Reduce In-Game Lag Time

The following is a transcript of "Traveling Avatar's Quick and Dirty Tips for a Richer Life," a podcast from QuickAndDirtyTips.com. The audio program is available via RSS feed here and at TheStreet.com's podcast home page.

Will Ross here. Welcome to The Traveling Avatar's Quick and Dirty Tips for a Better Second Life. On this show we discuss tips and tricks for the game Second Life, created by Linden Labs.

This week's episode: Performance Anxiety -- Ways to Reduce Lag in Second Life.

Some days it seems like Second Life is less of a social simulator and more of a simulation of what the world would be like with an atmosphere of thick, nutritious oatmeal. "And it's good for yer diabetes too." Shut up, Wilfred.

We've all had the experience of moving forward at the speed of a tree sloth, then warping to the other side of the room all while knocking furries out of your way like so many adorable, fuzzy bowling pins. The bad news is that every online world is going to have some lag. The good news is there are ways to minimize lag and increase your frame rate with just a few tweaks.

Now, before we start, a few things to remember. First, there are simply too many things you can do to improve your performance to list them all on a five-minute podcast, so I've listed a half dozen or so articles with more information on the Web site.

Second, I can't guarantee that something I tell you to do will work for you, or that it won't turn your computer into a sentient killing machine bent on world domination, so please make sure you know what you're doing if you plan to fool around with settings. Nobody wants a mucked up computer or a post-apocalyptic computerized dystopia.