Graphics settings

[Nina842]

Hi all, I'm new here, and I have issues loading the graphics in Second Life. Here are the specs of my computer (They're above the minimum requirements):

Internet Connection: DSL

Operating System: Windows 7

Computer Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2430M CPU @ 2.40GHz 2.40GHz

Installed Memory (RAM): 4.00 GB

Graphics Card: Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000

 

I see a lot of gray areas that take time to load, slow movements of rides, some actions and animations are slow... Is it possible to change the settings to make it load quicker?

 

Here are some examples:

 

 

[Lewis Luminos]

If you are on wireless, don't. Get an ethernet cable and plug in to the router.

Go to speedtest.net, run a test (with all other apps and programs including SL closed) and check what your download speed is. Post the result here.

Log into SL, press ctrl-shift-1 to open the Statistics window.  Check your FPS, Packet Loss and Ping time. Post the results here.

The Intel graphics card may well be your problem. The published specs for SL are way out of date, I don't think they've been updated in years and SL needs a good dedicated graphics card to work properly.

 

[Dillon Levenque]

Nina, the Intel HD 3000 isn't really a separate graphics card, it's something integrated into the motherboard of your PC, and not even the latest and greatest of those. It is almost certainly your problem.

You can probably lower your graphics settings in the viewer as far as they'll go, reduce your draw distance to 64, and barely get by, but you really should try to find an NVIDIA graphics adapter and get it installed. If you're on a tight budget then buy something mid or low range. Even an outdated, not much better than middle-range adapter like mine will rain all over the Intel integrated in terms of SL usablility.

[Tari Landar]

Even turning your draw distance will probably help significantly. I'm not sure what you have it set at, but I doubt it needs to be as high as it is to be able to render that land waaay away from you.(I don't know if that land actually has stuff on it that's not rendered or not, but just to even see the land you likely have your dd higher than it needs to be)

I used to use only integrated graphics, and they were much lower end than what you have there(they weren't actually even minimal by the LL standards required for sl use, lol that should tell you how old they were). But they did an ok job for quite a while. Hubby got me a new graphics card and it was like night and day, but I still didn't turn my settings up too high. Even now, I have a much better pc and graphics card, though still not high end by any stretch of the imagination. I have much, much worse results when I crank my draw distance over 156. But I don't really have a need to go over 96 anyway, so I don't. When I'm building, I go with 32, lol. (depending on the build I should add). I enjoy sl quite well with that setting, and have few if any graphics issues or slow rez times, when I keep the draw distance at 96 or less. I just don't see much point in going any higher, I don't need to see that far ahead of me. Unless I'm doing photo work, in which case, I'll crank what's needed, get my shots, and crank back down(but I don't move while doing it, lol)

[Nina842]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I'll check what speed I get when I connect my computer to the router. With wireless connection I get download speed 27.10 Mbps in speedtest.net. The statistics:

 

 

Here are my current graphics settings:

 

I see that you suggested draw distance 64m. What else should I change?

Tari, what does it mean slow rez times?

[LoriLexa]

Hi Nina

These are the recommendations posted on the SL wiki page:

 

 

Graphics Settings

If you have a lower performance video card, the following settings will increase speed at the expense of quality. If you are getting good frame rates, you can set some of these higher:

Run Second Life in a window - Uncheck and select a lower resolution

Draw Distance - The single most important control that affects lag is how far from you the 3D world is visible. When this distance doubles, the amount of data that must be downloaded and displayed goes up 4-8 times (area or volume). So lowering this slider can make a big difference.

Shaders, Reflection Detail, Avatar Rendering: - All these checkboxes should be UNchecked.

Lighting Detail, Terrain Detail: - Set to Sun and Moon only, and Low, respectively.

