couple of unrelated questions

Hi

I have a couple of questions, but probably not major enough to start a thread

Does anyone know the dimension/proportion of the image for your profile pic? Uploading them as a square 265x265 texture ends up distorted because the profile image is "landscape"
Guessing around sort of works, but there's got to be an exact measure.

Also, still trying to beat the lag monster.
I've played with the viewer settings (graphics, network) according to some information I got here and in-world. But I'm still encountering huge lag in some areas even when there are no people or animations there.
This happens most in large shops, where it seems that every image hung on those walls is rattling into my computer. It does not happen in parks etc, even if there are waterfalls and butterflies everywhere I always start out fine, but after a few minutes I can barely transport the heck out of there.

Does this make sense? Is it the the sheer number of product shots that freeze me in place?

Finally, if the neighbor complains about the flying fish stuck in his ban lines, I blame Soji. He started that whole unpacking of gadgets from his inventory - we merely succumbed to peer pressure.

C.

See /327/70/215905/1.html#post1713392 where the poster says the various Profile picture dimensions are:

Profile Pic: 168 x 126 (Use 512x384 or 256x192 for upload)
My Picks: 290 x 164 (Use 512x292 for upload)
1st Life Pic 135x135 (Use 256x256 or 128x128 for upload.)

(I'm a little suspicious of those upload dimensions, though. Do those even exist? Maybe they're the right proportions, but... I'd always do the resizing in an external graphics program rather than letting the client do it, but maybe I'm superstitious.)

As for lag, yes, texture load at a location can definitely slow you down. Perhaps counter-intuitively, I've found that reducing the amount of graphics card memory used by textures to somewhat below the actual hardware helps a little, but YMMV. Reducing draw distance *always* helps, though.

I had found the profile pic to be about 178x133 (or 3x4 basically), which I would upload at 256x128 probably.

You want to scale things to even multiples, 32, 64, 128, 256 or SL will scale it and make it blurrier. Remember the smaller you make it the less laggy. There's no reason to upload any of them at 512, no wonder some peoples pick pictures never load!

On the things slowing until they stop issue, do you have the December ATI graphic drivers? I found the latest (7-12) did that to me, and I went back to 7-11 as I'd heard others here have done too...

More AVs in one place will lower your FPS and ability to move, but more textures should simply take longer to load with you moving about a gray place okay.

(Not counting sculpties, which are painful in both regards! LOL)