this is beyond my comprehension [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Albrig

04-19-2008, 08:47 PM

I have bought today the Kunark expansion just to have a look at where EQ2 is at. You can't know this just by looking it up on forums the world-over - no one seems to care about any progress that EQ2 has made.The first thing that is simply beyond my comprehension is that EQ2 is still heavily CPU orientated and doesn't even scratch the capabilities of the GPU. I have a decent PC, nothing spectacular and it can run WoW with 16AF and 4xAA @ 1680x1050 at an absolute rock solid 60fps, anywhere, and whatever the hell is going on with 6 people AND at the absolute maximum capability that the game engine is capable of. Yes, I will agree that although anyone knows that the WoW game engine is using 25% of the dx9 capabilities to the GPU, yet it does this without using even more than 3% of the CPU - how it does that is just... well, staggering really. I've checked many times and in many ways whilst playing WoW - I've never encountered it going above 3% CPU usage. Memory, well it can eat about 1Gb but if you shutdown the game engine, it all goes back.I don't frequent to the SoE forums to say much about what I want from the developers (or EQ2), but a long time ago I wanted the sky to be improved (I think I mentioned the game engine before too). That, to me, is more important than whatever the hell has been going on for the last 2 years I have been away - or there abouts.Things I have noticed: The sky is still very very bad (worse than WoW, and that is bad enough).The performance is still bad with shadows on. Turning off shadows on EQ2 is like - well I'm not sure what to say here, but you may as well experience WoW in black and white. I think everyone here will agree is that, if EQ2's game engine handled high detail shadows maxed out, but ran as if it didn't have them on - EQ2 would still look ok against even the most advanced graphics we currently see in dx10 - when those shadows are off and the lighting is all but gone - EQ2 is a dead world and it's really starting to show.The gameplay is stil incredibly clunky. Going from WoW back to EQ2 is like stepping back to the Stone Age. I am not a supporter of WoW, but the seamless zones have really got to be experienced to understand just how far more advanced that game engine is over EQ2's, I was literally shocked at the complete lack of any disturbance on my PC - this is not like it feels 4 years behind in reality; this is more like 10 years behind comparatively. The speed of it all in WoW, I have to keep saying this, is staggering - loading, going from one seamless zone to another - 24 people in a RAID, I mean - I just cannot understand what WoW is doing to make that work the way it does.EQ2 still engulfs my 2Gb of memory and when I shut the game down, it's still engulfing it. Though re-running the game doesn't appear to do anything - I am forced to reboot if I want to do something else. The game has frozen on me already in 2 hours of play - no game in my history of playing games on my PC in the last 2 years has ever done that - in any capacity. How many games do I have? Every one worth buying. WoW loads zones and seamlessly moves from zone to zone in a way that I feel is simply staggering. I've seen it on 1920x1200 on a 24" LCD on a really powerful PC - EQ2 does this too with Very High Detail but only if you don't mind a jerk-fest of titanic proportions (even outside of a group) and your CPU literally burning itself alive.I don't know why SoE expects anyone to play Everquest 2 with PC hardware as powerful as it is. I mean, PC hardware is really really powerful now. Make no mistake, a PC can easily be around 5 times more powerful than the Xbox360 if you know what you're doing; in every scenario you can think of and, at least with what I have seen, everyone who even plays Everquest 2 has the following intentions in virtually 80% of the responses I have seen on the subject when they consider playing Everquest 2 (everyone knows WHAT THE PROBLEM IS):WHAT PC DO I NEED TO RUN EVERQUEST AT MAXIMUM DETAIL?THERE ISN'T ONE. ALTHOUGH, SOME PEOPLE SWEAR BLIND THAT THEY CAN RUN IT ON VERY HIGH DETAIL IN EVERY SENSE - WHICH IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE, UNLESS OF COURSE, YOU HAVE SOMEHOW GOT A UNI-CORE CPU RUNNING AT 5GHZ WITHOUT WATER ASSISTANCE COUPLED WITH A FIRE HOSE AND 20FPS IS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU IN A FULL GROUP WHEN YOU ARE IN STORMHOLD FOR INSTANCE.Once again, make no mistake, any newcomers, ANYONE, who thinks that buying a £5000 PC - right now - will get Everquest 2 running in Very High Detail, in the MMO sense, RAID sense or whatever; it will not happen. That's how mind-numbingly sloppy the game engine of Everquest 2 is. My current CPU at the moment is a dual core and I can, if I WANTED TO, have it running at 3.6Ghz - when I first played EQ2 today and noticed no visible performance improvement when I wanted shadows on and High Detail, I simply could not believe what I was seeing or experiencing. Everything still feels CLANKY and SLOW. I mean COME ON.I played EQ2 a long time ago and if you were to play the game from a complete lack of recollection from the past, from my point of view, nothing has changed except the release of expansions. I just cannot see the difference. Now I know that this can be applied to WoW or any other MMO - but they don't have a game engine problem at anywhere near the level that EQ2 has. Woah wait, what am I saying? EQ2's game engine problem is so bad over its consideration that expansion is more important, that this is once again, beyond my comprehension.What team of programmers could not be hired by SoE, the best of the best, that could be payed £250,000 for a months hard work of sorting out every single flaw of EQ2's game engine?I mean COME ON.I cannot understand why this community puts up with it.If I was the head of SoE and I was to put forward a proposal, I would immediately put every single person on the team who control EQ2's direction into moving the whole EQ2 thing over to a new game engine - just translate the whole thing over from scratch to some game engine that isn't a game engine like AoC where it LOD's to infinity from a certain distance (like Oblivion but not as bad) or like LOTR, covers enormous ground in being the only game I know that has more empty space than the area formally vacanted by a bimbo in canada (no offense intended).Leaving EQ2 in my eyes, to rot, with this appalling game engine that it currently resides on, is the direct result of too-addicted players in this game that will not step down from whatever consideration of EQ2 they have and really put the boot to SoE's backside. Are you simply WAITING for EQ2 to drop dead in the hopes that some other MMO is going to lose subscribers of boredom and come back to EQ2? I just did. There is nothing here that has improved. I am not playing this tradgedy of a MMO on this game engine. Forget it.Further, this constant assault on the millions of players of WoW, staggers me to disbelief. So, yes. I have no doubt that there are some really unsavoury RL characters in it, but all things being proportional, there are 10 million people on it and - ALL THINGS BEING PROPORTIONAL - there's going to be a lot less with 500,000 just on the statistic that the more you have, the more difficult it is going to be to maintain a sense of proportion. Certainly, a lot less than can be reported and used to project a particularly disproportionate statistic of bad games players in various stages of personal developement (if you can call an MMO player anything but).The first time I tried EQ2, it was great. I did play it on High Detail for a time, but switching each time to a different (very poor visual) setting on being in a group - I'm sorry, but that is just not acceptable. Acceptable 2 years later? Are you crazy SoE?It only takes a simple step to make big changes - the EQ2 community, the deeply set one; what in the hell are you doing allowing this to last as long as it has?Why the community are not taking this step at this point in time or even a year ago - as I say - is simply beyond my comprehension.After still experiencing seeing my CPU nailed at 100% many times and sitting at 85% just do NOTHING when only 1 person was on that Isle - what do you expect me to do? Experience the wonders of EQ2 in High Performance and NO SHADOWS or ADVANCED LIGHTING ON? Who are you kidding?I mean COME ON.85-100% CPU... 5% GPU maybe?With High Performance on. No AF, No AA. And in the System Performance nvidia driver, I have it on Performance (I can have WoW on High Quality with no problem)I mean, that just really puts me off right there. Do you expect me to find out what happens in a group? I have no intention of playing your game at High Performance - if I wanted to do that, I would poke out one eye and get the full effect.

Zin`Car

04-19-2008, 10:23 PM

you're either banging the WoW drum and then proclaiming not to be a wow supporter simply to try to play to the crowd or you're a troll trying to get people to flame you for S&Gs.Your claims about how terrible the game looks are unfounded. I've seen and played WoW at highest settings and it looks like someone with a box of 8 color big grip crayons let their kid draw on on pavement.True, EQ2 is still and most likely forever will be heavily GPU dependant. True, the shadow system sucks ratonga nards. However, If you truly believe the game doesn't look good at the settings you proclaim to be running at, i call you a liar and revisit my previous statement about banging the wow drum. My machine has a 2.4 dual core, 2gb of ram and an Nvidia 7950GX2 on a 22" widescreen running 1680x1050. I run with everything set to max quality except shadows (which are turned off) and texture LOD is set to minimum. I am running 16x Anti-A and 4x anisotropic filtering. I run these settings no problem all the time, anywhere, anytime, including raids. The only reason i turn off particles is because i can't see anything in combat with so many effects going off all over.You made a long winded post with a lot of noise but in the end, i call crap to every line of it, except that which deals with the aforementioned issues of the game being a cpu monger and miserable with shadows. However, if it is indeed spiking your machine as hard as you bawl about... well, your machine sucks. it's that simple.Until SOE decides to invest time into the graphics engine like the devs for EVE online did, it will always being this way. That does not mean though the game looks even remotely close to how you have trolled on and on.i leave not with parting words but uneditted pictures to substantiate my claims, unlike you who choses to vomit rot across the forums. go back to wow, take your drum with you.Edit -- took out pics... got tired of people whining since i'm so big. Poor things can't handle me, i understand.

Albrig

04-20-2008, 08:55 AM

Those shots are great. Wonderful.Except there's nothing and no one in it. Except you maybe - the little Ratonga? Did you manage 60fps with that? Great. I'm impressed. Well done.I can make my experience look like that too, except it doesn't work with more than 2 people and say, 1 monster with shadows on. Not without going below 30fps. In a group of 6 and you want to see their spells too, it's either crash or believing in quantum physics.If you like, I can show you WoW Outlands with about 40 NPCs and 20 monsters and about 10 online players, in the maximum detail that the WoW engine is capable (with all their spells going off with a fair amount of detail - that is the spell detail level at half-way) of at 1680x1050 16AF 4xAA (it will judder a tad at 1920x1200 however - this being with a C2D at 3Ghz and a 8800GT).You doing yourself no favours by calling me a troll. But thanks anyway.Do you even realise I've been playing EQ2 since 1995? I uphold Everquest 2 far above any other MMO (or game for that matter), but I am sorry, the game engine kills it for me every single time. Solo, sure, ok, it just about does it but it's nowhere near 60fps at any given moment - but I want to group and when that happens I have NO CHOICE but to go high performance by default. I want a smooth appearance to every area - no matter what I am doing.I rate Everquest superior in concept than WoW by a milestone. However - >>> This is about the game engine. The game engine is killing the game if you want 10 million+ subscribers playing it.That is my point. I cannot understand, simply cannot understand, why SoE do not move the entire EQ2 world to a different engine or fix the existing with dual/quad core support. Why is it this not happening? Do SoE REALLY not want 10 million+ subscribers? With the GPU, the game engine largely ignores whatever the GPU is capable of.Everquest 2's appearance was seen in trailers before it went live. Everything was shadowed and lit with extreme detail on. Now, we all know that it would have taken a monster machine to get that running like that back then; but in 2008, the enormous changes in Intel's push with multi-core CPUS and nVidia's colossal jump with the 8800; why is this being ignored?Doesn't any one realise that Everquest 2 running in max detail at 60fps in full groups (not RAID) would pull in over 10 million subscribers? JUST LIKE THAT? If they just fixed the game engine to make full use of the current gen of PC?

Norrsken

04-20-2008, 09:16 AM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>Those shots are great. Wonderful.Except there's nothing and no one in it. Except you maybe - the little Ratonga? Did you manage 60fps with that? Great. I'm impressed. Well done.I can make my experience look like that too, except it doesn't work with more than 2 people and say, 1 monster with shadows on. Not without going below 30fps. In a group of 6 and you want to see their spells too, it's either crash or believing in quantum physics.If you like, I can show you WoW Outlands with about 40 NPCs and 20 monsters and about 10 online players, in the maximum detail that the WoW engine is capable (with all their spells going off with a fair amount of detail - that is the spell detail level at half-way) of at 1680x1050 16AF 4xAA (it will judder a tad at 1920x1200 however - this being with a C2D at 3Ghz and a 8800GT).You doing yourself no favours by calling me a troll. But thanks anyway.Do you even realise I've been playing EQ2 since 1995? I uphold Everquest 2 far above any other MMO (or game for that matter), but I am sorry, the game engine kills it for me every single time. Solo, sure, ok, it just about does it but it's nowhere near 60fps at any given moment - but I want to group and when that happens I have NO CHOICE but to go high performance by default. I want a smooth appearance to every area - no matter what I am doing.I rate Everquest superior in concept than WoW by a milestone. However - >>> This is about the game engine. The game engine is killing the game if you want 10 million+ subscribers playing it.That is my point. I cannot understand, simply cannot understand, why SoE do not move the entire EQ2 world to a different engine or fix the existing with dual/quad core support. Why is it this not happening? Do SoE REALLY not want 10 million+ subscribers? With the GPU, the game engine largely ignores whatever the GPU is capable of.Everquest 2's appearance was seen in trailers before it went live. Everything was shadowed and lit with extreme detail on. Now, we all know that it would have taken a monster machine to get that running like that back then; but in 2008, the enormous changes in Intel's push with multi-core CPUS and nVidia's colossal jump with the 8800; why is this being ignored?Doesn't any one realise that Everquest 2 running in max detail at 60fps in full groups (not RAID) would pull in over 10 million subscribers? JUST LIKE THAT? If they just fixed the game engine to make full use of the current gen of PC?</blockquote>the 8k series are known to have issues with eq2. that is your problem. If you had another gfx card, it wouldnt lag.and honestly, wow is a really simple game, speaking in terms of graphics. It doesnt do much cool stuff, and it doesnt have much going on anywhere in terms of graphics. I mean, you could probably put an engine together in about a week that could do the same rendering that wow does. (The rest of the engine, is a whole different cookie here). So if wow actually couldnt run sleekly on your computer, the devs at blizzard would have to step away from the computers and be fired. Preferably with a firing squad.does EQ2 have a good engine? No. rendering wise its awful. Its built on expectations that never came true. And yes, it really, really needs a big overhaul.

Katanalla

04-20-2008, 09:21 AM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite> <blockquote>Do you even realise I've been playing EQ2 since 1995?...Doesn't any one realise that Everquest 2 running in max detail at 60fps in full groups (not RAID) would pull in over 10 million subscribers?</blockquote>1) I thought EQ2 came out Novermber 8, 2004 2) I don't have some super duper omega delta four alpha drive flux capacitor computer, but I can do extreme quality at around 25-40 fps, and that's decent enough FPS for me - unless you're running at 50000% run speed in game, I'm sure you would live with 25 or so FPS

DamianTV

04-20-2008, 10:11 AM

I can agree on the performance aspects vs. business aspects of what youre saying. EQ2 is a great game and with comptuers being more powerful than they were 3 years ago, EQ2 should be able to run smooth on more average systems than just catering to high powered machines. It turns players away if its not playable and look decent. I think thats really the ONLY thing WoW really has going for it is that it runs on almost everything out there. Sorry to say but youre right, EQ2 doesnt. I wish it did but it doesnt. I posted a link a couple days ago looking for some guides to get a solid 60 frames a second and still have everything turned up, but tweaked in the options to run smooth. But alas, no one has replied to it yet. Its this simple for the devs tho. Get better performance and get more players. Thus its worth the time and money to be spent by SOE to really get our framerates up.And for the record, the Dev's are reported to be working on a multi-core processor patch that hopefully will help us get that much closer to 60 fps.

Darq

04-20-2008, 10:12 AM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>Do you even realise I've been playing EQ2 since 1995?</blockquote>Uuhuh EQ1 was released, i don't remember 1998 1999?aah there it isRelease date <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_16" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">March 16</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">1999</a>So much for credibilityHowever yes, a strong GPU does help, but much RAM and a Strong CPU help more.I'm also not satisfied with EQ2's performance especially on Maximum Textures with my AMD64 3700+ , 2GB , 8800Ultra , Raid0 HDDsAnd comparing graphics of EQ2 to WoW is like comparing college art to pictures painted by 12 year oldsYeah zones suck, the sky is alright, you can't compare offline games to mmorpgs, eq2 is turning more into wow, the engine's performance needs workbut it won't ever happen, but who knows SCE is SOE's boss now, and i've noticed better ingame support something that always was lacking when SOE was the boss in all of their games. The less power Smedley has the better. This man doesn't know [Removed for Content] about games.

Grimlux

04-20-2008, 10:20 AM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>WHAT PC DO I NEED TO RUN EVERQUEST AT MAXIMUM DETAIL?THERE ISN'T ONE. ALTHOUGH, SOME PEOPLE SWEAR BLIND THAT THEY CAN RUN IT ON VERY HIGH DETAIL IN EVERY SENSE - WHICH IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE, UNLESS OF COURSE, YOU HAVE SOMEHOW GOT A UNI-CORE CPU RUNNING AT 5GHZ WITHOUT WATER ASSISTANCE COUPLED WITH A FIRE HOSE AND 20FPS IS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU IN A FULL GROUP WHEN YOU ARE IN STORMHOLD FOR INSTANCE.</blockquote>Yah. I have a pretty amazing PC atleast in my eyes. 4 cores, 4k+ ram, yada yada. I always chuckle at the people who say they can run in Extreme flawlessly.... Riiiiiight. They must be talking about running it on extreme in Forest ruins at 4am when no one else is in zone. I was fine running my PC on the step just below extreme, but now I crash everytime I enter my home city that way. Balanced is the only way I can play now. I really wish they'd revert back to the old performance patch.I definately call BS on the poster who says he runs on max settings everywhere, all the time, comparatively speaking to higher end PCs that cannot perform those functions.

Dreyco

04-20-2008, 02:09 PM

I play EQ2 on a two year old machine (That had high end parts at the time) and run it pretty near extreme quality, even with lots of NPC's nearby, and as the same resolution listed above (1680x1050). It runs fine. I get 30 FPS (Except in Kunark. Get just short there for some reason).Yes, I was able to play WoW on extreme quality at an extreme Frame Rate. But there is a reason that I didn't play WoW. Because it looked like crap.Unlike WoW, this game has some pretty intense textures and polygon counts, on top of graphical detailing, lighting, and detailed models. I prefer it that way. This will cause systems to not run it as well as WoW. But that's the appeal of graphically superior games. And on a topic of graphics? EQ2 is far superior to Warcraft. Far superior.