Max Particle Count: - to 256

Mesh Detail: sliders all the way to the left

Hardware Options Button - Opens another window with more settings:

Filtering: - Leave unchecked

Antialiasing: - Disabled

Enable VBO and FBO: - On

Texture Memory (MB): - Normally set to same as your graphics card memory size

Fog Distance: -This option is enabled only when the "Basic Shaders" option on the previous dialog was checked. If the Basic Shaders option is unchecked, this Fog Distance will be determined by top menu World > Environment Settings > Environment Editor > Advanced Sky button > Distance Multiplier.

Texture Compression (also called 'lossy compression' in other viewers) - switching this setting can drastically change the graphical performance of the viewer. On slower graphics cards it can give a huge performance boost, as texture compression reduces the amount of video memory used by the graphics card. It can also reduce the performance on computers with some faster graphics cards, because the computer needs to do some extra calculations to compress the textures.

Here is the link to the entire page: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Lag

[Dillon Levenque]

I don't remember seeing all those suggestions in the same place before. Thanks! I'll copy/paste that.

Now and then I use my laptop and while it does have an NVidia adaptor it's more for 'business graphics', 2D. I run Singularity on that one and it's not too bad, but I bet I could get better fps and faster rez if I tweaked some of those settings.

[Perrie Juran]

Please note that those are not "Official Settings."

Rather those are settings recommended by some very knowledgeable users.

(You can click the 'history' tab to see who contributed to that article).

[Orca Flotta]

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Nina842 wrote:

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I'll check what speed I get when I connect my computer to the router. With wireless connection I get download speed 27.10 Mbps in speedtest.net. The statistics:

 

 

---

Ok, your download speed is more than just decent, it's very good. But now let's have a looksie at your stats:

fps 4.1 is inacceptable jerky, try to never get below 25, since this is traditionally the speed in movies.

bandwith 90kb. You see what became of your 27 MB? It all went to sheet. But no reason to panic, 90 kb is pretty good fro playing in SL.

0.00% packet loss: SUPER! Your wireless doesn't seem to hurt you much.

ping sim 432 ms: if that's your usual result it's not good. Means a ping of almost half a second!!! Major lag. Where are you located, on the dark side of the moon???

TD 0.978 shows us the sim you're in is not healthy. Optimum and only acceptable number is 1.0, everything lower means laaag.

Sim fps should be 45, but that's a minor problem.

 

All in all we see here a multitude of parameters having a negative effect or your experience ... BUT: the main culprit is your Intel 3000 onboard graphics. I hazard a guess: you're on a 300 $/€ laptop or a very weak office desktop or on some Apple lifestyle product. The only way to get a better experience would be to invest into better machinery.

[Bree Giffen]

The i5 is a great cpu. 4 GB should be adequate. It's just that graphics card. If you have a desktop computer, look into the specs and see if you can install a new video card.

[Perrie Juran]

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Orca Flotta wrote:

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Nina842 wrote:

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I'll check what speed I get when I connect my computer to the router. With wireless connection I get download speed 27.10 Mbps in speedtest.net. The statistics:

 

 

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TD 0.978 shows us the sim you're in is not healthy. Optimum and only acceptable number is 1.0, everything lower means laaag.

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Where do you get that?  That tiny minor fluctuation in Time Dilation is insignificant.

The slightest small event at the time the snap shot was taken could cause that.

Try this test.  Enable your statistics bar and watch what happens to TD when you change out fits.

Or watch what happens when someone TP's in or out.

It is an important number but you may be seriously misreading it.  Physics was off by about two hundreths of a percent.  It would need to both drop and stay lower than that to really constitute lag.

 

ETA:  I suggest you go read the Wiki because your interpretation of the Bandwidth was off also.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewerhelp:Statistics

[Kelli May]

Likewise, bandwidth can be incredibly variable. What is shown is only what you are using. Once all the nearby textures have loaded, it will usually drop down to a few tens of kbps. Case in point, as I write this I'm in a club with a dozen avs in view, averaging around 40kbps. My connection is actually running 17Mbps, and capable of around 20Mbps. If I went somewhere new, it'd jump to between 600-1500kbps until I'd cached all the local textures.

