Reducing FPS Lag

Gotten bored today and started messing with settigns and fine tuning my graphics
for the past 4 hours in some of the laggiest spots on SL ( i'll not mention these places
at the respect of owners of clubs or area's) and managed to get a massive improvement
in FPs performance. Im pretty sure there is a guide out there somewhere and i didnt check the forum's search out there alittle better but i decided to post it anyways i will be keeping a link in my profile as well to give to SL newbies or those having problems can always look this up.

Here are my Settings below along with my own Systems specs so you can compare to Better your graphics settings Vs's my own or lower it more, i'll also put some recommends for those with seem to still lag using even my settings. will place comments about an option that i feel needs mentioned in ()'s.

X's in [] means Enabled
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[ Preferences ] Tab-[Graphics]:

[] Anisotropic Filter - OFF
[] Local Lighting - OFF ( This is the MAJOR killer of FPS slowdown - but i like it on myself
and usually turn it on when at a friends home or open field places, Local lighting will kill your client specially in Clubbing places or in Malls that have alot of Eye candy, its due to people using lightsource objects, Please Folks use Full brights instead it will help with making a lag free eviroment in your clubs or malls/gathering spots, This goes with Custom Avatars and items)

[X] Shadows - ON (OFF for slower systems, its like a reverse Local lighting, Turning this off can gain a good 5-8FPS alone, So if you have a older card or one that doesnt have OpenGL
2.0 support and optimization, or if the card doesnt have good Hardware T&L turn it off its just eyecandy that i like. I keep this on unless im going to heavilly populated area's with more then 50 people bundled up in a spot or lots of objects as every object will cast a shadow, including AV prims for those that are furries, wear armor, mech-suits ect.)

[x] Ripple Water - ON ( This generally affects you in places with alot of water textures, but it doesnt really affect FPS much for some folks, Again like shadows turn it off if you dont have good T&L card, but for me i notice No real heavy FPS loss by keeping it on. about 1.0fps loss around a Huge body of water, barely noticable at all around fountains and such maybe 0.2fps loss nothing big..)

[X] Disable Far Clip - ON ( This can be Misleading in a way just by how it sounds but leave it on it will Definatly help)

[X] Shiny Objects - ON ( Keep this on there is no noticeable loss of FPS and local lighting does not affect this at all, this is for ebtter view of simulation of shiny things IE: Chromed, Gold,Silver colors/Textures ect, Sides some things look really ugly with out this on.)

Avatar Rendering: - (This is one box to choose one of 3 settings.)
[] Normal - ( Recommended ON/Selected for those on slower machines )
[] Bump Mapped
[X] Bump Mapped & Cloth - ON ( i tend to like Detail on Avatars and creations so i have this set to a Maximum settings)

Terrain Detail: - (This is one box to choose one of 3 settings.)
[] None - ( Recommended ON/Selected for those on Slower machines )
[] Some
[] Full - ON ( Just like Avatar Rendering i like eye candy, turning it to a Lower settings will give some FPS back to you. )
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[Preferences] Tab-[ADV. Graphics]

Performance Options:
[X] AGP Graphics Accelleration - ON ( Shouldnt really turn this off, but there are some cases that this would oddly interfere with FPS on very RARE cases, some Geforce/ATI cards that are PCI-X have some strange FPS slowing effects with this on at the report
of some friends with them, i dont know myself as im using X8 AGP still. so Test with it
and see what it does for you.)

Texture cache Size:
[] small < 512mb of Total Ram
[X] Large >=512mb of total Ram - (i have it on makes no diffrence in this option that noticed with over 1gb of ram)

Object Details: Slider to Full ( Set to full for eye candy, lower the slider for Fine tuning of graphics)
Tree Detail: Slider to Full ( Set to full for eye candy, lower the slider for Fine tuning of graphics)
Avatar Detail: Slider to Full ( Set to full for eye candy, lower the slider for Fine tuning of graphics)

[X] Avatar Vertex Program - ON (makes use of the Vertexing in a proccesor that has good support, if you have older card below a 7200 or Geforce 4 series you might want to play with this to see what effect you might get.)

[] Show Avatarin mouse look - OFF ( i like mines off, its all a matter of taste has no effect on FPS at all being on or OFF.)

