB the Video Driver is a tweaked version of 258.96      http://www.tweakforce.com/   I have the Nvidia Control Panel set to the performance mode, Antialiasing - Mode is set to application controlled. The internet connection is via cable modem at 1GBs. I have adjusted all 3 viewer's network connection  maximum bandwidth to 200kbps and custom port #13004. The Viewers Graphics, quality and speed to Mid with Atmospheric Shaders ON, draw distance is 96m. Hardware Options has Antialiasing at 8x. The Operating System is WinXP SP3. The test Simm has 7297 objects, active objects 447 - 450, active scripts 4240 - 4275, script events 325 - 375eps. In other words a relatively average mainland simm with a number of structures and virtually no avatar activity.
  Each viewer took 1 re-log to finish loading 11,544 inventory items.Here are the basic performance specs

Viewer 2
  Bandwith               17 - 118kps typical average 14kps
  FPS                       11 - 17 typical average 12fps
  Packet Loss           0.8 - 6.2% typical average 1.6%

SnowGlobe         
  Bandwith               25 - 120kps typical average 42kps                 
  FPS                       8 - 45 typical average 19fps
  Packet Loss          0.0 - 6.3% typical average 1.9%

SnowStorm           
  Bandwith              35 - 250kps typical average 17kps 
  FPS                      19 - 29 typical average 24fps
  Packet Loss          0,0 - 9-5% typical average 1.6%

  Ok so what do these numbers mean to me, and I stress this is only my opinion. The first figures represent how the viewer uses available bandwith and its abilitty to deal with, and distribute the load. If thats the case then SnowStorm is the hands down winner, it retains a relativaly steady 17kps to the server, yet is able to reach quick bursts of speed up to 250kps when needed in order to maintain a realitively consistent Frame Rate of 24fps.  
  SnowGlobe on the other hand seems to prefer to keep a more consistant load on the bandwith channel, in order to do its job. Viewer 2 is typical, and does not seem to have been optimized to react accordingly to various loads. Packet loss seems to be consistent between the 3 viewers, with SnowGlobe slightly higher. As  it should be, considering the fact it has a greater amount of constant communication between the client and server. My guess would be the SnowStorm team has recognized this, and tweaked the code to react more intelligently to varying loads.
  The main number to look at is the FPS. SnowStorm maintains a fairly consistent 24fps, and on 5 year old mid range hardware, this is pretty darn good. The Motion Picture and Television Broadcast Industry use 29.97fps as the defacto standard in the U.S.A. A high end computer with more available bandwith will be capable of achieving near movie like quality.
  Now the final note to this post.
The UI of all 3 of these viewers is absolutely horrible, In all my days of working with computers, since 1984 and the first GUI's. I have never encountered, a more poorly designed, ill concieved, worst implemented, user unfriendly human to computer interface to date! 
  I'll be dealing with this issue tomorrow. Stay Tuned !!

JayR Cela :_)