Limits

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Summary

The Second Life Viewer and simulators have a division of labor, keeping track of the data that makes Second Life run. The Viewer's job is to:

Handle locations of objects.
Get velocities and other physics information, and does simple physics to keep track of what is moving where.

The simulator's job is to:

Run the physics engine.
Detect collisions.
Keep track of where everything is
Send locations of content to the Viewer along with updates when certain changes occur.

Limits are necessary for all of these components to work together. The list below outlines many of the Second Life numerical limits that affect your inworld experience. Some of these will likely change over time, so if you spot something incorrect/outdated, please take a moment to update it.

Important: The scope of this page is focused on Linden Lab's official Viewers, keeping in mind 3rd-party viewers may differ. Cite sources and provide substantiation for limits that aren't provided by Linden Lab. Also, unconfirmed speculation goes on this discussion page. Don't add data without a hard limit, and don't add obscure trivia that doesn't practically affect the general inworld experience.

Avatar

Max. # of attachment points - 30 for avatar, 8 for HUD.
- They can be viewed by right-clicking your avatar and choosing Take Off > HUD or Detach.
- With the formal introduction of multiple attachments to a single point in Viewer 2.4, you can attach up to 38 total objects, and they can all be attached to a single point.
Max. unassisted fly height - Stable hover almost 150m above the ground (terrain mesh).
- You can easily acquire a flight attachment to fly high. Also see flight limit and the Navigation section below.
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).
Max. avatar speed - 250m/s (with only attachments to assist)
Max. teleport speed
- Server 1.27.1 - 10 teleports per 15 seconds
- Server 1.27.0 - 3 teleports per 15 seconds

Animation

Max. length of animation: 30.0 seconds
Min. animation priority: 0
Max. animation priority: 4

Building

Max. prim dimensions (non-megaprim) - 64x64x64m
- it was 10x10x10m before SL Server 3.0.0 (238864)
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.".
- On server versions 1.38 and below, each sitting avatar counted as 1 prim. From 1.40.2 the limit is only on actual prims.
Max. build or rez height - 4,096m
- This is 768m for Viewers prior to SL 1.20
Max. prim name length - 63 bytes UTF-8 string
- Note: This is the same total character limit as avatar names.
Max. prim description length - 127 bytes UTF-8 string
- Note:
Temporary prim lifetime - around 60 seconds
Max. number of temporary prims - regular_prim_limit - current_regular_prims + minimum(0.5 * regular_prim_limit + 400, 1000)
- From Andrew Linden's February 2009 discussion)
Max. length of hovertext (via llSetText or PRIM_TEXT) - 254 bytes UTF-8 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 > Reset View), if you can see another 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.
- Text spoken as a "Chat" step in a gesture cannot be shouted or whispered
- Text spoken as "Replace with" text in a gesture can be whispered or shouted in Viewer 2 either by putting /whisper or /shout at the start of the "Replace with" text or by typing /whisper or /shout at the beginning of the nearby chat input bar, followed by the gesture's trigger text. (Though, if you do both, or if a gesture with built-in /whisper or /shout is used mid-sentence, the "/whisper" or "/shout" will appear literally.) Viewer 1 does not honor /whisper or /shout and will always send them literally.
Max. length of a chat message - 1023 bytes/single-byte characters
- The same holds true for an IM <-> email replies.
  - When the receiver is offline, if they set an IM to Email feature (Edit > Preferences (or press Ctrl-P), go to the Communication tab and check the Send IM to Email checkbox), it will send offline messages directly to the mailbox connected to your account. When an offline message is received via Email, this message can also be answered via Email again. The length of properly delivered Email replies is limited to 1023 bytes/single-byte characters.
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 on Linden Lab's servers 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.

Gestures

Shortcut key mapping: 33 unique combinations, since F2-F12 can be used with the "Ctrl" or "Shift" modifiers.
Maximum Chat step length: 127 single-byte characters.
Maximum Wait time: 3600 seconds (one hour).

Groups

Maximum number of groups you can belong to: 42
- Roles within groups are sort of like sub-groups. In many cases, you can use them instead of creating new groups.
Minimum number of members in a group: 2
- A group with only 1 person for 48 hours will be disbanded (cancelled). Unless the group owns land.
Maximum number of roles allowed in a group: 10 (including "Owners" and "Everyone", which cannot be deleted)
Maximum Group Name: 35 single-byte characters.
Maximum Group Title: 20 single-byte characters.
Maximum Length of a Group Notice: 512 single-byte characters.

Inventory

Maximum number 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.
Maximum notecard line: None, but scripts can only read the first 255 bytes.
Maximum notecard size: 65,536 bytes
Number of items in the Library: 1,248 as of 2010-06-17
- Verified by hiding the Library and counting the difference.