Draw Distance: 96 ( This optionis how Far you can see.. the higher the number the farther and amount of FPS is Droped, 96 is a Good setting for me as anything out of my View has no interest to me specially when im sitting around chatting with friends. This is also a Not needed to be very high when going in to HIGH lag area's, especially Clubs)

Fog Distance: 3.0 ( This is Debateable with alot of folks, but the truth of the matter can differ for everyone, but my finds is this, Sometimes having a lower setting can drop your FPS which increases the fog to help block view, But having to HIGH of a Fog rating can also drop your FPS, so a good solid number inbetween is best, tweak with it and see what you can find, T&L has a effect on this as well. when in doubt try 1.5-2.5 in settings)

Bumpiness Draw Distance: 100 ( Eye candy at a finer detail, for slower machines try 10-50 as this can affect FPS more then one knows espectially true in heavilly crowded area's)

Max Particle Count: 4096 ( Once again more Eye candy a good setting would actually be more around 2048 for nearly everyone but anything lower then that if your a stickler for detail like i am gets annoying so i have mines set to a decent ammount, Anything really highigher the average person cant see any tweaking detail in it, Also setting it higher will also cause the temperature of your Video card to rise.)

Outfit Composite Limit: 100 ( More eyecandy but for Avatar Clothing lower the settings to increase FPS in heavier crowds of people in area's like clubs casino's ect.)

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[Preferences] Tab-[Networking]

Maximum Bandwith: 1000 (Lower if you have a smaller Line like 56k modem or lower grade Adsl/Cable thats lower then 512k/512k up/down as this will cause SL to lag to have to much or TOO little bandwith if your Hardware/Uplink cannot handle it. a good setting for most will be from 350-600 for most)

Disk Cache:
[] 50mb
[] 200mb
[] 500mb
[X] 1000mb ( If you got the space Use 1000mb never hurts to have fast caching, but i also clear my cache every time there is a Update with SL just to keep stale textures/scripts/objects ect from slowing me down)
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Ok now for my System Specs

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2400+(Thoroughbred)
MB: MSI K7n2 Delta-L (MS-6570) Ultra 400
MBchipsets:nVidia nForce2 Ultra 400 rev. C1(Northbridge) / nVidia nForce2 MCP rev. A4(southbridge)
Ram: Slot #1 256mb PC2700 Xerox DDR-SDRAM ( 2.5-2-2-6 )
Slot #2 512mb PC3200 Wintech Indus. DDR-SDRAM ( 2.5-2-2-6 )
Slot #3 512mb PC2700 Silicon Tech. DDR-SDRAM ( 2.5-2-2-6 )
( the Pc3200 is under clocked to match the timings on the slowers better. i need new ram and matching ones at that i dont like mix matching )

Videocard: e-VGA e-Geforce 6200 256mb DDR ( Rev. A4 EWWW! cant unlock the hidden pipelines till the OC's forums can find a way to do it there is no way anyone can unlock the 4 extra pipelines the 6200 A4 has cause its prolly laser cut bummer. make sure you check the revision of a 6200 Geforce before buying it.. stay with A3 and never get a A4 ever.)

Networking : NVIDIA nForce MCP Networking Controller 10/100 onboard / Dlink DFE-530+TX ( 2 Addons )
Scsi: Tekram Scsi controller DC-395UW
HDD: x2 80gb WD / 10gb Seagate scsi

It aint the best but it serv's my gaming and server needs very well. Hope this all helps reduce lag for your machines ( or increase it! O.o )

What's your resulting FPS?

Fountains don't use ripple water, only 'real' water uses it. Fountains are just animated prims. (or particles, depending.)

if you look in the screenshots you'll see i have only turned off Local lighting in one pic
and in the other one its on. Take note i have my statistics window up and take a look at the FPS you can see the diffrence.So it helps to keep local lighting off.

True to that =) small wording goof up

The best trick I was ever told for increasing FPS in a crowded sim is to turn off "Show avatar names". You wouldn't believe the difference it makes.

I'd buy that for a Linden dollar!

Seriously tho, I haven't done this yet... I'm curious on the effect it will have. Gonna xperiment latah.

Ya that does help actually abit, But it Drives me Banana's not being able to see all the names on my screen as it is! lol so i keep that on always.

Yeah, I hear that, but it can be a lifesaver if you're struggling just to function (like IM people, no movement) with 40+ avs in a sim. Extreme situations only!

I migth give that a try as well, mi pretty steady now at 12fps ni places with 70 or more. there's hotkeys to turn it on for moments and then back off again, but i forget alot so i might forget what the shotcut key is

Requesting an update!

This was a nice tutorial, and I really saw the difference in lag, but you forgot one of the biggest things of all...

CLEAR YOUR GOT-DAMN CACHE!

Clearing the cache makes a HUGE difference in the performance of secondlife. Try it, I guarentee it will make a difference. I clear mine almost every day