You see in Second LIfe, there is a level meter that
shows you packet loss, and also a percentage. And
makes the game lag, right?
Hmm. If I read this right, this packet loss is not the same as what's in your console log. Assuming the Second Life level meter is measuring lost packets between your computer and the Second Life server, that could be a problem with your internet connection.
You can look for packet loss using the Network Utility program from your Utilities folder. Once you fire up the Network Utilily, choose the "Ping" tab. First, set it to send only 10 pings, and enter a web address like Apple's (www.apple.com). Click the "Ping" button and you'll get your pings back in the bottom pane. Here's an example for me:
<pre class="command">Ping has started ...
PING www.apple.com.akadns.net (17.112.152.32): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=0 ttl=238 time=53.372 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=1 ttl=238 time=53.998 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=2 ttl=238 time=54.696 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=3 ttl=238 time=55.533 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=4 ttl=238 time=54.249 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=5 ttl=238 time=55.006 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=6 ttl=238 time=54.768 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=7 ttl=238 time=54.506 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=8 ttl=238 time=73.254 ms
64 bytes from 17.112.152.32: icmp_seq=9 ttl=238 time=54.967 ms
--- www.apple.com.akadns.net ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 10 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 53.372/56.435/73.254/5.635 ms</pre>Now, to read the output, you notice that all ten packets made it. If you have dropped packets, that's not good, as that can translate into slowdowns and missing data from the 'net. Second, look at the times for the pings. Notice how they're pretty low, and they don't vary a huge amount. If I was seeing times in the high 100's or above, or maybe there was one or two pings that were very high, while the rest were low, I'd be concerned.
In order to narrow it down, you'd want to check a couple of different servers. Try pinging Google and maybe Yahoo. Just choose servers that you know would have high capacity, as overloaded servers can cause ping problems. If you don't get any lost packets on these servers (and try each a couple of times, or change the packet number to 20 or more), then the problem most likely is with the Second Life server.
But if you get packet loss on all of the servers you try, then it's more likely to be a problem closer to your computer. You say you're on a cable modem. Do you have a firewall/router or is your computer connected directly to the cable modem? How you'd proceed from here would depend on what's between you and the Internet. You'd want to make sure packets aren't being lost between your cable modem and the cable company's default gateway. Finding your gateway and some of the other information depends on whether or not you have a firewall.
charlie
