Hardware Settings: VRAM and Textures
Open Preferences → Graphics → Hardware Settings. Check that Firestorm recognizes the correct NVIDIA GPU and the approximate amount of dedicated video memory. If it does not, use Override GPU Dedicated VRAM only to enter the real VRAM amount on the card. Entering a larger value than the card physically has does not create memory and can make texture management less stable.
- Enable anisotropic filtering if Firestorm presents the option. It helps floors, roads, roofs, terrain, and other textures seen at a steep angle retain detail.
- For maximum texture quality, disable lossy texture compression if VRAM is sufficient.
- Restart Firestorm after changing VRAM or major hardware-related settings.
- Allow time for a new region’s textures to download and resolve before judging image quality or changing settings again.
- Antialiasing – this smooths the edges of everything but text. FXAA and SMAA are your choices in Firestorm. SMAA is better but slower. Try them to see what works for you. Changing the setting requires a viewer restart.
- DLSS is NVIDIA ’s new antialiasing and AI enhancing thing. I am playing with it now. It can be added as a Windows App. It works like a screen overlay, not a part of the viewer. When I finish playing I’ll wrote it up.
Three Presets Worth Saving
The Presets controls in Preferences are at the bottom of the Graphics → General screen and are more useful than constantly rebuilding a configuration or doing on the fly changes. I think you should save at least three named configurations.
Everyday High Quality
- Draw distance: 128–192 m
- Objects and Sculpts LOD: about 2.0–2.5
- Shadows: Sun/Moon, or Sun/Moon + Projectors if performance is stable
- Ambient Occlusion: on
- Screen Space Reflections: on
- Reflection Detail: Static & Dynamic
- Reflection Coverage: Full scene or the highest stable level
- Mirrors: off
- Mirror Resolution: 1024
- Non-impostor avatars: roughly 20–30, adjusted for your hardware
Photography and Machinima
- Draw distance: 192–256 m only when the composition needs it
- Objects and Sculpts LOD: 3.0 for close scene inspection or shots where distant mesh detail matters
- Shadows: highest practical quality
- Ambient Occlusion and SSR: on
- Reflection Detail and Coverage: highest stable setting
- Mirrors: on only if in frame
- Mirror Resolution: 2048 for an important close mirror, otherwise 1024
- Depth of Field: use only as a deliberate composition tool
This is a temporary render preset, not a sensible all-day configuration. Frame the shot, let textures resolve, capture the image or sequence, and then return to the normal preset.
Crowded Events and Shopping
- Draw distance: 96–128 m
- Objects and Sculpts LOD: 1.5–2.0
- Mirrors: off
- SSR: turn off first if GPU load remains high after mirrors are disabled
- Reflection Detail and Coverage: reduce as necessary
- Shadows: lower or disable if needed
- Non-impostor avatars: 10–20, depending on GPU, VRAM, and avatar complexity
- Keep the nearby scene visually good rather than spending GPU time drawing distant people and objects that do not matter
What to Lower First
When the scene is beautiful but frame rate is poor, reduce the effects that create the largest render burden before sacrificing texture quality. This order usually gives the most useful trade-off:
- Turn Mirrors off.
- Lower Mirror Resolution from 2048 to 1024 if a mirror must remain active.
- Reduce Reflection Coverage and Reflection Detail.
- Disable Screen Space Reflections if reflections are still too expensive.
- Reduce draw distance: 192–256 m to 128 m, then to 96 m if necessary.
- Reduce the number of non-impostor avatars.
- Lower shadow quality or disable shadows in the busiest regions.
- Reduce Object and Avatar LOD from photo-level values toward 2.0.
For blurry textures despite adequate FPS, take a different path: verify VRAM detection, check the texture-compression setting, enable anisotropic filtering where available, and allow texture downloads time to finish. Raising draw distance to extreme values is not a reliable cure for blurry textures; it often makes texture and rendering pressure worse.
The Practical Rule
Second Life’s visual quality is a balance among viewer settings, GPU capability and VRAM, avatar complexity, region content, lighting, and the EEP environment. A quality configuration should emphasize the content the resident can actually see: nearby avatar detail, terrain and objects, good PBR lighting, and stable texture resolution. The best-looking long-term setup is usually not “everything on,” but several well-chosen Firestorm presets that match the kind of region being visited.
Flying and Sailing
This is a trick. Your ‘Radar’ or ‘Mini-Map’ shows information based on your draw distance. For flying and sailing you’ll want the map open so you can see region boundaries and parcels with ban lines (they show as red shaded parcels). You’ll want to avoid crossing near region corners. Also, you can see public right-of-way through regions.
For sailing a 256m Draw Distance works well. But not so well for flying. I set mine at 512m.
How you adjust your Graphics Settings depends on what you want to do. If racing, you want everything set as low as possible so you can use a large Draw Distance. If you are flying or sailing for joy, you are likely going to want a better-quality render. I suggest you try the Everyday settings and just increase the Draw Distance. Experiment until you have something that lets you fly or sail and see the country with a decent frame rate. Viewer frame rate does affect the boat or plane’s response.
And frame rates in SL can be much lower than one needs in other games. Lindens have been known to say 10fps is usable. I find that too slow and boats and planes feel very sluggish. I prefer at least 20. Higher is better…
The max frame rate for SL is roughly 44fps. You can have the viewer run at more than 44 for video and other visual reasons. But the system, viewer and servers, only ever runs at max 45fps. When a viewer goes over 45, it and the video card are faking the additional frames. It looks good. But the server only calculates where the avatar, boat, plane, or whatever is 45 times per second max.
If you get into combat games in SL, you’ll learn all about how this works. Otherwise, it doesn’t really matter as long as you can steer a boat or plane.
Summary
So, these are the settings and explanations AI found looking in NVIDIA, Firestorm, the SL Forum, and other sources. I tried these settings. I edited much of the information. I was trying for better quality on my setup. These settings did improved my render quality.
AI did not get it perfect. I had to make some changes and edit its recommendations. But I think it found all the useful stuff. This information will guide you in getting good performance, quality, or some balance you can live with and enjoy.