how to fix your stuttering graphic lag

[Wulfgr]

<p>      For 1 month I fought Everquest 2 tooth and nail.  I read every single article I could find on performance help.  I bought a new video card 8800 nvidia, i bought a new 500watt power suppy, i bought another gig of ram pushing me over 3500megs, i bought a sound blast audigey(sp) sound card thinking the software sound was screwing up my game, and finally I bought a brand new fastest state of the art hard drive just to put eq2 on!.  Standing still with people moving all around me I would run 20-25 fps(acceptable in most cases) but as soon as i would mouse look or walk i'd drop to 1-4 fps!!  I couldn't move with all graphics on, all graphics turned to the lowest, res set to lowest, set to highest.  NOTHING!  Then I started playing with Drivers and SLI, and everything else I could think of with no help at all.  Then I tried the page filing settings no help.  </p><p>      So as a last resort before I uninstalled the game and forgot about Everquest all together I started looking at my processes and seeing which programs were taking up the most useage.  Macafee Antivirus was using a ton, so I uninstalled all of it.  Turned the game on and BOOM i'm running 50fps standing still and 35 running, and in a group with everyone casting it won't dip below 28!  Perfectly smooth with the setting right below the ultimate settings.  Even with it on Ultimate graphics soloing and not in town the game runs smooth.  It starts to dip below 20 in down and when in a group and starts stuttering enough to make me not want to have it all the way up.</p><p>So in closing, if you have macaffe antivirus and are having graphic lag issues, get rid of it!</p>

[bryldan]

Ummm this is a issue with ALL antiviruses. Its never a good idea to have them running when playing a online game this is VERY common knowledge. Virus checkers constantly checking every single data that is coming over the net and when you are playing a online game thats a hell of a lot of data coming in so it bogs your game down 100 fold. You do not need to uninstall it thats assinine and just asking for a virus when you acrtually download something or surf the net. All you need to do is click on your virus icon and turn it off so that its not running while playing but also watch out when playing the game and surfing at the same time be really carefull and not download anything or go anywhere you do not trust.

[Derrickr]

<p>I found this out myself a couple years ago when I first started playing EQ2 but i think there are people out there that don't realize that their performance can be greatly increased by removing McAfee.  The odd thing is that simply disabling it doesn't help; you have to completely uninstall it to get any results.</p>

[Zorastiz]

<p>I don't use McAfee, I use Trend Micro, I disable it and I function well.</p><p>If MOST antivirus programs cause these problems and simply disabling doesn't do the trick, do you uninstall your AV permanently?</p><p>What AV seems to work best with EQ2?</p>

[arcana666]

<p>I know it's not a very "safe" suggestion and probably one a game company like SOE might be hesitant to officially recommend but... yeh antivirus apps blow for gamers.  All that scanning has a serious performance hit on any machine. </p>

[Wulfgr]

<cite>bryldan wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ummm this is a issue with ALL antiviruses. Its never a good idea to have them running when playing a online game this is VERY common knowledge. Virus checkers constantly checking every single data that is coming over the net and when you are playing a online game thats a hell of a lot of data coming in so it bogs your game down 100 fold. You do not need to uninstall it thats assinine and just asking for a virus when you acrtually download something or surf the net. All you need to do is click on your virus icon and turn it off so that its not running while playing but also watch out when playing the game and surfing at the same time be really carefull and not download anything or go anywhere you do not trust.</blockquote><p>Never affected any other game that I played.  WoW, Everquest 1, Counterstrike, Team fortress, Dawn of War, C&C.  Nothing else. </p><p>Just turning it off does not work!  I had to remove it completely to be able to play.  As for that causing me to get a virus, it has been outdated for about 6 months now and I haven't gotten one yet.  </p>

[arcana666]

<cite>floofers wrote:</cite> <blockquote><p>As for that causing me to get a virus, it has been outdated for about 6 months now and I haven't gotten one yet.  </p></blockquote>... that you know of! LOL!  But yeh 99% of all viruses can be avoided by just using a little common sense.

