Computer Illiterate.

OK....deep breath.....I'm not comp savvy at all. I can just about get by with the usual stuff....and I know how to update my virus check, keep firewalls in place, apply patches etc.
BUT......
Ive just upgraded (ok...my husband has KINDLY upgraded) my comp....and I realise that I'm at a loss as to what are the best options to set in the preferences section. Sure...some are evident......bump...local light...all look much better. But I'm not sure for example, what is the best resolution to choose...or particle count, and i dont understand things like the cache sizes etc. Im wondering if someone who understands these things..and doesnt mind sharing, would tell me what they think are the best settings.......many thanks in advance.

Details.

Based UK...on a 1mb adsl connection.

Comp is a 3.4ghz Intel pentium.
800 fsb and HT.
250gb HD.
1024mb DDR ram.
Geforce 6800 card.

Vixen,

Well, you have a pretty nifty computer, so you should be able to set up what preferences you like. With a 250G drive your cache size can really be what you want it to be. I don't know whether there is a point at which it becomes less efficient the larger it is. But I would try it at 1G and see how that goes.

Local lighting is a must, because that makes such a difference. And bump mapping is useful as well, because it makes some textures look really good. Water ripple is a bit overrated, and while it looks good on a body of water, it doesn't look so good on a low bit of ground.

You'll find that the higher the resolution you use, the smaller will be the pop-up windows. There will probably be a balance between the picture quality and the readability of the windows. There is one resolution which is something like 1100 x 750, or something like that, which I use, and which I find satisfactory.

With your graphics card it might be worth experimenting inworld with putting the draw distance to 512, and see whether you still get a decent frame rate (ideally 15 and above).

Oh yes, to see your frame rate do a CNTL-ALT-DEL to bring up the Debug menu on the toolbar. Then do ALT-1 which will bring up a pop-up. Select Basic, and you will see some useful information, including your frame rate. I normally have this window up whenever I play.

The settings you choose are really down to your own preference, but with your setup you are lucky enough to have a very wide choice.

Now I will keep quiet, and make way for someone who really knows what they are talking about.

Must-have settings for me include:

* "Shiny Objects" - oooh so shiny. So many things are designed with this feature, that you'd be missing out on a lot without it.

* Object detail on maximum - Why does SL default to 50% object detail? Everything looks like crap like that! Crank it up!

* Local lighting - Optional, but you get to see some beautiful light effects, especially at night.

I don't really care for any of the other options, myself. And cranking up view distance is only worthwhile if you have a massively fast Internet connection. Otherwise, it make SL unusable.

Hope that helps

thanks guys...Im going to log in and try the suggestions.....particularly interested in what happens to frame rates as Im sure theyre still tied to connection....thanks again...xx

No, your framerate isn't tied to your connection speed. If you had a really good computer, but a slow or low-capacity connection*, you could have jerky or unresponsive avatar movement (unless you bought my Omega Anchor script of course! ) but a very fast, very smooth framerate. On that computer? I'd say you have very little to worry about.

* (Remember that connection SPEED and CAPACITY are different things. They usually coincide, but they're not one and the same.)

Thanks Catherine........if possible could u explain the difference, as altho it looks very different to how it looked on my old comp...I am still dropping to FPS's of 2-8 in certain sims...and struggle to hit 15 in others. On the private sims...I can get over 35-45..

Argh, I accidentally lost my long reply to this, so I'll try to be somewhat more brief.

Your framerate is directly proportionate to the amount of computing power you can throw at rendering a scene. So the faster a CPU, RAM and video card you have, and the more system memory and video memory you have, the faster you can render a scene.

As well, the less data there is for your computer to render, the faster it will do so. So now, when you say that you get 35 FPS in a certain sim, that's not really what's happening. It's not tied to the sim, it's tied to what your camera can see. Try for yourself. Hold down Alt and click and drag in and out on the ground. Watch your framerate go up and down as more objects come into view. It's more that certain SPOTS in certain sims are laggy, because they have a large number of textures and objects.

Your connection speed is the time it takes for a single packet of data to reach its destination. Bandwidth is capacity -- how MUCH data can you transfer? As I said before, the two are not one and the same. Compare it to snail-mail. If I want to send a letter to another country, I can affix my stamps, and be reasonably well-assured that it will reach its destination in a week or so. OR, I could have it sent via FedEx, and get it there first thing the next morning. The same amount of data is being transferred, the difference is just in the speed it takes to get it there.

A shipping crate full of hard drives filled with data is a very high-capacity "transmission" method, but it's very slow. A telephone may be very low-capacity, but it's (relatively) very fast. Depending on the distances involved and the amount of data required, either may be a viable solution for transmitting data.

Because SL needs both capacity (for streaming content like objects and textures) and speed, (for keeping things updated and so that when you push 'forward', your avatar actually responds) the best connections are ones that are both high-speed and high-bandwidth. Dial-up connections are out, because while their speed might be sufficient, if a little on the high side, their capacity is a FRACTION of what's required. For most practical purposes, a satellite connection is out, because while it's very high-capacity, the actual SPEED you're likely to get really isn't that hot at all. It tends to be anywhere from around 10 to 30 times SLOWER than a modem connection.

So your experience in SL is shaped by a number of factors:
1. Your framerate and QUALITY of rendered images.
2. Your connection speed and bandwidth.
3. The amount of data required to download.
4. The sim's performance. (Affected by things like number of concurrent users, number of physical objects in the sim, number of scripts, etc.)

Basically, by upgrading your video card, you've VASTLY increased the quality of SL's appearence, and (I assume) marginally increased your framerate. Everything else remains the same, and so, will not improve.

Edit: finished what I was saying.

I see what you mean......had me confused as to why certain sims that seemd fairly empty were dropping to neglible fps's...where others that seemed fuller were higher.
Thanks for taking the time to educate..)

Excellent post Catherine. It really helps explain (even to someone who has been in SL for a while) what affects the quality of our SL experience.