General SL Information

What is a sensible draw distance?

The higher you set your draw distance, the harder your viewer needs to work.  A lower draw distance will give you a smoother, faster, more realistic experience. We recommend a draw distance of no more than 200 - 96 is perfectly adequate for most situations.

How do you change windlight settings?

The Amazon uses preset windlight settings to give the right sense of atmosphere. You can change these at will (the changes will affect your viewer only) by using the viewer provided tools - for example Firestorm's Photo-Tools. Play around with these especially if you like to make photos at the Amazon.

What can cause lag?

The effect of lag can be caused by many things.  Here are a few, with suggestions on how to deal with them:

• Sculpts:  large sculpt buildings/trees/other objects make your viewer work hard. Avoid sculpts!
• Draw Distance: if your DD is set to high, it will slow you down. if you are using Firestorm you can reduce your draw distance by typing DD <<number> in local chat e.g. DD 96 will set your draw distance to a comfortable 96m.  Otherwise use Menu - Preferences - Graphics to change your draw distance.
• LL issues: Linden Lab periodically cycles their servers, this can impact the performance of all sims, even those not being cycled.  There is no solution - be patient!
• Busy location: a location with many people arriving or leaving (TP in/out) can experience brief moments of lag while the server adjusts to the new arrivals.  Be patient.
• Too many scripts: thanks to recent changes by LL this rarely causes lag. However it is good practice to keep the number of scripted attachments you have to a minimum - weapons can be especially 'demanding'.

Under-aged Avatars

 Due to Linden Labs TOS on Child Avatars, residents presenting as Child Avatars shall be prohibited from the following:

• Entering any Region rated Adult. Residents must change to a non-child or non-childlike avatar to visit Adult rated regions.    
• Engaging or participating in any event or location where nudity and/or sexual activity is present, encouraged and/or expected.
•  Wearing genital/sexual attachments including clothing, attachments or HUDs created for and/or worn by child avatars to indicate genitalia, whether visible or not.
•  Being fully nude. Child avatar content creators are required to add a modesty layer which is baked into child avatar skins or bodies, is not transparent, does not match the skin tone, and may not be removed.
•  Child avatars where the focal point of the body is on the breasts, pelvis, or buttocks
•  Participation in lewd or sexual acts in which one or more of the avatars appears to represent minors (or the depiction of such acts in images, video, textures, or text). 
  

Please note: If there is some doubt as to whether an avatar is considered a child, or their activity may be interpreted as age-play, we reserve the right to err on the side of caution and ask them to leave or, failing that, we will remove them.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Clarification_of_policy_disallowing_ageplay