Water lag?

I am using the release candidate viewer. I have been doing some experiments trying to identify causes of slow frame rates. I find that the fps is exquisitely sensitive to very small changes in view direction, changing abruptly from 45 to 15 as something (?) is brought into view. So far, in my landlocked home, I can only say what I have been able to eliminate. It is not transparency, not animated textures, scripted or physical objects. It is not trees. It always seems (by rough triangulation) to be distant. It is not dependent on number of triangles in the frame (statistics bar, 20k-150k). I have to guess that it may be large (>512x512) textures which I don't know how to identify (I don't use them ... maybe I should make some and test?), or megaprims I am not aware of. The only clue I have is that I can reproduce the phenomenon very precicely on unspoiled new land, such as Starlight. Here I get a frame rate > 45fps as long as there is no open water in view. As soon as the smallest bit of water comes into view, the rate drops to 15 fps. Ground is ok and sky is ok. The same effect happens near open water on occupied sims. Could it be that water can have this influence even from way beyond the current view distance? Does anyone have any cogent ideas about what other culprits might be and how I can identify them?

You said "release candidate", so I'm assuming you don't mean the windlight client (which is "first look". If you have ripple water turned on, you might want to turn that off and see if it improves anything. Of course the water will now be inky blue instead of shiny silver, but them's the breaks.

If you did mean the windlight client, then yes, the new water has lots of effects that will lag your client.