Limits

This page is an easy reference to common queries about Second Life limits — just as the physical world has certain rules & restrictions, Second Life does too. Some of these will almost definitely change over time, so if you spot something incorrect/outdated, please take a moment to update it.

Building

• Max. prim dimensions (non-megaprim) - 10x10x10 m.
• Min. prim dimensions - 0.01x0.01x0.01 m.
• Max. # of prims in a linkset - 255.
• Max. link distance - See Linkability Rules.
• Max. # of prims in a physical object - 32.
  • If you try to link more, it'll either say "Can't enable physics for objects with more than 32 primitives" or "Object has too many primitives -- its dynamics have been disabled.".

Avatar

• Max. # of attachment points - 30 for avatar, 8 for HUD.
  • They can be viewed in Edit menu > Detach Object.
• Max. unassisted fly height - Stable hover almost 150 m above the ground (terrain mesh).
  • While an improvement over the previous limit of 50 m, Torley thinks this limit is ridiculous because Second Life is 3D. You can easily acquire a flight attachment to fly up to seemingly infinite heights.
• Common shoe sizes - Most women's shoes are designed for a size 0 (zero) foot. Men's generally scale up to 14. You can check this by going to Edit menu > Appearance and clicking on the Shape > Legs tab.

Chat (text)

• Whisper distance (done via scripting objects) - 5 m.
• Chat distance - 20 m.
• Shout distance - 100 m.
  • Good rule of thumb: when you're at default zoom (View menu > Reset View), if you can see another other person's nametag, they can see your chat. If they're far enough away that you don't see a nametag, they won't "hear" you unless you shout.
• Max. length of a chat message - 1023 characters.
  • The same holds true for an IM<->email replies.

Groups

• Max. # of groups you can belong to - 25.
  • Roles within groups are sort of like sub-groups. In many cases, you can use them instead of creating new groups.
• Min. # of members in a group - 2.
  • A group with only 1 person for 48 hours will be disbanded (cancelled).

Inventory

• Max. # of inventory items that can be sent in a folder - 42.
  • Folders count as items too. This has more to do with packet size limits than cheeky Douglas Adams references. ;)

Land

• Max. parcel size - 65,536 m2.
  • Covering a whole region, or square on the World Map.
• Min. parcel size - 16 m2.
• Max. "NO ENTRY" ban line height - 768 m above the terrain mesh.
  • This is if you're explicitly banned from a parcel. If the parcel is simply not public access or restricted to certain Residents/a group, then the access lines go up to 50 m above the terrain mesh.
• Max. prims in a region - 15,000 (3,750 prims for an OpenSpace region).
• Terraforming limits - Almost all mainland can be raised/lowered by +/-4 m. Estate (private island) terraformability is settable to a max of +/-100 m by the estate owner or managers.
  • A few, very old regions like Da Boom have a terraform range of +/-40 m.
• Max. water height - 100 m.
  • Region water height is usually 20 m, and adjacent regions should have the same water height, or else they'll look discontinuous.
• Misc. estate limits - You can have a max. of 10 estate managers, 500 allowed Residents, 63 allowed groups, and 500 banned Residents.
  • See World menu > Region/Estate > Estate tab.

Performance

• Healthy Viewer FPS - Generally, FPS above 15 is good. The higher it gets, the smoother. You can check via Help menu > Lag Meter, or for more advanced usage, see View menu > Statistics Bar.
• Avatar Rendering Cost scores - Learn all about it!

Scripting

For specific scripting limits, lookup calls in the LSL Portal.