Scott Hartsman presents disappearing shadows ;)

[adolf102]

To my any many other annoyance EQ2 shadows keep disappearing. And not coming back before restart. But imagine yourself that happens on video of Rise of Kunark presented by Senior Producer of EverQuest II himself <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> As the expansion looks cool, and I surly will be getting it I couldn't miss such opportunity to get some more attention to disappearing shadows problem. If you will watch this video: <a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive_content.vm?month=current&id=1234" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...ent&id=1234</a> You can see that from about 2/3 of it there are no shadows anymore. No our main Sarnak shadow, no surrounding shadows no shadows at all. Now who could imagine oneself better proof of problem existence? <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Kindly requesting EQ2 team who provides us with this great game, to have a look at shadows problem, or if team is looking already please say what the status is. Thank you <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> PS<i> And it is not because Sarnak is indoors in later part of video. Shadow from torch, which is perfectly visible in first part of video should be visible indoors as well. At least before shadows disappear. </i>

[cronar]

<p>I am certain that the expac is far from optimized. Things have to be worked on.</p><p>Me personally, i turn shadows off. Big factor in lag.</p>

[Andok]

Haha!  Classic!

[Guy De Alsace]

<p>Heh. I think SOE know about this since its been a bug since game release but it must be a core game engine issue since no attempt has ever been made, to my knowledge, to address this. Shame since shadows make the game look even more awesome.</p>

[Chondrichtheyia]

What I want to know is the system specs of the computer Hartsman used to demo the game. The frames looked really good even with everything turned on.

[xOnaton1]

Yes, it's a known problem and they're working on it. <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=15&topic_id=354329" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=354329</a>

[Guy De Alsace]

Wow...lots of hostility in that other thread. Shame.

[MysidiaDrakkenbane]

Danger@Guk wrote: <blockquote><p>I am certain that the expac is far from optimized. Things have to be worked on.</p><p>Me personally, i turn shadows off. Big factor in lag.</p></blockquote> Ditto.

[Lana]

I have always had shadows turned off. Too much video lag for not a lot of return in my opinion. I am so excited for Kunark.

[Andok]

Guy De Alsace wrote: <blockquote>Wow...lots of hostility in that other thread. Shame.</blockquote> I think the hostility in that thread is due to a lot of frustration from players that have been experiencing this problem for a long time, and SOE maintaining that that they can’t reproduce the problem (“impossible to reproduce”) so it must be a problem with the users hardware.  Clearly, the problem isn’t that hard to reproduce since it is happening to a lot of users, and even, as seen on the video, to SOE employees as well. SOE has finally said that they can reproduce the problem, so hopefully we will see a fix someday. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> 

[Bramwe]

I hope the music portion is done well.  All the transitioning based on the dynamics of the fight could really be taxing on a system I would think.

[thekingart]

<cite>Andok wrote:</cite><blockquote>Guy De Alsace wrote:<blockquote>Wow...lots of hostility in that other thread. Shame.</blockquote> I think the hostility in that thread is due to a lot of frustration from players that have been experiencing this problem for a long time, and SOE maintaining that that they can’t reproduce the problem (“impossible to reproduce”) so it must be a problem with the users hardware.  Clearly, the problem isn’t that hard to reproduce since it is happening to a lot of users, and even, as seen on the video, to SOE employees as well. SOE has finally said that they can reproduce the problem, so hopefully we will see a fix someday. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" />  </blockquote>If they took 1-2 years to admit that this was a problem just guess how long it'll take them to fix it o.o

[Ravella]

I 2-box on one computer. There are times when I start both, and they both have shadows and everything looks AWESOME. After playing some time, one or the other loses shadows. No matter what I do after that, the shadows will not come back unless I log completely out and back in. Its really annoying, as the game looks REALLY amazing with shadows on, and my computer is more than capable of handling it (as evidenced by running two instances with shadows on and no lag). I also have the problem pop up when I am only playing one character (which is most of the time) and its really kinda sad. I love the shadows. Its been 4 months since they said they found something making it happen, and no fix yet. I hope they are still working on it.

