How to reduce draw distance ?

[cunomar]

Hello this is my first post here as i found the forum while looking for an external graphics card .

I'm quite new to Sl and it does work on my 4GB Win7 32 bit 5 series intel graphics laptop (panasonic CF-52) it is very unstable , crashing out - freezing - text goes blurred and unreadable and a very low frame rate if there's a bunch of people dancing .

An external cooling fan now ensures heat is not a problem .

Firestorm is unusable so i went for SL's own viewer (yet i can't uninstall firestorm because it wants to take the sl viewer with it ?) and having tried Catznip the sl viewer is better .

I have upgraded to fibre broadband but must wait a week for installation but do hope for an improvement overall .

In the mean time i have been repeatedly told by others users while wandering the world that my 64m draw distance is killing my experience , one girl said she uses 10m and another 12.

I can't move the slider any lower and so i believe i must alter something in the debug menu . I would be very grateful if someone could offer me a dummies guide to doing this please . 

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Double post.

[cunomar]

The thing is it works fine except when things get crowded , i could fly around the world seeing everything all day without a glitch . I paid £400 for this recon laptop not long ago because i do not want win10 .

No glitch in intimate moments , or in a room chatting with say 5 people either .

Edited July 16, 2017 by cunomar

[Lillith Hapmouche]

400?! Congrats, you made someone very lucky. Unfortunately, it wasn't you and your needs...
Figuratively speaking, you bought a tank, when you needed a nice little city car to go shopping.

Even if you wanted to avoid Win10, there was absolutely no need to buy 10 years old hardware.

Edited July 16, 2017 by Lillith Hapmouche

[cunomar]

Thanks Lillith very helpful . I guess you don't know how to reduce draw distance then .

[Chic Aeon]

 I suggest that since you have an older machine that you try a third party viewer with the old (very old) interface. Lots of people like that better. It is based on 1.23 technology. Some of those viewers have included the new Bento code, others not so you will probably want to check that. The viewers based on that 1.23 technology are MUCH easier on older systems. 

 

In Firestorm (which you can't use) you can lower the draw distance to 32 in the preference slider which you apparently found. I doubt it can go much lower.  Ask the folks that wanted you to lower it from 64 since they should know how. With an old machine though, you will be very limited. You can also turn up your jellydoll setting (move the slider lower). That is the MAXIMUM COMPLEXITY setting.  That may help.

 

[Lillith Hapmouche]

1 hour ago, cunomar said:

 I guess you don't know how to reduce draw distance then .

OK, since you're so kind to focus on selective reading, I happily went and edited my original post, which did name the option in the last paragraph. I guess you can happily google it on your own then.

[Claireschen Hesten]

6 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

In Firestorm (which you can't use) you can lower the draw distance to 32 in the preference slider which you apparently found. I doubt it can go much lower.  

If you want a lower Draw Distance than 32 in FS say 17 typing dd 17 in Local chat will make your draw distance 17m

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, Claireschen Hesten said:

If you want a lower Draw Distance than 32 in FS say 17 typing dd 17 in Local chat will make your draw distance 17m

"I" don't LOL and the OP can't use Firestorm, but someone else might "possibly == POSSIBLY?" want to do that (so funny). I usually run between 128 and 400 depending on what I am working on :D.  

THANKS THOUGH!!!!  

[Klytyna]

9 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

It is based on 1.23 technology. Some of those viewers have included the new Bento code, others not so you will probably want to check that.

The rotting reanimated viewer 1 corpse that most often claims to support Bento is a 64 bit alpha release, and thus, completely useless on an ancient 32 bit laptop, with a 4 gb 32 bit machine like that, he'd be better off running catznip than Frankenviewer, assuming his main problem with catznip is failingto correct the 'default' settings downwards for his machine.

 

Edited July 17, 2017 by Klytyna

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

7 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

"I" don't LOL and the OP can't use Firestorm, but someone else might "possibly == POSSIBLY?" want to do that (so funny). I usually run between 128 and 400 depending on what I am working on :D.  

THANKS THOUGH!!!!  

Was Claireschen offering you advice or supplementing the information you provided? I thought it was the latter, but then I do use low draw distances regularly (cause IMO why make it work harder than it needs to) so I appreciated learning about that trick. I don't use FS much but will for close-up local texture work.

Anyway, thanks Claireschen.