Zin`Car

04-20-2008, 02:09 PM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>Those shots are great. Wonderful.ThanksExcept there's nothing and no one in it. Except you maybe - the little Ratonga? Did you manage 60fps with that? Great. I'm impressed. Well done.It's in the shard of hate, raid zone. We cleared it all except this guy. It's empty because i went back to shoot video and decided to post the SS for you. Dark elf, not ratonga.I can make my experience look like that too, except it doesn't work with more than 2 people and say, 1 monster with shadows on. Not without going below 30fps. In a group of 6 and you want to see their spells too, it's either crash or believing in quantum physics.You dont read very well do you... Take a moment to enlighten yourself and reread what i wrote. Such senseless questions would not be cluttering up the screen nor forcing me to waste my time in responding to them.If you like, I can show you WoW Outlands with about 40 NPCs and 20 monsters and about 10 online players, in the maximum detail that the WoW engine is capable (with all their spells going off with a fair amount of detail - that is the spell detail level at half-way) of at 1680x1050 16AF 4xAA (it will judder a tad at 1920x1200 however - this being with a C2D at 3Ghz and a 8800GT).You've posted nothing. your claims about computer hardware and capability are unfounded atm. Your text means nothing until you back it up. k? thx.You doing yourself no favours by calling me a troll. But thanks anyway.You are a troll. Your comments prove it. The one's follow this statement will prove that even more.Do you even realise I've been playing EQ2 since 1995? I uphold Everquest 2 far above any other MMO (or game for that matter), but I am sorry, the game engine kills it for me every single time. Solo, sure, ok, it just about does it but it's nowhere near 60fps at any given moment - but I want to group and when that happens I have NO CHOICE but to go high performance by default. I want a smooth appearance to every area - no matter what I am doing.Do you realize that EQ2 didn't come out until LATE 2004? I was in Beta for it in Sept 04, i remember... The game released in Nov... TROLL. Also, do you realize that EQ1 didnt come out until EARLY 1999. Do you realize you sound like a troll making false claims and is only burying himself deeper and deeper with the crap he's spewing forth more and more? Go away troll.I rate Everquest superior in concept than WoW by a milestone. However -Nothing else you have to say means squat. You've lied and tried to cover it up with fallisies. Shoo troll you bother me.</blockquote>

Tsunai

04-20-2008, 02:23 PM

Let's reign it in a bit here guys. All the lambasting and accusations need to stop now before you get this thread locked. It is possible to have a debate and even heated argument without resorting to such tactics.Happy posting! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Zin`Car

04-20-2008, 11:48 PM

<cite>Tsunai wrote:</cite><blockquote>Let's reign it in a bit here guys. All the lambasting and accusations need to stop now before you get this thread locked. It is possible to have a debate and even heated argument without resorting to such tactics.Happy posting! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>verified facts are hardly lambasting and acusations. he's a troll. he's posted lies. both of which have been proven without a doubt. the thread never should have lived long enough to even gain attention. it was obvious from the title it was a troll post. which as i recall is against forum rules. but hey, what do i know.

Armawk

04-21-2008, 12:20 AM

What team of programmers could not be hired by SoE, the best of the best, that could be payed £250,000 for a months hard work of sorting out every single flaw of EQ2's game engine?There are no such programmers. None. 6 months perhaps if one is truly optimistic and they are the very best.If I was the head of SoE and I was to put forward a proposal, I would immediately put every single person on the team who control EQ2's direction into moving the whole EQ2 thing over to a new game engine - just translate the whole thing over from scratch to some game engineAnd this is why you arent the head of developing any software and if you were you would get fired for suggesting crazy things like that.EQ2s engine has problems. I too would like to see them fixed/improved. I know that that is a fantasy in part, but there are things that I would hope to see viably addressed. Just out of interest, if *I* were head of dev at SOE I would get a report on shadow rendering, player character rendering and communications, multiprocessor handling and a few other things, with a view to finding which of these weak areas are viable for improvement.Shaun

feldon30

04-22-2008, 02:06 PM

Just reading this thread required saving it to my PC and stripping out those two gigantic screen snapshots (which really serve no purpose, they don't show any of the best parts of EQ2).I'm still waiting for someone to recommend a PC that runs EQ2 at 60fps with High Graphics in any situation. Oh wait, it doesn't exist.

LordPazuzu

04-22-2008, 02:47 PM

You're right, it's not. If you need to run a game at 60fps to enjoy it, that's your problem. I'd hate to see you in a movie theatre having to watch a film at a paltry 24fps...Seriously, rendering a game at 60fps is pure fluff. There comes a point when the naked human eye can't tell the difference and if you think you can, you're only fooling yourself.Comparing the rendering of WoW to EQ2 is futile...of course WoW renders more frames per second, it has fewer, less complicated particle effects, no true shadows, static water, simple lighting, half the amount of player character models, and about 1/30th the polygon count. Due to the drastically lower polygon count, this makes their animations less taxing as well. WoW renders faster than EQ2...duh.Sadly, yes. EQ2 was designed based on technology predicitons that never came to pass. From what I hear, the devs are working on multicore support.

Zin`Car

04-23-2008, 11:16 AM

<cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just reading this thread required saving it to my PC and stripping out those two gigantic screen snapshots (which really serve no purpose, they don't show any of the best parts of EQ2).I'm still waiting for someone to recommend a PC that runs EQ2 at 60fps with High Graphics in any situation. Oh wait, it doesn't exist.</blockquote>If your PC required you to "strip out the imagery"... you've got more problems than not being able to run EQ2 at 60fps. Sowwy you don't wike my pictuwz. "Best of parts EQ2" is subject to opinions and you know what they say: Opinions and [Removed for Content] pores, we all have them. Just for S&G's so i can oblige you personally, what do you decree to be the best parts of EQ2 and i will post those screen shots instead.As for "waiting on an 60fps EQ2 running machine", you wouldn't notice the difference between it and one running 18-20fps. The human eye IS INCAPABLE of seeing anything ... ANYTHING over 30fps. You may or may not know this, but flash animations you see on line typically run 16 - 18fps. You can't tell the difference. The human eye simply will never see it. So you and anyone else crying, whining, demanding that SOE optimize the game so it can do 30+FPS at any given moment while running Extreme Graphics needs to run down to the local pharmacy and ask for the perscription stength bottle of Reality. Because it's plainly obvious you're infected with something that needs cured.I am serious though, what parts of EQ2 do you consdier worthyof displaying as a screen shot? I'd like to know because i can and will get it for you. If you aren't willing or unable to provide such examples, don't bash what was given.

SilkenKidden

04-23-2008, 11:57 AM

<cite>Luinne@Kithicor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just reading this thread required saving it to my PC and stripping out those two gigantic screen snapshots (which really serve no purpose, they don't show any of the best parts of EQ2).I'm still waiting for someone to recommend a PC that runs EQ2 at 60fps with High Graphics in any situation. Oh wait, it doesn't exist.</blockquote>If your PC required you to "strip out the imagery"... you've got more problems than not being able to run EQ2 at 60fps. Sowwy you don't wike my pictuwz. "Best of parts EQ2" is subject to opinions and you know what they say: Opinions and [I cannot control my vocabulary] pores, we all have them. Just for S&G's so i can oblige you personally, what do you decree to be the best parts of EQ2 and i will post those screen shots instead.As for "waiting on an 60fps EQ2 running machine", you wouldn't notice the difference between it and one running 18-20fps. The human eye IS INCAPABLE of seeing anything ... ANYTHING over 30fps. You may or may not know this, but flash animations you see on line typically run 16 - 18fps. You can't tell the difference. The human eye simply will never see it. So you and anyone else crying, whining, demanding that SOE optimize the game so it can do 30+FPS at any given moment while running Extreme Graphics needs to run down to the local pharmacy and ask for the perscription stength bottle of Reality. Because it's plainly obvious you're infected with something that needs cured.I am serious though, what parts of EQ2 do you consdier worthyof displaying as a screen shot? I'd like to know because i can and will get it for you. If you aren't willing or unable to provide such examples, don't bash what was given.</blockquote>I too can't read the first page of this thread. There are pictures in there that spread the screen for the entire thread far too wide for my monitor. I have to swing the horizontal scroll bar from side to side to read it and I can't do that for every line. Makes me sea sick. Even if the OP writes a normal sized post that fits most monitors horizontally, when someone else adds such a shot to the thread it forces the whole thread off kilter. I skip any thread where people thoughtlessly post such gigantic pictures. Insofar as viewing such large pictures, that's impossible too. Why do people post what others need to doctor in order to view? I don't think the person who posted he had to strip out the imagery was at fault. Most of us have to skip this type of thread. Rather than being chastised for complaining, I applaud him for speaking up. I think the board monitors should remove pictures that make a whole thread unreadable. People who post pictures (or email them for that matter) should be thoughtful enough to reduce the pictures to fit on a standard monitor without scrolling. If you don't do so, no one is going to view your pictures andyway, so why post them.

feldon30

04-23-2008, 12:49 PM

Have you ever tried to play a First Person Shooter at 24fps? It is almost unplayable. The extreme stuttering and juddering would give anyone nausea within minutes. Imagine trying to play a game for hours looking like the fight scenes in Gladiator.I love it when people bring up the 24 fps example of movies as proof that "24fps is all we as humans need and can perceive". It shows their complete ignorance of human sight and persistence of vision.Yes, people can get carried away in the quest for framerate, but routinely dropping down to 10-15fps as Everquest II routinely does on even $6,000 computers is unacceptable. I would settle for a steady 30fps, but even that is unreachable because of design flaws and performance issues with EQ2. Fortunately low framerates don't bother me as much as some people or I would not play the game.As for multi-core support, "From what you hear"? Did you just make this up?

Miladi

04-23-2008, 02:19 PM

<cite>Luinne@Kithicor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just reading this thread required saving it to my PC and stripping out those two gigantic screen snapshots (which really serve no purpose, they don't show any of the best parts of EQ2).I'm still waiting for someone to recommend a PC that runs EQ2 at 60fps with High Graphics in any situation. Oh wait, it doesn't exist.</blockquote>If your PC required you to "strip out the imagery"... you've got more problems than not being able to run EQ2 at 60fps. Sowwy you don't wike my pictuwz. "Best of parts EQ2" is subject to opinions and you know what they say: Opinions and [I cannot control my vocabulary] pores, we all have them. Just for S&G's so i can oblige you personally, what do you decree to be the best parts of EQ2 and i will post those screen shots instead.As for "waiting on an 60fps EQ2 running machine", you wouldn't notice the difference between it and one running 18-20fps. The human eye IS INCAPABLE of seeing anything ... ANYTHING over 30fps. You may or may not know this, but flash animations you see on line typically run 16 - 18fps. You can't tell the difference. The human eye simply will never see it. So you and anyone else crying, whining, demanding that SOE optimize the game so it can do 30+FPS at any given moment while running Extreme Graphics needs to run down to the local pharmacy and ask for the perscription stength bottle of Reality. Because it's plainly obvious you're infected with something that needs cured.I am serious though, what parts of EQ2 do you consdier worthyof displaying as a screen shot? I'd like to know because i can and will get it for you. If you aren't willing or unable to provide such examples, don't bash what was given.</blockquote>This is a common MISCONCEPTION, the human eye can perceive well over 30fps, depending upon what its looking at. If its a series of ultrasharp photos such as the image from a video game, which is just a series of single frame photos being displayed one after the other, your eye will definitely be able to see stuttering in the image at low FPS rates. If you're looking at a series of frames with motion blur, after about 20 frames per second or so, you won't notice it as much if the frame rate drops, due to motion blurring. One frame melds into the next due to the blur. Simple to look this information up, its a widely held myth that some can't seem to rid themselves of, or believe for some. Your eyes are remarkable things and 200+fps is possible for us.BTW, I also had to change some settings to be able to read this post with those hideously large pics in it. Next time, think 800x600 as a max size. Otherwise as has been stated above, moving the scroll bar left and right to read posts in a thread isn't worth it much.

quasigenx

04-23-2008, 02:41 PM

You don't need 60 FPS to play an MMO. Shooters, sure I can see it being more important. The fact that EQ2 requires serious horsepower compared to WoW, and indeed most other games, is nothing new. It's been like this since release. It's not a bug, it was/is a design decision. Some people may not like it, but there are plenty of EQ2 players who seem to be dealing with it just fine. The whole engine was designed with future 6Ghz+ single core processors in mind. That was a reasonable assumption at the time. However, the CPU industry did its first major hairpin turn in 20 years and went with multi-core instead. Unfortunate for EQ2. You're not going to shoe-horn uber multi-core performance into the engine now. Sure, you could re-write it. That's a MASSIVE undertaking. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they are talking about. Lesson for the future: design your game to run flawlessly on max settings an a high-end PC avaiable AT RELEASE. If you want to make it scalable to infinity, budget to improve the engine over time as the hardware progresses.

feldon30

04-23-2008, 03:52 PM

<cite>Luinne@Kithicor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>If your PC required you to "strip out the imagery"... you've got more problems than not being able to run EQ2 at 60fps. Sowwy you don't wike my pictuwz.</blockquote> I'm sorry I don't have a 1920 x 1080 or 2560 x 1500 display to view this thread AND the images embedded in it.<cite>Luinne@Kithicor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>As for "waiting on an 60fps EQ2 running machine", you wouldn't notice the difference between it and one running 18-20fps. The human eye IS INCAPABLE of seeing anything ... ANYTHING over 30fps. You may or may not know this, but flash animations you see on line typically run 16 - 18fps. You can't tell the difference. The human eye simply will never see it. So you and anyone else crying, whining, demanding that SOE optimize the game so it can do 30+FPS at any given moment while running Extreme Graphics needs to run down to the local pharmacy and ask for the perscription stength bottle of Reality. Because it's plainly obvious you're infected with something that needs cured.</blockquote> Here are some sites you can read up on the nonsense myth that humans can only see 20-25fps: <a href="http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html</a> <a href="http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.100fps.com/how_many_fram..._humans_see.htm</a> <a href="http://www.daniele.ch/school/30vs60/30vs60_1.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.daniele.ch/school/30vs60/30vs60_1.html</a>

feldon30

04-23-2008, 03:54 PM

<cite>quasigenx wrote:</cite><blockquote>Lesson for the future: design your game to use multiple threads and offload some of the work to DirectX, that way it works on any PC, regardless of cores, SMP, graphics card, etc. </blockquote>I fixed it for you.

Philogogus

04-23-2008, 05:45 PM

I can run EQ2 on High settings (minus the shadows... who uses those anyway) at about... 45FPS. Guess what? For an MMO thats just ducky. Heck, for an FPS thats fine. My system is far from being a dream-rig:<ul><li>Athlon 64x2 4800+</li><li>2GB DDR2 800</li><li>GeForce7900GS (fully updated drivers)</li><li>250GB SATA HD (7200RPM w/16MB cache</li><li>21" widescreen LCD (1680x1040 native... or something. Heck, I cannot remember off the top of my head)</li><li>Windows XP Pro SP2</li></ul>Yes, thats right. On high settings. I dont clutter my computer with useless junk, I dont have a dozen programs running in the background. It seems to me you are complaining for the sake of complaining. Seems you are trying to get a rise out of people... which happens to be the definition of trolling.Fact is, 60FPS is overkill. I will not blow a few hundred bucks on a videocard that will probably bring me to that 'holygrail of frame rates'. Why? BECAUSE 45FPS IS JUST FINE.

Zin`Car

04-23-2008, 07:30 PM

For those of you who have time and again ... expressed discontent about the 1680x1050 pics, i apologize. It was done for one reason and one reason only and that was to show the OP, who himself said he ran at that same rez, that image clarity was completely possible running at extreme quality at that high of a resolution without a single bit of issue, minus shadows. this was expressed in that post but i see that since you had to scroll (i know such a miserable, horrid, life burdening task to undertake, the point may have been missed.I'll be selling cheese over here should you guys need something to go with your vino...

CrazyMoogle

04-24-2008, 02:32 PM

<cite>Luinne@Kithicor wrote:</cite><blockquote>this was expressed in that post but i see that since you had to scroll (i know such a miserable, horrid, life burdening task to undertake, the point may have been missed.</blockquote><cite>Luinne@Kithicor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>Sowwy you don't wike my pictuwz. {snip} As for "waiting on an 60fps EQ2 running machine", you wouldn't notice the difference between it and one running 18-20fps. The human eye IS INCAPABLE of seeing anything ... ANYTHING over 30fps. </blockquote>I gotta say I got a real kick out of seeing you call someone else a troll all the while making up comments like these. LOLAnyway, to those who live in reality, the OP's comments are legit and real concerns, and it's sad that after going on 4 years none of this stuff has been radically improved.Oh, and for those of you jumping on the 1995 thing without using your brains first you might want to notice the OP's registration date and then try to figure out for yourself what he really meant to type. People are allowed to make simple brainfarts when writing a post without someone attempting to twist that to somehow imply nothing he's said is valid.

