Here is more detailed information on the new Avatar LOD in 1.8.2:
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Regarding avatar attachments and LOD (level of detail):
1. The change in 1.8.2 will have little or no noticeable effect on avatar appearance at the default setting. The LOD calculation is based on the size of the attachments and is designed to affect jewelery and other small attachments at a distance where they are not visible anyway.
2. The default setting is not "50%" and has no numerical significance. The center of all of the detail sliders is designed to represent optimal detail. Sliding the bars to the left will slightly decrease detail and may slightly increase performance. Sliding the bars to the right will slightly increase detail and may decrease performance.
3. The lowest detail setting will not affect avatars that are nearby. It may noticeably affect avatars in the middle distance, just as a low object detail setting may noticeably affect how objects in the middle distance are rendered. However, because the calculation is based on pixel coverage, any attachment that covers more than about 20% of the avatar will always be rendered.
4. The fact that we did not significantly LOD avatar attachments prior to 1.8.2 is actually a bug. We respect that attachments are a significant part of how many residents present themselves, but whether they are aware of it or not, residents that rely on attachments for their appearance already often appear without attachments due to limits in object transmission rates. In order to create a better experience for everyone we need to be able to use LOD to maintain a reasonable framerate. We will strive to do this in a way that is as transparent as possible to our residents, however with the range of PC hardware being as wide as it is, there is no getting around the fact that Second Life will appear slightly different on different machines.
5. This is a *good* thing. The vast majority of residents will see *no* noticeable difference in avatar appearance and their framerate in crowded areas will improve by about 10-20%. Residents with a large number of detailed attachments will no longer significantly hurt other residents' frame rates.