[Perrie Juran]

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Kelli May wrote:

Likewise, bandwidth can be incredibly variable. What is shown is only what you are using. Once all the nearby textures have loaded, it will usually drop down to a few tens of kbps. Case in point, as I write this I'm in a club with a dozen avs in view, averaging around 40kbps. My connection is actually running 17Mbps, and capable of around 20Mbps. If I went somewhere new, it'd jump to between 600-1500kbps until I'd cached all the local textures.

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To be accurate it is not 'how much you are using' but  'how much is being sent.'

Home alone if I just stand there doing nothing for a minute it will drop to under 5kbps.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

In addition to that, the 25 fps "because that's what they use in movies" is not very accurate either. In movies there's motion blur. In most 3d engines, including SL, there are static/sharp frames. In a single frame in a movie, the light from frame one to frame two is recorded, in a 3d game it's just frame one. So 25 fps in a game will look not nearly as smooth as 25 fps in a movie.

Also, the Time dilation being bad and the sim FPS not being important is not correct. Apart from 0.978 being good or bad, the sim fps and dilation are directly related.

The maximum fps is 45. 0.978*45=44, which is shown in the console.

____________________

The HD3000 is't part of the motherboard, but integrated into the CPU.

____________________

@OP

"Hardware skinning" lets your GPU take over some tasks from the CPU. Turning it off might help your framerate, as long as your CPU wasn't running at full power. I'm not 100% sure if it will make a difference, because your GPU is integrated into your CPU. It's worth a try though I guess. Don't expect fireworks, for that you really need a dedicated graphics card. If it fits your laptop and if your power supply is up to the job, I think a GTX560M will be a good match for your computer. Depending on your laptop, you might be able to pick one up second hand for well under $100.

It definitely won't help with your gray textures and ping times, those are probably caused by a slow connection. My ping times from Western Europe to the SL servers are about 150-200ms. From North America they should be under 100.

[Orca Flotta]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Where do you get that?  That tiny minor fluctuation in Time Dilation is insignificant.

No, absolutely not! I don't know what you do in SL, mine is rather active and depends on good fps and no lag. And I can tell you when you are racing boats, bikes, cars or anything like that, every drop under 1.0 is a very significant change to the worse and pretty much inacceptable. TD 0.99 is bad enough to turn water into super glue.

[Perrie Juran]

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Orca Flotta wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Where do you get that?  That tiny minor fluctuation in Time Dilation is insignificant.

No, absolutely not! I don't know what you do in SL, mine is rather active and depends on good fps and no lag. And I can tell you when you are racing boats, bikes, cars or anything like that, every drop under 1.0 is a very significant change to the worse and pretty much inacceptable. TD 0.99 is bad enough to turn water into super glue.

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Actually I have a very active SL.  I fly, I sail, I ride motorcycle, drive cars.

ETA, you concluded from one snapshot, taken in an instant of time, that the SIM was not healthy.

These little blips in the statistics are a constant as events occur in a SIM. 

[Qie Niangao]

I sense Confirmation Bias. 

Gee, my flying/sailing/driving is a little laggy, let me check sim statistics.
Lo, the sim is dilated all the way down to .98.
Ergo, non-1.0 dilation is laggy!

[Czari Zenovka]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

Nina, the Intel HD 3000 isn't really a separate graphics card, it's something integrated into the motherboard of your PC, and not even the latest and greatest of those. It is almost certainly your problem.

You can probably lower your graphics settings in the viewer as far as they'll go, reduce your draw distance to 64, and barely get by, but you really should try to find an NVIDIA graphics adapter and get it installed. If you're on a tight budget then buy something mid or low range. Even an outdated, not much better than middle-range adapter like mine will rain all over the Intel integrated in terms of SL usablility.

