How do I turn on friends only avatars, and can I still see titles/names?

[Rumancekk]

I'm trying to join a club but my computer and internet is not great. When there are many avatars in one place it just slows to a crawl and my computer starts getting very hot. I've heard that stopping peoples avatars from loading helps this but I can't find the option anywhere (I'm in Firestorm)

I'm also concerned that if I turn off their avatars I won't see when a new person comes in and I need to be able to greet them...

Is there something I can do?

[Lindal Kidd]

"Show friends only" is the very last item in the World menu.

A more versatile method is to go to Me/Preferences/Graphics and slide the Avatar Complexity slider to the left.  It's a tradeoff between performance, and seeing fewer people rendered as colored cutouts, or "jelly dolls".  I keep mine set at 350,000, but I have a pretty good graphics card (GeForce 980).  You can move yours to the left as far as necessary to keep your computer from getting too feverish.

There's a good video tutorial on Avatar Complexity here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxWrqd0o3dc

[Rumancekk]

2 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

"Show friends only" is the very last item in the World menu.

A more versatile method is to go to Me/Preferences/Graphics and slide the Avatar Complexity slider to the left.  It's a tradeoff between performance, and seeing fewer people rendered as colored cutouts, or "jelly dolls".  I keep mine set at 350,000, but I have a pretty good graphics card (GeForce 980).  You can move yours to the left as far as necessary to keep your computer from getting too feverish.

There's a good video tutorial on Avatar Complexity here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxWrqd0o3dc

the problem is I still need to be able to see my own avatar so I don't want to put it down that far.

It's not that high as of right now but I can't say what it will be like in the future.

[Lindal Kidd]

You will always see your own avatar rendered fully, regardless of where you put the Complexity slider.

[Rumancekk]

8 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

You will always see your own avatar rendered fully, regardless of where you put the Complexity slider.

oh, I didn't know that. Thanks! I'll try that then since I tried the other thing and all the names disappeared.

is tehre a way i can make it so my friends render all the way then and everyone else doesn't?

Edited November 18, 2019 by Rumancekk

[KT Kingsley]

There's "Always show friends normally" just above "Show Friends only" in that menu, and just above that is "Avatar Render Settings" which allows you to make a list of avatar names marked "Render Fully" and "Do Not Render".

[Nalates Urriah]

There is also a setting labeled 'Max # of non-imposter avatars'. You can set this limit lower to reduce the render load. You'll find this in Preferences->Graphics.

Experiment with it. See how avatars look and what your performance is like.

You can also play with Post Process Quality, Avatar Physics, and Hardware Skinning. Avatar Cloth should be off for performance sake.

Shadows are a considerable render load. You might disable those as every avatar adds to the shadow render load.

Really important is draw distance. Turn it down. In crowded places setting it to 32 or 64m may be the answer.

You can save a Graphics Preset and then play with your graphics setting all you want until you find the best combination for you. If you REALLY screw things up, just click the saved preset to restore things.