Region

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Revision as of 06:20, 2 January 2009 by Smiley Barry (talk | contribs) (Added some non-technical information about Homestead regions.)
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A named 256m x 256m (65,536 m²) area hosted by a single simulator process (sim). In common usage, the term "simulator" or "sim" may also refer to a region, but in fact a single sim process can host mulitple regions.

There are currently two types of regions: Normal and Void (also known as Openspace). There are two normal regions per server host CPU or four void regions per server host CPU. Void regions support fewer prims and users<sup class="TablePager_nav" style="font-size:75%;" id="fn_1" title="SL Knowledge Base: Information about Openspaces (Void Regions)">[1]. A third kind of regions, the so called Homestead, will be available from January 5th 2009.

For more information about server hosts, see the Second Life blog.

Effects on Scripting

Scripts can detect the current region, and detect region changes, but these factors are normally separate from region coordinates. There is a delay associated with an object moving from one region to another, because the object and its script's states are serialized, sent to the new region, and then deserialized.

Homestead

Homesteads are "light-use" regions evolved from the original OpenSpace simulators, mainly intended for uses which do not require a full simulator's power, yet require the space. Some residents believe the name Homestead was chosen for the purpose as it usually means a large but not huge space used for self-sustainable living.[2]

Footnotes

  1. ^ SL Knowledge Base: Information about Openspaces (Void Regions)
  2. ^ "Wikipedia logo"Definition retrieved from Wikipedia and several known dictionaries.