Described herein are processes and devices that modify a display quality of an area of a virtual universe. Some embodiments include operations to determine a number of avatars that occupy the area, determine a display quality of the area that can be reduced to conserve a computing resource that processes data to present the area and modify the display quality of the area proportionally to the number of avatars that occupy the area. The operations can further modify usage of a computing resource to process data to present the area in response to modification of the display quality of the area.