Firestorm Preferences set 2 class material based on the 4.4.2 release.
This material covers some of our Preferences. In particular we will cover the Graphics, Network & Cache and Backup tabs
CTRL-P or Avatar Menu > Preferences will open the preferences.
****Graphics Tab
First a comment. People often ask what are the best graphics settings to use. There is no one answer as the better you make SL look, the slower (worse performance) it will be. What matters is what works best for you.
**General sub-tab
Quality and speed > Allows you to adjust the graphics quality (lower is faster). Many options are changed based on this setting.
This slider has 7 presets from Low to Ultra. The lower the settings the better your performance should be.
Fullscreen Mode > Enable this if you want to run Firestorm in fullscreen mode, as opposed to windowed.
Shaders
Transparent water > Allows water to look transparent instead of opaque.
Bump mapping and shiny > Enables the rendering of shiny and bump mapped surfaces.
Local Lights > Globally enables/disables local lights.
Basic shaders > Allows rendering of high-quality water, basic lighting, and other graphical effects.
Atmospheric shaders > Enables advanced atmospheric and lighting effects.
Advanced Lighting Model > Check this to enable shadows. Note that enabling shadows can cause instability and performance issues.
Ambient occlusion > Checking this enables more realistic shadows; the stability and performance note above also applies here.
Shadows > Lets you choose what light sources cause shadows; this is intended as a quick toggle if the Deferred Rendering option above is enabled).
none
sun/moon
sun/moon and projectors
Water Reflections > Allows water to reflect
Minimal
Terrain and Trees
All static objects
All avatars and objects.
Everything
Point Lighting > Changes the degree of local lighting, your options are,
Full
Reduced
Sun/moon only
This is intended as a quick toggle if the Local Lights check box is enabled.
Draw distance > Affects how far out from your viewpoint objects will be rendered in the scene.
Max particle count > Sets the maximum number of particles you are able to see on your screen at once.
Max # of non-impostor avatars > Sets the number of avatars that will be fully rendered.
Post process quality > Determines the resolution with which glow is rendered. A lower setting will cause glow to look slightly pixelated.
Avatar Physics > Affects the detail of avatar physics. Set to 0 to disable avatar physics entirely.
Level of Detail (LOD) Distance Factors:
We generally suggest leaving the LOD settings at the default level.
Objects & Sculpts > Determines the amount of detail the viewer will use in rendering object shapes. Corresponds to the RenderVolumeLOD debug setting.
A lower setting causes objects to appear more angular and polygonal, while too high can cause small prims to vanish.
Flexiprims > Determines the amount of detail the viewer will use in rendering flexible object shapes.
Trees > Determines the amount of detail the viewer will use in rendering (Linden) trees and plants.
Avatars > Determines the amount of detail the viewer will use in rendering avatar shapes.
Terrain > Determines the amount of detail the viewer will use in rendering terrain.
Sky > Determines the amount of detail the viewer will use in rendering the sky.
Avatar Rendering:
Avatar Impostors > Allows far-away avatars to be subtly rendered as two-dimensional images in order to improve your frame rate in crowded areas. Recommended.
Hardware skinning > This allows some aspects of avatar rendering to be handled by your graphics card to improve performance. We suggest enabling this if you are using a discrete graphics card, not with on-board graphics.
Avatar cloth > Allows the rendering of flexible cloth on avatar clothing, such as shirts and flared pants.
Terrain Detail > Choose the amount of terrain detail you would like to see. Setting this option to Low replaces the ground texture with a low-resolution ground texture.
The reset button will put all graphics settings to default for your computer.
Below that there are three more buttons. Apply to apply settings, OK to accept changes and close Preferences and Cancel to cancel.
**Hardware Settings sub-tab
Anisotropic Filtering > Enables anisotropic filtering to improve texture quality. This setting may reduce your viewer's performance. For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisotropic_filtering
Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects > VBO on modern hardware gives a performance gain. However, older hardware often has poor implementation of VBOs, and the viewer may become unstable with it enabled.
Some users benefit from having this on, others do not.
Enable Streamed VBOs > Allows the use of streamed VBO as well as static. Only works if you have VBO enabled. If you are having performance issues disable this first to see if it helps before trying turning VBO off entirely.
For information on what VBO is, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertex_Buffer_Object
Enable Lossy Texture Compression (requires restart) Enables the S3TC texture compression. Not recommended for everyday use.
Antialiasing > Smooths jagged edges. More information at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Antialiasing
Choose the level of antialiasing the viewer will use. This requires a restart if it is being switched from "none" to any other setting.
Gamma > Affects the brightness on your screen.Only used when you have Basic Shaders disabled. Otherwise use the Scene Gamma control in the world menu > environment editor > edit sky preset > lighting tab.
Viewer Texture Memory Buffer (MB) > This is the amount of video memory the viewer will use. By default, it is set to the size of your graphics card's memory, to a maximum of 512.
