[BUG-6207] [Tiger] Increased texture thrashing problem on viewer-tiger

[sl-service-account]

I have been having a real problem with texture thrashing since the viewer-interesting was promoted to the default release - see BUG-5978. I saw this commit in viewer-tiger: https://bitbucket.org/lindenlab/viewer-tiger/commits/8425f76bbb1de290c9c4956a2e0579d4a05a0112 which looks like it is supposed to help with texture thrashing problems by increasing how much memory is used for textures so I I have been trying the latest build of Tiger to see if it helped. Unfortunately it has made the problem worse and easily 100% repeatable.

Steps To Reproduce

• Login on latest Tiger build: http://automated-builds-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/hg/repo/simon-ll-viewer-tiger/rev/290179/index.html
• Observe if textures remain sharp or constantly thrash between sharp and blurry.
• Watch the texture BIAS reading on the texture console under Develop -> Consoles -> Texture console.
• Under Preferences -> Graphics -> Advanced -> Hardware, observe the setting for Video memory
• Open Advanced -> Debug settings -> TextureMemory and observe the value set here.

• Compare results to those seen on current default release Second Life 3.7.8 (289922) May 9 2014 17:10:49 (Second Life Release)

  Observed Behaviour

Current default release, Second Life 3.7.8 (289922)

• On current default release, Second Life 3.7.8 (289922) May 9 2014 17:10:49 (Second Life Release), the default settings for my card are

  • Preferences -> Graphics -> Advanced -> Hardware -> Texture Memory = 512MB.
  • Advanced -> Debug Settings -> TextureMemory = 512 MB

• TextureMemory in debug settings cannot be raised past 512MB - expected.

• Clicking "Reset to default" for TextureMemory in debug settings leaves the setting on 512MB - expected.

• Texture thrashing is seen on this build fairly frequently but certainly not right after logging in and it is certainly not 100% reproducible in every session.

Viewer-Tiger: Second Life 3.7.9 (290179) May 20 2014 18:29:30 (Second Life Release)

• As soon as I login on this build I have texture thrashing happening straight away. It is 100% reproducible for me on all logins. So I went poking in my settings to see why.....

• On viewer-tiger the default settings for my card are

  • Preferences -> Graphics -> Advanced -> Hardware -> Video Memory = 512MB - expected.
  • Advanced -> Debug Settings -> TextureMemory = 170 MB - Not expected? o.O

• TextureMemory in debug settings can be raised past 512MB.

• Clicking "Reset to default" for TextureMemory in debug settings puts the setting on 170MB - but the slider for video memory in preferences remains on 512MB.

• With video memory set on its default value, texture thrashing happens almost instantly and by texture BIAS reading remains at 5.0 in texture console.

• Even though the slider in preferences for video memory says 512MB, I think the Texturememory in debug settings is the real value - which is so low it produces instant thrashing.

• If I type in the value of 512MB into TextureMemory debug setting, the thrashing stops almost instantly and the texture BIAS quickly goes down to zero.

• As soon as I touch the video memory slider in preferences - lower it slightly and raise it again to 512MB, the TextureMemory debug setting changes to 170MB and texture thrashing starts almost immediately.

• Logs attached from a session on viewer-tiger where texture thrashing was seen.

• Demo video - http://www.screencast.com/t/n1rjy0qYcS

  Expected Behaviour

• No texture thrashing - it makes me sad :(

Attachments

• DxDiag.txt 2014-06-19 00:21:39
• SecondLife.log 2014-05-30 11:43:48

Original Jira Fields

| Field | Value | | ------------- | ------------- | | Issue | BUG-6207 | | Summary | [Tiger] Increased texture thrashing problem on viewer-tiger | | Type | Bug | | Priority | Unset | | Status | Accepted | | Resolution | Accepted | | Reporter | Whirly Fizzle (whirly.fizzle) | | Created at | 2014-05-30T15:06:09Z | | Updated at | 2014-06-19T08:14:05Z | ``` { 'Business Unit': ['Platform'], 'Date of First Response': '2014-06-18T17:41:47.375-0500', 'Regression?': ['Issue is a Regression'], 'System': 'SL Viewer', 'Target Viewer Version': 'viewer-development', 'What just happened?': '.', 'What were you doing when it happened?': 'Filling in...', 'What were you expecting to happen instead?': '.', } ```

[sl-service-account]

Alexa Linden commented at 2014-06-18T22:41:47Z

This looks like a regression from BUG-3539.