Land

Maximum parcel size: 65,536 meters²
- Covering a whole region, or square on the World Map.
Minimum parcel size: 16 meters²
Maximum parcel name length: 63 single-byte characters
Maximum parcel description length: 255 characters
Region name length: Under Linden Concierge policy, minimum of 3 characters, and a maximum of 25 characters (including spaces). See Guidelines for Private Region Naming.
- Rare exceptions exist, like Q.
Maximum "NO ENTRY" ban line height: 768 meters above the terrain mesh.
- This is if you are 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 meters above the terrain mesh.
Maximum prims in a region:
- Full region: 15,000
- Homestead: 3,750
- Openspace: 750
Maximum auto return value: Besides "0" (which means never), 999,999 minutes is the highest auto return value.
Terraforming limits:
- Most mainland can be raised/lowered by 4 meters (+/-).
- Some mainland cannot 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 meters (+/-).
- Estate (private island) terraformability is settable to a maximum of 100 meters (+/-) by the estate owner or managers.
Maximum water height: 100 meters using inworld controls (mainland limit), 255 meters by using a *.raw file upload.
- Region water height is usually 20 meters, and adjacent regions should have the same water height, or else they will look discontinuous.
Maximum terrain height: 255 meters using inworld controls (mainland limit), 510 meters by using a *.raw file upload.
Miscellaneous estate limits: You can have a maximum of 10 estate managers, 500 allowed Residents, 63 allowed groups, and 500 banned Residents.
- See World menu > Region/Estate > Estate tab.
Mainland maximum number of agents
- Full region: 100 (Historically set to 40 by LL but this does vary. Some meeting areas have this set to 60 and higher.)
  - Recent server performance improvements make regions with 60 agents in them perform quite well excepting the issue described in SVC-3895.
- Homestead: 20
- Openspace: 10
Island maximum number of agents:
- Full region: 100
- Homestead: 20
- Openspace: 10
Freeze Time: Land owners can freeze other Residents for up to 30 seconds. Members of land owning groups can also be granted this ability.
Minimum parcel that can be listed in Places or All search: 144 meters²
Minimum parcel that can be listed in Events: 512 meters²
Maximum altitude for event listings: 768 meters (WEB-814)
Maximum heights that objects can be seen on the World Map: 400.005m
Classic clouds layer: Approximately 150-225 meters, although the edges of particles can appear to exceed that.

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.

Navigation

Height counter error above 2147483647 meters

Absolute height limit: 2147483647 = 2³¹ − 1 meters, which causes the altitude counter to roll over. Altitudes well below this cause graphics errors probably due to limited floating point number precision.
Highest z-value of an SLurl, that will still teleport you to a positive altitude: 2147483583
- This is lower than the Absolute height limit above probably because of precision issues. Any value higher than 2147483583 would be rounded up to something beyond 2147483647 and thus cause an overflow, while 2147483583 will still be rounded down to 2147483520 (see below).
Highest altitude you can teleport to with an SLurl: 2147483520 meters

Profile

Each 7-bit ASCII character is encoded in one byte. International characters might need more bytes. When pasting text instead of typing, you can get in one byte more into each of the below.

2nd Life tab's About field - 510 bytes
Picks tab - 10 picks with 1022 bytes each
1st Life tab's Info field - 253 bytes
Classified tab - 100 listings with x bytes each
My Notes - 1022 bytes

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

Height at which scripts reactivate on a no-script parcel - 50 m above terrain mesh. Scripted objects that take controls continue to remain active when you fly down or enter a no-script parcel.
Maximum height where scripts can run - none, as long as the object remains rezzed or attached.
Maximum script source code size - 65536 single byte characters.
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 (Edit menu > Preferences > General tab > UI Size) = 1.000:

1.x Series Viewers

(official Viewer up to 1.23.5, most Third Party Viewers)

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)
- A scrollbar uses 15 pixels on the right-hand side.
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.
- Learn how to get correct texture aspect ratios when editing images.

2.x Series Viewers

Search > Classifieds thumbnail - 4:3 (60x45 pixels)
Search > Classifieds expanded - ~4:3 (252x188 pixels)
Search > Classifieds expanded > Details - 17:7 (272x112 pixels)
Search > People - 4:3 (188x141 pixels)
Search > Destination Guide thumbnail - ~4:3 (45x34 pixels)
Search > Destination Guide expanded - 5:3 (250x150 pixels)
Profile > 2nd Life tab - ~1:1 (100x99 pixels)
Profile > Picks thumbnail - 8:5 (88x55 pixels)
Profile > Pick expanded - ~5:3 (285x172 pixels)
About Land > Options tab - ~20:13 (193x125 pixels)
Places > More information - ~11:7 (272x173 pixels)

All Viewers

Maximum texture size - 1024x1024 pixels
- All Second Life textures are constrained to powers of 2 (e.g., 128, 256, 512).
- 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.
- Where large textures are being forced by import to only 512x512, lower your ...> Preferences >...> UI Size under 1.0, to increase import size to the max 1024x1024.