[cunomar]

Will this do ?

https://www.tesco.com/direct/hp-15-ax200na-omen-156-intel-i7-7700hq-8gb-ddr4-ram-256gb-ssd-gtx-1050-full-hd-shadow-mesh-gaming-laptop/152-6599.prd?skuId=152-6599&pageLevel=sku&sc_cmp=ppc*PX+-+DNF+Electrical*PX+-+Shopping+GSC+-+Generic+-+Computing*PRODUCT+GROUP152-6599*&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwbT_0v-a1QIV1grTCh3MwQ9AEAQYAyABEgK7uPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&source=others

[Alwin Alcott]

1 hour ago, cunomar said:

Will this do ?

https://www.tesco.com/direct/hp-15-ax200na-omen-156-intel-i7-7700hq-8gb-ddr4-ram-256gb-ssd-gtx-1050-full-hd-shadow-mesh-gaming-laptop/152-6599.prd?skuId=152-6599&pageLevel=sku&sc_cmp=ppc*PX+-+DNF+Electrical*PX+-+Shopping+GSC+-+Generic+-+Computing*PRODUCT+GROUP152-6599*&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwbT_0v-a1QIV1grTCh3MwQ9AEAQYAyABEgK7uPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&source=others

what has this to do with the subject  "How to reduce draw distance ?"   ?

 

[cunomar]

OK forgive me for not being an expert , I first turned on a computer aged 30+ between 10 and 15 years ago and before finding second life on which i have maybe 40 hours experience max i used it for email and maybe browsing ebay and the like . But i will try to add something useful to this thread for the next person who might have a similar problem .

Firstly i uninstalled all SL viewers and downloaded firestorm again and this improved things on my ancient obsolete laptop giving me a fps of 10.5 (this is shown top right corner of your viewer) .But if the room i was in got busy or i started to wander around the fps (frames per second) would drop and eventually crash . 

Type and post "dd 32" in nearby chat does indeed work - if your firestorm has installed correctly , mine hadn't .

Alternatively , and i'm trying to remember as i type this so it may not be 100% accurate , click the avatar icon show top right of your viewer and select preferences from the drop down menu , select advanced and ironically you will find a box in with the other stuff that you must tick "show advanced menu" . This will show nothing but click ok and exit the preferences menu .

An advanced tab is now shown along the top line of your screen (if you haven't got the show full screen tab ticked in preferences as i did) . Your looking for the debug menu and when you have it open type renderfarclip ,open the result and you can type whatever distance you choose in the box .

My laptop would suffice for SL if i only wanted to stand around chatting but because i want more i have searched for a reasonably priced laptop which has both intel i7 and gtx 10 series spec as do most of the high end silly money gaming laptops i have looked at , so i will blindly hope it will it improves my experience in sl .

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

Don't mind Alwin. He can be a dear. Or a grump. Usually a grump.

Probably didn't notice that it was the same person posting both.

The laptop you posted should be fine but see if you can't find one with similar specs for less money. As for draw distance - I change mine frequently, starting low and then moving up until I can see however much is needed for the environment. Indoors that's usually very low, will go up outdoors. A better computer and a better internet connection will help greatly, but IMO it's still worth paying some attention to what you're asking it to do.

[lonewolf038]

well after reducing draw distance ….will it reset on its own or I have to do it manually ?

 

[Claireschen Hesten]

1 hour ago, lonewolf038 said:

well after reducing draw distance ….will it reset on its own or I have to do it manually ?

 

If you've set a draw distance it won't change unless you change it

[cykarushb]

4 hours ago, lonewolf038 said:

well after reducing draw distance ….will it reset on its own or I have to do it manually ?

 

why do people keep necrobumping year old threads

where do you even find these

[Fionalein]

3 minutes ago, cykarushb said:

why do people keep necrobumping year old threads

where do you even find these

google search

and well draw distances are saved in your graphics presets, I have different Graphics presets for different purposes... piloting is one example were I prefer high distances at the sacrifice of seeing some overdetailed avatars.

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, cykarushb said:

why do people keep necrobumping year old threads

where do you even find these

Sometimes a forum search, often a google search, and they just don't bother to look at the date.

[lonewolf038]

On ‎8‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 12:48 AM, Fionalein said:

google search

and well draw distances are saved in your graphics presets, I have different Graphics presets for different purposes... piloting is one example were I prefer high distances at the sacrifice of seeing some overdetailed avatars.

thanks