Looking at the log, the viewer is behaving as expected WRT default values, but we might want to tweak the behavior for cards with < 1GB of VRAM. The slider is definitely busted.

The viewer seems to think your card has 512MB of vram. Is this true?

[sl-service-account]

Whirly Fizzle commented at 2014-06-19T04:21:04Z

No, my card has 1024MB

Card specs: http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-750/specifications

From DirectX:

          Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750
       Manufacturer: NVIDIA
          Chip type: GeForce GTX 750
           DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
         Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1381&SUBSYS_13811569&REV_A2
     Display Memory: 4025 MB
   Dedicated Memory: 953 MB
      Shared Memory: 3072 MB
       Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

Full DXDIAG attached.

[sl-service-account]

Whirly Fizzle commented at 2014-06-19T04:27:15Z

On Viewer-Tiger:

INFO: LLDXHardware::getInfo: VRAM Detected: 4025 DX9 string: 4025 MB INFO: LLAppViewerWin32::initHardwareTest: Detected VRAM: 4025

On Second Life Release 3.7.9.290582:

INFO: LLDXHardware::getInfo: VRAM Detected: 4025 DX9 string: 4025 MB INFO: LLAppViewerWin32::initHardwareTest: Detected VRAM: 4025

Both viewers correctly (I think?) pick up the Display Memory as 4025 MB

However, this bug is only seen on builds containing the commit at https://bitbucket.org/lindenlab/viewer-tiger/commits/8425f76bbb1de290c9c4956a2e0579d4a05a0112

[sl-service-account]

Whirly Fizzle commented at 2014-06-19T05:01:13Z

I just tested on the latest Tiger build - http://automated-builds-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/hg/repo/simon-ll-viewer-tiger/rev/291116/index.html

Same problem.

TextureMemory is being set to 170 MB by default for my card

[sl-service-account]

Whirly Fizzle commented at 2014-06-19T05:35:29Z

I installed Tiger on my old desktop system and results are the same. TextureMemory is being set to 170 MB by default. On current default release, TextureMemory is set to 512MB for this card (expected).

This system has a GeForce GT 230/PCIe/SSE2 which has 512 MB memory.

        Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GT 230 
     Manufacturer: NVIDIA
        Chip type: GeForce GT 230
         DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
       Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0621&SUBSYS_127C1462&REV_A1
   Display Memory: 1904 MB
 Dedicated Memory: 497 MB
    Shared Memory: 1407 MB

Tiger log and current release log shows:

INFO: LLDXHardware::getInfo: VRAM Detected: 1904 DX9 string: 1904 MB INFO: LLAppViewerWin32::initHardwareTest: Detected VRAM: 1904

Second Life 3.7.10 (291116) Jun 17 2014 15:38:04 (Second Life Release)
Release Notes

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q8300  @ 2.50GHz (2493.75 MHz)
Memory: 3326 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit Service Pack 2 (Build 6002)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GT 230/PCIe/SSE2

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 9.18.0013.3523
OpenGL Version: 3.3.0

libcurl Version: libcurl/7.24.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8q zlib/1.2.5
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.0
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Ex 4.44.31
Qt Webkit Version: 4.7.1 (version number hard-coded)
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Built with MSVC version 1600

[sl-service-account]

Grumpity ProductEngine commented at 2014-06-19T08:14:05Z

Thanks Whirly! I think we know what's up, and we're on it!