Yay a /grass option for us weirdo laptop users (I mean the laptop being weird) using Outdated video-cards. Too bad my charger isn't working. And ontop of that, I might be getting a new laptop since Over-heating/Charger over-heating with Dell's older laptops is a problem. *Hoping so badly for a new laptop! 11 more days till' my birthday!
* For others curious, I'm not using my laptop to type this in (Or any Comp/mac/laptop/ipod/phone :p lol)
So for you guys with issues with grass/flora, I added the multiple level grass options so that a few things could be tested.
If you have time... go to a relatively grassy place with some flowers and record your FPS once it settles. Then:
1) run /flora low and wait for **loading** to stop. Let FPS settle and record the FPS. (or just press F2)
2) run /grass medium and wait for **loading** to stop. Let FPS settle and record it. (or press F2)
3) run /grass medium2 and wait for **loading** to stop. Record the FPS after it settles, etc.
4) run /grass normal and wait for **loading** to stop... record it again like above.
The last one is important because it will tell me if it's just the flowers that are a problem or the grass and/or how much each is a problem.
For the curious:
grass low uses boxes like before.
grass medium uses an opaque non-animated texture but does not do any LOD. You will be able to see grass from as far away as you can see (which is not normal for regular grass)
grass medium2 is the same as medium except that LOD is turned back on meaning that grass farther than 64 meters is not rendered.
Seeing the frame rate changes between these modes will help me figure out where the slow-down is on the older platforms... because otherwise it's a bit baffling.