[Guy De Alsace]

I too like playing with shadows on, for the short time they are viewable. The game really does look amazing with them on. Its a real shame they disappear so quickly. I've seen it happen in front of my eyes instead of just noticing it after its already been and gone. I was in SS, alone with no lag. One minute the shadow from the looming cliff was there - the next it had disappeared <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Kimage]

  maybe he turned them off - because he was lagging to much ; )

[adolf102]

Oh my old thread moved and thus bumped! How cute!Didn't want to bump it for sole purpose of bumping. Was just /bug'ging it every update.But to add. The thing that is most erm annoying/sad/bad ( you choose ) is that there are no official statement from soem Dev or someone other then TSM that problem exists and someone is working on it.Like if there would be some PR ban policy on this topic heheBut in the end the louder it will be about the problem the more likely it is it will be fixed <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[varius]

I can guarantee you why the shadows do not work properly.  It's so simple, it's not even funny.   You are asking the CPU to render shadows on the screen.  While, you then are asking the GPU to render the remaining images and sync them with the CPUs shadow generation.  As Direct X progressed, as well as, the way video cards are being made, the video cards are now "FIGHTING" the CPU.  For example, the 8800s ( I run two in SLI ) are designed and programmed to remove the load from the CPU and render a large percentage of everything you see on screen in modern games.  While the CPU is left to happily crunch numbers and allow programs to operate, etc.  This is also becoming more and more of a problem as larger displays have been released.  For example, a 30" monitor, which resolves at 2560 x 1600 will cause the video card to take o ver all most completely.  This is one reason why w hen running two video cards, it is often recommend ed to run a monitor 24"s or larger, which allows the cards to take over t he rendering.   I have a quad core at 3.6 ghz, and  two 8800s, my system slows down in heavy populated areas horribly when the shadows are on, since the CPU is being asked to render them.  And my resolution is indeed 2560 x 1600.  A cpu attempting to make shadows on a resolution that large is pretty much ridiculous.  When the shadows disappear, my FPS sky-rockets, with every single other effect and setting at max I get a perfect and smooth game.  Most modern games with shadows render them via GPU, which inturn nets high FPS and great quality.  SOE needs to make a patch, or optional patch, that will take advantage of video cards rendering the shadows.  They will likely not disappear and the game will run like butter.  I play games like Oblivion on my setup and it has MUCH higher quality rendering and shadows, but, I have no problem with it.  Something is seriously wrong with the coding.

[Armawk]

<p>While its true that there is a serious coding bug there, that explanation is... well its one of the most 'imaginative' ideas Ive seen for a long time. </p>

[Arcanth]

<cite>varius wrote:</cite><blockquote>I can guarantee you why the shadows do not work properly.  It's so simple, it's not even funny.   You are asking the CPU to render shadows on the screen.  While, you then are asking the GPU to render the remaining images and sync them with the CPUs shadow generation.  As Direct X progressed, as well as, the way video cards are being made, the video cards are now "FIGHTING" the CPU.  For example, the 8800s ( I run two in SLI ) are designed and programmed to remove the load from the CPU and render a large percentage of everything you see on screen in modern games.  While the CPU is left to happily crunch numbers and allow programs to operate, etc.  This is also becoming more and more of a problem as larger displays have been released.  For example, a 30" monitor, which resolves at 2560 x 1600 will cause the video card to take o ver all most completely.  This is one reason why w hen running two video cards, it is often recommend ed to run a monitor 24"s or larger, which allows the cards to take over t he rendering.   I have a quad core at 3.6 ghz, and  two 8800s, my system slows down in heavy populated areas horribly when the shadows are on, since the CPU is being asked to render them.  And my resolution is indeed 2560 x 1600.  A cpu attempting to make shadows on a resolution that large is pretty much ridiculous.  When the shadows disappear, my FPS sky-rockets, with every single other effect and setting at max I get a perfect and smooth game.  Most modern games with shadows render them via GPU, which inturn nets high FPS and great quality.  SOE needs to make a patch, or optional patch, that will take advantage of video cards rendering the shadows.  They will likely not disappear and the game will run like butter.  I play games like Oblivion on my setup and it has MUCH higher quality rendering and shadows, but, I have no problem with it.  Something is seriously wrong with the coding. </blockquote>Ahhh... well... huh!? <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/0320a00cb4bb5629ab9fc2bc1fcc4e9e.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Chefren]

