Slow loading/Low Resolution Graphics

I'm just trying out Second Life and am concerned at the lack of speed that the world updates.
I can fly into walls that are not visibly there until after 2-3 minutes of me crashing into them.
Also, once I stand around for a quite a few minutes and most elements of the world have loaded around me, they all appear pixelated and low resolution until I mouseover every item individually.
Is this what Second Life is like?
It appears very different from the CNET video and the website that I have seen.

I run an AthlonXP 2500+ with 1.5GB Ram, 120GB HD and a Nvidia GeForce 6800GT with 256MB Ram. I use a 2Mbps ADSL connection to Second Life. The screen resolution is 1024x768 and all performance option settings are turned off under the display control panel in Second Life.
Is there a setting somewhere that I can alter to make the game run properly?

Welcome to SL, Guru.

The load speeds have been atrociously slow the past few weeks. It's unfortunate that your initial impressions of SL are affected by this, but rest assured it's not normal. Unfortunately, there's not much that can be done for now except wait for Linden to fix it, which I'm positive they will. They're great about keeping on top of stuff. For the time being, just explore slowly.

To answer your question about settings, turning them all on or off generally will not affect your load speeds, only the frame rate. Make sure you set your disk cache to the highest possible level though so that as much data as possible can be stored on your own hard drive. Anything that doesn't have to be streamed will obviously load a zillion times faster.

I highly recommend turning on shiny objects and local lighting. Of all settings, shine makes the single biggest difference to the world's appearance. Without it, you are missing at least 50% of the visual beauty of SL. Local lighting makes the second biggest difference. Turn it off only if your framerate suffers greatly with it on.

Also, keep your draw distance reasonable. Set it as high as you can while maintaining a decent framerate. The right balance is hard to predict. For example, on an average day I used to get 25-30 FPS at 512 draw distance which was fantastic, but then my DSL slowed down (damned Verizon) and now I get about 10-15 fps at 128 dd.

Anyway, have patience as SL experiences growing pains. It's an incredible world, full of wonderful and talented people. I'm sure they'll work ut whatever is causing the slow load speeds soon.