ClawHammr

04-25-2008, 12:45 AM

The OPs claims are indeed true but there has been some improvement lately with a Memory Application fix and the Reuse Vertex Buffers setting added to Options. So we are making progress !But shadows do still disappear and you have to reboot the game to get them back on. This is hopefully the next problem SOE will fix.And "LOL" to anyone who says " I can run the game great with shadows off" Of course you can, but thats not the point. The game should run great with shadows ON

Hamervelder

04-25-2008, 02:32 AM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>I play EQ2 on a two year old machine (That had high end parts at the time) and run it pretty near extreme quality, even with lots of NPC's nearby, and as the same resolution listed above (1680x1050). It runs fine. I get 30 FPS (Except in Kunark. Get just short there for some reason).Yes, I was able to play WoW on extreme quality at an extreme Frame Rate. But there is a reason that I didn't play WoW. Because it looked like crap.Unlike WoW, this game has some pretty intense textures and polygon counts, on top of graphical detailing, lighting, and detailed models. I prefer it that way. This will cause systems to not run it as well as WoW. But that's the appeal of graphically superior games. And on a topic of graphics? EQ2 is far superior to Warcraft. Far superior.</blockquote>Unless something has changed since one of the developers posted a year or so ago, the maximum texture resolution is 512x512 pixels. That wasn't "intense" in 2004, and it isn't "intense" now. The fact that the EQ2 engine struggles so horribly to reproduce textures that are not only subpar in quality, but also in size, says volumes about how horribly the engine is programmed. Remember, that's the maximum texture size. Every time you reduce texture quality, you cut that in half or by 3/4. If you're running in High or Medium quality, you're only running w/ textures at 256x256 or 128x128 pixels. For shame, if anyone thinks that's intense or high quality.The fact is that the developers screwed the pooch when they chose to make EQ2 rely so heavily on the CPU. We have folks running the game on dual-core and quad-core machines -- the type of computers that didn't exist when EQ2 was released, and should run it flawlessly. Yet, they don't. Why? Poor vision, and poorer implementation. Yes, EQ2 is still visually superior to most other MMO's on the market, but that's immaterial really. What matters is that EQ2 will never look any better than it does right now. The game doesn't (and can't) make use of the latest shaders, true normal mapping, or HDR lighting. I'd like you to stop and consider that for just a moment. Consider the irony in the fact that top-of-the-line computers released in 2008 can't run a game that was released in what ... 2004? Go install any other game released that same year on your machine, and see how it runs. Try it. The fact that EQ2 is an online game shouldn't have anything to do with the engine's ability to deliver smooth, next-generation graphics. Oh... but wait .... there's the catch. EQ2 is primarily powered by your CPU. So all of those wonderful calculations and all that loading and swapping and work that's being done for AI routines and scripts and watnot are taking away from your PC's ability to render the graphics, because the developers chose to rely on the CPU for intense graphics calculations, rather than rely on the GPU.And that's the crux of the matter. It has nothing to do with lack of talent on SOE's part. There's some great visual content in this game. But the fact is that the engine can only handle so much, and computers can only do so much with the engine. Artists are confined by the limitations of the software. The fact that the game was supposed to run on "future" systems, and then can't really run well even on those "future" systems, is not lost on me, and hopefully not lost on others as well.@ LordPazuzu: Something that perhaps you have neglected to consider regarding framerates - If you're running at a constant 20-30 FPS, and you suddenly take a 20 FPS dive for whatever reason, where does that leave you? It leaves you watching a slideshow, if not crashing outright. Now, take the same situation of losing 20 FPS, but running a pretty constant 60-90 FPS. You can lose 20 in that situation, with no problem. But if your FPS is already low.... well, you get the idea. BTW, I agree with your statement concerning technology predictions that never came to pass. It's sort of a case of SOE not having been able to see the forest for the trees.

ClawHammr

04-25-2008, 02:45 AM

<cite>Uros@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>I play EQ2 on a two year old machine (That had high end parts at the time) and run it pretty near extreme quality, even with lots of NPC's nearby, and as the same resolution listed above (1680x1050). It runs fine. I get 30 FPS (Except in Kunark. Get just short there for some reason).Yes, I was able to play WoW on extreme quality at an extreme Frame Rate. But there is a reason that I didn't play WoW. Because it looked like crap.Unlike WoW, this game has some pretty intense textures and polygon counts, on top of graphical detailing, lighting, and detailed models. I prefer it that way. This will cause systems to not run it as well as WoW. But that's the appeal of graphically superior games. And on a topic of graphics? EQ2 is far superior to Warcraft. Far superior.</blockquote> The fact is that the developers screwed the pooch when they chose to make EQ2 rely so heavily on the CPU. We have folks running the game on dual-core and quad-core machines -- the type of computers that didn't exist when EQ2 was released, and should run it flawlessly. Yet, they don't. Why? </blockquote> Thats what I really dont understand. In 2004 at EQ2 launch, I was running a single core @2Ghz. Now today 4 years later Im running dual-cores @3Ghz. You would think that would be all I needed to see massive improvement if the engine is ran by the CPU.

Hamervelder

04-25-2008, 09:39 AM

<cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Uros@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>I play EQ2 on a two year old machine (That had high end parts at the time) and run it pretty near extreme quality, even with lots of NPC's nearby, and as the same resolution listed above (1680x1050). It runs fine. I get 30 FPS (Except in Kunark. Get just short there for some reason).Yes, I was able to play WoW on extreme quality at an extreme Frame Rate. But there is a reason that I didn't play WoW. Because it looked like crap.Unlike WoW, this game has some pretty intense textures and polygon counts, on top of graphical detailing, lighting, and detailed models. I prefer it that way. This will cause systems to not run it as well as WoW. But that's the appeal of graphically superior games. And on a topic of graphics? EQ2 is far superior to Warcraft. Far superior.</blockquote> The fact is that the developers screwed the pooch when they chose to make EQ2 rely so heavily on the CPU. We have folks running the game on dual-core and quad-core machines -- the type of computers that didn't exist when EQ2 was released, and should run it flawlessly. Yet, they don't. Why? </blockquote> Thats what I really dont understand. In 2004 at EQ2 launch, I was running a single core @2Ghz. Now today 4 years later Im running dual-cores @3Ghz. You would think that would be all I needed to see massive improvement if the engine is ran by the CPU.</blockquote>Aah, what a quandry we have, yes? I think your question is quite valid. My answer would be that the developers probably expected computers to continue using single core processors, and just get more and more powerful. The game was coded to take advantage of one massive processor. How do I know this? I know this because the game doesn't really support dual-core or more advanced CPU's. Heck, EQ2 doesn't even really support Vista. It's as if the developers expected everyone to run Windows XP and DX9 for the next five years, and be playing on machines with one massive 10ghz processor. That, I think, is the problem. The programming isn't necessarily sloppy. SOE just went in the wrong direction. My concern is the fact that they have made no attempts to change course and get with the times. How long have dual-core machines been prevalent now? Two years? Three years? That's plenty of time for SOE to alter EQ2 in order to properly utilize dual-core and quad-core processors if they want. How long has Vista been out, and growing to become a widely-used OS? It's been out long enough for the developers to utilize it. Yet, they aren't. Other games, such as Half-life 2, received upgrades later to take advantage of HDR lighting, and a host of other DX9 effects. Has SOE graced us with such things? No. No HDR lighting, no latest Shader models. For a game that's supposed to run on "future" hardware, the developers have never, ever done a good job of taking advantage of future technology. That's the problem. EQ2 was designed to run, and can only utilize, DX9 and single-core machines. The fact that the higher-ups at SOE were completely in the dark about how PC technology was shifting, says something about not being in touch. I wonder how many programmers sit at Sony and possibly grumble about being expected to produce a game that's on-par with titles coming out now, while having to do so with technology that's five and six years old.

Besual

04-25-2008, 11:07 AM

<cite>Uros@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Aah, what a quandry we have, yes? I think your question is quite valid. My answer would be that the developers probably expected computers to continue using single core processors, and just get more and more powerful. The game was coded to take advantage of one massive processor. How do I know this? I know this because the game doesn't really support dual-core or more advanced CPU's. Heck, EQ2 doesn't even really support Vista. It's as if the developers expected everyone to run Windows XP and DX9 for the next five years, and be playing on machines with one massive 10ghz processor. That, I think, is the problem. The programming isn't necessarily sloppy. SOE just went in the wrong direction. My concern is the fact that they have made no attempts to change course and get with the times. How long have dual-core machines been prevalent now? Two years? Three years? That's plenty of time for SOE to alter EQ2 in order to properly utilize dual-core and quad-core processors if they want. How long has Vista been out, and growing to become a widely-used OS? It's been out long enough for the developers to utilize it. Yet, they aren't. Other games, such as Half-life 2, received upgrades later to take advantage of HDR lighting, and a host of other DX9 effects. Has SOE graced us with such things? No. No HDR lighting, no latest Shader models. For a game that's supposed to run on "future" hardware, the developers have never, ever done a good job of taking advantage of future technology. That's the problem. EQ2 was designed to run, and can only utilize, DX9 and single-core machines. The fact that the higher-ups at SOE were completely in the dark about how PC technology was shifting, says something about not being in touch. I wonder how many programmers sit at Sony and possibly grumble about being expected to produce a game that's on-par with titles coming out now, while having to do so with technology that's five and six years old.</blockquote>Well, you can bet that the development of EQ2 began at least 2-3 pre-lunch. Or in other words it started in 2001 / 2002. No multi-core CPUs for the mass market in sight. Same goes for vista and DX10.Vista is about 1 1/2 year on the market and far from "a widely-used OS". There are still more people using XP (or even 2k) then runnign Vista. I know many people even switching back from vista to XP. And what advantage beside DX10 offers Vista? To use DX10 you need a DX10 grafic card to. And guess what? Not all players have one installed. If Microsoft wouldn't have limited DX10 to Vista only there would be more reasons to jump for on the DX10 train.

ClawHammr

04-25-2008, 08:46 PM

Why was SOE the only one to bet the farm on a 10Ghz single-core CPU ?This is the only game I know of like this

Guy De Alsace

04-25-2008, 09:34 PM

Game seems to run fine to me apart from memory issues. It seems to be that that slows the game to a crawl rather than actual graphical "oomph". My machine is 5 years old and still with the same PSU and thus limited in gfx cards. I have probably the best card I can hope to run in my machine and EQ2 runs alright, just suffers immensely from very bad memory management.Consider that on release you had say 6 toons all wearing very similar gear and textures, all using very similar equipment with maybe 10% of the level of variety thats available now. No particle effects, universally brown gear and very few people had shiny armour.Now you have 6 multi-coloured, wildly varied garb players running around in a zone thats five times bigger than anything that existed at launch using quite likely 6 wholly different weapons and sporting a small menagerie of pets as well.I would love for the devs to revisit the engine and overhaul it to 2008 standards but I think thats unrealistic. Just look at the sheer length of time its taking for the skeletal revamp.

Davic

04-27-2008, 12:46 PM

They redid the engine in EQ1 what twice? I think they could do it. It would sure be nice to see some multi core support and DX9 stuff.

Ishina

04-27-2008, 04:13 PM

Much ado about nothing.Nice pics btw. Post some more. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Albrig

05-01-2008, 03:10 PM

If EQ2 remains a CPU-only engine drive game engine, things are going to get pretty rough.Vanguard is a classic example of SoE not understanding that the game engine really is the no.1 consideration before you make a game - such as one for the MMO market.The problem with any focus on a CPU, is that even if you look toward multi-threading, multi-core on a single die, you have to take into consideration that the bandwidth of the CPU socket is going to be a problem in the form of I/O.I think the CPU socket for a 939 allows for 14Gb/sec bandwidth - but the CPU itself doesn't necessarily mean it uses that. I know for a fact that the AMD FX-57 single core still has the biggest bandwidth of any chip in existence due to a unique two-way backplane (the reason the chip remained at £500 even after a year).That chip I still use and I can tell you, right now, the EQ2 game engine kills it dead. Why the EQ2 game engine does this is ... and I hate to beat a dead horse here, is beyond my comprehension. The FX-57 is still able to drive SLI/Crossfire configurations better than any CPU currently available to date, and at 2.8Ghz. In some cases, the FX-57 uni-core design makes a SINGLE spec GPU run as fast as SLI/X-F on any other CPU I have seen that isn't over 3.8Ghz.If you were to make use of 2-cores, the problem you will encounter, is likely to be bandwidth - 4 cores going through 1-socket for a game engine solely dedicated to using the CPU and not the GPU, will be a problem all in itself.So SoE, before you make any decisions about a focus on CPU multi-core, can you just drop any deficit that you have as key to this problem, and move it to the GPU. The current GPU in the mid-range should be spanking EQ2 into the middle of next week (at extreme detail).If no one recognises just how appalling the EQ2 engine is, I don't know what will. Because it hasn't changed even at 4Ghz. In 1995, I think I had a crank on the side of my PC - something like that.And if anyone says they are running this game acceptably even in High Detail (never mind above), in a full group fighting a mob, with no issues... can you please stop using the time machine you built and bring back Elvis.

Dreyco

05-01-2008, 03:42 PM

Being Vanguard is being brought up...SOE Had no hand in the development of that game up until the purchase. The engine's faults were truly the fault of Sigil Games Online who had property of the game until six months after launch.If they add in Multi Core Support to the game, things will be a lot smoother. (For EQ2, that is)

Hamervelder

05-01-2008, 05:46 PM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>Being Vanguard is being brought up...SOE Had no hand in the development of that game up until the purchase. The engine's faults were truly the fault of Sigil Games Online who had property of the game until six months after launch.If they add in Multi Core Support to the game, things will be a lot smoother. (For EQ2, that is)</blockquote>True enough. But anyone with half a bushel of common sense at Sony should have been able to say "Unreal engine.... MMO? No thanks". Heck, as soon as I opened the Vanguard directory in beta, I knew we were in for trouble. The Unreal engine is a notorious, bloated hog of an engine. Add a large multiplayer, large-zone requirement onto it, and you have a true flustercluck.

Albrig

05-01-2008, 05:55 PM

I was aware that SoE had no hand in Vanguard (they just went ahead blindly and supported it - which is even worse than if they did have a hand in it). SoE should drop Vanguard down the toilet and forget about it.The original designers of EQ1 and Vanguard are, in my opinion, slightly backward when it comes to game design, game playability and choice of game engine in which to create it on. I mean, Unreal 2.5 'heavily modified Unreal 2 engine'? What on earth made them want to use that? Does that mean EQ2's engine could not be 'heavily modified' to suit vanguard? That's something to think about it.The only reason they [SoE] hold on to them is that it is an extra cash (which is understandable because WoW is making $100 million a month, you know?)I don't really see any benefits to the current EQ2 engine with dual-core support (certainly not doubling performance I can tell you that). If a single core of 4Ghz doesn't really do much more than a 2.8Ghz one, that is an optimization problem right there. EQ2 has two problems: it makes very little use of the GPU and second, badly written code that doesn't make use of the CPU (or the 6-12Mb cache now featuring throughout Intel's range). I mean the cache is a collossal jump from the 0.5 and 1Mb (on the FX-57 for instance), we're used to seeing.As another examply, LOTRO, for any one here that has not played it, but are considering it, be warned.LOTRO's game engine has a very similar feel to the Vanguard and EQ2 engine, which was a bit of a surprise. Not as bad of course (the shadows will run quite nicely without much impact, but as long as you're the only one casting one), but if you think those pictures you see of LOTRO looking 'stunningly like middle-earth'; tried running it on my PC and it runs at 15fps or worse (but fairly steady). And the very worst bit about LOTRO's engine? Even when there is no one about, and there are empty spaces for miles around you, it is painful to see such poor performance on my PC. You have to turn off a great deal of detail to even get it running above 25fps.The spartan appearance of LOTRO to get a steady 30-50fps will also send a shockwave through you too. To say I was disappointed does not come close enough to the very fact that LOTRO's graphical prowess to a playable game, is a downright misleading one. You will not be able to attain those soft, gloriously colourful images and AoC like graphics that you have been seeing. I guarantee you that.

Dreyco

05-01-2008, 10:23 PM

I really don't think that it's a shame on SOE to support the game when it had a lot of potential.Because, really, it did. Did they make bad choices? Heck yeah.It's the fact that they keep making bad choices over on that team that continues to astound me <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />But still, slamming SOE for the way that the game was at launch? That is totally on the hands of the original development team, which SOE had no involvement in.I'm still giving the game a year.

Dreyco

05-01-2008, 10:31 PM

oh, and just because I can.Extreme Quality. 1680x1050 Resolution. 30 Frames per Second on Kunark. 50 Elsewhere.So... yeah. Runs fine <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

ClawHammr

05-01-2008, 11:25 PM

Wilde_Night

05-02-2008, 01:06 AM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>oh, and just because I can.Extreme Quality. 1680x1050 Resolution. 30 Frames per Second on Kunark. 50 Elsewhere.So... yeah. Runs fine <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>I get the same as Dreyco - Shadows on.Intel Core 2 Duo 2.40 GHz2 GB RAM (Corsair twin)NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX SLI video cards (Turned the second one off, not much really supports it right now)It slows down to about 30 FPS in raid zones and sometimes down to 20 when engaged in PvP fights. Occassionally in the Kunark areas when we have raid versus raid PvP it will slow down to 10 FPS.

ClawHammr

05-02-2008, 01:19 AM

10-30FPS is unacceptable IMOBut to each his own

Dreyco

05-02-2008, 01:32 AM

This is not a first person shooter. 30 FPS is stellar, and really, you don't need anymore. When i'm getting more than 30, it's extremely hard to notice, and is merely "fluff" for my gameplay. And truly, what do you expect when you have 48 character models mashed on your screen, all casting spells with max textures, lighting, all animating at the same time, etc? To get 50 Frames? Doesn't work that way. I don't think i've seen it happen that way in any MMO that i've played aside from that which shall not be named, and don't even get me started on why that of course is the case *chuckles*And Extreme Quality turns Shadows on by Default, so yes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />Pentium D 3 GHZ and a 7900 Card.

ClawHammr

05-02-2008, 03:33 AM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>This is not a first person shooter. 30 FPS is stellar, and really, you don't need anymore. When i'm getting more than 30, it's extremely hard to notice, and is merely "fluff" for my gameplay. And truly, what do you expect when you have 48 character models mashed on your screen, all casting spells with max textures, lighting, all animating at the same time, etc? To get 50 Frames? Doesn't work that way. I don't think i've seen it happen that way in any MMO that i've played aside from that which shall not be named, and don't even get me started on why that of course is the case *chuckles*And Extreme Quality turns Shadows on by Default, so yes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" width="15" height="15" />Pentium D 3 GHZ and a 7900 Card.</blockquote>Interesting, my system is superior technology but I still have to adjust settings in certain zones (Neriak for example) or there is noticable slowdown in FPSGood to hear you are not affected by the Disappearing Shadow Bug that many of us have to deal with <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=412024" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=412024</a>Must be nice to have shadows that dont vanish after 10 min of gameplay <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

Albrig

05-02-2008, 07:30 AM

I get the shadow problem too. It's a very, very odd problem. I say that because I have never encountered a game that does it with such professionalism.You don't notice it going off because, when you play the game from a fresh reboot, it works great. But then it disappears: this happens so seamlesslly that I have to say, I think it is designed to do that. I am really impressed how it does it without you being aware of it and then you suddenly realise and go, "the shadows have gone... huh?"Anyone who says they are running EQ2 on Extreme detail at an acceptable rate (30fps) even with nothing happening on-screen, with a sub 4Ghz CPU, must have a brain that is adding frames to their eyeballs by sheer will.I've just tried this morning EQ2 with 4Gb of RAM with the tightest timings, RAID 0 and a CPU 3.8Ghz (6Mb on-die cache) ATI 3870X2 (and a fresh install of Kunark).No good. It's the same as if I had never tried it. Of course, put something like HL2 Ep2 on and I hit 178fps. I was hesitant to put 178fps on here because at first, I didn't quite believe it myself. That's with 16xAF and 4xAA, 1680x1050.If anyone dares make a list of the number of people playing MMO's that want a smooth experience but with all the detail up - and they KNOW their PC rig can handle the detail - and the MMO developers make nothing of it - are you going to believe that 10 Million subscibers to WoW like playing it because it runs at 15fps and burns a hole in their CPU and uses only 1-core?Can anyone also please agree with me that when you first start in Kunark, it murders your PC more than any other starting area even at High Performance settings?We need an EQ2 revolution. SoE need to make plans for obtaining 10 million subscribers - expansions are not the answer or new content.I only like EQ2 to a point above all other MMOs, but if I am going this far with it, SoE must be pushing the majority just as much - it's only a matter of time before that ends.

