Anybody else having these video problems (potential fix included!)

Hello

I just started playing last Friday, and I noticed that everywhere I went where there was a lot of people, my framerate took a nosedive. I've got a heavily overclocked Athlon XP 2600+ and a 6800 GT which can eat up Doom 3 for breakfast, so this didnt make sense to me.

So last night I went where a lot of people were, and I turned every individual graphical setting on and off, to try and find which one (if any) was the culprit. Well after many restarts, I came to the conclusion that its the "Local Lighting" setting (NOTE: I think thats the name, I dont have the game in front of me, but I think thats right) Anyway, now I get the same framerate around tons of people that I did around nobody before, and around nobody, the game is silky smooth. I'm a framerate junkie, and I didn't notice any difference with the local lighting on or off, so I'm just keeping it off. Just curious if this lighting is a common source of framerate problems, or if there is an known issue with the new nVidia cards, perhaps someone knows a fix?

Also, when uploading images, the "test viewer" that shows you what the image looks like on an avatar model was all messed up, it would be very dark on over 50% of the model. I found that turning off the "ripple water" feature set that straight, I thought that was kind of a weird reason for the model to not look right, anyone else have that problem? I wish I figured it out before spending a whole bunch of extra money on test uploads, since I couldn't see them, only to find they needed fixing

-Jim

OH!! Great to know about Jim. I have a 6800 card arriving today and will now not have to muck with those settings and know to turn local lighting off. Saved me much fiddling time and can't wait to see how Doom3 is going to look!

Trisha

Yes - local lighting is always a big framerate hit no matter what card you have. When you turn it off it does decrease the visual dynamics of the world though. Basically with it off you only have one light source, the global "world" light source. With local lighting on, individual objects can emit light and cast it on avatars and other objects. In many places you might not notice this effect but when lights are composed well the effect can be stunning. So you will miss out a bit with local lighting off, but I know that many people keep it off because of the framerate issue (myself included). I only turn it on when I'm taking snapshots and want full control over lighting, or when I'm visiting something that is designed to be seen that way.

Doom3? Bleah. Pretty graphics, watered down Doom gameplay. Doom was all about t3h h0rd3z of demons coming at you, and massive firepower to wipe them out, not namby pamby onesees and twosees playing "run at the guy, now duck-shoot-duck-shoot-duck-shoot". Stupid game. Glad I didn't buy it, or waste the time finishing it.

HL2 is going to SO stomp Doom3.

Anywho, yeah, I keep local lighting on no matter what, and just refrain from large groups.

Can't wait till LL revamps the graphics engine.

I am in the market for a laptop. I am going to truck driveing school and will be on the road alot. Luckily a lot of truck stops have broadband access. However I want to know which laptop chip sets work best with SL. I love local lighting since i have all ati equiptment i have it off. Performance is terrible with it on. My question is basicly are there any laptop graphics chip sets that dont take a major performance dip with local lighting on and look good with second life? Maybe this is a seperate thread...