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I was just about to post that, based on my recent experience, I didn't think the integrated graphics was the entire issue but I just double-checked the integrated graphics on my MB and it is the Intel HD 4000 so it could be.  :matte-motes-bashful-cute:

With my integrated graphics I didn't see any gray areas as indicated in the OP's photos.  (OTOH, that was what a LOT of SL looked like to me before the new PC...lol.)  Movement was fluid, lag in even the busiest places was minimal if at all (of course sim lag can be caused by a number of factors), and I could turn my draw distance up very high and still not see the gray areas.  I was actually so happy with the online graphics (especially as compared to my previous PC) that I wondered what the main differences would be with my graphics card which, ummmmm...has been installed fairly recently.

For me, the differences I see thus far (haven't been in world that much since the graphics card was installed) are that I can now use high and ultra-high settings with all the bells & whistles and the fps is dramatically higher.

Since my internet speed is "OK" but not the best, one thing I have done with my former and current PCs is set the bandwidth in SL to around 1000; I think with the graphics card I bumped that up to maybe 1500, would have to go inworld and look.  Not sure if that affects graphics in SL at all but I suggested lowering bandwidth to a friend of mine who was crashing a lot awhile back and that worked for him so just thought I'd throw that out into the mix for the OP.

 

[Nina842]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I changed some of the graphics settings (Not everything appeared in my settings as the wiki page). These are the ones I have currently:

 

Here is another screenshot of the statistics, it has different values. The bandwidth keeps changing:

 

I still get images like that:

 

 

This is how I look like when I log in :matte-motes-impatient:

Everything takes time to load. Items in a picture are always suddenly appearing.

[Canoro Philipp]

disable the basic shaders.

when they are enabled, everything loads slower, you can tp to a region, disable them, wait for everything to load, and enable them again.

[Orca Flotta]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

I sense Confirmation Bias. 

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No, not at all what happened. I'd  still have no idea what TD  even means if not old salts would have stressed that part excessively as very important. TD 0.99 is bad enough to fok up your ride, so they told me. Maybe in 2014 it's less relevant than in 2007 but that's the credo I grew up with.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Orca Flotta wrote:

No, not at all what happened. I'd  still have no idea what TD  even means if not old salts would have stressed that part excessively as very important. TD 0.99 is bad enough to fok up your ride, so they told me.

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So your view on a TD of less than 1.000 being horrible is purely based on what someone said? I don't get the idea that you know what it means.

A simulator sends 45 updates per second to your viewer (or any other viewer connected to the sim). 45 updates per second translates into ~22.2 ms for every update (1/45). Every update includes network updates, physics updates, sim updates, agent updates, image updates and script updates (as shown in total frame time in the statistics window, ctrl-shift-1).

If one or more of these are very high, 22.2 ms might not be enough. Let's say there is so much going on that the sim needs 30 ms to send out all the information. 22.2/30=0.741, which is your time dilation, the sim fps will be 0.741*45=33.3.

So a TD of .99 means everything "goes" 1% slower than LL wants it to. They could have set the sim fps at 20, or 100. It's basically a gradual process, so anything lower than 1.000 indeed means you experience lag, but only because that's measured against a very arbitrary value of 45.

Now as I remember, this is how it used to be, something "special" is going on with the scripts. Maybe the change was made after 2007, although I think it was earlier. (Maybe I didn't hear about it until then and it was always like this)

Because scripts can easily push the frame time up, LL decided to throttle scripts if the sim fps is going to be under 45.0. So if all updates excluding scripts need 20ms and the scripts need 10ms, only your scripts will be affected. The simulator still allows all the updates excluding scripts to be sent every 22.2ms, but most of the scripts will skip an update. This can not affect your water.

It also means that if the sim fps go under 45.0, you will have terrible script performance. Maybe this is what you were told. I have a hard time believing you will notice any difference if you get your updates 1% later than normal. A TD of .99 means your updates take only 0.22ms or 0.00022 seconds longer than when everything is running as it should. A TD of .978 means everything takes 0.0005 seconds longer, again I don't think you'll notice this.

All the above is wide open to criticism, additions and corrections, I have been rightfully corrected on this subject in the past and hope I got it right this time