Active Worlds is a bit unique from all the other virtual worlds running out there in the metaverse. It will run on a modem and even on some smart phones, so I am told. It should be no surprise to anyone using VR that there is an awful lot of data needed to make it all happen. Things like objects, textures, avatars, and special effect scripts. How does AW make the fun happen without a huge streaming requirement as in Second Life?
It's all in the cache. Second Life streams everything. If you have broadband but share bandwidth in your neighborhood you will find that SL slows or even crashes in the afternoon when the teens get home. AW does not stream. It downloads everything to your computer and all of the objects, textures and other technical fiddly bits go into your cache folder filed in the world folder where it occurs. The only communications that occurs with the AW server and your browser is updates, chat, avatar data and such. Compared to SL the bandwidth requirement is so restricted that AW will practically run over a string and Dixie cup.
Clearing Bloated Cache
Sometimes the cache gets a bit bloated: remember all that stuff is taking up space on your hard drive. House keeping is in order and this is how to do it.
Push the F3 key which opens the Show Downloads popup window then right mouse click and choose Empty Local Cache. That will clean the cache for the world you are in. Don't panic when everything vanishes… you erased everything. Pause and let it all come back.
The only down side to the cache render is the bandwidth but not for streaming reasons. If you are on a modem the wait for the reload may be time consuming. With a full cache your AW experience is close to equal that of the broadband user as long as you don't move about different worlds because each requires a download to fill the cache.
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