[Lana]

On my machine I don't have any anti-virus or even a firewall. I have never gotten a virus and I don't get any spyware (I use AdAware to check every once in a while). In my opinion, anti-virus software is for computer users who either don't know what they are doing on the internet or spend a lot of time surfing [Removed for Content] sites.Anti-virus software bogs down your computer like you wouldn't believe. I have never used one.

[Lana]

Woah! Double post. Sorry.

[bryldan]

<cite>floofers wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bryldan wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ummm this is a issue with ALL antiviruses. Its never a good idea to have them running when playing a online game this is VERY common knowledge. Virus checkers constantly checking every single data that is coming over the net and when you are playing a online game thats a hell of a lot of data coming in so it bogs your game down 100 fold. You do not need to uninstall it thats assinine and just asking for a virus when you acrtually download something or surf the net. All you need to do is click on your virus icon and turn it off so that its not running while playing but also watch out when playing the game and surfing at the same time be really carefull and not download anything or go anywhere you do not trust.</blockquote><p>Never affected any other game that I played.  WoW, Everquest 1, Counterstrike, Team fortress, Dawn of War, C&C.  Nothing else. </p><p>Just turning it off does not work!  I had to remove it completely to be able to play.  As for that causing me to get a virus, it has been outdated for about 6 months now and I haven't gotten one yet.  </p></blockquote>As for turning it off and theres still a problem then thats the problem of the antivirus software you are using because disabled should mean disabled. I personally use nortan but like i said i dont use it while playing. One other thing about it not happening to those other games could be because of the amount of cpu usage this game takes compared to those.

[Fringe]

<p>FWIW: I have Norton AV runing on one of my systems but not the other and both get the exact same FPS. I haven't had any issues what so ever with Norton running in the background.</p><p>Having said that, I do consider myself lucky as over the years it has appeared that running an AV program in the background while running EQ2 wasn't a good thing.</p><p>I know this doesn't help anyone but I figured it couldn't hurt to express my experiences.</p>

[Neofa]

<div>AV Programs are, by and large, just resource hogs (as has been said).</div><div>Its not even necessarily that you are playing an on-line game, and the data is being scanned.  There isn't a massive amount of data being processed from Server to client compared to what is being processed on Client API's and so forth alone.</div><div>The A/V Software is taking a chunk of your RAM for itself, a Chunk of your Processor for itself, and a BIG hit on your hard drive's access time.  The HD Access is where I think (imo), it is really the most noticeable.</div><div>The only reason I can see why people would have to totally 'de-install' it instead of just telling the program, hey, don't run right now. .. Would be because either it runs to some degree any ways, you can't really turn it completely off.  B) The person hasn't figured out the 'cryptic' ways to really get the thing off,.. and/or C) The resources for the A/V program are PRE-Allocated on startup and thus can't be used for other applications regardless.</div><div>This happens on some AV programs,.. as they deem themselves as THE most important thing on the computer, the computers OS adhere's to the major companies access policies and allows them to signify themselves as 'TOP priority' processing.  Over games, business applications, anything.</div><div>The safety of the computer is more valuable than the performance type of deal.</div><div>Which is true about most things,.. say your car -- The safety is more important than the performance.  Not installing a Roll Cage (Tubing) in a car that has over X Horsepower and races often, to save .08 seconds on a quarter mile time is stupid.  Safety would come first there.</div><div>With computers its different,.. Performance ALWAYS comes before saftey (Especially on a personal computer).</div><div>But, I digress.</div><div>Personally -- For those that want to use an AV software, and want to turn it off before you play -- I would look into AVG.  Norton/Symantec are just too bloated,.. as many other large name brands.. such as "F-Secure" and so on.</div><div>Glad you found your problem.</div>

[Wulfgr]

<p>I guess a few good things came out of this.  My computer is expanded to the max unless I get get rid of my one 512 chip and get another gig....</p><p>I solved the Anti-virus software problem.  I bought another computer to browse the net on for the family and passworded my computer just for my work and everquest 2 play!  Everyone is happy.  The wife is glad to have her own computer so we don't have to fight over it when i want to play my games.</p>