Do you use Advanced Lighting

[Pamela Galli]

My new house looks much nicer with Advanced Lighting on. I know AL it can slow down lower-powered computers, so I try to make things look nice without it.  But with this house, a shame not to see it with AL on. 

However, I don't get the impression that a high percentage of users have it on. 

 

Do you have it on or off for normal use (not just photos)?  Say so here or use this survey (easier to collate data)  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PMNVTYR

 

BTW, Advanced Lighting is found in the Graphics tab of Edit.

 

I will post results, for those who care.

[Caitlin Tobias]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

My new house looks much nicer with Advanced Lighting on. I know AL it can slow down lower-powered computers, so I try to make things look nice without it.  But with this house, a shame not to see it with AL on. 

However, I don't get the impression that a high percentage of users have it on. 

 

Do you have it on or off?  Say so here or use this survey (easier to collate data)  

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PMNVTYR

 

I will post results, for those who care.

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All the time. I 'live' my SL by default in high or ultra graphics so AL is always enabled (without DoF, that is for pics only) and I love stuff - buildings and decor mostly, clothes can look weird -  that is made with materials!

 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Yes, I use advanced lighting all the time.  Everything looks more realistic, especially when materials are used.

[mikka Luik]

Sorry, I would have to say 'Yes' and 'No' - depending. If I am taking photos (or fine tuning a final build) then I run ultra, shadows, DoF, all of it with the caveat that its the only thing I am doing. Switching back and forth between external applications and the viewer when wip building/scripting/meshing/texture making or just going for a wander around or drive round the mainland or clubbing - I don't bother.

So to the survey I had to say that usually its no. Even though I use AL a fair bit.

[LlazarusLlong]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

 

Do you have it on or off?

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I haven't had it off for almost ten years now.

[Don't tell anyone, but I am not missing it one little bit.]

[Pamela Galli]

Yes, to clarify, I should have said "Do you use it ordinarily, not just for photos."

[Aethelwine]

Not sure what to answer. I am probably about 50/50. I turn it off for vehicles when I have my draw distance up above 250m and lag is an issue. I turn it on when I am taking photos. The rest of the time it will either be on or off depending on what I was doing before. I don't really notice a lot of difference, sometimes things seem to look worse with it on other times better.

[Tari Landar]

I never turn it on, except for photos. My regular Sl use is better served without it. That has a lot more to do with old sparky, my dinosaur of a pc, and the fact that I rarely do anything which would need to be enhanced with AL, lol.

I build, I wander the grid doing interesting and fun things(a great deal of which could easily bog my pc down, if I had AL on), I help new folks, and I work for charity events. That pretty much sums up my existance in sl, and I don't need AL to do any of that.

My first on again off again 5 years in sl (04-09) I had a reeeeeeeally old pc, onboard graphics, I'm surprised it met the requirements at all to be honest. I still loved sl, despite the fact that I had to keep every setting at the lowest, or at least very low, to avoid lag crashes. Then I got a graphics card....and my mind was blown. To be honest, I was impressed with the world the way I had always seen it, already, but that was a shocker to see water actually look like something other than a blue...thing(I can't even describe it, lol), better lighting, glow(curse and a blessing)...you get the picture. When that pc died finally, after having lived a very long, happy and successful life, I got a new pc. This one could handle things just fine, at least for a while, but I still had increased lag if I went above medium settings for too long. That's when I realized that even on low, this pc still processes the graphics better than my old one, so I stuck with it. That's what I continue to use now, unless I need AL or higher graphic settings turned on like for pics and such, I keep it off. 

I also tend to have numerous things open when I'm in sl. I work on my own studies, work on the curriculum for my kids, grade their work, and work on all of the side projects/apps/programs I am working on. Doesn't make much sense to keep graphics high or Al on in an environment I'm not putting total focus on. I multi-task well, my pc however, doesn't always like it when I do. He can be a tempermental lil fella when he wants.

[Syo Emerald]

I never turn it off.

Wouldn't use SL if I had to turn it off again.

I believe, if more people would use it, we would finally get rid of all this invisiprims and overly strong lights.

[Pamela Galli]

I always notice a big difference. My settings are on high, not ultra.

Here is a shot with and then without AL on (the latter on default windlight):

 

[Pamela Galli]

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Tari Landar wrote:

I never turn it on, except for photos. My regular Sl use is better served without it. That has a lot more to do with old sparky, my dinosaur of a pc, and the fact that I rarely do anything which would need to be enhanced with AL, lol.

I build, I wander the grid doing interesting and fun things(a great deal of which could easily bog my pc down, if I had AL on), I help new folks, and I work for charity events. That pretty much sums up my existance in sl, and I don't need AL to do any of that.

My first on again off again 5 years in sl (04-09) I had a reeeeeeeally old pc, onboard graphics, I'm surprised it met the requirements at all to be honest. I still loved sl, despite the fact that I had to keep every setting at the lowest, or at least very low, to avoid lag crashes. Then I got a graphics card....and my mind was blown. To be honest, I was impressed with the world the way I had always seen it, already, but that was a shocker to see water actually look like something other than a blue...thing(I can't even describe it, lol), better lighting, glow(curse and a blessing)...you get the picture. When that pc died finally, after having lived a very long, happy and successful life, I got a new pc. This one could handle things just fine, at least for a while, but I still had increased lag if I went above medium settings for too long. That's when I realized that even on low, this pc still processes the graphics better than my old one, so I stuck with it. That's what I continue to use now, unless I need AL or higher graphic settings turned on like for pics and such, I keep it off. 

