Is 120k / 150k prims enough?
Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2021 3:20 am
When setting up a region, one naturally wonders how many prims are going to be needed. Advanced worlds allow 120k prims. Megaworlds allow 150k. Since 150k is only 30k more than 120k, is that enough for a Megaworld? Is 120k enough for an Advanced world? There's no definite answer, but I have a couple of good examples which indicate YES, it is probably more than enough.
I have my own Opensim server sitting in my living room. It's amazing what one can do with a 12-inch fast laptop-- in this case run 50 regions on two instances. The screen is visible any time I wish to look at it, allowing one to see a lot of things that happen behind the scenes with Opensim.
My server handles two 5x5 VARS (25 regions each, 50 regions total). It works fine. (A VAR is the equivalent of a multi-region World on Kitely.)
ELVENSONG
One VAR houses two complete world themes. At ground level is ElvenSong, which is fantasy-themed. It contains the home and historic builds of an ancient group called Elf Clan, my own home Dwagon's Keep, which is a large, fully-furnished castle. ElvenSong also contains a lush giant tree-home for the Poetry guild, also fully furnished, the Elven Gardens, the Thirsty Dragon Tavern, the Elf Clan Museum (a really large, high-prim structure), and Pirates Cove... an area containing several full-size ships.
In high sky ElvenSong is another "world" called Replicant City, running on the same instance. This is a multi-genre science fiction museum, absolutely packed with interactive builds... including a Star Trek museum, Doctor Who exhibit, TRON museum, Steampunk Museum, a full-size Firefly spaceship, and a whole lot more. Surrounding Replicant City are nine full size Star Trek starships with all the goodies.
In short, ElvenSong is one of the most packed-to-the-gills VARs you will ever find on SL or OpenSim. And while the majority of ElvenSong creations are pre-mesh period (thus very "primmy")... the entire VAR only requires around 72,000 prims. On Kitely that would leave 48,000 prims still available.
FRANKENSTEIN
This 5x5 region started out as an experiment. Basically, I wanted to know how much stuff I could cram on a 25-region VAR and still remain functional. So just for fun I shopped the Internet and found every free OAR that I could locate. I rezzed each OAR individually and chose two dozen of my favorites. To these I added my own stuff which includes Frankenstein's Castle, a region-size race track, carnival area and more. I rezzed all of those fully-developed OARs and creations on Frankenstein; it is packed from one end to the other. A person would have to work really hard to pack a world harder than I packed Frankenstein... because doing so was the original goal. (Turns out I liked the "experiment" so much that I decided to keep it online. Insanity can be fun.)
Total primmage on Frankenstein: around 88,000 prims. On Kitely this would still leave 32,000 prims free on an Advanced World. Now add to that 30,000 more prims on a Megaworld. That's a lot of prims still available.
MESH AND LI
On Kitely we have a boon to us that very closely amounts to a gift from the grid owners: Mesh is counted by LI rather than vertices. So if you have a mesh building that is the equivalent of 150 prims but it only shows 10 LI, that's all that Kitely counts. This is an intentional decision by Ilan and Oren and it's a generous one. What this means is that with judicious use of mesh, we can put a whole lot more on a world than just the listed prim allowance. The lower the LI of a mesh... the more stuff we can stick on our world. What might otherwise require 10,000 prims might be done in only 250. Kitely has openly stated that's totally okay with them. It's a great policy for residents. So when Kitely allows 120k or 150k prims on a world... mesh is something to consider.
But even without mesh, one would have to be really bent on stuffing a world full to top 100k prims. I fell significantly short of 100k prims on both ElvenSong and Frankenstein... and they are very packed worlds.
So those are my findings, based on two "high-prim" worlds on my own server. And I didn't even take major advantage of mesh on my worlds. My opinion: 120k and 150k is a lot more than it sounds like. If someone ever reached that 120k ceiling... I'd really like to see what they did that required that kind of prim usage.
Just my post-for-whatever-value. Be well everyone, and stay safe.
I have my own Opensim server sitting in my living room. It's amazing what one can do with a 12-inch fast laptop-- in this case run 50 regions on two instances. The screen is visible any time I wish to look at it, allowing one to see a lot of things that happen behind the scenes with Opensim.
My server handles two 5x5 VARS (25 regions each, 50 regions total). It works fine. (A VAR is the equivalent of a multi-region World on Kitely.)
ELVENSONG
One VAR houses two complete world themes. At ground level is ElvenSong, which is fantasy-themed. It contains the home and historic builds of an ancient group called Elf Clan, my own home Dwagon's Keep, which is a large, fully-furnished castle. ElvenSong also contains a lush giant tree-home for the Poetry guild, also fully furnished, the Elven Gardens, the Thirsty Dragon Tavern, the Elf Clan Museum (a really large, high-prim structure), and Pirates Cove... an area containing several full-size ships.
In high sky ElvenSong is another "world" called Replicant City, running on the same instance. This is a multi-genre science fiction museum, absolutely packed with interactive builds... including a Star Trek museum, Doctor Who exhibit, TRON museum, Steampunk Museum, a full-size Firefly spaceship, and a whole lot more. Surrounding Replicant City are nine full size Star Trek starships with all the goodies.
In short, ElvenSong is one of the most packed-to-the-gills VARs you will ever find on SL or OpenSim. And while the majority of ElvenSong creations are pre-mesh period (thus very "primmy")... the entire VAR only requires around 72,000 prims. On Kitely that would leave 48,000 prims still available.
FRANKENSTEIN
This 5x5 region started out as an experiment. Basically, I wanted to know how much stuff I could cram on a 25-region VAR and still remain functional. So just for fun I shopped the Internet and found every free OAR that I could locate. I rezzed each OAR individually and chose two dozen of my favorites. To these I added my own stuff which includes Frankenstein's Castle, a region-size race track, carnival area and more. I rezzed all of those fully-developed OARs and creations on Frankenstein; it is packed from one end to the other. A person would have to work really hard to pack a world harder than I packed Frankenstein... because doing so was the original goal. (Turns out I liked the "experiment" so much that I decided to keep it online. Insanity can be fun.)
Total primmage on Frankenstein: around 88,000 prims. On Kitely this would still leave 32,000 prims free on an Advanced World. Now add to that 30,000 more prims on a Megaworld. That's a lot of prims still available.
MESH AND LI
On Kitely we have a boon to us that very closely amounts to a gift from the grid owners: Mesh is counted by LI rather than vertices. So if you have a mesh building that is the equivalent of 150 prims but it only shows 10 LI, that's all that Kitely counts. This is an intentional decision by Ilan and Oren and it's a generous one. What this means is that with judicious use of mesh, we can put a whole lot more on a world than just the listed prim allowance. The lower the LI of a mesh... the more stuff we can stick on our world. What might otherwise require 10,000 prims might be done in only 250. Kitely has openly stated that's totally okay with them. It's a great policy for residents. So when Kitely allows 120k or 150k prims on a world... mesh is something to consider.
But even without mesh, one would have to be really bent on stuffing a world full to top 100k prims. I fell significantly short of 100k prims on both ElvenSong and Frankenstein... and they are very packed worlds.
So those are my findings, based on two "high-prim" worlds on my own server. And I didn't even take major advantage of mesh on my worlds. My opinion: 120k and 150k is a lot more than it sounds like. If someone ever reached that 120k ceiling... I'd really like to see what they did that required that kind of prim usage.
Just my post-for-whatever-value. Be well everyone, and stay safe.