Maximum Graphics Resolution Slider

I think one way we can improve the client performance is to set up a slider in the graphics menu that would allow us to throttle the size of the textures used by the client to show the world. This would require adding a graphics preprocessing element that would download a texture and, if the texture was larger than the maximum size specified, would resize the offending texture before sending it off to the rendering system. We could also add another option, perhaps to the pie menu, to force the full texture of a prim we really want to see, to be used instead. It would really help a lot of us better enjoy Second Life, I think, by making those of us with lower RAM video cards able to at least move around better in Second Life.

I also realized that there would be another benefit to the client side texture resizing. At one time, textures could be as big as the person uploading them wanted them to be. Some textures were absolutely mammoth, and huge textures often provided incredible detail to builds. However, due to the obvious performance hits this caused Second Life, Linden Labs decided to eliminate the users ability to use such large textures.

This proposition would allow Linden Labs to restore absurdly large textures as an option for their creations since, with client side resizing of textures, the client resolution throttles would prevent absurdly large textures from impacting the user experience {beyond the expected fuzziness of the absurdly large textures whose size is being reduced, of course}.

This is a great idea!

Yeah. I will sometimes wander in to an area and see my FPS go way down to like .1 FPS. Or lower.

The first time this happened, someone had used a mammoth 1024 x 1024 pixel texture on an object. When he made a 256 x 256 pixel texture on it, I didn't really see any difference and my performance was restored. But he later decided he wanted the uber high rez texture, and forever after, whenever I got near those objects, my FPS plumeted.

My guess is that people will generally experience the same problems I have. And this feature would enable us to get some modicum of control of Second Life, to keep our frame rates up while allowing us to improve texture detail "on demand."

Glad you like the idea! You're seriously the first, I think!