Adjusting settings--generic

[VRprofessor]

For the first time since I started in SL I am going to have some time to fiddle with graphics settings beyond switching between low, medium, high, and ultra. 

For many of the graphics settings I am not sure what they do or how much of an impact they have on performance or subjective experience. 

Any suggestions on where I can start learning about the impact of various settings? 

Any personal thoughts?

[Innula Zenovka]

From the point of view of performance, I've always found the tips here very sound.  And even though it's an old article, in my experience the advice on disabling Antialiasing in the viewer and, instead, telling your graphics card to do it, is increasingly important.   Simply turning it off in the viewer and telling my Nvidia card to apply Antialsing x 4 when it's running SL pretty much doubles my fps in ultra in the more recent viewers.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Hello, Professor.

The very first thing you could do is to click on the ? at the top right of the graphics tab. This sounds very simple and almost silly, but actually reading those descriptions does help to get an understanding of what the various terms mean and a starting point reference as to what they are supposed to do.

My second piece of advice would be to click the hardware button in your graphics tab, and read that ?. Those settings are going to determine to a great degree your visual and performance experience.

Third, I would suggest turning your setting all the way up to ultra and immediately unchecking the last 3 options under shaders. If your system can handle that, great, if not, turn down your draw distance considerably.

Use those settings as a reference point. If you need more performance, start sacrificing some unnecessary graphics options by turning down from ultra to high and repeat.  

[sodasullivan]

I just want to reaffrim the above post. Usingthe Nvida setting  when applicable really can help. 

[Tara Chester]

Maybe this can help:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Preferences_window#Graphics_tab

http://blog.nalates.net/2010/12/17/graphics-tweaking-for-second-life/

But basicaly, in my experience, adjusting draw distance, turning on/off antialising, shaders, and shadows makes a lot of difference. Everything else not so much.

[VRprofessor]

I want to thank everyone for the suggestions.

The time to play is still a couple of days away, even though the computer is right here in front of me. Very frustrating having to wait, but now I have pages to open and suggestions to try once I have some time.

How are folks getting those hardware reports I see pasted into various threads?  Not sure anyone will care about what I find, but since I asked for help it seems only fair to report back.   Figure I should include the hardware info as part of my report.

 

Thanks again,

VR

[Innula Zenovka]

---

VRprofessor wrote:

How are folks getting those hardware reports I see pasted into various threads?  Not sure anyone will care about what I find, but since I asked for help it seems only fair to report back.   Figure I should include the hardware info as part of my report.

---

 

Help=>About in the viewer gives you the sim and hardware details.  

[Nalates Urriah]

Add the system information and performance from before your tweaks and after your tweeks to How Fast is Your Viewer? - Second Life.

It seems duel core CPU's are much slower running SL than quad core CPU's.