Can ANYONE select 'high' detail shaders? 7900gtx here.

Gotta wonder... Who -can- turn on 'high' detail shaders? Is this something that's reserved for the next gen of cards? (not existing yet?)

I can't either, 7800GT. Yes, bug!

In our database--really speedy too, thanx if you already sent a report on this one.

Funneh behavior too. Sometimes the 'high' radio buttons do show up, but then i click them and everything goes right back to medium again. The Avatar detail one never changes at all. But you say it's been entered, Torley?

Dont wanna double up; I didn't enter this as a bug because I didn't know if "high" was reserved. If it's not fully detailed, i can enter my observations if needed.

Psst, I submitted this ~3 hours before this thread.

What the hell would "high" be reserved for it doesn't even show/stay with your 7900 GTX?? That is a near, if not THE, top-of-the-line GPU. But even on my "lowly" 6600GT I can't get past high with "all local lights" on.

The whole dialog needs work. "Detail" is duplicated WAY too much, and it's better to keep things split up (shiny, bumpmapping, vertex shaders, ripple water, etc) than to try to manage them with this current mess of an interface. And what the hell do the "low", "medium", and "high" settings mean EXACTLY? I want to know EXACTLY what's being toggled when I click that--not some vague Microsoft-style handholding for stupid users!

Well, that was my point I guess, unless LL is trying to 'future-proof' some things.

Actually, I suggest having an 'custom options' button that will have these. I believe the whole reason for the simplified interface is because of so many newbies starting SL, turning on 'local lighting' in the main grid, and wondering why they are getting 1 fpm (frames per minute). Having a seperate 'custom options' dialog would allow the best of both worlds - a simplified interface for those who just want to set everything to medium and forget it, and those that would like to pick and choose their poison.

On a side note, why must your tone always be so hostile? You attract far more flies with honey than vinegar.

A simplified, dumb-downed interface isn't the solution. It's better to educate the user than treat them idiots. Tooltips, contextual help, and other assistance is mindless enough to implement.

I have strong opinions--particularly about UI design.

Sadly, most users don't want to be educated about the intricasies of any particular graphic engine's capabilities. They just want it to work, and no amount of advanced custom extreme super checkbox-dialog thingamabob that lets them pick and choose from a zillion different settings, including such arcane principles such as 'LOD bias' and 'fog ratio' is going to help them with that. Since LL is (or should be) in the business of enticing new customers to try SL, it's focus should not be to educate them in such matters, but rather to provide them with the option of using the simplified interface or an advanced one, to cater to both kinds of customers.

I really don't think, for example, that I'd appreciate a salesperson lecturing me on the finer points of decimal math, for example, when I ask how much change i'm going to receive on my purchase. Although it might be nice for me to be educated about such a thing, it's not the salesperson's place, nor my inclination, to be educated about such a thing at that place or juncture in time. In the same way, it's simply not LL's responsibility to educate people about what bumpmapping is, or what version of OpenGL they need to access the particular shader version that their new ripply water needs. This information is definitely nice, and LL would be wise to provide it for those that want it, perhaps on the wiki. It is NOT their responsibility to push it onto people in order to use their software, which is essentially what forcing them to use a more advanced preferences UI would be doing.

Well, that's what hardware detection is for so SL can set the optimized configuration for each system. If a user wants to go dorking around in advanced settings, they better know what they're doing or be willing to learn/experiment and not get upset if they screw something up. Yes, an option to show specific advanced options for experienced users would be nice.

I quite agree, Eep, but so do I agree with Zodiakos' view on the options configuration, with both simple and complex accessible.

My view, however, is this (note, this is aimed at no one in particular, I'm just getting my view out in the ether): if there is an 'Adv. Graphics' tab (I'd assume the Adv. stands for Advanced, and if it doesn't than I'm going/have gone insane), shouldn't the so-called 'advanced' graphics options be located... there? The current configuration of graphics configurations is a bit messy, if you ask me, and 1.9.1.16 has made it worse with the advent of a THIRD graphics tab. If that isn't confusing, I don't know what is. I pride myself on being at least somewhat computer savvy, and I had to look through that tab a couple times before I realized what it was.

I believe that a redesigned preferences interface would be a welcome change. Perhaps with two 'Preferences' options in the edit menu: 'Basic Preferences (Ctrl+P)' and 'Advanced Preferences (Ctrl+Shift+P)' or some such. The Basic Preferences would have large adjustments and fuzzy language:

'Low', 'Medium', 'High' for different graphics options, and no extra settings like 'Local Lighting' or 'Draw Distance';

While the Advanced Preferences would have fine-tuning and appropriately advanced adjustments, with precice wordings and informative tooltips (to aide a novice in learning), and would include the FULL range of selections and options (e.g. let's not limit fog distance to 4.0, shall we? If we're in there poking around, we should be allowed to select our own distance without having to worry that said distance would be reset when next we changed a preference.).

Or maybe not even a full redesign, but a small range of tabs 'Basic Graphics', 'Adv. Graphics 1', 'Adv. Graphics 2', 'Adv. Graphics 3' that would accomplish much the same function that two separate preference dialogue boxes would. At any rate, some changes should be made to lower the confusion for people.

Along with this, perhaps some sort of a way of remembering the deubg options a user sets. I know I find it somewhat irritating when I have to repeatedly type 'Ctrl+Shift+Alt+3, 7, 8, 0, -' whenever I log in.

Gah, I got off topic. Oh well, one of the Lindens can move/delete my post if it is felt to be necessary.

Here, I'll say something related to the topic: I can't click High on anything. Avatar Render Detail is completely inaccessible. I'm running a 6600 256 MB card, which works just fine for other games. Whatever.

Still can only do "medium" in 1.9.1.17, so bump. Even with both 7900GTXs going. (though i know SL isnt SLI ready).

I gotta wonder what cards can do 'high' then. It'd be funny if it was enabled on a Radeon 9000. I think I'll try that.

I will test later on my Radion 9800

Should be fixed in next build, this.

Another "bug" or missing feature is the Nighttime Brightness slider, I liked having my nighttime almost totally dark, especially for my Cave build with the colored lights and fancy shadered crystals, now thats gone

I'm running an Radeon X800XL, I shouldn't be having a problem with shaders set on high, yet when I click apply they snap back to medium.

Well, it's "fixed", and I guess my 7900GTX -still- isn't good enough for "high".

It's numeric input field now on the same tab. I preferred the slider though, but, ideally, it should show the numeric amount as the slider moves, and allow the keyboard to increment the slider by 1 (since the brightness isn't a float).

OMG I use GF 6200 256MB AGP-8X and i'm getting the exact same thing as you. and with half the RAM.

1.9.1.20, Gf 7900GTX 512, still doesn't support high detail shaders.