Give me eyes that I might see

So, a few years back now, I bought a bottom-end-of-the-range laptop.  It was OK, it did all the not-very-demanding things I asked of it... including, up to a point, running SL.  It was never exactly the most wonderful machine in the world, but it, and I, got by.

As the regular readership-at-very-small knows by now, though, performance was increasingly becoming an issue, what with the technology moving on, the hard drive filling up with junk, and the ventilation holes filling up with fluff... So, yesterday, I bit the bullet and bought another bottom-end-of-the-range laptop.

And, of course, in the interim, the bottom end has moved up quite a fair way.

So, when I logged in to SL for the first time... "What is all this?" I said to myself.  "Colours! Shades! Fluid movement! Oh my God, look at that water, see it sparkle in the sunlight!"

In short - for the first time I was getting a decent look at SL, the way it was meant to look.  Instead of taking one look at my graphics setup and grudgingly allowing me slightly better than the minimum settings, the installer kicked me straight into "High" by default, and I have to say, it looked really good - at least, by comparison!  I'm still at a level, I suspect, where the true purists would sniff at the jerkiness of my frame rate, but I'm honestly not bothered about it.  To me, it looks amazing.  I have been wandering around half-blind for the past two years, it seems!

So I spent most of my spare time, yesterday, wandering around squeeing at just about everything.  Buildings more than eighty meters away!  Reflections in the water!  Lights and glow! - OK, so a confluence of facelights made me appreciate just how bright things can get, there.  People - numbers of people, in full colour, and moving around!  I went dancing at a crowded venue, and I could see everyone, and I didn't even crash when I moved my camera around!

Tali, bless her, has been very tolerant of my wide-eyed gushing, and even went so far as to provide an appropriate soundtrack ....

I got to see some of my usual haunts, and also some visually impressive places new to me... I've not even been to Burroughs yet, though, I am saving that up!  At last I will be able to appreciate properly all the work Tali has put into the environment settings - not to mention getting a proper look at my own builds....

Hee!  It's rather nice, this SL thing, isn't it?  If it's all this pretty, I might stay for a while.