ClawHammr

05-02-2008, 07:40 AM

Excellent pointsCan you imagine how many subscribers EQ2 would have - and retain- if it didnt have so many Technical issues ?I would be surprised if any of the original EQ2 Tech/Dev Staff is still employed with SOE at this pointJust compare the Topic/Message counts of the GamePlay Forum Vs. the Technical Issue Forum:GamePlay Issue Forum:Topics:5483Messages: 80000Technical Issue Forum:Topics:33431 Messages:225956

Albrig

05-02-2008, 07:55 AM

In the year or so I played WoW, there was a lot of talk about EQ2; though I could never tell EQ2 players having come from WoW - but I knew EQ2 players fresh to WoW: the simple fact was, they didn't really like to say it.The major point was that EQ2 had a rotten game engine and wished WoW had what EQ2 was and that was the 'look of the game'.I can imagine a conversation in WoW on that principle if it were reversed: "... Everquest 2 has just had a major game engine update and is reported to be running in Very High detail detail at 60fps...- hey - where did everyone go?"The Marketing Director / PR for SoE is either on holiday or has empty bottles of Vodka in the desk.I'm not sure which.

Albrig

05-02-2008, 08:11 AM

Here's something interesting I just this minute tried - I'm on the Splitpaw server (7hops and 22ms).Set the Complex Shader Distance to the maximum - yeah, that's right - go over 300.The frame rate is not affected.So we KNOW, without a shadow of a doubt (no pun intended) that the GPU (3870 or 8800) is handling that with no problem whatsoever.No I know for a fact that 2 years ago, my X1800XT (256Mb) gets MURDERED when I turned that up to anywhere above 25: 50 was when crashes were inevitable.So the GPU is being used (though how effectively, is anyone's guess) for the Shader on textures, but the shadows aren't (or specular). Specular is highly likely to be CPU bound too, because whenever I use specular (even in High Performance and shadows on on), DAYAAA-MN.Come on SoE.DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT10 Million subscribers ITCHIN ITCHIN ITCHIN ITCHIN ITCHIN ITCHIN

Albrig

05-02-2008, 08:18 AM

COME ON SOE - RESPOND! 10 Million subscribers - you're not getting because your game engine is not providing a smooth experience in all categories that MMO play is supposed to provide.100 Million big ones if you pull it off - hey! sack the whole [Removed for Content] programming team if they fail - what's that? A crummy 500k? wasted? WHO CARES! I mean, SOMEONE BELIEVES that the game engine was designed for a 6GHZ CPU!HEY, YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE BEGINNING TO BELIEVE ANYTHING - SO HELL! KEEP IT THE WAY IT IS!IF THE IMAGINATION OF YOUR FANTASY WORLD IS YOUR SAVING GRACE, IT SHOULD KEEP YOU ON THE GRAVY TRAIN FOR YEARS TO COME!But it isn't is it?

Llach

05-02-2008, 09:35 AM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>This is not a first person shooter. 30 FPS is stellar, and really, you don't need anymore. When i'm getting more than 30, it's extremely hard to notice, and is merely "fluff" for my gameplay. And truly, what do you expect when you have 48 character models mashed on your screen, all casting spells with max textures, lighting, all animating at the same time, etc? To get 50 Frames? Doesn't work that way. I don't think i've seen it happen that way in any MMO that i've played aside from that which shall not be named, and don't even get me started on why that of course is the case *chuckles*And Extreme Quality turns Shadows on by Default, so yes <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" width="15" height="15" />Pentium D 3 GHZ and a 7900 Card.</blockquote>I am going to have to say I want proof on that claim, atm I call a big fat BS on it. Would love to be proved wrong though.Some screenshots from QH, Kunzar Jungle, Lavastorm and a raid would suffice I think (reduce them to 800x600 though)...

Albrig

05-02-2008, 01:49 PM

AoC's Medium Detail setting on a E8500 at 3.6Ghz / 4Gb DDR2 / 3870 512Mb / Vista 64bit has been accurately reported in Beta to hit over 50fps (not quite reaching 60fps).Now before we hit tedium levels here, the game does have problems - more so than LOTRO if you ask me: but the bottom line is that at Medium Detail, EQ2 even in Extreme Detail and running at 60fps is not going to win out by much.The one place AoC will fall is that there is no 'footprint' to the areas. By that I mean if anyone has seen Lavastorm in Extreme Detail on a 50" 1080P Pioneer Kuro and not accidentally trodden on the cat... well, that's kind of my point.AoC's game is stunning though. And the shadows, well - in a different league altogether.I still believe though that EQ2 in High~Very High Detail running at 60fps even in groups will remain holding a candle against even AoC's game engine.You're never going to get a Lavastorm or Everfrost in AoC <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Zorastiz

05-02-2008, 02:31 PM

I can't tell you how many posts I have read about the frame rates etc, I play in blanced mode 1680 x 1050 on a 22" flat screen. 2.3 Ghz Duo Core CPU, ATI X1400 (or similar) graphics card with 256mb on board, 2 gigs of ram and windows Vista. I get no more than 18 to 22 FPS, I think the game looks nice at this frame rate, personally I cannot imagine running any higher, I once tried it at max, I couldn't move. So when people get 30 FPS or more I just shake my head and wonder what it must look like, but again I have no hitching, stuttering, freezing etc given my settings and my PC.If I can see the individual links on my guardians blackened iron chainmail and it glistens in balanced mode at 20FPS what's wrong with that?

Dreyco

05-02-2008, 02:52 PM

Call crap on it all you'd like. I really don't have to, or feel the need to post proof. Line this thread with tech specs and tell me my computer sucks compared to anyone elses. Bleh, i'll tell you that I have a friend who runs a P4 2.8 with 2 gigs and an 8800 GTS and gets about 20-25 on Extreme Quality himself. In fact, when we network together, he'll turn it on while we're adventuring for grins. I've seen it done.So where all these posts are coming from? Why everyone is complaining? I don't know. I really can't claim to understand why my modest little system runs it as well as it does, while yours doesn't. I could certainly speculate. I will say that I run the machine almost bare bones, however. I boot up? Nothing is running except the OS, and then the game. Maybe it's Vista 64? But I run a laptop with Vista that can play it on Balanced at 30.I really don't think that SOE is aiming to hit 10 million subs either. I'm sure it would be nice, but I don't think they sit there and design their game to accomodate that kind of subscription base or player base.Quality over Quantity. And really, we do get a lot of quality for our dollar. That's my opinion. Don't have to agree with it.

Hamervelder

05-02-2008, 03:00 PM

Maybe the problem lies with some incompatibility with, or lack of optimization for, AMD processors. The folks who say they're getting marvelous performance seem to be running Intel processors more often than not. Me personally (and no offense to you Dreyco), I've had such a poor experience w/ EQ2's performance, that I simply can't believe claims of running in Extreme Quality at 30+FPS, without seeing proof. I just can't. If you're sitting in an old-world zone, late at night, with only a couple of people around, and there's a low-population ...... maybe. But when the server is packed, and the zone is running full-tilt, I just have a hard time believing.

ClawHammr

05-02-2008, 11:35 PM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>Call crap on it all you'd like. I really don't have to, or feel the need to post proof. Line this thread with tech specs and tell me my computer sucks compared to anyone elses. Bleh, i'll tell you that I have a friend who runs a P4 2.8 with 2 gigs and an 8800 GTS and gets about 20-25 on Extreme Quality himself. In fact, when we network together, he'll turn it on while we're adventuring for grins. I've seen it done.So where all these posts are coming from? Why everyone is complaining? I don't know. I really can't claim to understand why my modest little system runs it as well as it does, while yours doesn't. I could certainly speculate. I will say that I run the machine almost bare bones, however. I boot up? Nothing is running except the OS, and then the game. Maybe it's Vista 64? But I run a laptop with Vista that can play it on Balanced at 30.I really don't think that SOE is aiming to hit 10 million subs either. I'm sure it would be nice, but I don't think they sit there and design their game to accomodate that kind of subscription base or player base.Quality over Quantity. And really, we do get a lot of quality for our dollar. That's my opinion. Don't have to agree with it.</blockquote> I agree its quality first but when a quality feature like shadows just vanishes from the game that is a serious problem for me.Amazing how you can play EQ2 on Extreme Detail in every zone without any of the known bugs affecting you either

Albrig

05-03-2008, 06:49 AM

Here are some rules about the behaviour of individuals who play Everquest 2 with 'no problem at all'.Solo players on a sparsely populated server and an almost empty zone - "I can run Everquest 2 in Very High Detail on my PC and it's fine really (and claims they have a medium-performance system)What they mean: 15-20fps, no one is about and when the shadows disappear and they don't notice, all seems ok to them. Crosses the path of a group, jumps a bit but moves on happy. Isn't bothered in general.Group player, medium populated server, (no other solo or group individuals visible) - "No problem for me on Extreme Detail, but I do have a HIGH-END PC though - very happy generally".What they mean: 15-20fps, the shadows have stopped working and they have jerk-reacted by setting the performance down to balance when they know their PC is having difficulty at the most annoying points of the game: 5-10fps occurring regularly if they don't. The starting Kunark area murders their very expensive toy quite nicely too and makes them wonder what they purchased it for.So what is Everquest 2 at 60fps supposed to be to the MMO crowd? 60fps will allow you to play ANY game without eye-strain or headaches or just that general 'annoyance of gaming' during play - it's a symptomatic condition when anything is below - I would say - 45-50fps.If I am in Stormhold and there is no one in it, I can get a 3.6Ghz Intel E8500, 4Gb Memory (TrD6), AMD/ATI3870 to hit 51fps (45-55fps moving) whilst running about in High Quality. Extreme Quality and I just can't achieve this.The problems start whenever there is a mob of skeletons - they all cast a shadow. Though I shouldn't say 'problem'. The shadows when turned off (reboot after) and it's 59fps (which is odd when you think about it, but the CPU is probably handling it quite well when it was on). When the shadows are off, the game is still nice to look at, but it all appears flat and there's a huge amount of atmosphere lost as a result. It just looks like the old Everquest 2 of 2 years ago; if I was in a group, this will all go erratic between 5-30fps. I can't experience anything more with the game engine.If SoE get EQ2's shadows optimized, either by offloading it entirely to one 'other' CPU core or the GPU - EQ2 has the potential to give a whole new experience from the very beginning even for the veterans, and also newcomers (newcomers aren't going to be all that impressed). You guys know what I am talking about. There are millions of people playing WoW because I would guess a vast majority of them can have a PvP or PvE experience with 10-20 people in their immediate vicinity and their low spec (for our current time) to medium spec PC can run it at 50-60fps without a single problem. Now I understand the shadows are just blobs, but there is an offset here: I've personally played on my PC with 40xNPCs 10-20xPvP players and the spell detail on EVERY SINGLE one of them going off (spell detail half-way on the slider) without a single frame drop (my PC being above medium, but below high-end) and it's very smooth and a really astonishing experience - you forget quite quickly about the appearance of the game and marvel about how all seamlessly smooth it all is.And if you can't do this, can I please have a parallax sky to look at? Come one, just improve it a bit. Make it more variable. Give it depth. Part of the experience isn't just the ground - the sky can have an incredible impact on the look of a game. But you know, I'm sure more than just me asked for this small update to the game. Not having done much to it, I just can't believe how 2 years can roll by and this game is still chugging on super high-end systems.Come on SoE I am a bit [Removed for Content] here, but listen up. I've watched you exhibition demos for Kunark and I watch and marvel as you demo the game to the Press people and I see two things that astonish me to disbelief - EVEN THERE, I can see the game running with shadows BUT, these screens involve very little happening, NO GROUPING.THEN, when you are running that Kunark guy around that level, THE SHADOWS ARE GONE - ALL OF THEM2 years. In 2-3 years, my PC went from a A64 3200 Barton CPU (2.2Ghz / 0.5Mb cache), 1Gb memory SDRAM, ATI X1850XT to a Intel E8500 3.6Ghz (6Mb cache), 4Gb (7.68Gb/sec memory TrD6) 8800GT (and now AMD 3870) and I am seeing, at best, an increase in performance that is NOT noticeable when you turn on shadows from High-Extreme detail.What do you Programming Optimization Wiz-kids do for 2 years?SORT IT OUT!

ClawHammr

05-03-2008, 07:00 AM

What is beyond my comprehension is how the Devs themselves can play EQ2 and not have the same complaints as we do-Do they not care about poor graphical performance and FPS ?-Do they not care about shadows ?You would think after all the hard work involved in design that you would want to be able to enjoy your own work. If I took the time to program and/or design character models,environments,shadows etc of course I would want to see them in full detail when I play the game. But the Devs know this is an impossibility.Or maybe the Devs are playing WoW instead ?Edit: Just watched this great video <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=416842�" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...416842�</a>Maybe the solution for increased performance is to spend another $700 for 4 more Gigs of RAM and a 2nd Video Card for SLI ? <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

Kotomi

05-03-2008, 08:33 AM

<cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote>What is beyond my comprehension is how the Devs themselves can play EQ2 and not have the same complaints as we do-Do they not care about poor graphical performance and FPS ?...Maybe the solution for increased performance is to spend another $700 for 4 more Gigs of RAM and a 2nd Video Card for SLI ? <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>I think they'll have to care soon enough, seeing as lack of multicore support and underutilization of GPU were by far the two most common issues raised in Rothgars "What bugs you" thread when it came to programming issues. I seem to recall reading one of the reasons that the game is so CPU dependant is to maintain compability with older graphics cards. In order to maintain compability with these older cards alot of work is put on the CPU which would be put on the GPU by most modern games that don't support these older cards.Edit: Below are some comments on performance of EQ2 which some might find interesting, taken from comments posted at <a href="http://blog.gregsplace.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://blog.gregsplace.com/</a><blockquote>The problem is that most of the work that the client is doing requires that it wait on the previous batch of work. This is the main killer of using multiple cores. Even if you farm a process to another core, if you've got the first core waiting for it to be done, you haven't gained anything.Rather than focus heavily on splitting the CPU load across cores, I would guess that our biggest performance gains would be accomplished by completely removing some of the processing from the CPU and moving it to the GPU. Unfortunately EQ2 was written to support Geforce3 video cards which only support Shader v1.1. So all of our shaders are written in ASM and would have to be upgraded to HLSL which is a huge amount of work.</blockquote> <blockquote>Regarding the shader info, if everyone knew the reasoning why things were done they were, I think they'd be more understanding. When EQ2 went into development, they wanted to support GeForce3, and wanted the game to look just as good on lower hardware. So the only choice was to do many things on the CPU since the graphics card couldn't do it.</blockquote> <blockquote>Currently, the following hardware upgrades may improve EQ2 performance.Increase RAM (up to 4gb)Increase hard disk access timesIncrease CPU speedCPU's with multiple cores and SLI setups don't currently offer significant performance benefits for EQ2.</blockquote>

Albrig

05-04-2008, 07:50 AM

<ul><li><div align="left">Increase RAM (up to 4gb)</div></li></ul>Well, I've done this and yes, it does make a difference - you get even better performance if you DISABLE the pagefile altogether (but not what I would expect with EQ2's game engine).<ul><li><div align="left">Increase hard disk access times</div></li></ul>Well, if you have 4Gb of memory - why would you need the HDD to access anyway?<ul><li><div align="left">Increase CPU speed</div></li></ul>It's not the speed of the CPU in Ghz that you need - it is the design of the CPU; an equivalently clocked Intel C2D and an AMD 6000 series and you will know what I mean: in most cases, the AMD can be up to and well over 500Mhz faster and Intel's DESIGN beats the hell out of it: most likely because of that cache, but more than likely because of just superior optmized design<ul><li><div align="left">CPU's with multiple cores and SLI setups don't currently offer significant performance benefits for EQ2.</div></li></ul>I think SLI and Xfire place wa-aay too much demand on a (any I can think of) CPU (they need to be better optimized, but I think it's the PCI-E 2.0 bus that just isn't up to it). It's all about bandwidth. If you don't have enough, you can have 10Ghz CPU and 2Ghz GPU - without a 1Trerahertz bandwidth, you're simply pouring water into a finite balloon.*updateI tried something yesterday with LOTRO.Get 8Gb of memory for Vista x64 (DDR2). Disable the Pagefile System Manager completely. Download the beta nVidia drivers for Vista 64 (<a href="http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_175.12.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">winvista_x64_175.12</a>). Get Book 13.30-55fps in Ultra High Quality DX10 on my PC. Yeah - the water and shadows will b-l-o-w y-o-u awwww-ay. At the speeds I was getting before (on XP), the game in my eyes is crap - I retract whatever statement I said before (well, what I just said). Consistently stable frames when you're wandering about and you will not give a crap about grouping. However, when I grouped I was forced to drop down to High Detail (I wasn't particular about individual settings, just the defaults). Was still around 30-50fps even with 4 players and multiple mobs hitting on us. NO DISC ACCESS. You know those pictures you keep seeing of LOTRO - you know that dream-like quality to it, looks oh-so great - like the film itself? - well, it really does look like that.I suggest something be done about EQ2 whilst you still have the cash-flow - particularly with anyone with 4Gb of memory. You should be able to stuff the whole ZONE (shadows an'all) in that memory pool so the HDD is completely irrelavant.Wake up to the future. We're already in it!

