Seeing into the distance

[CaptainJack Grauman]

When I am in SL, the land further than a set distance away disappears and appearsas sea. Can SL be set to display all land within eyesight of the member's camera? How would that affect speed and performance?

 

[Jennifer Boyle]

You can adjust the draw distance in the graphics settings.  As you make it larger, at some point you will probably see a decrease in performance.  I frequently adjust mine according to what I am doing and whether performance or seeing a long way is more important.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Draw distance will very much effect performance, particularly if you have a low to mid range computer.

I can set draw distance to the max even with ultra high graphic settings, if I want to.  However I rarely do that.  Why make the servers and my computer work harder than they have to rendering something I don't care about at the time?  In a club, I don't need to see much in the way of distance so set my draw distance low, particularly if it's crowded.  If I am flying or sailing I set it higher so I can see things coming way before I get to them.

You'll just have to experiment with yours.  Set it higher than it is now and see what kind of performance you get when there aren't many people around and also in a crowded setting.  Do it at sever draw distances and compare.  You soon find a range that works for you.

[Bobbie Faulds]

Unless you are taking pictures, you really only need to see what's within 120 meters or so. Further than that, you are forcing your graphics card to work harder than it needs to and the SL servers have to work harder to send you that info. In a club, I'll decrease it to 80 even.

That increased draw distance will slow down your computer. At 120 I generally get 60+ FPS. I increase it to the max and my FPS will drop below 10 because of the work to render the distance stuff. It even worse now than it was with the Project Interesting forcing the closer stuff to render first.

Even in RL, you don't need to see 1 mile down the road for everyday. The distance is grand when your looking at a photo op, like a skyline or scenery but when you movng down the highway...the immediate vicinity is what you concentrate on.

Just a few things to keep in mind.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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CaptainJack Grauman wrote:

When I am in SL, the land further than a set distance away disappears and appearsas sea. Can SL be set to display all land within eyesight of the member's camera? How would that affect speed and performance?

 

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The way the Second Life "planet" works, there is a layer of "water" covering everything that is drawn by the viewer automatically without needing input from the servers. This is called "void water." "Land" detail has to be sent from the servers so it won't be available until each new region enters your draw distance at least partially. If the "void water" wasn't there you'd just see a bizarre hard edge to the land with nothing beyond it.