Making Second Life run faster

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Revision as of 12:52, 29 July 2011 by Rand Linden (talk | contribs) (Text replace - 'Category:Inworld' to '')
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If you're using Second Life from an older computer, you may find yourself dissatisfied with your viewer's frame rate. Here are a few quick tips to try to boost Second Life's performance on slower computers:

  1. Try turning down your graphics settings from Edit > Preferences > Graphics tab. For best over all graphics improvement reduce the draw distance too 120 meters or less. In addition, try checking Avatar Impostors and sliding the Avatar Mesh slider to its minimum setting. This will make it a lot easier for Second Life to draw avatars around you, at the cost of some visual quality. Under Hardware Options be sure to turn off both Anisotroping Filtering and Antialiasing.
  2. Try turning off "classic clouds" in your Advanced Sky Editor. Classic clouds can detract from your performance in some cases.
    • You can get to the Advanced Sky Editor by selecting World > Environment Settings > Environment Editor
    • Then press the Advanced Sky button in the Environment Editor window.
    • In Advanced Sky Settings, choose the Clouds tab, then uncheck the Classic Clouds check box.
  3. Try turning off Particles by selecting View > Beacons > Hide Particles. A large number of particles on your screen can significantly slow down your Second Life experience.
  4. Try disabling View > Property Lines and View > Land Owners. These features use rendering power that could otherwise be used to help the Second Life viewer run more smoothly.
  5. Disable all unused features in preferences. We each use Second Life a little differently. If you seldom listen to music, disable it. If you never use voice, turn it off. Not big on chatting? Disable the typing animation. Even minor items disabled can add up to improvements in performance. Some suggestions might be to disable: Name Tags, Arrow Keys Always Move Me, Move Avatar Lips When Speaking. Disable mini map rotation in the advanced debug settings.
  6. Auto playing music and media can be very demanding on some PC equipment use manual play instead. Media can be disabled all together if desired.
  7. Maintain your computer. In windows OSs routinely remove unwanted files and programs from the system and the browser. Do defragmentations and check disk (disk checks) on a regular schedule. Use anti-Malware software to remove all forms of malware. Reduce the graphics settings within your system. For other suggestions see this link 5 ways to speed up your PC