Kotomi

05-04-2008, 09:31 AM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote><ul><li><div align="left">Increase hard disk access times</div></li></ul>Well, if you have 4Gb of memory - why would you need the HDD to access anyway?<ul><li><div align="left">Increase CPU speed</div></li></ul>It's not the speed of the CPU in Ghz that you need - it is the design of the CPU; an equivalently clocked Intel C2D and an AMD 6000 series and you will know what I mean: in most cases, the AMD can be up to and well over 500Mhz faster and Intel's DESIGN beats the hell out of it: most likely because of that cache, but more than likely because of just superior optmized design<ul><li><div align="left">CPU's with multiple cores and SLI setups don't currently offer significant performance benefits for EQ2.</div></li></ul>I think SLI and Xfire place wa-aay too much demand on a (any I can think of) CPU (they need to be better optimized, but I think it's the PCI-E 2.0 bus that just isn't up to it). It's all about bandwidth. If you don't have enough, you can have 10Ghz CPU and 2Ghz GPU - without a 1Trerahertz bandwidth, you're simply pouring water into a finite balloon....I suggest something be done about EQ2 whilst you still have the cash-flow - particularly with anyone with 4Gb of memory. You should be able to stuff the whole ZONE (shadows an'all) in that memory pool so the HDD is completely irrelavant.Wake up to the future. We're already in it!</blockquote>My guess would be hard disk for faster loading times when zoning.The difference between C2D and the X2 chips isn't as big as you make it sound, there is a small difference but clock speed will make a much larger difference. Though since C2D tends to overclock much better than the X2 anyway I guess it doesn't really matter. I get more or less the same performance on my 2 GHz C2D and my X2 running at 1.9 GHz. FPS is almost doubled if I overclock the X2 to 2.6 GHz.I almost honestly doubt the buss speed will be a real issue, especially as the onboard memory of graphics cards grow. Do you really need to send multiple gigabytes of data between RAM/CPU and GPU every second?

therodge

05-04-2008, 02:34 PM

meh i used to run a system with 6gigs of ram (DDR2) microsoft xp (moded to recognise that ram) 1 nvidea 6600 or 6800 cant remember, and 2 duo core 3.4 ghz processers, which ran the game in qh on max settings at peak time around 30 fps but could run 50 fps most other places. but then one day becuase of how the system was set up (it was acually two motherboards that i had hardwired togeather useing some technick that only my looser freinds could ever find on the internet.) it didnt have a standard case and had to have one cut and welded togeather (which is also a pain trying to miss my [Removed for Content] dvd burner) and one hot summer day BOOM it overheated and now the processers are gone and took my motherboards with it <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Albrig

05-04-2008, 03:48 PM

<cite>Kotomi wrote:</cite><blockquote>My guess would be hard disk for faster loading times when zoning.The difference between C2D and the X2 chips isn't as big as you make it sound, there is a small difference but clock speed will make a much larger difference. Though since C2D tends to overclock much better than the X2 anyway I guess it doesn't really matter. I get more or less the same performance on my 2 GHz C2D and my X2 running at 1.9 GHz. FPS is almost doubled if I overclock the X2 to 2.6 GHz.I almost honestly doubt the buss speed will be a real issue, especially as the onboard memory of graphics cards grow. Do you really need to send multiple gigabytes of data between RAM/CPU and GPU every second?</blockquote>"Do you really need to send multiple gigabytes of data between RAM/CPU and GPU every second?"Well yes you do and no you don't: say if you have 10Gb/sec bandwidth between the GPU/CPU/Main Memory.If you sent 500Mb of data for say somekind of geometric structure (or whatever) that was tied to LOD in the zone (so it appeared full detail when you needed to recognise it as such); that 10Gb/sec bandwidth doesn't mean that 500Mb will be transferred across the bus at 1/20th of a sec - it doesn't work like that at all. The reason it doesn't is because when that bandwidth is used, there is load applied to the CPU/GPU/Memory - this load is based on cycles, synch and clearance capacity of whatever is in there at the time (consoles do it better than PCs many times over), based on whatever the CPU/GPU/Memory is doing at any given micro-second. Mulit-threading really is a very complex process but Epic's Unreal 3 engine shows you can do it with fantastic results (where the Intel E8500 beats any Phenom easily even 500Mhz down).There is a very good reason why photorealism is at least 10 years away from a home PC. You can have 16Gb of main memory and a GPU with access to 4Gb of DDR4, but that bandwidth between each point has to be ENORMOUS to accomodate all the geometry in the zone (if it were relative, say to the size of Antonica). I would say a bandwidth of 100-500Gb/sec is required - at the very least - to load textures on the fly with mult-million polygon (to even hit near photorealism) structures at 60fps in 1080P.The thing I am getting at is that we could do this now - at 1fps. And the other thing I am trying to say is that if the game engine isn't programmed to make use of technology in the right way, you are using it in the wrong way.It's a simple as that.EQ2's game engine is designed in a way that wasn't even relevant when it was released. So woweee, they tried so hard with the Geforce3; and multi-core and mult-threading wasn't around, but if you are going to create a game engine that has an option that reads:EXTREME DETAILand you can't REALISTICALLY use it as you would something like Unreal 3 Tournament (with 40 players in the zone), MASSIVE zones, very VERY complex geometry, very advanced spell effects (have you seen that walker effect with two of them after you?) and 100fps (on my PC any way) and all FOUR FREAKIN CORES and the GPU to 90%AND LETS NOT FORGET PHYSICS TO DIE FOROH WAIT AND IT NEVER CRASHES OR CAUSES ANY PROBLEMSEQ2 really sucks [I cannot control my vocabulary].

Zaurus

05-04-2008, 08:53 PM

Well Albright, I do have to agree with you that the EQ2 engine could be much better than it is. My PC should be able to run it with everything at max, but it cannot. I just set it to extreme quality and turn off evnironmental shadows and make sure that flora displacement is also disabled. It runs good enough for me, usually around 40ish FPS, though I do spend most of my time playing solo.My friend got me to try WoW with him a little over a month ago, and quite frankly the ONLY thing that game had over EQ2 was the ability to run at a constant 60 FPS with everything maxed at 1680x1050. I would love to run EQ2 like that (and like I said, I SHOULD be able to with my system) but that doesn't make EQ2 suck IMO, just the engine it's using. The actual graphics, gameplay, races, classes, and features are far better.As far as I know very few people who created EQ2 are still working on it, if any. I've heard that some of the original creators of EQ2 became members of Sigil actually...so I guess that would explain VG's engine problems too, lol. The good news however is this post made by Rothgar not too long ago. <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=412574" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=412574</a> The top of the list shows that multi-core support and under utilization of the GPU are things that they are aware of and working on fixing. They have already addressed several of those issues on that list so far in the last couple game updates. In fact the third thing on that list, "Allow shared bank usage across alignments on PvE servers. Allow sharing of coin." is being addressed in the very next GU which is on test right now. So it looks like the current devs of EQ2 are working on improving the performance problems of EQ2 quite a bit. I'm sure a change this big would take a long time to get done, but better late than never.

Guy De Alsace

05-04-2008, 10:39 PM

Dont think the game does that bad considering its age. Yes the engine is the clunkiest, most cumbersome and non-future friendly engine ever devised but ur guys still, at the end of the day, look pretty cool.If it had modern technological support it would be a world beater. Sadly it hasnt. A shame but there you are. Look at LotRO. That game ran like a slug nailed to a plank on my machine with worse graphics and a newer engine...*shrug*

Zaurus

05-04-2008, 10:58 PM

Yep, EQ2 is still by far the best looking MMO out right now, in my opinion. The only game comming out anytime soon that looks better than it graphically is Age of Conan. But I don't play EQ2 just for the graphics, and I wouldn't want to play a game where the only race choice is three different types of humans.

Albrig

05-08-2008, 02:00 PM

Well I don't mean to continue this subject for too long so I will end on a good note about SoE's continued decisions with EQ2. LOTRO's graphics engine, in dx10 on vista (with the new nvidia beta drivers as of end of April) demonstrate an environment that is 10 times more detailed than even EQ2's extreme detail setting. I am not kidding here. I am not exaggerating. That's honest to the balls accurate.However, LOTRO has a [Removed for Content] awful system of communication. No matter what I do, I just can't seem to connect to it or any one else in the way that you can with EQ2. The ability to get groups in LOTRO is very very awkward.The reason this is the case is the basic problem that follows:The landmasses - like the Shire (and take this literally) is really B I G. You're talking at least 4x bigger than Antonica. Easily (maybe even 5x).The landmass in LOTRO is not only far too big, but it contains an enormous amount of detail (and for the most part, relevant to the area - it's a master-class in realistic landscape design) - areas that are like the dungeon instances in EQ2 would be barely 5mm across on the LOTRO Shire map (being 1680x1050 pixels). I kid you not. LOTRO's landmass is so big that I have missed entire areas of that size just by walking by them because a massive hill was in the way - and believe me, it's not because you can't see them because of draw distance - the draw distance in this game engine is phenominal. And it's the detail. The bloody landmass in front of you. It's kind of like a really realistic terrain map of earth from orbit and you zoom in. Not exactly accurate but that's the feeling.The game engine of LOTRO is fantastic. Unlike Oblivion, even distant textures are highly detailed and cleverly processed so they don't tile (I really mean it, there is none of that crap going on). At Very High Texture detail, they are near photorealistic.But why have I stopped playing LOTRO? It's simple. It REALLY does take a LONG LONG time to get anywhere if you're a new starter. It's THAT big. Antonica and TS put together (and maybe CL crammed in too) is DWARFED in comparison - I just cannot draw attention to that enough. It's simply unreal and when you're doing quests, this detail and size really works against the game - you don't feel like you are traversing an area: this is really hard to define but it feels like you are nowhere most of the time (lack of variation in appearance? maybe). You can't actually feel like you are - like in EQ2, 'belonging' in Antonica based on your level, or beloning in TS, based on your level.That's as good as I can explain it. And as much as the detail is there, it also feels devoid of character and empty (but then you could say that about CL, but this is worse and yet, it isn't the same thing - hard to give clarity really.Anyway. EQ2's whole interface for grouping, talking, joining people, playing with people - is unbeatable. The whole championing of the way a group works is better than any mmorpg.There. I said it.But [Removed for Content] me, I wish EQ2's engine could do the environment and the shadows, specular shadows, the water (omg the water in Ultra High Detail on LOTRO - da-aaamn), self shadows (although, it doesn't do shadows affected by a light source from anothers' torch for instance), is on a different level. Even the environmental sound is at the EQ2 level (something that few mmorpgs get right - the breeze, the sea, the sense of air having a whiff of scent - that sort of thing).Playing EQ2 in Extreme Detail is the only way SoE and the staff responsible for the direction of EQ2 are going to get more subs. I'm sorry, but as much as I dislike LOTRO, LOTRO does allow you to get a PC (or upgrade it) and play it nicely, smoothly and consisitently at Ultra High Detail - with absolutely STUNNING results. No crashes. No slow down. Even the connection to Evernight EU is about 30-33ms. No lag.I don't dislike WoW. The reason is is that it's like EQ2, but with only a few things that don't make it attractive for those that know what makes it all tick just good enough to keep it going in the right directions long enough so you don't notice what a shoddy game engine it's running on.

Albrig

05-08-2008, 02:27 PM

<cite>Valron@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yep, EQ2 is still by far the best looking MMO out right now, in my opinion. The only game comming out anytime soon that looks better than it graphically is Age of Conan. But I don't play EQ2 just for the graphics, and I wouldn't want to play a game where the only race choice is three different types of humans.</blockquote>Oops missed this.Anyway, the answer to your question is *Not Anymore* - Book13 plus 4-8Gb of DDR2 memory and a 3Ghz C2D (Wolfdale, I think it is), Vista Dx10, nVidia's beta April 08 drivers for 9800GX2 and I am sorry, but you will be absolutely BLOWN-AWAY when you get 60fps upward to 90fps (in certain areas) in Ultra High Detail.Now an 8800GT will struggle just a bit, but for the most part, Very High Detail or High Detail is selectable, and not ONLY that, but playable and smooth.But it's not EQ2 (and you KNOW what I mean when I say that).

MicheleMyBell

05-08-2008, 02:36 PM

Interesting points. I have played 5 PC MMO's since the opening of EQ1. I am a hard core gamer. BUT I do not need to run on extream to be happy. I am content at balanced. If I need the extream Ill go to twitch games on an Xbox. Blahhh. Many of us are after content. Content Content ContentYa know how long I played WoW? 20 min after my download. That bad. It is not a heavy MMO game and my passion is MMO.

Jida

05-08-2008, 02:43 PM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Valron@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yep, EQ2 is still by far the best looking MMO out right now, in my opinion. The only game comming out anytime soon that looks better than it graphically is Age of Conan. But I don't play EQ2 just for the graphics, and I wouldn't want to play a game where the only race choice is three different types of humans.</blockquote>Oops missed this.Anyway, the answer to your question is *Not Anymore* - Book13 plus 4-8Gb of DDR2 memory and a 3Ghz C2D (Wolfdale, I think it is), Vista Dx10, nVidia's beta April 08 drivers for 9800GX2 and I am sorry, but you will be absolutely BLOWN-AWAY when you get 60fps upward to 90fps (in certain areas) in Ultra High Detail.Now an 8800GT will struggle just a bit, but for the most part, Very High Detail or High Detail is selectable, and not ONLY that, but playable and smooth.But it's not EQ2 (and you KNOW what I mean when I say that).</blockquote>New drivers, test em out<a href="http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_175.16_beta.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvis...75.16_beta.html</a>

jagermonsta

05-08-2008, 03:44 PM

<blockquote><cite>Nazgul wrote:</cite>Vertex buffers are, simply put, lists of triangles which make up everything in the game (UI, NPCs, your character, armor, etc). The game maintains hundreds (if not thousands) of vertex buffers while you're playing.The 8800 stutter issue seems to be caused by telling DirectX/nVidia's drivers that we're done with a vertex buffer (or several). This change basically allows us to hold onto vertex buffers when an object is done using them and reuse them for something else later. We rarely tell DirectX that we're done with them, and this seems to help out on graphics cards that have problems with stuttering, including the 8800.</blockquote>For 8800 "Performance" issues try using the command: /r_reuse_vertex_buffers 1 Add it to your EQ2.INI file too...

Naubeta

05-08-2008, 04:03 PM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well I don't mean to continue this subject for too long so I will end on a good note about SoE's continued decisions with EQ2. LOTRO's graphics engine, in dx10 on vista (with the new nvidia beta drivers as of end of April) demonstrate an environment that is 10 times more detailed than even EQ2's extreme detail setting. I am not kidding here. I am not exaggerating. That's honest to the balls accurate.However, LOTRO has a [Removed for Content] awful system of communication. No matter what I do, I just can't seem to connect to it or any one else in the way that you can with EQ2. The ability to get groups in LOTRO is very very awkward.The reason this is the case is the basic problem that follows:The landmasses - like the Shire (and take this literally) is really B I G. You're talking at least 4x bigger than Antonica. Easily (maybe even 5x).The landmass in LOTRO is not only far too big, but it contains an enormous amount of detail (and for the most part, relevant to the area - it's a master-class in realistic landscape design) - areas that are like the dungeon instances in EQ2 would be barely 5mm across on the LOTRO Shire map (being 1680x1050 pixels). I kid you not. LOTRO's landmass is so big that I have missed entire areas of that size just by walking by them because a massive hill was in the way - and believe me, it's not because you can't see them because of draw distance - the draw distance in this game engine is phenominal. And it's the detail. The bloody landmass in front of you. It's kind of like a really realistic terrain map of earth from orbit and you zoom in. Not exactly accurate but that's the feeling.The game engine of LOTRO is fantastic. Unlike Oblivion, even distant textures are highly detailed and cleverly processed so they don't tile (I really mean it, there is none of that crap going on). At Very High Texture detail, they are near photorealistic.But why have I stopped playing LOTRO? It's simple. It REALLY does take a LONG LONG time to get anywhere if you're a new starter. It's THAT big. Antonica and TS put together (and maybe CL crammed in too) is DWARFED in comparison - I just cannot draw attention to that enough. It's simply unreal and when you're doing quests, this detail and size really works against the game - you don't feel like you are traversing an area: this is really hard to define but it feels like you are nowhere most of the time (lack of variation in appearance? maybe). You can't actually feel like you are - like in EQ2, 'belonging' in Antonica based on your level, or beloning in TS, based on your level.That's as good as I can explain it. And as much as the detail is there, it also feels devoid of character and empty (but then you could say that about CL, but this is worse and yet, it isn't the same thing - hard to give clarity really.Anyway. EQ2's whole interface for grouping, talking, joining people, playing with people - is unbeatable. The whole championing of the way a group works is better than any mmorpg.There. I said it.But [Removed for Content] me, I wish EQ2's engine could do the environment and the shadows, specular shadows, the water (omg the water in Ultra High Detail on LOTRO - da-aaamn), self shadows (although, it doesn't do shadows affected by a light source from anothers' torch for instance), is on a different level. Even the environmental sound is at the EQ2 level (something that few mmorpgs get right - the breeze, the sea, the sense of air having a whiff of scent - that sort of thing).Playing EQ2 in Extreme Detail is the only way SoE and the staff responsible for the direction of EQ2 are going to get more subs. I'm sorry, but as much as I dislike LOTRO, LOTRO does allow you to get a PC (or upgrade it) and play it nicely, smoothly and consisitently at Ultra High Detail - with absolutely STUNNING results. No crashes. No slow down. Even the connection to Evernight EU is about 30-33ms. No lag.I don't dislike WoW. The reason is is that it's like EQ2, but with only a few things that don't make it attractive for those that know what makes it all tick just good enough to keep it going in the right directions long enough so you don't notice what a shoddy game engine it's running on.</blockquote>Turbine have always made really big (geographically) games. Asherons call was literally a hundred miles across and would take a whole RL day to go from one side to the other.

ganjookie

05-08-2008, 04:06 PM

I mean come on

ganjookie

05-08-2008, 04:09 PM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>You doing yourself no favours by calling me a troll. But thanks anyway.Do you even realise I've been playing EQ2 since 1995?</blockquote>Oops I missed this gem of a troll dropping. :p

Dreyco

05-08-2008, 07:48 PM

If there's one thing that the broadening market has taught us, it's that having the ability to run a game on a wide spectrum of machines is one of the crucial keys to success. The people who HAVE to have super dee duperly extreme uber quality to pay a sub are fewer in number than you might think. That other game shows this.But yes, EQ2's engine was designed to try to provide some aspect of quality to those who have machines who can get it, as well as run on older end machines. And as much as the one or two people who come to this thread with a chip on their shoulder might want to admit, it does that. I can still load up the game on an older PC and get decent quality, if not great performance if I turned stuff down. I can still pull it up on my modest PC with things all maxed out and get a nice frame rate.It is clear that the dev team does want to do something about it. There is no easy answer. The dev posts in other threads have shown that it's on their minds, but really, demanding that a game, especially an MMO, get a fluff amount of frames is just absurd. Yes, this excludes raid situations. Though there's only one game that is able to do that, with obvious reasons, and I don't think I really want to name it, or justify why it does, beyond the fact that it look like Pitfall for the Atari compared to games like EQ1.