Lowering this value may resolve certain texture corruption and performance issues. Under normal circumstances you should not alter this setting.
Fog Distance Ratio > Determines how far away Second Life's fog effect begins. Lower values = closer fog. Only used when you have Basic Shaders disabled.
If Basic Shaders are enabled, this effect is handled by the Distance Multiplier control in the world menu > environment editor > edit sky preset > atmosphere
**Rendering sub-tab
World Updating
Freeze updates to World (pause everything) > This suspends rendering. Useful for picture taking, if you wish to capture a specific scene that might otherwise change while you are preparing.
Texture Rendering
Use HTTP Textures > Uses the HTTP protocol to fetch textures as opposed to the older UDP. Some users benefit from having this on, others do not. Some have much higher rates of bake fail and/or textures which never fully render when this is enabled.
Texture Details Loaded > If you have a poor connection, you may wish to reduce the level of texture detail. This can be set to Normal, Low or None. We suggest leaving this at normal.
Alpha Mask Rendering > These options control when alpha masking should be used in an attempt to mitigate the well known alpha sorting issue, in which prims behind other prims may appear to flicker in front.
Please note that enabling this can have side effects of its own, such as objects not rendering at all. The two options are:
Render alpha masks when “lighting and shadows” is not enabled
Render alpha masks when “lighting and shadows” is enabled
Miscellaneous Rendering
Enable rendering of screen space reflections This produces simple reflections on surfaces that are set to shiny.
Render Glow > Enables or disables glow
Strength (slider) > Lets you select the level or strength of the glow.
Show avatars that haven't finished loading > Equivalent to the debug setting RenderUnloadedAvatar.
Note that this is not a solution to a bake fail, as it doesn't actually fix anything; it merely forces the viewer to display whatever it happens to have managed to load.
Time to delay while pre-caching before showing world > Allows the world to start caching before it is shown, at login.
Quality of the shadows > Adjusts the quality of shadows.
Scale of Terrain Texture Rendering (requires restart) > Indicates the scale of terrain textures, with lower values being more compressed textures.
**Depth of Field sub-tab
These options are really only good for photographers in SL. Not something to have enabled normally.
Enable Depth of Field > checking this will enable DOF
You can adjust the following settings to very loosely mimic RL camera effects:
Camera F Number
Camera Focal Length mm
Camera FOV degs
Camera Aspect Ratio
DOF Focus Transition Time
DOF Rendering quality
****Network & Cache Tab
Maximum Bandwidth > Sets the maximum bandwidth the viewer will pull. Please see http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=fs_speedtest for detailed instructions on setting this.
The following is what we generally recommend as maximums.
Any type of wireless (this includes a home wireless connection, i.e., using a wireless modem/router) > 500
Hardwired DSL > 1000
Anything faster (again hardwired) > 1500
Custom Port > Allows you to set a custom port if needed
Cache Size > Determines the maximum cache size; set this is high as possible, based on the free space on your hard drive.
The File Locations in this section have one or more buttons that do the following.
Open > Will open the folder specified on your computer.
Set > Will allow you to set a custom location (if applicable).
Reset > Will reset the location to its default location.
Cache Location > Shows the location of the cache.
The Clear Cache Button will clear cache on the next relog.
Only clear cache if you absolutely have to.
Please see http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=cache for more information.
Chat Logs Location > Shows the location of your chat logs.
Open Crash Logs Button > Will open the folder that the log files are in.
Open Settings Folder Button > Will open the folder that the settings files are in.
Don't delete unpacked DSF (sound) cache files when logging out >
This may improve experience with playing inworld sounds but will likely fill your cache directory very quickly and does not adhere to the max cache setting, resulting in excessive disc space usage.
Web browser > Allows you to use either your default browser or built-in browser.
Maximum number of web browser windows > Choose the maximum number of web browser windows that will open.
The following are enabled by default > Turning any of them off may cause search, media, etc, to not work.
Enable plugins
Accept Cookies
Enable Javascript
The following is disabled by default:
Enable media browser pop-ups
Proxy Settings
Adjust Proxy Settings (button) > Opens the Proxy settings window where you can set up a proxy if you need to.
****Backup Tab
Backup Path shows the path to the backup folder, assuming you have set one
Set (button) Clicking this opens a window where you point to the folder for your backups. We do recommend creating a folder just for the backups.
Settings groups to be restored (backup will always save all)
Global Files are files that affect all accounts that logs in on your computer.
Per Account Files are files that affect a single account.
Folders This includes custom selection beams, windlight, and so on
To select all of the available settings for backup/restore, click the Select All button;
Deselect All unchecks all of them, allowing manual selection of just some.
Restore global settings Enables restoring the selected global settings
Restore per account settings Enables restoring the selected per account settings, you will need to restore for each account that logs in on your computer.
Backup Settings (button) Clicking this will backup all your settings
Restore Settings (button) Clicking this will restore the settings chosen above in this window and prompt you to restart the viewer
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