Not sure what this is ...

For a while now I have been dissatisfied by the rendering of sl generally. My settings were all as I want them, and had no reason to suppose that what I was seeing was not what I had asked for.

I was looking down on sl today through the customary gloomy fog, and checked my distance setting. It was 160, as usual. I clicked it to make sure, and suddenly the world sprang into life - colours became vibrant, and distant buildings appeared in sharp focus. But when I left the window, so the distant scenes faded out, and I went back to the gloom.

I wanted to ask whether this was a 'helpful' bit of self-adjustment the software was doing to keep my frame-rate up. In other words, is it a bug or a feature?

If it is a feature, is there any way to turn it off?

Thanks.

It's a feature.

There's a setting in the preferences (somewhere) which I think refers to the minimum framerate. Lower than that and it'll futz with the detail settings to try and raise it.

Set it to 1, or, if it works, 0?

This one really bugged me too until I figured it out. There is a setting that will automatically lower your draw distance if your FPS falls below the set number. I disabled mine by setting it to 0. Supposedly, its purpose is to give you better performance while your FPS is lowered. My FPS is usually low, but never enough to make it worth looking at crappy scenery.

It is in preferences under options, down towards the bottom, set to 0 the one that says, Drop Draw Distance if FPS <

Thanks Hawk and Loki.