Any tweakguide for SL?

Hi.
I just installed SL and find the performance quite poor. I've searched the forum here for advice and found some at least. Could someone explain, what settings are graphicscard bound and which are cpu bound?
My setup:
CPU: Athlon x2 3800+ @2.4GHz
CPU Cooling: Stock
Motherboard: Abit KN8 (socket 939) bios 1.9
RAM: 3GB (2x512MB+2x1GB dualchannel)
Graphics: nVidia Geforce 8800 GTS
Sound: Audigy 2 value. 5.1 soundsystem
Hard Drive: 2x 200GB Maxtor 7,200rpm
CD/DVD Drive: LG Combo drive
Monitor: Viewsonic VP191s
Input: Merc keyboard and Logitech MX 500 (usb@500)
Power Supply: Antec 450W smartpower2.
Case: Antec Sonata II

I see SL only sees 2GB of my ram, but searching the forum reveals this to be normal.
Despite using all the dualcore fixes my fps are very low. Setting affinity sadly helps this somewhat going from ~8fps to ~30. (why the regular hotfixes do not work is beyong me, as they do in other games) Most settings are maxed. THe only setting helping the fps is turning the "tree setting" down which increases fps to the 44-50 fps range. I figure the "tree setting" is done by cpu? Lowering other settings do very little. Does anyone know of a tweaking guide, so I can optimize my game. (all of this is at the very beginning of the game)

EDIT: oh yeah, any way I can set turning speed faster?

View Distance & Object detail slider, has the highest impact on fps.

Dont expect having 30+ fps if theres alot of avatars near you tho.

SL still want your cpu way more then gpu, since it does alot of rendering.

It seems somewhat better once I got off the intro island.
Still the turning speed annoys me, but I'm sure someone knows of a way to set it higher.

NB. I'm amazed at how friendly the people I've met so far are.

You have the dual core blues, check out the sticky at the top of the forum.

Hi, hate repeating myself, you may find this post useful..

Lagg and how to live with it in SL

Hope it works for you?

Also, remember that you're never going to see the sorts of framerates in SL that you might in a more traditional game. There's a lot of work being done by your PC which can't be accelerated by sticking a more-powerful 3d graphics card in - it's main-CPU-bound.

Regular 3D games have a load of pre-computed stuff built in to their map data, which tells the game engine that (for instance) you cannot see beyond the next doorway or corridor - therefore that stuff doesn't bog the system down so much until you get there. For big busy maps, that sort of compilation can take a non-trivial amount of time, too.

SL just couldn't do that (and push the large amount of data out to clients) for every single alteration made to the world - so it doesn't. (Although, recently-ish they did add some client-side optimizations relating to stuff you can't currently see, to improve the local performance)

The best optimization to client settings is to reduce your Draw Distance, as this directly varies how much effort your CPU is doing. Frankly, an average FPS above 40 (especially if you're in a "busy" environment) is way above typical and should be considered a successful setup.

I totally agree with Buxton Malaprop, as I used to create 'worlds' similar to SL, the computations that the Client software has to deal with is mind boggling.

Designers should play an active part when creating buildings, in so much as using fewer quantities of textures, rotating prims with detailed textures, script swapping textures and particles, all place a lot of stress on the Client software. Re-using the same texture in more creative ways, is far better than simply adding more variations. Using solid prims for such elements as roofs is easier for the Client software to render, than several prims to create the same effect.

Linden Labs should embrace the 'Monster Prims' as they are a great saver and release some official packs for builders. I run tests in SL for other reasons, but can't help noticing the amount of warnings issued by the Client Software regarding textures that have masks applied but are missing the AUX source, this can take many cycles from the server to keep trying to supply those for rendering by the Client. I have seen examples of texture swapping prims that exceed the official 1 per second cycle in a SIM, in some cases they are swapped 15+ times a second. Don't get these confused with Movies as there are specific pipelines to deal with those.

I have a 200 GIG External Drive connected via USB. Would it be worth installing the game there, instead of the main drive?

For the stout of heart, you could try the new First Look client - it doesn't help in every case, but it sure helped in mine - my average frame rates went from about 22FPS to about 45FPS on average, so there is some major graphics pipeline optimization that could have been done - and has been done - to get those frame rates up. It's not without minor problems - you can't drop inventory or right-click on somebody's nametag, for example, and there's a transparency bug that you fix by turning on VBO support (Vertex Buffer Objects), and that switch doesn't stick, you have to turn it on every time. But on the whole, it's pretty solid, and makes a big difference on two or three year old machines if that's what you're driving.

To address AWM Mars' statement, though, giant prims break the system in two important ways: their size can force the Havok collision detection system to go into what's called a "deep think" recursion, crashing the server (which means taking down four sims at once), or more moderately, causing lag in not only the sim in which they appear but in the other three adjacent sims as well as extra computing power is consumed to evaluate the abnormally complex collision equations. Secondly, the decision as to whether a huge prim should be drawn is based on its centroid, and if that centroid happens to be outside the draw distance limit, the entire prim can be undrawn even if the front edge of it is 10m away from you. Hello, invisible impassable wall.

By in large, builders should avoid the use of huge prims or use them sparingly at best, and make them phantom wherever possible to avoid the collision lag they cause.

I wasn't actually advocating the use of Monster Prims in their current format, but suggesting that LL embrace their use by releasing a compatible pack, in doing so then they would be useable with the current system!

I did read your post Mars. I can of course trim the whole thing down to bare bones, but would like to retain as much eyecandy as possible within reason in regards to the spec of my machine. I think I also forgot to add my connection is 2Mb Down/1Mb Up.

EDIT: Also could someone explain what the FirstView client is? It seems to run somewhat smoother than the original. (or maybe it is just a placebo effect)

Crunch,
SL has three main parts: Servers (kept at Linden Labs), your ISP connection, and your 'VIEWER.' The SL experience requires all three to work. The ISP is pretty easy, it just passes data back and forth between you and the servers.

After that, the servers figure out certain things in SL (like which other Avitars are near you), while your VIEWER is responsible for 'painting' the picture around you. Changes to SL's programming can happen in either of two places, on the server or on your Viewer.

The 'FirstView Client' is the next generation of VIEWER..like a Beta or Release Candidate. It often has bug fixes, as well as changes that only matter to your PC...The current FirstView client seems to have smoother, faster creation of scenes.

There's also a BETA GRID...a whole SL world which uses the Beta or Release Candidate for the SERVER software. Sometimes, the Beta Grid will require a Beta Grid Viewer because of what's been done on the server.

Right now, you'll probably have a better time in SL using the FirstLook Viewer...its set to become the 'standard' viewer this week, I think.

It might be burried in the config files, but I wouldn't know where. I find the best way to turn is by draging on your avatar.

Thanks for the info. Thought it was maybe an alternative "kind" of client, if that makes sense.

And DaSilva, I also drag, but would prefer faster keyboard turning speed.
Thanks for all your input.
EDIT: Also I noticed that it is no longer necessary to set affinity for dualcore processors. (might need to test this further, haven't had much time with the new client)