Classic cloud peculiarites

Yesterday I discovered all my personal Windlight settings had gotten lost somehow. I think Vista has something to do with it. Anyhow, I made a few new presets from scratch and for one of these I turned on Classic Clouds in the advanced sky editor.

Now I thought since it is in the advanced sky menu the classic clouds would save with the new preset, but it doesn't! You turn on classic clouds for one sky, you get them for all. I think the option isn't put in an intuitive place and should be in preferences instead.

The other odd thing I noticed, when I am close to the height of the classic clouds, one of my fans starts revving up and sounds like it's trying to reach escape velocity. There must be something about classic clouds that is overworking my graphics card -- more so than Windlight is, or in combination with Windlight. I can't imagine why. Are they particles?

I've turned them back off. Oh - and this time kept a back up of my personal Windlight xml's somewhere besides the Second Life app_settings folder to prevent future losses.

Did you update recently to the latest RC? It reset EVERYTHING

When you are in, or close to, the classic clouds layer, your avatar has to interact with and see a LOT of particles. This places a higher strain on your graphics card. You get the same effect if you are on the ground and several people near you sudenly fire off particle "poofers" and fill the area with lots and lots of particles.