Looking for Suggestions

[Noes]

<p>Hi all</p><p>Having played EQ for 6 years I took a break (WoW, EVE, HL2 etc) and have now returned to Norrath.  I like the imrovements made and the interesting plot developments but am dissapointed to find my hardware is not up to the task.  I started at Extreme Quality, dropped quickly to Very High, and have now dropped to High to give me 30+fps (less in areas with lots of other toons).  I was wondering if anyone could please suggest an upgrade path?  I believe I'm limited by my GPU but being new to EQII am not familiar with the engine.  My specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz</p><p>2GB DDR-2 800MHz (5-5-5-15)</p><p>ATI Radeon x1900xtx 512MB</p><p>72GB 10k RPM Raptor SATA2 HDD</p><p>I know the memory timings could be tighter but don't believe 4-4-4-12 will offer any significant improvement.  I also don't think fitting another 2GB memory will make much difference?  So I'm left with either <b>a)</b> overclocking the CPU (which can easily hit 3GHz+), <b>b)</b> upgrading to a quadcore 2.4GHz model (don't think this will make an impact as EQII seems to be limited to one core?), or <b>c)</b> upgrading video card to an nVideo 640MB 8800 GTS (more likely) or 768MB 8800GTX (less likely).</p><p>Anyone out there in a similar position at all?</p><p>Cheers.</p>

[Karatta]

<p>To tell you the truth, the game my just not run at the level we would all like it to. Your system looks just dandy my friend! My system specs are as follows, and ill follow up with some information on your problem : Intel Core 2 Extreme (Quad Core 2.93GHz, Over clocked to 3.2GHz) QX6800 2GB Corsair Dominator RAM (Cannot install 4GBs, because of motherboard stability problems with my processor, and my BETA version BIOS) 750GB SATA Segate Hard Drive 2x Nvidia GTX8800 Asus special build, SLI'd</p><p>The problems with the game processing speed stems from 1 problem.  The game was designed with the data processing styles of 2001-2004, and they extrapolated from there that in the future processing extreme texture bit maps at high speed would not be a problem. They are right, but the time frame at which that technology will be available to the public at a price range of $2000 is around 2010, in accordance with Moore's Law. The game loads high res images, under the maximum quality setting, which is not bad in itself, but even systems like mine, or server systems cannot run the game at extreme settings under the current archetecture for hard drive access. I spent a good chunk of change on my system, (Figures my accountant said not to divulge because the judicial system may be looking for me <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ) and to tell you the truth the Extreme Quality settings really do look like I am playing a PIXAR movie in-game, but running it to any happy degree is not possible at this time. Just wait it out my friend, thats all we can do.  Perhaps the end of the next generation of hard drives will be able to help us!  <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>