Let residents identify and de-render high-cost objects to improve FPS
Asher Nightfall
We already have avatar complexity controls that help limit how demanding other avatars are to display. I’d like similar control over objects and scenery, available to every resident without needing land ownership or estate permissions.
Sometimes a location looks fairly simple but still causes a noticeable drop in FPS. Poorly optimized mesh, excessive detail, and heavy texture use can contribute to that, yet visitors don’t have a straightforward way to identify which objects are the most demanding.
Lowering graphics settings affects the entire scene. Residents should also have the option to find and hide individual objects that may be hurting their performance.
The main request is a simple viewer tool that lets us:
List nearby objects and sort them by estimated rendering cost.
Select and highlight an object so we can identify it.
Derender that object directly from the list.
Easily review and restore anything we’ve hidden.
Where practical, the tool could show useful details such as triangle count and texture usage, with a clear explanation that rendering cost is an estimate and performance varies by computer and settings.
An optional object complexity limit, similar in purpose to avatar complexity controls, would also be useful. Users should be able to exempt selected objects from automatic hiding, particularly buildings, floors, and objects they need to interact with.
These controls would affect only the resident’s own view. They would leave the build and everyone else’s experience unchanged.
Even starting with the sortable list and manual derender/restore controls would give residents a practical way to troubleshoot low FPS. It could help people stay and enjoy shops, venues, and events where they might otherwise have to leave because of poor performance.
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Beatrice Voxel
A 'debugging' view would be nice. Something that shows texture complexity (texture sizes, number of faces) as well as mesh complexity (number of triangles) would be useful for static objects. And then also, show script complexity - how many scripts does the object contain, and what their CPU/RAM costs are.
Asher Nightfall
Beatrice Voxel
I like that idea. A diagnostic view showing things like triangle counts, texture sizes, and the number of faces could help people understand why an object might be demanding.
Script information could be useful too, especially for people building or managing regions. I’d want it shown separately from rendering cost, though, since scripts affect the region differently than an object’s visual complexity affects someone’s viewer. That way, people can see what kind of issue they’re looking at.
steph Arnott
Actually 'FPS' only exists with mechanical cameras, what you are referring to is data packeting size and rate. The main issue in SL is that many creators are either lazy or incompetent in getting a desired look with as little data as possible. A main issue with your post is that you want cherry picking which is not possible, you can how ever adjust render in the debug but you need to know what you are doing.
Asher Nightfall
steph Arnott
I agree that creators should try to make their content as efficient as possible, and I know there are debug tools that can show some performance information.
When I say FPS, I’m referring to the frames per second the viewer displays. Network performance is a separate issue that can also affect someone’s experience.
What I’m asking for is an easier way to identify and hide individual objects that may be costly to render, without expecting every resident to know their way around debug settings. The information could also help builders and shoppers compare objects before filling a space with them.
AlettaMondragon Resident
It's not a bad idea at all, but it would be only a tool for us when we go to incredibly unoptimized places to do something about on our end, which is... I'll try to explain with this example: once I really had to stay in a region that was so stuffed with I don't know what that I had 1-3 fps and terrible animation lag - otherwise I can have ultra settings with 1024m draw distance at sailing estates for example with acceptable fps and very little lag - so I eventually had to reduce my draw distance to less than 100m and it was still bad, I started derendering objects and I ended up derendering most of the region, until literally only the building we were in remained. And it was still meh. Needless to say, I never went back to that pit of crippling lag.
The point in my example is that it is the builder's responsibility to optimize the scene, no matter it's small or big. Especially those who label themselves as "professional landscapers and sim builders" should be taught how to optimize scenes, how to do benchmark tests, but many of them have no idea and pack places so full of stuff, you can barely even move. Eventually we just won't go back to places where our experience is abysmal.
Asher Nightfall
AlettaMondragon Resident
I agree that builders and landscapers have a responsibility to optimize their spaces. Your example shows how frustrating it can be when a place is so demanding that visitors can’t enjoy being there.
That’s also why I think this could be useful for more than just visitors. A landscaper or sim builder could use it while putting a region together to identify costly objects and compare alternatives. The same goes for someone building a venue, attraction, store, or event space who wants people to be able to enjoy it without their FPS taking a hit.
It wouldn’t replace good building practices or fix every kind of lag, but it could give people better information to work with before visitors run into those problems.
Hooten Haller
A list would be clunky but helpful to find hidden stuff. Some visual indicators would help too: a beacon, or a color tint over the object with color graded for complexity.
Asher Nightfall
Hooten Haller
I like the idea of a beacon or color tint. That could make it much easier to spot a costly object in a crowded build, especially if it’s hidden behind or inside something else.
I’d still like a sortable list alongside it, so people could compare objects, select one to highlight it, and choose to hide or restore it. Together, those options could help visitors troubleshoot performance and help builders, landscapers, and creators see which items might need attention.