The results of 3 days work are here, the first acceptable version of the heightmap for Crystal shards is here, it is 256×256 of size and renders at 60fps here.
Its currently not a Draw-List and the only thing you can do is walk around on it with your player that you don’t see, move your camera around the player and move the lightsource with the mouse.
Lot of work to go.
Maluku's asorted blog 