Viewerhelp:2.7.1/Preferences - Graphics

Note: This article has been edited since it was returned from translation. REQUIRES RE-TRANSLATION.

Controls the settings and quality of the Viewer's graphics.

Quality and speed

Choose among four preset graphics levels, with increasing level of detail and more computer power needed: Low, Mid, High, and Ultra. For High and Ultra, you need a computer that meets or exceeds the System Requirements.

Apply

Apply UI size settings. Other graphics settings preview live as you change them.

Reset

Reverts to the recommended preset, based on what Second Life detects your graphics card to be, on the Quality and speed slider.

Advanced

Shows Advanced graphics settings (see below).

Hardware

Shows the Hardware Settings window.

Advanced graphics settings

Shaders - Enables or disables various types of pixel shaders

Transparent Water

Whether water reflections appear.

Bump mapping and shiny

Depth and shine effects which are found on various inworld creations.

Local Lights

TBD

Basic shaders

Provides more depth and realism.

Atmospheric shaders

Realistic sky and water appearance. Basic shaders must be on for this to be enabled.

When Atmospheric shaders is checked, and your systems supports it, the following options are available:

Lighting and Shadows

TBD

Ambient Occlusion

TBD

Depth of Field

TBD

Shadows

Select the type of shadows to display.

Water Reflections

Sets the types of elements that water reflects. When set to Everything, this is a particularly taxing feature and requires a fast graphics card to use effectively.

Avatar Physics

Controls the frequency of display updates for enhanced avatar physics: To make avatar physics movement smooth, move the slider to a high setting. To make avatar physics less taxing for your computer, move the slider to a lower setting. Avatar physics movement will be less smooth, and you will not see avatar physics movement of avatars who are far away. To turn off avatar physics, move the slider to the lowest setting.

Draw Distance

Affects how far out from your viewpoint objects are rendered in the scene. Increasing this can substantially slow down your performance in dense areas, so experiment to find the right balance.

Max Particle Count

Sets the maximum number of particles you're able to see at once.

Max # of non-impostor avatars

Sets the maximum number of avatars that are displayed in 3D instead of 2D. Decreasing this number can increase performance, but can also make more avatars around you look less realistic.

Post process quality

Sets the resolution with which glow effects are rendered, which tends to be a minimal difference

Mesh detail - Sets the amount of detail used in rendering certain elements. A higher value takes longer to render, but provides more detail.

Objects

More detail is especially noticeable with curved objects which require many triangles to render like "sculpties" (sculpted prims), spheres, and wheels.

Flexiprims

Controls the smooth motion of flexible primitive objects, as commonly used in avatar hair, skirts, capes, and so on. More noticeable when there are many flexiprims onscreen.

Trees

Affects the detail of Linden "system" trees, not to be confused with Resident-trees made using objects.

Avatars

In addition to rendering avatars more realistically, this also sets the distance at which avatars become Avatar impostors. Lower this to make them become impostors nearer, which looks worse but results in faster performance.

Terrain

Increasing this makes the ground mesh look more organic and curvy.

Sky

Only changes the sky's detail when Atmospheric shaders is on. Lower settings can make the sun and cloud formations look blocky.

Avatar Rendering

Avatar impostors

Renders distant avatars cheaply, often resulting in substantial performance gains in large crowds. Unless you dislike the way it looks or have other problems, leave it on.

Hardware skinning

Provides a slight performance boost. This is incompatible with some hardware, so if if it's not already grayed out yet avatars appear jagged or deformed, try turning this off.

Avatar cloth

Makes your avatar mesh clothing ripple in the wind. Not available on all hardware, notably Mac OS.

Terrain detail

High is possible on supported systems, Low makes the ground look fuzzy but renders faster.