Albrig

05-09-2008, 07:32 AM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>If there's one thing that the broadening market has taught us, it's that having the ability to run a game on a wide spectrum of machines is one of the crucial keys to success. The people who HAVE to have super dee duperly extreme uber quality to pay a sub are fewer in number than you might think. That other game shows this.But yes, EQ2's engine was designed to try to provide some aspect of quality to those who have machines who can get it, as well as run on older end machines. And as much as the one or two people who come to this thread with a chip on their shoulder might want to admit, it does that. I can still load up the game on an older PC and get decent quality, if not great performance if I turned stuff down. I can still pull it up on my modest PC with things all maxed out and get a nice frame rate.It is clear that the dev team does want to do something about it. There is no easy answer. The dev posts in other threads have shown that it's on their minds, but really, demanding that a game, especially an MMO, get a fluff amount of frames is just absurd. Yes, this excludes raid situations. Though there's only one game that is able to do that, with obvious reasons, and I don't think I really want to name it, or justify why it does, beyond the fact that it look like Pitfall for the Atari compared to games like EQ1.</blockquote>Your first paragraph highlights such a flawed concept, that I will quite rightly tell you you are brutally misleading the reasons of having a poor game engine over what your considered idea of what subscribers want and who they are.You're another person who says that you get decent quality and performance with some 'stuff turned down'. Specifically, and non-specifically, you are dumbing my original post with no backup. The worst bit is is that you claim on your modestly [Removed for Content] PC (I mean, what the [Removed for Content] does that mean?) you have extreme detail at a nice frame rate: even if you were the only player in the zone. And what is your 'nice [Removed for Content] frame rate' anyway? Let me guess it's somewhere below 30fps (if that is even possible on your modestly [Removed for Content] laptop whatever), but you consider 60fps a horribly afflication on an mmorpg and is ridiculously not required.It is not clear from my point of view (maybe to others, so sorry about that) that the DEV team wants to do anything about the engine any time soon, especially when their KUNARK demonstrations show a starting point with no one else but their avatar wondering about in it and when they do - the shadows are off. Pretty funny.I don't think - and I don't believe - that SoE are looking at WoW and thinking, "well, yes. because the game engine is fantastically proportional to PC hardware and lets every one play it with superlative performance we shouldn't at least realise that the game engine, is infact, the very reason they are getting a ridiculous amount of money and that it houses a bunch of [Removed for Content] teenagers for the most part; but since our own subscribers have been defined as 'special cases' we'll leave the engine's capabilities out of the realm of people who do actually have a a decent job and don't have 4 children".

Albrig

05-09-2008, 07:35 AM

Albrig

05-09-2008, 07:37 AM

<cite>Ganjookie@Permafrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>You doing yourself no favours by calling me a troll. But thanks anyway. Do you even realise I've been playing EQ2 since 1995?</blockquote>Oops I missed this gem of a troll dropping. :p</blockquote>Sorry about that. I was thinking in two different directions without making a connection. Happens all the time with Cisco equipment and MPLS.

Zin`Car

05-09-2008, 01:33 PM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ganjookie@Permafrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>You doing yourself no favours by calling me a troll. But thanks anyway. Do you even realise I've been playing EQ2 since 1995?</blockquote>Oops I missed this gem of a troll dropping. :p</blockquote>Sorry about that. I was thinking in two different directions without making a connection. Happens all the time with Cisco equipment and MPLS.</blockquote>no, you were trying to make yourself sound overly important with a self-inflated ego by whipping around the "i'z been playun longer den any off joo i knoez the mostest." You simply got caught and called out about it multiple times so you return with some paltry, half-wit excuse.Fail.

Dreyco

05-09-2008, 01:40 PM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>If there's one thing that the broadening market has taught us, it's that having the ability to run a game on a wide spectrum of machines is one of the crucial keys to success. The people who HAVE to have super dee duperly extreme uber quality to pay a sub are fewer in number than you might think. That other game shows this.But yes, EQ2's engine was designed to try to provide some aspect of quality to those who have machines who can get it, as well as run on older end machines. And as much as the one or two people who come to this thread with a chip on their shoulder might want to admit, it does that. I can still load up the game on an older PC and get decent quality, if not great performance if I turned stuff down. I can still pull it up on my modest PC with things all maxed out and get a nice frame rate.It is clear that the dev team does want to do something about it. There is no easy answer. The dev posts in other threads have shown that it's on their minds, but really, demanding that a game, especially an MMO, get a fluff amount of frames is just absurd. Yes, this excludes raid situations. Though there's only one game that is able to do that, with obvious reasons, and I don't think I really want to name it, or justify why it does, beyond the fact that it look like Pitfall for the Atari compared to games like EQ1.</blockquote>Your first paragraph highlights such a flawed concept, that I will quite rightly tell you you are brutally misleading the reasons of having a poor game engine over what your considered idea of what subscribers want and who they are.You're another person who says that you get decent quality and performance with some 'stuff turned down'. Specifically, and non-specifically, you are dumbing my original post with no backup. The worst bit is is that you claim on your modestly [Removed for Content] PC (I mean, what the [I cannot control my vocabulary] does that mean?) you have extreme detail at a nice frame rate: even if you were the only player in the zone. And what is your 'nice [Removed for Content] frame rate' anyway? Let me guess it's somewhere below 30fps (if that is even possible on your modestly [Removed for Content] laptop whatever), but you consider 60fps a horribly afflication on an mmorpg and is ridiculously not required.It is not clear from my point of view (maybe to others, so sorry about that) that the DEV team wants to do anything about the engine any time soon, especially when their KUNARK demonstrations show a starting point with no one else but their avatar wondering about in it and when they do - the shadows are off. Pretty funny.I don't think - and I don't believe - that SoE are looking at WoW and thinking, "well, yes. because the game engine is fantastically proportional to PC hardware and lets every one play it with superlative performance we shouldn't at least realise that the game engine, is infact, the very reason they are getting a ridiculous amount of money and that it houses a bunch of [I cannot control my vocabulary] teenagers for the most part; but since our own subscribers have been defined as 'special cases' we'll leave the engine's capabilities out of the realm of people who do actually have a a decent job and don't have 4 children".</blockquote>Okay, so being my rig doesn't have Quad Core processors, and SLI 8 Series or 9 Series cards, it gets to be referenced to a group of people like that? Excuse me? And yes, i'm going to call foul on what you say. Like it or lump it, I get fine FPS on extreme quality, and I don't 'owe' you any proof either with the way that you seem to like throw derogatory statements to back your own arguments, invalidating a massive amount of credibility.Comparing EQ2's engine to LOTRO makes no sense. LOTRO's engine was designed recently. So was Conan's. So was all of these games that are getting thrown in here to try to compare to it. I think I even saw Crysis somewhere.In the meantime though, let me make sure that I can get this bold and double faced so that the fact is put before you, being the point is apparently being missed.The EverQuest II Engine was designed in 2002, Transitioned into 2003, and released in 2004. It was designed for GeForce 3 series graphics cards.Let me say that again.It was designed for GeForce 3 series graphics cards.If you're as tech savy as you claim to be, you would understand that GeForce 3 series cards could not process shaders worth anything in the world. You would also understand that if they want to get people to play the game that have, yes, modest systems for the time, they will have to have the engine handle those shaders differently.What was around the corner or even available at the time?Pentium 4.What did they do then? Made it work really good with that Pentium 4. And yes, on my old PC? It ran really good on that fracking Pentium 4.Autenil has posted about it. Rothgar has posted about it. And i'll just double what I said before about it. There is no easy solution to this problem now that technology has settled in a way they, at the time, couldn't predict. They have recognized that it exists. They say they want to do something about it. They have even said they are even hiring a software programmer for it. If you really think you understand the way these engines run more than even they do? By all means, stop flaming myself and my PC for trying to be, I don't know, reasonable, and start submitting your application.

ClawHammr

05-09-2008, 08:29 PM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>If there's one thing that the broadening market has taught us, it's that having the ability to run a game on a wide spectrum of machines is one of the crucial keys to success. The people who HAVE to have super dee duperly extreme uber quality to pay a sub are fewer in number than you might think. That other game shows this.But yes, EQ2's engine was designed to try to provide some aspect of quality to those who have machines who can get it, as well as run on older end machines. And as much as the one or two people who come to this thread with a chip on their shoulder might want to admit, it does that. I can still load up the game on an older PC and get decent quality, if not great performance if I turned stuff down. I can still pull it up on my modest PC with things all maxed out and get a nice frame rate.It is clear that the dev team does want to do something about it. There is no easy answer. The dev posts in other threads have shown that it's on their minds, but really, demanding that a game, especially an MMO, get a fluff amount of frames is just absurd. Yes, this excludes raid situations. Though there's only one game that is able to do that, with obvious reasons, and I don't think I really want to name it, or justify why it does, beyond the fact that it look like Pitfall for the Atari compared to games like EQ1.</blockquote>Your first paragraph highlights such a flawed concept, that I will quite rightly tell you you are brutally misleading the reasons of having a poor game engine over what your considered idea of what subscribers want and who they are.You're another person who says that you get decent quality and performance with some 'stuff turned down'. Specifically, and non-specifically, you are dumbing my original post with no backup. The worst bit is is that you claim on your modestly [Removed for Content] PC (I mean, what the [I cannot control my vocabulary] does that mean?) you have extreme detail at a nice frame rate: even if you were the only player in the zone. And what is your 'nice [Removed for Content] frame rate' anyway? Let me guess it's somewhere below 30fps (if that is even possible on your modestly [Removed for Content] laptop whatever), but you consider 60fps a horribly afflication on an mmorpg and is ridiculously not required.It is not clear from my point of view (maybe to others, so sorry about that) that the DEV team wants to do anything about the engine any time soon, especially when their KUNARK demonstrations show a starting point with no one else but their avatar wondering about in it and when they do - the shadows are off. Pretty funny.I don't think - and I don't believe - that SoE are looking at WoW and thinking, "well, yes. because the game engine is fantastically proportional to PC hardware and lets every one play it with superlative performance we shouldn't at least realise that the game engine, is infact, the very reason they are getting a ridiculous amount of money and that it houses a bunch of [I cannot control my vocabulary] teenagers for the most part; but since our own subscribers have been defined as 'special cases' we'll leave the engine's capabilities out of the realm of people who do actually have a a decent job and don't have 4 children".</blockquote>Okay, so being my rig doesn't have Quad Core processors, and SLI 8 Series or 9 Series cards, it gets to be referenced to a group of people like that? Excuse me? And yes, i'm going to call foul on what you say. Like it or lump it, I get fine FPS on extreme quality, and I don't 'owe' you any proof either with the way that you seem to like throw derogatory statements to back your own arguments, invalidating a massive amount of credibility.Comparing EQ2's engine to LOTRO makes no sense. LOTRO's engine was designed recently. So was Conan's. So was all of these games that are getting thrown in here to try to compare to it. I think I even saw Crysis somewhere.In the meantime though, let me make sure that I can get this bold and double faced so that the fact is put before you, being the point is apparently being missed.The EverQuest II Engine was designed in 2002, Transitioned into 2003, and released in 2004. It was designed for GeForce 3 series graphics cards.Let me say that again.It was designed for GeForce 3 series graphics cards.If you're as tech savy as you claim to be, you would understand that GeForce 3 series cards could not process shaders worth anything in the world. You would also understand that if they want to get people to play the game that have, yes, modest systems for the time, they will have to have the engine handle those shaders differently.What was around the corner or even available at the time?Pentium 4.What did they do then? Made it work really good with that Pentium 4. And yes, on my old PC? It ran really good on that [I cannot control my vocabulary] Pentium 4.Autenil has posted about it. Rothgar has posted about it. And i'll just double what I said before about it. There is no easy solution to this problem now that technology has settled in a way they, at the time, couldn't predict. They have recognized that it exists. They say they want to do something about it. They have even said they are even hiring a software programmer for it. If you really think you understand the way these engines run more than even they do? By all means, stop flaming myself and my PC for trying to be, I don't know, reasonable, and start submitting your application.</blockquote> Not sure if you just havent noticed it but when you click on Extreme Quality there is warning that says "You will suffer EXTREME loss in FPS and the game will become unplayable. There is no computer in existence (at this time) that can handle EQ2 on this setting. Are you sure you want to activate Extreme Quality?" You receive a similar but less severe warning when Very High Quality is selected.EQ2 was not designed for ANY series GPU. The Devs have stated it was designed to be heavily processed by the CPU and they believed that the future would result in Ultra-high MgHZ CPUs. But as we all know, the future became multi-core CPUs and not ultra-fast single cores. There are no 10Ghz CPUs around to run EQ2 on Extreme Quality the way the Devs had planned.

Albrig

05-10-2008, 04:47 AM

Here are the very responsive reasons why nothing changes in Everquest 2 except how much you add to it.No one is doing enough complaining.When I reference LOTRO I am NOT saying that EQ2 should be compared.I AM SAYING that LOTRO uses my PC to the fullest capability (when it didn't only a short while ago) - the fact that it runs on Vista DX10 and that it makes use of 4Gb memory and doesn't bother with the pagefile (if you correctly disable it, but the SATA device still prods it a bit).Not ONLY THAT but I was NOT impressed with LOTRO when I ran it on my PC and it was very poor - now it's like they just released a whole new game.NOT ONLY THAT, but if FUNCOM developers (or whoever is doing it) can get it to make PROPER use of my PC, without errors, with UI problems, without shadows problems, without ANY PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER, then I am afraid to say that when I look at EQ2 and I can't get it to High Detail without running smoothly at 60fps (with SHADOWS up, don't forget that) in a six-group and I have to KEEP ON CHANGING THE [Removed for Content] detail because personllyI DON'T [Removed for Content] LIKE PLAYING A GAME IN HIGH PERFORMANCE TO GET WHAT I EXPECT IS SO EASILY [Removed for Content] POSSIBLE WITH LITTLE EFFORTI think I have the right to mention that I could at least have a nicer sky.But since people are mentioning problems with a UI and a single developer comes along and pisses someone off, mentions that they get 90fs with NO PROBLEMS AT ALLI think I am done with this [Removed for Content] game, the developers and 90% of the [Removed for Content] [Removed for Content] subscribers on this forum who just want to remain seated in the DEAD ZONEBoy I feel good.Can you ban me please so that I feel like I've won?

Albrig

05-10-2008, 04:52 AM

NOT ONLT THATBUT ANY [Removed for Content] SUB-GENIUS WILL TELL YOU THAT IF YOU CHANGED AND IMPROVED EQ2'S GAME ENGINE TO RUN - AT LEAST - IN EXTREME DETAIL AT 60FPS IN GROUP / RAID CONTENT WITH A HIGH END PC (HIGH DETAIL WITH EVERYTHING ELSE)YEAH?THE SUBSCRIPTION WOULD GOTHROUGH THE [Removed for Content] ROOF[Removed for Content] IS UP WITH THAT CONCEPT?WHO THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS?WHO THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS WITH PEOPLE THE WORLD OVER COMPLAINING ABOUT EQ2'S [Removed for Content] GAME ENGINE REDUCING THEIR EXPERIENCE TO PLAY SOMETHING ELSE OR AT THE VERY MOST ACCEPTANCE OF THE PROBLEM MENTION A [Removed for Content] UI PROBLEM SINCE 2006 THAT IS STILL ONGOING?HUH?AND [Removed for Content] ME, WHY DO PEOPLE SAY I DONT NEED TO PROVE I CAN RUN EXTREME DETAIL ON MY LAPTOP ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS THAT THE OP IS A [Removed for Content]WHAT?!?!?I have always wanted to to a caps post.Thank you for the opportunity. Never knew I had it in me.

Ozymundas

05-10-2008, 05:06 AM

Wow... That's quite a rant there...

ClawHammr

05-10-2008, 05:42 AM

If I did not strongly agree with Albright I would report his rant because he is out of line to say those things but I am forced to agree

Grimfort

05-10-2008, 01:30 PM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>NOT ONLT THATBUT ANY [I cannot control my vocabulary] SUB-GENIUS WILL TELL YOU THAT IF YOU CHANGED AND IMPROVED EQ2'S GAME ENGINE TO RUN - AT LEAST - IN EXTREME DETAIL AT 60FPS IN GROUP / RAID CONTENT WITH A HIGH END PC (HIGH DETAIL WITH EVERYTHING ELSE)YEAH?THE SUBSCRIPTION WOULD GOTHROUGH THE [I cannot control my vocabulary] ROOF</blockquote>All I can say is [Removed for Content]? You are deluded if you belive that fps is top agenda to bring players into game. Simply get the fps up to 60 and thousands upon thousands of people will immediatly flock to EQ2, get real. As long as a game runs smooth at high quality with no big hang-ups, lagg or glitches I don't give a rat's a$$ what the fps is, and I can sure as bet most other players feel the same way. Sure there's people who are fps nuts, sure there are people who want that uber quality, but as for bringing in more players... meh.PS: I'm not saying EQ2 doesn't need a facelift, or doesn't need certain areas to be looked at to avoid lag-up. I'm saying this point you made is crack-pot.

