Framerate drops significantly when loading the Sunrise Environment

[Dan-Linden]

Environment

Second Life Release 7.1.13.14343205944 (64bit)
Release Notes

You are at 63.7, 28.4, 38.6 in Danger! Danger! located at simhost-061335db19b8c2a73.agni
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Danger%21%20Danger%21/64/28/39
(global coordinates 261,184.0, 249,628.0, 38.6)
Second Life Server 2025-03-14.13862207703
Release Notes

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5980HX with Radeon Graphics (3293.72 MHz)
Memory: 15775 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 11 64-bit (Build 22631.5189)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon RX 6800M

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 30.0.15020.1001
OpenGL Version: 4.6.14800 Core Profile Context 21.50.20.01 30.0.15020.1001

Window size: 1779x1504
Font Size Adjustment: 96pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 128m
Bandwidth: 3000kbit/s
LOD factor: 1.75
Render quality: 5
Texture memory: 4095MB
Disk cache: Max size 1638.4 MB (8.8% used)

J2C Decoder Version: KDU v7.10.4
Audio Driver Version: OpenAL, version 1.1 ALSOFT 1.24.2 / OpenAL Community / OpenAL Soft: OpenAL Soft
Dullahan: 1.14.0.202408091639
CEF: 118.4.1+g3dd6078+chromium-118.0.5993.54
Chromium: 118.0.5993.54
LibVLC Version: 3.0.21
Voice Server Version: Vivox 4.10.0000.32327.5fc3fe7c.5942f08

Packets Lost: 0/1,398 (0.0%)
April 24 2025 15:48:17

Description

I'm not a morning laptop.

Reproduction steps

1. Go to http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Danger%21%20Danger%21/64/28/39
2. Set Preferences > Graphics > Quality preset to High+
3. World menu > Environment > Sunrise.
4. OR choose any other Environment and then change both the Sun Azimuth and Elevation to 0.0.

Observed: The framerate immediately drops from ~25 FPS to 6 FPS. In Task Manager, the GPU Utilization goes to 100% and the GPU temp heads up to 100° C.

Expected: No drop in framerate.

Notes:

• There is something at this location that triggers this bug. Disabling Rendering Types > Volume causes the framerate to recover.
• This does not repro on my Win10/GTX 1080 or Mac M1 machines.
• This does repro on my Win11/RTX 4080 machine. (specs in a comment below)

Log: SecondLife.log

Video: https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/067731ce-8829-472c-a446-7d5b945db26f

[Dan-Linden]

Sounds similar to #763 . That one is on Nvidia and happens at sunset.

[Dan-Linden]

This also repros on a GeForce RTX 4080.

Second Life Release 7.1.13.14343205944 (64bit)
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-14900HX (2419.2 MHz)
Memory: 32472 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 11 64-bit (Build 26100.3775)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU/PCIe/SSE2

Windows Graphics Driver Version: 32.0.15.7602
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 576.02

Window size: 3840x2054
Font Size Adjustment: 96pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 128m
Bandwidth: 3000kbit/s
LOD factor: 1.75
Render quality: 5
Texture memory: 12282MB
Disk cache: Max size 1638.4 MB (11.3% used)

[aiaustin]

The FPS drop for me happens at any sunset or moonset. Try this one at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Damiano/49/7/21 (sit on the beach bench there looking out to the Western horizon...

I sent Dan and Atlas a simple test - FPS Drop Test Day Cycle - which is just a new Day Cycle with most keyframes deleted and the effect moved nearer the start, just open it and "play" to see the effect in fast forward, or enable it and sit and watch the sun set with the FPS tools open). But any day/night cycle does it for me.

[aiaustin]

Its the second keyframe where the transition occurs as the sun sets...

Note for me this FPS drop occurs at sunset and moonset... the title of this issue refers to SUNRISE.

[aiaustin]

Right, progress. I think water has to be within the camera view... even a TINY bit of sea.. to see the FPS drop off.

Go to http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Shasta/113/17/105

Find a spot with NO water in sight at all... and the FPS stays very level at sunset or moonset.

Now swing camera round and a tiny bit of sea appears in the distance for example looking SW.. Now observe when you get to keyframe 2, as the sun sets the FPS drops and stays at the lower level after sunset.

For me on a test just now with Second Life Release 7.1.14.15192634334 (64bit) it dropped from 50FPS to 36FPS and then VERY slowly recover to 50FPS unless you change environment.