<a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/hogwash" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.answers.com/topic/hogwash</a>

[Binkin]

<cite>adolf102 wrote:</cite><blockquote>To my any many other annoyance EQ2 shadows keep disappearing. And not coming back before restart.But imagine yourself that happens on video of Rise of Kunark presented by Senior Producer of EverQuest II himself <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />" width="15" height="15">As the expansion looks cool, and I surly will be getting it I couldn't miss such opportunity to get some more attention to disappearing shadows problem.If you will watch this video:<a rel="nofollow" href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive_content.vm?month=current&id=1234" target="_blank">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...current&id=1234</a>You can see that from about 2/3 of it there are no shadows anymore. No our main Sarnak shadow, no surrounding shadows no shadows at all. Now who could imagine oneself better proof of problem existence? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />" width="15" height="15">Kindly requesting EQ2 team who provides us with this great game, to have a look at shadows problem, or if team is looking already please say what the status is.Thank you <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />" width="15" height="15">PS<i>And it is not because Sarnak is indoors in later part of video. Shadow from torch, which is perfectly visible in first part of video should be visible indoors as well. At least before shadows disappear. </i></blockquote><p>The disgusting part about this is that SOE not only won't acknowledge this issue, even with this movie as absolute proof that it exists, but chances are it won't be fixed for several more years.</p><p>It's funny too because it was a year ago that I threatened to quit this game until the shadows issue was removed. My computer is hardy enough to run EQII on max settings, and this includes with my shadows at full without excessive lag, and I refuse to play it at anything less than top quality, so I've not been playing EQII for over a year. Let's see here, 14.99 x 12 months plus one expansion? = 219.87 plus tax, simply because they flat out refuse to even clearly give us any kind of updates on the situation.</p><p>By the by, it didn't actually cost SOE 219.87, because when I left, I took 5 people with me, so I suppose it actually cost SOE about $1,319.22.</p><p>Oh I love corporate incompetence; it's about as excellent as corporate greed!</p><p>Edit: Woops! I almost forgot!</p><p>I also used to play Planetside too, and at one point myself as well as several friends and family have played both Everquest and SWG, so I guess in reality if I really wanted to crunch some numbers, we're getting into the thousands of dollars.</p><p>And SOE wonders why WoW is beating them in subscribers by percentages that are out of this world <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Binkin]

<cite>Othesus@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yes, it's a known problem and they're working on it.<a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=15&topic_id=354329" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=354329</a></blockquote><p>I implore everyone to take a second to see what kind of incompetent company you're dealing with here. Not only is the thread in this quote locked, but I just recently e-mailed support for Everquest II and asked them about this very shadows bug, in which (and I quote):</p><p></p><p>SOE is a wonderful monster. They tell you in a thread on their own website that they are FINALLY after four years aware that there's a problem with their shadows, THEN somebody catches them in the act by posting a MOVIE where during a showing of Kunark by the Lead Producer, the game's shadows dissappear, and THEN I catch the company attempting to tell me again that they aren't aware that there's even a problem.</p><p>Something isn't right here. Either technical support doesn't communicate with chat support. Chat support flat out lied to the community in saying they discovered the problem and are working on it, or they've simply thrown the issue out the window entirely because they refuse to deal with it. Even if the initial is the case I'm absolutely discusted. If part of development is AWARE there is a problem and are working on it, why wouldn't technical support realize that there's a problem and reply as such?</p><p>I'm so discusted it's beyond words now.</p>