i really like Erik's comments! He gives lots of good examples. The best draw distance isn't always a function of the best performance. Sometimes it may not even make sense to someone who's not there at the time.
i think one of the important ideas in Erik's mail and some of the earlier messages is that draw distance is a candidate for a (maybe optional) onscreen widget that makes it as easy to adjust as the camera controls. All the ideas for chat line access and defaults management of draw distance and other settings are really awesome, too! My opinion says they should be implemented in parallel with something super simple and obvious to use for draw distance, including maybe even a way to enable a mouse gesture the same way it works for the maps. If you think about it for a sec, isn't a quick and easy type of "draw distance" adjustment part of the way our eyes work? It seems very natural to make SL work in its world the same way. - AK (Aklo Modan) On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Erik Anderson <eri...@odysseus.anderson.name> wrote: > > > > Shouldn't the SL client be able to figure out what a good draw distance > > would be? Maybe have it start autodetecting draw distance based on rolling > > average number of polygons visible or something? > > It's not that simple, there are are a number of use cases that call for different draw distances. If you're playing with some kinds of vehicles, you may have the best experience with a medium-low draw distance to keep framerates high but still let you see where you're going. If you're in the audience of a high-traffic event, you may have the best experience with an extremely low draw distance. If you're taking photographs, particularly of scenery, you will turn draw distance up very high and not be so concerned with framerates. If you're trying to keep an eye on a particular spot on a sim X distance from you, you'll want to use a draw distance of at least X. If you're in an indoor area with confined spaces, a very small draw distance may be optimal. If you're trying to get 'the lay of the land' for how a region is spread out, a higher draw distance may be necessary so you can see buildings and landscaping together. This is just off the top of my head. Many of these depend on user's preference for framerate vs scene details at a moment in time, and can't be reliably guessed purely from inworld behavior (although there are hints, I will grant). I find myself frequently adjusting draw distance in practice, mainly for photographcs, music events, and some types of vehicle use. Viewers that have some quick UI for for this are far more handy than the clicks involved in navigating to custom graphics preferences. _______________________________________________ Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges _______________________________________________ Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges
