Limits

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This page is an easy reference to common queries about Second Life limits. Some of these will almost definitely change over time, so if you spot something incorrect/outdated, please take a moment to update it. You can also see the Knowledge Base counterpart of this article, which isn't as updated.

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 150m above the ground (terrain mesh).
  • You can easily acquire a flight attachment to fly up to seemingly infinite heights. See flight limit.
• 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.
• Max. length of avatar name - 31 for first name, 31 for last name, 63 in total (including the space).

Building

• Max. prim dimensions (non-megaprim) - 10x10x10m
• Min. prim dimensions - 0.01x0.01x0.01m
• Max. # of prims in a linkset - 256
  • It was 255 before SL Server 1.26.
• 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.".
  • This limit includes the driver and passengers of physics-enabled vehicles, e.g., if you're making a car to seat 4 people, 28 prims are available for the car itself.
• Max. build height - 4,096m
  • This is 768m for viewers prior to SL 1.20
  • Building above 768m can cause prim drift, distortion, misalignment, shifting and general weirdness. For small/precise builds, it's best to work at a lower level.
    • I'm familiar with some of this, but please provide a reference — like a reproducible bug on the Issue Tracker. Otherwise, it's unsubstantiated. - Torley on 2009-05-06 @ 6:01 AM PST
      • This could be related to http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-1170, but this describes "prim drift" not based on height.
• Max. prim name length - 63 bytes UTF8 string
  • Note: This is the same total character limit as avatar names.
• Max. prim description length - 127 bytes UTF8 string

Chat (text)

• Whisper distance - 10 m
• Chat distance - 20 m
• Shout distance - 100 m
  • 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 bytes/single-byte characters
  • The same holds true for an IM <-> email replies.
• Capped - Maximum number of offline messages (involving IMs, inventory offers, group notices and group invitations) received before messages get capped is 25.
  • Senders can't know whether their messages were capped or not.
• Email -> IM replies can be sent up to 5 days after receiving the offline IM the email is meant to answer.^[blog]
• IMs are retained for up to 31 days before being discarded. For example, if someone sends you an Instant Message and the next time you login is 33 days later, you won't get it.
  • Torley confirmed this with Kelly Linden.

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). Unless the group owns land.
• Max. # of roles allowed in a group - 10 (including "Owners" and "Everyone", which can't be deleted)

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. ;)
• Max. notecard line - None, but scripts can only read the first 255 bytes
• Max. notecard size - 65,536 bytes

Land

• Max. parcel size - 65,536 m²
  • Covering a whole region, or square on the World Map.
• Min. parcel size - 16 m²
• Max. parcel name length - 63 characters
• Region name length - Min. 3 characters, max. 25 characters (including spaces)^[KB]
• 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 or a group, then the access lines go up to 50 m above the terrain mesh.
• Max. prims in a region:
  • Full region - 15,000
  • Homestead - 3,750
  • Openspace - 750
• Max. Autoreturn value - Besides "0" (which means never), 999,999 minutes is the highest autoreturn value.
• Terraforming limits:
  • Most mainland can be raised/lowered by +/-4 m.
  • Some mainland can't be terraformed, including: Bay City Regions, Blumfield, Boardman, Brown, De Haro, Nautilus City Regions, Nova Albion Regions, Shermerville Regions, and West Haven.
  • A few, very old mainland Regions like Da Boom have a terraform range of +/-40 m.
  • Estate (private island) terraformability is settable to a max of +/-100 m by the estate owner or managers.
    • However, baking the land will allow it to be raised to at least 300 m. haven't tested any higher.--Liny Odell 03:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
• 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.
• Mainland max. # of agents - 40 avatars/region
• Island max. # of agents:
  • Full region - 100
  • Homestead - 20
  • Openspace - 10
• Freeze Time - Land owners can freeze other Residents for up to 30 seconds.

Misc.

• Billing and Trading Limits - Includes LindeX currency exchange limits.
• Contacts in Communication > Friends tab - A maximum of 20 simultaneous contacts can be selected to change permissions, remove, or invite for a conference chat.

Profile

• 2nd Life tab's About field - 500 characters
• Picks tab - 10 picks with 1023 characters each
• 1st Life tab's Info field - 250 characters
• My Notes - 1022 characters

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.

Textures

• Aspect ratios of profile, place, etc. pictures — all of these were measured at UI size = 1.000:
  • Search > All for "Classifieds", "People", and "Places" - 4:3 (256x192 pixels)
  • Search > Places and Classified tabs - ~7:5 (398x282 pixels)
  • Search > Land tab - ~7:5 (358x252 pixels)
  • Profile > 2nd Life tab - ~4:3 (178x133 pixels)
  • Profile > Picks tab - ~16:9 (288x162 pixels)
  • Profile > 1st Life tab - 1:1 (133x133 pixels)
  • Profile > Classifieds tab - ~3:2 (206x137 pixels)
  • Profile > Web tab - 1:1 (400x400 pixels) Note Scrollbars will eat 15 pixels
  • About Land > Options tab - ~3:2 (178x117 pixels)
  • Group Information > General tab's "Group Insignia" - 1:1 (126x126 pixels)
    • Some of these textures are shared (for example, Search > All place pages, Search > Places, and About Land > Options use the same image), so you should pick a well-balanced ratio and size.

• Maximum texture size - 1024x1024 pixels
  • Some textures inworld have a resolution as high as 2048x2048; this is due to a previous limit that was higher.
  • We strongly recommend you use as small textures as possible because larger ones consume more memory and take substantially longer to load. See Avatar Rendering Cost.