1000Words

05-10-2008, 03:35 PM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>NOT ONLT THATBUT ANY [I cannot control my vocabulary] SUB-GENIUS WILL TELL YOU THAT IF YOU CHANGED AND IMPROVED EQ2'S GAME ENGINE TO RUN - AT LEAST - IN EXTREME DETAIL AT 60FPS IN GROUP / RAID CONTENT WITH A HIGH END PC (HIGH DETAIL WITH EVERYTHING ELSE)YEAH?THE SUBSCRIPTION WOULD GOTHROUGH THE [I cannot control my vocabulary] ROOF[I cannot control my vocabulary] IS UP WITH THAT CONCEPT?WHO THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS?WHO THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS WITH PEOPLE THE WORLD OVER COMPLAINING ABOUT EQ2'S [I cannot control my vocabulary] GAME ENGINE REDUCING THEIR EXPERIENCE TO PLAY SOMETHING ELSE OR AT THE VERY MOST ACCEPTANCE OF THE PROBLEM MENTION A [I cannot control my vocabulary] UI PROBLEM SINCE 2006 THAT IS STILL ONGOING?HUH?AND [I cannot control my vocabulary] ME, WHY DO PEOPLE SAY I DONT NEED TO PROVE I CAN RUN EXTREME DETAIL ON MY LAPTOP ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS THAT THE OP IS A [I cannot control my vocabulary]WHAT?!?!?I have always wanted to to a caps post.Thank you for the opportunity. Never knew I had it in me.</blockquote>Is you weetodded? Special in da hedd? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

Albrig

05-10-2008, 04:23 PM

<cite>Grimfort wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>NOT ONLT THATBUT ANY [I cannot control my vocabulary] SUB-GENIUS WILL TELL YOU THAT IF YOU CHANGED AND IMPROVED EQ2'S GAME ENGINE TO RUN - AT LEAST - IN EXTREME DETAIL AT 60FPS IN GROUP / RAID CONTENT WITH A HIGH END PC (HIGH DETAIL WITH EVERYTHING ELSE)YEAH?THE SUBSCRIPTION WOULD GOTHROUGH THE [I cannot control my vocabulary] ROOF</blockquote>All I can say is [I cannot control my vocabulary]? You are deluded if you belive that fps is top agenda to bring players into game. Simply get the fps up to 60 and thousands upon thousands of people will immediatly flock to EQ2, get real. As long as a game runs smooth at high quality with no big hang-ups, lagg or glitches I don't give a rat's [I cannot control my vocabulary] what the fps is, and I can sure as bet most other players feel the same way. Sure there's people who are fps nuts, sure there are people who want that uber quality, but as for bringing in more players... meh.PS: I'm not saying EQ2 doesn't need a facelift, or doesn't need certain areas to be looked at to avoid lag-up. I'm saying this point you made is crack-pot.</blockquote>"You are deluded if you belive that fps is top agenda to bring players into game. "Well until SoE with EQ2 do that, this cannot be answered.And by default I am right and you are right until proven otherwise.However, I am saying that I am ABSOLUTEL CONVINCED that EQ2's engine being optimized to a fixed 60fps in Extreme Detail (or High Detail say as a first point) would benefit SoE, EQ2 and Everquests future so that, all things being considered, it remains the pinnacle of mmorpg design and how a mmorpg can be played.Sooner or later, there is going to be mmorpg's coming out that MAY - I am not saying they WILL - make SOE's efforts with Vanguard, EQ1 and EQ2 pale into comparison when the only people who play games absolutely get sick of EQ2's game engine never changing JUST ENOUGH to satisfyTHE VASTER MAJORITY OF POTENTIONAL GAMERSBIGGER THAN THE CURRENT - NOT WITHSTANDING BUT VERY CONGENIAL - EQ2 PLAYERSWho love to disprove that 60fps in a mmorpg is a rediculous requirement.Because I guarantee you that as LOTRO improves and MAYBE, I don't know because I don't have the beta, AOC improves, the players getting 60fps and above on their lovely PCs will very easily not give a [Removed for Content] ANYMORE about WHAT SOE INTENDS to do with the Everquest franchise because their SHODDY [Removed for Content] OBSTANT BELIEF that the only thing that needs changing are their [Removed for Content] subscribers who - in the most part - are happy that 50fps in a raid at extreme detail is dandy as hell and that solo play at a fluctuating UNPREDICTABLE [Removed for Content] of a frame rate is [Removed for Content] dandy at 40-50fps on a PC that has a JET ENGINE RAMMED UP ITS [Removed for Content].

ClawHammr

05-10-2008, 08:42 PM

<cite>Grimfort wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>NOT ONLT THATBUT ANY [I cannot control my vocabulary] SUB-GENIUS WILL TELL YOU THAT IF YOU CHANGED AND IMPROVED EQ2'S GAME ENGINE TO RUN - AT LEAST - IN EXTREME DETAIL AT 60FPS IN GROUP / RAID CONTENT WITH A HIGH END PC (HIGH DETAIL WITH EVERYTHING ELSE)YEAH?THE SUBSCRIPTION WOULD GOTHROUGH THE [I cannot control my vocabulary] ROOF</blockquote>All I can say is [I cannot control my vocabulary]? You are deluded if you belive that fps is top agenda to bring players into game. Simply get the fps up to 60 and thousands upon thousands of people will immediatly flock to EQ2, get real. As long as a game runs smooth at high quality with no big hang-ups, lagg or glitches I don't give a rat's [I cannot control my vocabulary] what the fps is, and I can sure as bet most other players feel the same way. Sure there's people who are fps nuts, sure there are people who want that uber quality, but as for bringing in more players... meh.PS: I'm not saying EQ2 doesn't need a facelift, or doesn't need certain areas to be looked at to avoid lag-up. I'm saying this point you made is crack-pot.</blockquote> With all due respect you are foolish if you think EQ2s technical problems are not a serious turn-off for a lot of people. Just look at the massive size of the Technical Forum here. It is 10 times bigger than all the other forum sections combined. That is a big red flag to anyone who plays video games. Most other games on the market have awesome graphics and effects and the eye candy can be turned all the way up without a glitch in most situations even with 2-3 year old hardware. Sure you might have to lower settings if you are still running a Nvidia 6-series but most gamers have at least a series-7 by now. Anyone with a series 8 or 9 can play 95% of games on the market at max settings. Who wants to pay top dollar for a gaming PC and then have to turn down the eye candy to get acceptable FPS ? If you spent any kind of money your PC then you would understand this. Personally I have invested $1000s in current hardware and I want to see the games "the way they were mean to be played" as Nvidia says. What is the point in having cutting-edge hardware and LCD monitors with high Res capabilities just to have turn down the graphic settings to "Balanced" or High Quality when doing that means you miss out on so many nice effects ?

Dreyco

05-10-2008, 09:16 PM

Why is the technical forum larger than any other forum?Because a lot of people want to point the faults of their own systems right on the game itself. "But I swear it runs everything else just fine" is not a viable excuse. People want an easy way to answer their problems. If I had a nickel for the many guildmates that i've had over the years who supposedly "knew so much about computers" coming along and claiming their PC was problem free, only to have me Remote Assistance into their desktop and find a slew of problems.Old drivers, Start up programs out the rear, plugins, viral software, freeware, adware. You name it. They got it.But of course, it's all SOE's fault.

Norrsken

05-10-2008, 09:20 PM

<cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Grimfort wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>NOT ONLT THATBUT ANY [I cannot control my vocabulary] SUB-GENIUS WILL TELL YOU THAT IF YOU CHANGED AND IMPROVED EQ2'S GAME ENGINE TO RUN - AT LEAST - IN EXTREME DETAIL AT 60FPS IN GROUP / RAID CONTENT WITH A HIGH END PC (HIGH DETAIL WITH EVERYTHING ELSE)YEAH?THE SUBSCRIPTION WOULD GOTHROUGH THE [I cannot control my vocabulary] ROOF</blockquote>All I can say is [I cannot control my vocabulary]? You are deluded if you belive that fps is top agenda to bring players into game. Simply get the fps up to 60 and thousands upon thousands of people will immediatly flock to EQ2, get real. As long as a game runs smooth at high quality with no big hang-ups, lagg or glitches I don't give a rat's [I cannot control my vocabulary] what the fps is, and I can sure as bet most other players feel the same way. Sure there's people who are fps nuts, sure there are people who want that uber quality, but as for bringing in more players... meh.PS: I'm not saying EQ2 doesn't need a facelift, or doesn't need certain areas to be looked at to avoid lag-up. I'm saying this point you made is crack-pot.</blockquote> With all due respect you are foolish if you think EQ2s technical problems are not a serious turn-off for a lot of people. Just look at the massive size of the Technical Forum here. It is 10 times bigger than all the other forum sections combined. That is a big red flag to anyone who plays video games. Most other games on the market have awesome graphics and effects and the eye candy can be turned all the way up without a glitch in most situations even with 2-3 year old hardware. Sure you might have to lower settings if you are still running a Nvidia 6-series but most gamers have at least a series-7 by now. Anyone with a series 8 or 9 can play 95% of games on the market at max settings. Who wants to pay top dollar for a gaming PC and then have to turn down the eye candy to get acceptable FPS ? If you spent any kind of money your PC then you would understand this. Personally I have invested $1000s in current hardware and I want to see the games "the way they were mean to be played" as Nvidia says. What is the point in having cutting-edge hardware and LCD monitors with high Res capabilities just to have turn down the graphic settings to "Balanced" or High Quality when doing that means you miss out on so many nice effects ?</blockquote>And you know what? those games where made with the way todays hardware developed.EQ2 wasnt, and revamping the engine is a mammoth of a job. Its actually harder to refactor an engine than writing a new one from scratch.this game was written on the premise that Intel would make good on their promise of 10GHz processors. Well, they didnt.

ClawHammr

05-10-2008, 09:24 PM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why is the technical forum larger than any other forum?Because a lot of people want to point the faults of their own systems right on the game itself. "But I swear it runs everything else just fine" is not a viable excuse. People want an easy way to answer their problems. If I had a nickel for the many guildmates that i've had over the years who supposedly "knew so much about computers" coming along and claiming their PC was problem free, only to have me Remote Assistance into their desktop and find a slew of problems.Old drivers, Start up programs out the rear, plugins, viral software, freeware, adware. You name it. They got it.But of course, it's all SOE's fault.</blockquote>Good grief man SOE Devs have already came out and said it: We designed EQ2 under the assumption that the future would result in ultra-fast single-core CPU. The future however did NOT result in 10Ghz CPUs but instead developed multi-core CPUs (ever heard of dual or quad core ?)Plain and simple fact: EQ2 is ran by the CPU and is NOT designed to take advance of multi-cores. Therefore, having cutting edge CPU (dual or quad) will NOT increase peformance the way Devs had plannedThe End

Dreyco

05-10-2008, 09:26 PM

So you're meaning to tell me that every single one, if not most, of the Technical Threads are people complaining about lack of multi-core support and GPU Support? Eh. They're working on it. That Vertex Shader Reuse thing actually works really well.

ClawHammr

05-10-2008, 09:40 PM

<cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>So you're meaning to tell me that every single one, if not most, of the Technical Threads are people complaining about lack of multi-core support and GPU Support? Eh. They're working on it. That Vertex Shader Reuse thing actually works really well.</blockquote>I agree progress is being made and better late than never but the fact the Tech Section is 70% of the forum is not a good sign. Clearly yes there are many other issues besides low FPS in EQ2 but for me and other people that is the #1 tech issue Im still waiting for them to fix the shadow bug after 4 years...

Albrig

05-11-2008, 07:45 AM

<cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite><blockquote>Old drivers, Start up programs out the rear, plugins, viral software, freeware, adware. You name it. They got it.But of course, it's all SOE's fault.</blockquote>Good grief man SOE Devs have already came out and said it: We designed EQ2 under the assumption that the future would result in ultra-fast single-core CPU. The future however did NOT result in 10Ghz CPUs but instead developed multi-core CPUs (ever heard of dual or quad core ?)Plain and simple fact: EQ2 is ran by the CPU and is NOT designed to take advance of multi-cores. Therefore, having cutting edge CPU (dual or quad) will NOT increase peformance the way Devs had plannedThe End</blockquote>Run by 'a' CPU - you mean like ANY old crap that doesn't cost £500?. You know, a CPU like the current ones we have should be running EQ2 like it was [Removed for Content] slapped by a mammoth- but it doesn't.This is known as a POOR programmed game engine that has lasted in that state for far too long - you know LIKE VANGUARD. 'They' screwed with Unreal 2.5 and really MESSED it up. EQ2 isn't that bad. But I bet you that if a 0.25nm CPU by Intel arrived and they decided to go Uni-core again (because it would be cheaper and dump a 24Mb cache on it) and made it go at 5Ghz, then EQ2 still wouldn't run it well because it is UN-OPTIMIZED CRAPWe know that that is the case because I played EQ2 with a 1.2Ghz AMD Thoroughbred CPU and against a extremely potent E8500 at 3.8Ghz, I woud have expected EQ2 to cry like the litte [Removed for Content] it is. Amazingly, it doesn't. The only thing crying like a [Removed for Content] at Extreme Detail in a group is my extremely potent E8500.

Albrig

05-11-2008, 07:52 AM

<cite>Ulvhamne@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite>And you know what? those games where made with the way todays hardware developed.EQ2 wasnt, and revamping the engine is a mammoth of a job. Its actually harder to refactor an engine than writing a new one from scratch.this game was written on the premise that Intel would make good on their promise of 10GHz processors. Well, they didnt. </blockquote>EQ2 wasn't - hey you got something right!CONGRATULATIONS!The game WAS NOT written on the premise that Intel would make a 10Ghz processor. That's like saying that Ferrari make cars that don't smash into walls because eventually, you would become a better driver.EQ2's game engine was simply 'made' to elict the greatest strain possible on a single CPU to let PC gamers know that if it's struggling like a [I cannot control my vocabulary] - the game engine must be wonderful with the promise that in the future, it will be greater still.And the other thing is that if it takes 4 years to start fixing things and your subscription hasn't really improved one way or the other and that the solution would be to improve the game engine instead of repeatedly disappointing people with expansions (like Kunark murdering my PC at the start), I'm sorry to say, but you're going to get everything you deserve in exactly the same amount of time it takes to by a 10Ghz CPU if you believe that is the route to improving your game experience.Well, maybe not YOUR gaming experience but about 5 million of those playing WoW and maybe 1 million the world over. I think the biggest problem is that the EQ2 community is doing its very best to make sure nothing else comes in.EQ2 needs an injection. And I don't mean a V12 engine.

Albrig

05-11-2008, 08:05 AM

<cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite> Not sure if you just havent noticed it but when you click on Extreme Quality there is warning that says "You will suffer EXTREME loss in FPS and the game will become unplayable. There is no computer in existence (at this time) that can handle EQ2 on this setting. Are you sure you want to activate Extreme Quality?" You receive a similar but less severe warning when Very High Quality is selected.EQ2 was not designed for ANY series GPU. The Devs have stated it was designed to be heavily processed by the CPU and they believed that the future would result in Ultra-high MgHZ CPUs. But as we all know, the future became multi-core CPUs and not ultra-fast single cores. There are no 10Ghz CPUs around to run EQ2 on Extreme Quality the way the Devs had planned.</blockquote>You know, Clawhammer, there is going to be a situation in your life when 'you are stupid' is just not quite getting the point.Have you ever wondered why there is a WARNING there at all - for someone who plays WoW, if they max detail on their basic PC, there is now WARNING that says "you may suffer from extreme loss of FPS"The only reason Blizzard (or any game company) would do that is if they knew that their game engine was NEVER going to change. Or even worsem ever improve.So what do you say to gamers who are their only subscribers for the next 5 years.WARNING. THE EXTREME DETAIL SETTING IS ONLY ACCESSIBLE BY THE GREATEST AND THAT THE DEVELOPERS MADE IT THIS WAY BECAUSE THE FUTURE IS OUR BUSINESS IN THE SENSE THAT THE MORE WE SAY ABOUT IT THE LESS WE HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT IN THE FUTURE E.G. WE DON'T HAVE TO MAKE A SINGLE EFFORT.GET REAL

Albrig

05-11-2008, 08:07 AM

I'm sorry but what in the hell is wrong with people on this forum about the EQ2 engine?Most of you are talking like you don't mind being in the dark ages because lighting a fire make break a fingernail?

Norrsken

05-11-2008, 08:33 AM

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm sorry but what in the hell is wrong with people on this forum about the EQ2 engine?Most of you are talking like you don't mind being in the dark ages because lighting a fire make break a fingernail?</blockquote>I wouldnt mind a complete rewrite of the engine, but its one hell of a job and would probably take a full dev team about a year to do.

Zin`Car

05-11-2008, 10:53 AM

<cite>Ulvhamne@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I wouldnt mind a complete rewrite of the engine, but its one hell of a job and would probably take a full dev team about a year to do. </blockquote>EVE Online did it. Took their dev team two full years, equalling a grand total of 50 years in man-hours to complete the process. Check out their site, there are several articles about it.What i find ironic is people post about such an undertaking being the hardest thing in the world to do yet amazingly enough, companies like that which own EVE (who has a smaller player base then EQ2) can pull it off. So cost just doesn't cut it for me as an excuse.for now though, i am happy with how the game looks and functions. If you aren't, you have two choices: get over it or move on. Simple.

Zaurus

05-11-2008, 05:52 PM

Albright, I agree with you that the EQ2 engine needs improved. But the devs already said they are working on it, what more do you want? An instant fix tomorrow? That's not going to happen with a change that big. Yeah, the engine wasn't developed ideally originally, and they probably should have started working on fixing the engine as soon as they realized that multiple core CPUs are the future. But EQ2 isn't going to die just because it can't run at 60 FPS. And that doesn't make it a "stagnating pool of sh4t" either. I know you don't want to believe this, and you've heard it before, but 60 FPS is NOT needed to enjoy a game like EQ2. Will 60 FPS make it more enjoyable? Deffinitely. Is it game breaking if it's not at 60 FPS? Not at all.The success of WoW has to do with a LOT more than just being able to run at 60 FPS. It had tons of advertising on top of an already massive fan base of battle.net/warcraft fans. From there it's popularity spread from word of mouth and tons of publicity (like appearing on South Park). I believe WoW has more subscribers than any other MMO ever. What does that tell you? It tells me that most of those subscribers never played another MMO before WoW. So having nothing to compare it to and seeing the popularity of the game makes them *think* that it's the best MMO.

