User:Torley Linden/Debug Settings

These are some of my fave Debug Settings...

How do I get to Debug Settings?

Open the Client menu (Ctrl-Alt-D, or Opt-Ctrl-D on a Mac) > Debug Settings. (On systems where those shortcuts conflict with other applications, you will need to press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-D on Windows and Linux or Cmd-Opt-Shift-D on Mac.) The Client menu is not meant to be user-facing, and is loaded with diagnostic utilities and other intricacies to be used by our developers. However, amongst them are many features useful to Residents in general, so be cautious and be aware as you explore. These "hidden goodies" aren't formally supported, so by being in here, you're doing things at your own risk.

Then, with Debug Settings open, start typing a setting and have it autocomplete, or select it from the long list. Each setting is accompanied by a brief description of what it does, so you're not totally on your own when it comes to documentation.

Torley's faves

• AutoLogin - Set this to TRUE to skip the login screen and automatically login using the last-entered username & password. Good for convenience, easier than using the shortcut command-line method (and if you don't know what that is, all the more reason to try this out). For privacy reasons, you generally will not want to use this on a shared computer.

• DoubleClickAutoPilot - Some of you may find it useful for navigation. Set it to TRUE, then anywhere you double-click (with the left mouse button) inworld, you'll automatically walk, run, or fly towards. Our autopilot is kind of flakey, so don't be surprised if this doesn't always work and you get an "Autopilot canceled" message. Nevertheless, a fun novelty.

• MaxDragDistance and MaxSelectDistance - Ever make mistakes by dragging or selecting an object too far away and wished you could limit those ranges? These are the controls to do it.

• MouseSmooth - Somewhat self-explanatory, enabling it makes for smoother mouse motion in mouselook. This helps you have a more immersive experience while exploring in 1st-person view. Also available via Client menu > Mouse Smoothing.

• NotifyBoxColor and GroupNotifyBoxColor - Not in love with the blue shade of popup dialogs? You can click the Color swatch for this debug setting to change it. Lowering the Alpha value will make the boxes transparent. Try solid green (RGB of 0, 255, 0) with Alpha = 128 for a sci-fi tinge. And since these are separate values, you can make generic popup dialogs and group Notices different colors!

• NumSessions - How many times have you successfully logged into Second Life? A fun piece of trivia. (This gets reset if you reinstall Second Life and delete your settings file.)

• PieMenuLineWidth - Set it to around "10" for kicks; it'll make the pie menu look like a TIE fighter's front.

• PinTalkViewOpen - Don't like to get into long Instant Message sessions? Ever want to make it so pressing Enter in an IM window automatically closes it and focuses on the inworld chat bar (if it's open). This is the setting for you! Note: this doesn't work quite right on detached IM tabs.

• PlayTypingAnim - Ever want to disable that typing animation and sound that plays every time you start text-chatting? Setting this to FALSE is your answer. Very, very useful — watch the Video Tutorial!

• PrecachingDelay - On a fast network connection? Want to speed up your login time by about 6 seconds? Set this to 0, and it'll show the world sooner; you'll notice the "Precaching..." message will no longer appear on the login progress bar. The downside is you'll see more gray textures and missing attachments upon login, but those would load anyway if you waited around.

• RenderDynamicReflections - Ever wanted to see "real mirrors" in Second Life? This will make shiny objects reflect their environment. Be careful, this is an unsupported graphics feature that will crash some systems, and not work as expected on others. It personally doesn't work well for me.

• RenderFarClip - Instead of using Preferences, this can set your draw distance. What's the advantage? You can make it very near or very far (like 2048 m!). Keep in mind long distances will cause a significant performance drop.

• RenderGlow - "Makes light sources glow." Good for lightsabers, plasma weapons, and other ethereal effects. This will be a standard and supported build parameter as of the WindLight viewer.

• RotationStep - One use of this is adding a "secondary rotation snap-to" in the inner circle of when you rotate an object, which is normally a "free" rotate that isn't constrained. Set this to 5.650 if you want rotations to always be limited to the default snap-to without having to move your mouse to the outer circle with guide lines, or make it a bigger number like 45 degrees to help with "building by numbers". I haven't found this that useful, but it's good to keep in mind.

• UISndObjectCreate - Frustrated by the bass-rumbling ROWWWWL that plays when you rez a prim? Just blank this field and future object creation will be pleasantly silent.

• ZoomTime - This has some cinematic usages good for filming machinima with. Set it to 10 seconds, then try to Alt-zoom around. Or go into Mouselook. Higher numbers will make the camera behavior smoother, lower numbers will make it more responsive.

First Look: WindLight viewer only

These will be available as part of the "main viewer" in the future. Until then:

• RenderDynamicLOD - Stuff retains its detail when you zoom out. Terrain will be as smooth as it is when viewed up-close. This comes at a performance cost, tho, and I've noticed weirdness with stuff staying stuck at lower Levels of Draw.

• RenderUseFarClip - Slows performance but lets you see further away with the same draw distance. Excellent to toggle on while making richly-detailed shots.

Needs More Info

• ThrottleBandwidthKPBS - At first, this looks like a way for Second Life to use more bandwidth if you're on a great connection, a so-called "fat pipe", but SL doesn't use most of my bandwidth to begin with if I'm at lower settings like the default max of 1500 Kbps.

When logged in to Second Life other programs like Web-Browser slow-down awfully

You probably barely accomplish minimum CPU requirements for running Second Life. So your CPU always runs with 100% load, which will slow down most other active programs significantly.

You can try to run Second Life at lower priority, provided all other programs running concurrently aren't CPU burners. To do that, right click the Second Life icon on your desktop that you use for starting the SL viewer. From the popup menu select "Properties". Now change the entry "Target" as follows:

cmd /c start "Second Life" /belownormal "C:\Program files\Second Live\SL.EXE"

Be sure to change the path information C:\Program files\Second Live\ of this example to your own settings, in case it differs. Then store this change by pushing the "OK" button. When you now start up Second Life, it will run at lower prirority, thus leaving more CPU-cycles for the others to have them run faster. To prevent this change from being overwritten next time you install a new version of the Second Life viewer, rename it i. e. to "My Second Life".