I also tend to have numerous things open when I'm in sl. I work on my own studies, work on the curriculum for my kids, grade their work, and work on all of the side projects/apps/programs I am working on. Doesn't make much sense to keep graphics high or Al on in an environment I'm not putting total focus on. I multi-task well, my pc however, doesn't always like it when I do. He can be a tempermental lil fella when he wants.

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AL does make a big dent in FPS for me -- I just tested it with the shots I posted above, and with AL on my FPS is around 8, without, 20.  So I know a lot of people do not and cannot use it, except maybe for pictures.

I am thinking I need to make two versions of this house.

[Josephine Carissa]

Ms. Pam,

the answer is yes i do.....

i use firestorm and use, "Bree Appleblossom" lighting all the time : ) its bright and for me it makes everything and everybody look so nice.

Regards,

Josephine

[Anita61 Anatine]

I wish I could! But unfortunatly my laptop isn't up for it.

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

But with this house, a shame not to see it with AL on.

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As far as I'm concerned, it's a shame not to see anything in SL without AL enabled.  I understand those who haven't the graphic power in order to leave it perpetually turned on and know that SL can be just as fascinating without it.  But, the way I see it, I've been there, done that and now that I have the ability to see things with AL enabled, I never want to have to see them the way I use to have to.  So, yeah, I keep AL enabled all of the time.

...Dres

P.S.  I answered your survey and take issue with the quality of your ill-informed, badly stated line of questioning.  Perhaps you're too ignorant to understand that... Oh wait, I think I've confused you with one of those imbeciles who've established surveys here wherein they ask us to reveal personal, albeit, statistical information and/or are too damn ignorant of the culture of SL in order to know how to ask the right questions.  You know what I mean... the lazy b!tches.

In other words, never mind.

[Conifer Dada]

I use advanced lighting for most snapshots and I occasionally use it when exploring to get a better feel for a place.  But it slows down my frame rate so much that I leave it off for day-to-day activities.  Perhaps if I get a new computer I might be bale to use it a lot more.

[Whirly Fizzle]

Since I got my new PC, I always have ALM enabled. The only time I disable it is for checking if rendering bugs reproduce with ALM disabled.

I generally keep shadows disabled for everyday use - not really for performance reasons, my PC handles shadows well at the default shadow settings.

I don't personally find shadows very pretty - they are mottly, flicker often & are low resolution. Cranking up some of the shadow debug settings does vastly improve this but doing so really does impact on performance - nice for photos though.

 

Before I got my new PC I would generally keep ALM disabled because it was too much of a performance killer for everyday use.

[Kelli May]

I use Advanced Lighting, but usually I have shadows switched off. That gives me most of the benefits but reduces the GPU load on my not-so-impressive PC. Shadows, DoF and some of the higher settings get used for photography. 

[arton Rotaru]

Since the introduction of materials everything I build uses normal and specular maps. So I have it always on indeed.

With Shadows, SSAO, DOF off.

[Paul Hexem]

Always on.

Shadows I turn off when I'm using vehicles, to gain some FPS.

[Pamela Galli]

Oh Kelli, good suggestion -- I tried the same scene as my previous tests and AL without shadows is around 20 FPS -- the same as no AL. So the hit is really coming from shadows.  

I used a darker texture on the floors below, showing AL without shadows.  The AL with shadows has a darker floor, and the no AL or shadows has a lighter floor.  

 

With AL on, no shadows:

 

[irihapeti]

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Pamela Galli wrote:

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I am thinking I need to make two versions of this house.

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is a good solution this I think. Lots extra work tho but will be good for each of your customers to fit better with what they have

+

i have ALS on all the time

eta: Shadows on as well. Is a performance hit for sure. but

i came from a laptop where I always had like less than 20 FPS with just about everything turned off or way down to low. So when I get my desktop (GTX 660) then have ALS and shadows on as well all the time, the FPS performance is still better than what I had before

so when I think of better then is relative better to what I had before

[Pamela Galli]

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irihapeti wrote:

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Pamela Galli wrote:

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I am thinking I need to make two versions of this house.

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is a good solution this I think. Lots extra work tho but will be good for each of your customers to fit better with what they have

+

i have ALS on all the time

eta: Shadows on as well. Is a performance hit for sure. but

i came from a laptop where I always had like less than 20 FPS with just about everything turned off or way down to low. So when I get my desktop (GTX 660) then have ALS and shadows on as well all the time, the FPS performance is still better than what I had before

so when I think of better then is relative better to what I had before

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It's not that much work -- mostly I just need to make things that are too bright, darker. But I think what I will do instead is put information in the promotional materials advocating turning AL on, and disabling shadows if it creates lag.

[Coby Foden]

Yes, I have Advanced Lighting always on. Things look so much nicer with it on.

Most of the time I have shadows on too, those add a lot of realism to the scene. Like walking in a forest, shadows, sunshine, it's pretty cool.

[Doug Falta]

I use it all the time when I'm on a computer that runs well with it.

The only thing that bothers me about using it all the time is when content has pre-baked shadows. It's weird when there are shadows going in two different directions.

[SaraCarena]

Have ALM on most of the time and yep shadows are a big fps hit. I tend to leave windlight to region settings, some look really awful with ALM on and better with it off (is that just me?)

Some places look really pretty with ALM on or off, what I hate is the inconsistency and having to constantly mess with graphics to make things easy on the eye.