[opensource-dev] DD philosophy

[Zha Ewry]

I second pretty much all of these thoughts. I think any implementation of an
Automatic DD would have to include
a way to say "turn this off" I tune my experience to what I'm doing. low
frame rates are completely acceptable
when I want to see something completely and am not moving. Higher ones may
be needed for combat, or exploring a large 3D model.

I'll also point out that Draw distance is only one of several controls one
can use to improve FPS, and any such control is going to be impacted by any
of those changes as well. I fiddle with particle density, draw distance, and
number of avatar imposters routinely. I've dialed down other bits of visual
candy when I cared more FPS than pretty, or so I could explicitly dial up
Draw Distance, or water reflections, or specific shaders.

I think something where you could turn off the capability, and also set a
target FPS would be very handy. Default it to something reasonable, and then
let people how have strong opinions over-ride them.

~ Zha


On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Nalates Urriah <nalates.u at gmail.com>wrote:

> To consider implementing automatic(DD) Draw Distance changes one probably
> should consider all the possible ways this affects players, which is
> probably not the easiest thing to do.
>
> When shopping changing a DD probably would not be much of an issue, at
> least for me. However, I tend to enter a store and then cam around. I also
> tend to turn DD down when in a mall. Using 64m when things are a bit slow
> and even down to 32m when they remain slow.
>
> However when in a combat sim I do not want the DD to change. I set the DD
> depending on what is going on. I may turn off shaders to keep a high FPS.
> But, changing DD when I'm in combat would really piss me off. One is already
> clicking and key banging as fast as one can. Having to fight with DD to keep
> it as an acceptable distance would be extremely annoying. I would change
> away from any viewer that has automatic DD that degrades my combat
> experience.
>
> When I am using Kirsten's Viewer for Photography I often use maximum DD and
> graphics setting and tolerate low FPS, even 2 or 3 FPS is acceptable, for
> the sake of capturing a great image. An automatic DD change would also be
> extremely annoying in such a scenario. Any change to my rendering settings
> would be annoying.
>
> I'm not sure that FPS is the criteria that is most important to residents.
> I like higher FPS. I think once FPS is 15 or more performance is less
> important to residents and render quality becomes more important. That is
> rather subjective. Before making a change like adding automatic tuning for
> performance one needs to determine what people find acceptable. The blow
> back from the changes made to the initial SLV2 is an example of
> how irritate people.
>
> Changing the viewer settings at install times is reasonable. I don't hear
> people complaining. We can over ride those settings. Once we do, performance
> is on us. Changing my choices after that just irritates me and motivates
> people to use TPV's.
>
> --
> Nalates Urriah
>
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