[Opensim-users] objects undergoing continuous change

[Justin Clark-Casey]

Paul Fishwick wrote:
> I am curious as to how OpenSim currently deals with updating changing object
> attributes over time (position and orientation for example). These dynamic
> changes can come about either through LSL scripting or while running the 
> Physics
> engine.
> 
> Presumably, many (most) of these are kept in memory? With a reasonable
> amount of server memory (4GB) one would hope that a region or small grid 
> could
> maintain all changing attribute without ever going back to the database 
> except
> for (1) initial connections and (2) shutdowns.  Also, it would seem that 
> some of these
> changes could be done client-side?
> 
> So, I have 2 questions:
> 
>  * Where are these attributes stored (in memory, in the database, or in 
> a memory
>     hierarchy where there is a memory cache that automatically flushes 
> to the
>     database when it is required) ?

Yes, things are stored in memory with a regular flush to database that occurs every 15 seconds.  However, I suspect that 
objects with the physics attribute are not currently persisted (from a recent thread on opensim-dev).

> 
>  * Would it (or is it) useful to have some scripts run on the client 
> rather than the
>     server for less server loading? For example, could ODE run on the 
> client

I think that some minor stuff is done client side already (such as flexiprims).  However, I suspect one runs into 
difficulties when objects can affect each other, since you would have to start communicating all this information back 
to the server and somehow synchronizing it with changes from other clients.

However, I am not an expert in this area.

-- 
justincc
Justin Clark-Casey
http://justincc.wordpress.com