Here some tweaks to improve framerate.

[salmo]

I know nothing about SSAO, but wikipedia indicates that the method has the following advantages:

• Independent from scene complexity.
• No data pre-processing needed, no loading time and no memory allocations in system memory.
• Works with dynamic scenes.
• Works in the same consistent way for every pixel on the screen.
• No CPU usage – it can be executed completely on the GPU.
• May be easily integrated into any modern graphics pipeline

If framerates increase when SSAO is turned off, doesn't this indicate serious issues between the game code & most GPU's?