Second Life, as we know it, is an amazingly expansive and wonderful place. But on the user side, sometimes we run into performance or (ahem) inventory woes. Here’s a look at some Second Life Hacks to make your experiences more enjoyable!

Getting the most out of your graphics: Oftentimes folks don’t have a graphics card powerful enough to handle the higher graphics settings, which can be a pain when you’re in the mood to take those great pictures. I’m one of those people. If I just set my graphics to “Ultra”, it’s a crash waiting to happen in seconds. However, there are a few things you can do to get the highest settings with the least amount of problems without having to cough up the money to get a new machine or graphics card.

 Set up your graphics preferences at the login screen, rather than after you’ve logged in. It was this way that I was able to figure out how I could be on Ultra without crashing by modifying some other qualities.

 Reduce what you don’t need or want. For example, are you even able to see water or terrain? Are you around Linden trees? Are those particles really that important right now? Put those values to zero/low or unclick them so they’re not using up resources needlessly. Transparent water is not needed if you’re in the middle of a waterless city sim, right?

 Flexiprim- if you’re not around it much, this is also not needed. If you are, see if reducing it slightly helps.

 Figure out what your computer can reasonably handle with those adjustments. Yes, if you’re like me with a less powerful machine, you will crash a few times. However- it will be totally worth it. Sometimes those few values being reduced or removed can impact how high you can enable your graphics to go. For some of us, it can make all the difference between medium, high and Ultra. You won’t need to leave it all those settings all of the time, but it would be good to know what your limits are so you know what options you have if you need to take quality pictures or are visiting a sim where higher graphics would do it an incredible amount of justice.

Another obstacle folks might run into time to time is having their avatar goof up totally. Sometimes things go missing or we just show up totally wacky. Never fear; there’s a trick for that too.

 One of the easiest things to do is to save outfits when all is well. I always make sure to have a few handy and make new ones anytime I make drastic changes to my avatar. What this means is that, if you go someplace and realize your avatar has gone completely wacky, you can search an outfit and select “replace all” to have yourself sorted quickly. This is especially great to have when you log back in after a crash to find out you’re quite clothing-free.

 Make sure to name them something easy to remember. In my case, I like to use “Casual 1, Casual 2 etc”….same thing for formal and what have you.

Speaking of clothing- did you know that your clothing and other attachments can sometimes impact your ability to get into high lag and high traffic sales events? Ever wonder how some folks get into The Arcade, Uber or Collabor88 on the first day?

 This might sound crazy, but you should make an outfit for this too. And I mean- completely script and mesh free. It will probably be the saddest avatar in your inventory, but removing scripts and mesh does make it easier to squeeze yourself into the events where you usually get the “region full” messages. Also, once you get in, you’ll have a slightly easier time navigating than those who are script-laden.

One thing that people often complain about is when they run out of prim when decorating their homes and lands. It’s frustrating, isn’t it? But, there’s a trick for that too!

 If you decorate mainly with mesh, this makes a huge difference in your prim count when used wisely.

 The additional benefit with mesh is that if you link all of your copyable items together (I would avoid no-copy and beds/chairs/anything you sit on) this will make a huge impact in your prim count. Just the other day, my daughter was working on setting up a new house and was at a 500 something prim count. She linked all of the copyable items together once she was 100% sure of placement and ended up with only 70 prims of usage. If you have a very low prim budget, this is absolutely the trick for you, not to mention that if you ever need to pick everything up, you can delete it in one click!

 Not sure how to link things together? Check this article out!

I hope these little tips help you get even more out of your Second Life! Give them a try and have an awesome week ahead!

Bria Oceanside
ZoHa Blogger/Social Media