Speeding up Windlight

I just discovered that if I turn on the "Hardware Skinning" option in the windlight viewer (which requires that "Basic Shaders" also be enabled), I get a fairly significant framerate increase. Where I'm currently standing, I go from about 29 fps to 40. This is having all options as low as possible, then turning on the skinning option. I am in Windows right now. The person here with me has a Mac, and says the option drops his framerate, so this might not work for everyone. I have yet to test it on Linux. Let me know how this option affects you, and what sort of system you have.