Hamervelder

05-12-2008, 06:11 AM

Adding multi-core support, and relying more heavily on the GPU is not the monumental task that people make it out to be. It doesn't take an army of programmers to write software. Ever hear of Operation Flashpoint? Two guys basically wrote that engine. In its latest incarnation (VBS2), OFP's engine takes advantage of the very latest technology out there. And guess what? There still aren't many people working at BIS. The point there? If Sony wanted it done, it would be done. Truthfully, none of us players know why Sony hasn't kept up with technology. I think the most that can be truthfully said is that if Sony really wanted to update EQ2, it would be done already. It may be a matter of allotted budget. It may be a matter of priorities. Who knows? Not us. What we do know is that Sony gambled on CPU's remaining single-core and becoming more powerful, and Sony lost.Sometimes, the EQ2 developers make changes to the game that break other aspects. I wish I could think of specific instances right now, but I can really only think of how I reacted to various aspects of the game being broken, and thinking "How did they break that? Nothing even remotely related to that aspect was updated." My conclusion is that there are a whole lot of interdependent portions of code that probably shouldn't rely on each other. Somewhere, someplace, some parent class got altered, and way down the line, that caused an unintended change. Why? Because the programmers probably weren't thinking ahead. That habit of not thinking ahead and not planning things out fully seems to have permeated the entire development of the game. As nice as EQ2 looks and feels (and in many ways, the game does look and feel great! ) there are just some things that leave me scratching my head.Now, what also puzzles me is the fact that someone somewhere at Sony, even though it's in a completely different part of the company, had the foresight to develop the Cell processor. There are what ... seven actual cores in the Cell? The Cell is a development that's way ahead of its time. Such engineering marvels don't come overnight; they require years of research, development, testing, and production. And yet, whammo.... here it is. So clearly, someone somewhere at Sony realized that the future was in multi-core processors, at least for consoles. One wonders why SOE did not make the same judgment call when it came to EQ2 and PC's?

quasigenx

05-12-2008, 05:07 PM

<cite>Luinne@Kithicor wrote:</cite><blockquote>EVE Online did it. Took their dev team two full years, equalling a grand total of 50 years in man-hours to complete the process. Check out their site, there are several articles about it.What i find ironic is people post about such an undertaking being the hardest thing in the world to do yet amazingly enough, companies like that which own EVE (who has a smaller player base then EQ2) can pull it off.</blockquote> Sounds like they really wasted their money there. 50 man years to revamp an engine for a dwindling user base? Jeez, maybe they should have spent that time developing content or something. It's not like that engine revamp netted them tons of new subscribers. Isn't that what you're suggesting will magically save EQ2?

Grimfort

05-13-2008, 04:12 AM

<cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Grimfort wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Albright wrote:</cite>All I can say is [I cannot control my vocabulary]? You are deluded if you belive that fps is top agenda to bring players into game. Simply get the fps up to 60 and thousands upon thousands of people will immediatly flock to EQ2, get real. As long as a game runs smooth at high quality with no big hang-ups, lagg or glitches I don't give a rat's [I cannot control my vocabulary] what the fps is, and I can sure as bet most other players feel the same way. Sure there's people who are fps nuts, sure there are people who want that uber quality, but as for bringing in more players... meh.PS: I'm not saying EQ2 doesn't need a facelift, or doesn't need certain areas to be looked at to avoid lag-up. I'm saying this point you made is crack-pot.</blockquote> With all due respect you are foolish if you think EQ2s technical problems are not a serious turn-off for a lot of people. Just look at the massive size of the Technical Forum here. </blockquote>With all due respect you are reading between the lines of my post. I specifically specified that it was high fps was not a turn on for most gamers. I also said "As long as a game runs smooth at high quality with no big hang-ups, lagg or glitches....." that should cover a majority of the graphical technical faults people are having. However any forum user knows that many people only ever come and post on a forum once they hit a "technical fault". Which is why you will see loads of 1st, 2nd, 3rd + posts from the most new users, hence the biggest forum.Again I will state that sure EQ2 has hangups, slow areas even on fast machines and sure could do with updating to use the latest kit, but wasting programmer time trying to hit a magic 60 fps when 40 fps 6 months earlier would be more appreciated.

Thunderthyze

05-13-2008, 08:04 AM

Llach

05-13-2008, 09:00 AM

<cite>Grimfort wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Grimfort wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Albright wrote:</cite>All I can say is [I cannot control my vocabulary]? You are deluded if you belive that fps is top agenda to bring players into game. Simply get the fps up to 60 and thousands upon thousands of people will immediatly flock to EQ2, get real. As long as a game runs smooth at high quality with no big hang-ups, lagg or glitches I don't give a rat's [I cannot control my vocabulary] what the fps is, and I can sure as bet most other players feel the same way. Sure there's people who are fps nuts, sure there are people who want that uber quality, but as for bringing in more players... meh.PS: I'm not saying EQ2 doesn't need a facelift, or doesn't need certain areas to be looked at to avoid lag-up. I'm saying this point you made is crack-pot.</blockquote> With all due respect you are foolish if you think EQ2s technical problems are not a serious turn-off for a lot of people. Just look at the massive size of the Technical Forum here. </blockquote>With all due respect you are reading between the lines of my post. I specifically specified that it was high fps was not a turn on for most gamers. I also said "As long as a game runs smooth at high quality with no big hang-ups, lagg or glitches....." that should cover a majority of the graphical technical faults people are having. However any forum user knows that many people only ever come and post on a forum once they hit a "technical fault". Which is why you will see loads of 1st, 2nd, 3rd + posts from the most new users, hence the biggest forum.Again I will state that sure EQ2 has hangups, slow areas even on fast machines and sure could do with updating to use the latest kit, but wasting programmer time trying to hit a magic 60 fps when 40 fps 6 months earlier would be more appreciated.</blockquote>I believe 30fps is what is counted as acceptable in fps games (above that is great but 30 is not unplayable by a long stretch).

Ahlana

05-13-2008, 10:33 AM

<cite>quasigenx wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Luinne@Kithicor wrote:</cite><blockquote>EVE Online did it. Took their dev team two full years, equalling a grand total of 50 years in man-hours to complete the process. Check out their site, there are several articles about it. What i find ironic is people post about such an undertaking being the hardest thing in the world to do yet amazingly enough, companies like that which own EVE (who has a smaller player base then EQ2) can pull it off.</blockquote>Sounds like they really wasted their money there. 50 man years to revamp an engine for a dwindling user base? Jeez, maybe they should have spent that time developing content or something. It's not like that engine revamp netted them tons of new subscribers. Isn't that what you're suggesting will magically save EQ2?</blockquote>While I don't agree that a new engine will "save" EQ2 or cause a massive flood of players, I do disagree on the Eve point. Eve is still growing actually and most articles indicate that it is a steady growth and that perhaps their servers are becoming too populated. The new engine will indeed bring newer players in for them that are not only looking for a new MMO but a more graphically pleasing one as well.New engines rarely hurt a game unless it is indeed in it's death throws, in which case it is just wasted money. But eve my friend is far from it's death bed. It offers something no other MMO offers, period.<a href="http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html</a> This chart is pretty arcurate in games with 70,000-700,000 subscription numbers. You will see that Eve continues to grow while EQ2 faltered mostly since it's release. At this point Eve and EQ2 are about the same in numbers with the nod going to Eve.

TimUK

05-14-2008, 05:22 AM

Hi, my pc is Intel core 2 quad cpu @2.4ghz2gig ramNvidia 8400 gs graphicsI know what your thinking, 8400gs, that sucks, but let me tell you i have everything just above recommended with shadows onand the game (4 years on) looks aboslutly amazing, and anyone who says otherwise has been playing on their xbox360 way too muchAnd if you think WoW looks better, erm? we are talking about world of warcraft? that looks more like a 2002 game then 2004, whereas you have eq2 which is a 2004 game that looks more like a 2006 (at least) game, i've seen what the game looks like on full settings, and [Removed for Content] its around 10x better then WoW will ever hope to aspire to

Llach

05-14-2008, 05:41 AM

<cite>TimUK wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hi, my pc is Intel core 2 quad cpu @2.4ghz2gig ramNvidia 8400 gs graphicsI know what your thinking, 8400gs, that sucks, but let me tell you i have everything just above recommended with shadows onand the game (4 years on) looks aboslutly amazing, and anyone who says otherwise has been playing on their xbox360 way too muchAnd if you think WoW looks better, erm? we are talking about world of warcraft? that looks more like a 2002 game then 2004, whereas you have eq2 which is a 2004 game that looks more like a 2006 (at least) game, i've seen what the game looks like on full settings, and [Removed for Content] its around 10x better then WoW will ever hope to aspire to</blockquote>All that shows is what a crap piece of coding the game engine is, when a card like that can run a game with anything beyond blobs; it just proves that the majority of work has to be handled by the cpu.

Albrig

05-15-2008, 10:26 AM

"While I don't agree that a new engine will "save" EQ2 or cause a massive flood of players...""New engines rarely hurt a game unless it is indeed in it's death throws"A game engine will determine how much effort is required of the development team to incorporate new content and new ideas about how zones should look - and what requires changing simply by the passage of time you spend in it. As a very personable game experience, ya'know, in one way and a shared something else in, erm, another. These concepts are difficult so stick with it as I go on.A game engine will also set in stone the decisions to be made about the direction of the game as a whole.At the moment, there is too much content for EQ2 to which players are seemingly driven to complete. And then more content is required. None of it I would say is of a quality standard as seen when EQ2 was first released - the original zones are still, far and away, exactly why people play EQ2. The outdoor zones are naturalistic - you feel like you are in them - that it appears fairly realy (given what the polygon numbers are). And with the exception of DoF, I think everything that has come before does not include areas that improve upon Nektulous Forest, for instance - why not a zone in the ideas of expansion that expands upon and improves upon the idea of Nektulous and Antonica for instance - why EoF? They just don't work. It's a new area separate from it, but I gurantee you if that zone area was from level 1, you would not like it say if you were going to Antonica or CL, or TS and Nek being your next step in the journey.To make this a little more clear, I would guarantee you that if you were to play EQ2 in reverse, you would not enjoy the experience by a considerable level than if you played it from the beginning. This disparity of the EQ2 world, the lack of imagination, the lack of consistency, is all but reliant on the dedicated subscribers who have been in it since day one.The zones that make up the starting experience were never developed forward to entirely new zones version 2. Although, I will say, for the most part, DoF was an amazing surprise - but it was too open, too empty and left much to be desired as a natural looking environment - no building of any kind you could walk into: very odd when you think about it. It was desert. OK, we all agree that grass was boring and trees too. Or were they? Was it just more zones likened to the originals, just very much improved?EQ2's game engine is great - I'm not disputing that. But it is a greatness that is truly stunted by its ability to hammer one CPU without much gain in what you are experiencing in a big group (or two groups in the same locality). That's where it falls flat: for me at least and for a great many that I don't have the proof or statistics for, but I know exist.How long are we going to wait for the event that re-realises the original content? How long are we going to wait until you truly can have a Raid experience at extreme quality - or the maximum capability that the game engine was supposed to be able to give in the near future - what we have right now is the far future from that point. 2009 is going to be 8-cpu cores and 16-30Mb on-die cache and IA multi-threading. By which time, EQ2 would have made itself irrelavant by its irrelavance to being optimized with the current (but the same can be said of 2 years ago, or last year).I mean, this is the greatest mmorpg on multiple levels. I'm not sure that SoE is aware of just how good it has it *at the moment*. No other mmorpg (at least from L1-50) quite has the zone design - the concept of very realistic, open and airy feel - toned to what it it. The 'other mmorpg' are using similar principles to how the game engine is working - so much detail and very little zone design. What EQ2 has is what should not be changed - expanding it is not a good idea, refining what it is, is.Well, the bottom line is there is no immediate danger. Personally, LOTRO is not the answer. AoC isn't either and I haven't even tried it. Never said anything like that before without trying it first - but I have and there is a good reason for it.WoW. I think SoE should be proud that the only reason Blizzard would work on a mature WoW2, is the day that SoE gets the above sorted out. That would be the biggest threat Blizzard will ever encounter and the greatest comfort to SoE that they did.

DwarvesR

05-21-2008, 03:56 AM

At the NY Comic Convention, an EVE artist did a 35 minute presentation on a) the new engine (including an old/new comparison video), and b) upcoming changes they are now able to do because of the changes the made to the engine.He also has a chart released by CCP for their subscriber numbers -- EVE is at 270K subs now and still showing steady growth. Though I'll admit I've never seen more than about 35K online at a time.Since this is the EQ2 forum, I won't link the vid directly, but if you go to Tentonhammer and search for EVE and NYCC 2008 you should be able to find it. It was posted to the site on May 8th.I'm really looking forward to their new character customization and ambulation. I'm gonna have a lot of fun running around the stations.So far as EQ2 goes, it looks fine to me. I'm not worried about realism or shadows -- I play to have fun and to socialize with my friends without having to leave home, so it doesn't matter if they are glitches or it's not "teh w00tsauce!" with all the graphics turned to max. I don't know my framerate and couldn't care less -- it plays decently. Occasional stutters in places like Neriak and TG, but for the most part it's fine. Used to be worse before I got more RAM, but wasn't a big deal ot me then either.

Tsunai

05-21-2008, 09:17 AM

I've done a bit of cleaning up in here and as a result, some GOOD debating material was lost. I've posted once before to keep it civil in here and I would truly like to keep this discussion going because I think it's actually a good one to talk about and there is a lot of really good material being posted. But if it can't be talked about without getting personal, I'll have to lock it down.Please let's stick to the topic and work together to keep this a constructive debate!

ClawHammr

05-23-2008, 09:34 PM

<cite>Jonna@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>So far as EQ2 goes, it looks fine to me. I'm not worried about realism or shadows -- I play to have fun and to socialize with my friends without having to leave home, so it doesn't matter if they are glitches or it's not "teh w00tsauce!" with all the graphics turned to max. I don't know my framerate and couldn't care less -- it plays decently. Occasional stutters in places like Neriak and TG, but for the most part it's fine. Used to be worse before I got more RAM, but wasn't a big deal ot me then either.</blockquote> This seems to be the attitude of a lot of people and thats fine but to those of us who have invested $1000s in high-end gaming hardware we fully expect ALL the games graphical options to function 100% as intended 100% of the time.That is exactly why we made the investment , so we do not have to sacrifice quality for performance. We paid the high prices so we can enjoy BOTH

NiteWolfe

05-24-2008, 01:25 AM

Zarador

05-24-2008, 01:49 AM

<cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jonna@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>So far as EQ2 goes, it looks fine to me. I'm not worried about realism or shadows -- I play to have fun and to socialize with my friends without having to leave home, so it doesn't matter if they are glitches or it's not "teh w00tsauce!" with all the graphics turned to max. I don't know my framerate and couldn't care less -- it plays decently. Occasional stutters in places like Neriak and TG, but for the most part it's fine. Used to be worse before I got more RAM, but wasn't a big deal ot me then either.</blockquote> This seems to be the attitude of a lot of people and thats fine but to those of us who have invested $1000s in high-end gaming hardware we fully expect ALL the games graphical options to function 100% as intended 100% of the time.That is exactly why we made the investment , so we do not have to sacrifice quality for performance. We paid the high prices so we can enjoy BOTH</blockquote>Did you send those thousands to Sony? No? You spent them on hardware, apparently expecting that they would cater to your every whim because of you spending money on upgrades to your system. Guess what, that Video Card? Nvidia had quite a few problems with the 8800 Series and you most likely spent well more than a years subscription on the card. In fact, their still working on fixing issues related to the 8800. Are you using onboard sound? I don't see a high end sound card listed in that mix? In some games, a high end sound card can actually add performance taking some of the load off the system.Hard Drive? Are you using a Raptor to get the most speed? When was the last time you did a defrag of the drive? Windows 64 Ultimate? Still major updates on that product. Guess Microsoft with their billions don't provide their customers with a 100% bug free product.Oh, and that last line of not having to sacrifice quality for performance? If your not getting the quality you enjoy with the FPS you desire, then your performance can't handle what the game is throwing at you. Edit: As a certified technician I have dealt with many gaming systems including my own. Most people that upgrade their systems for gaming do so to get better performance than they were getting on their older system. The read the boards on the game they play, discuss what components will provide the best bang for the buck and then purchase those items to reduce an inefficiency in their system. It's almost always an opinion of "I need this, to keep up with the game" not "I bought this, so the game better fix that". Software development typically uses a baseline of what an average user can be expected to bring to the table and then they design around that medium range. They typically don't worry about the guy with the 10 year old system that barely runs Donkey Kong anymore than they worry about the guy with the $10,000 gaming rig. Those are not the target customers who will make up the bulk of their sales and subscriptions. Much as I hate to beat a dead horse, Vanguard was a good example of what happens when you base the game around too high specifications. You wind up with people telling you "yeah. the game was awesome, but the lag was killer" who in the end leave when they discover their system would cost too much to upgrade to play the game. We had people there explaining to their fellow players that if you just buy a whole new rig, the game runs awesome. Apparently, not enough players were willing to pony up that much cash to play.

ClawHammr

05-24-2008, 03:34 AM

<cite>NiteWolfe </cite><blockquote><blockquote></blockquote> So you invested thousands of dollars on in new high end systems to play a older game and you really really expected this to make a difference in eq2 running? LMFAO!eq2 qas never designed with these new high end systems in mind. what made you think it would improve the game? You have been around a while did you NOT know before buying that rig that it wouldnt help? Hundreds of post in the tech area about non multi core support, problems with the new high end vid cards and so on. WOW i normally research a little b4 i spend that kind of money. This is like you complaining that you bought a formula 1 race care and now your [Removed for Content] that you can only drive 55 on the highway with it! I have nothing against high end systems. Mine probably blows yours and most others out of the water. But i didnt have it built for eq2 i had it built for AoC (a game i KNEW would take advantage of the hardware).Oh and if you spends THOUSANDS of dollars on thisAMD 5200 @3Ghz Nvidia 8800GTS 640mb 4G Corsair XMS 850mhz Vista64 then you got ripped off!</blockquote>-I have played many different games from MMOs to FirstPersonShooters. My last 2 upgrades had nothing to do with EQ2 because I was not even playing at the time. I just recently returned to EQ2 from almost a 2 year break. YES I did expect improvements after 2 years and 2 massive upgrades. Silly me....- I did not spend 1000s for the current build alone. I am speaking in general, from upgrade to upgrade, yes over time it has equaled thousands.Why are you still here trolling the EQ2 forums if you just built a new system for AoC ? That game went live btw

ClawHammr

05-24-2008, 03:41 AM

<cite>Zarador wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jonna@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>So far as EQ2 goes, it looks fine to me. I'm not worried about realism or shadows -- I play to have fun and to socialize with my friends without having to leave home, so it doesn't matter if they are glitches or it's not "teh w00tsauce!" with all the graphics turned to max. I don't know my framerate and couldn't care less -- it plays decently. Occasional stutters in places like Neriak and TG, but for the most part it's fine. Used to be worse before I got more RAM, but wasn't a big deal ot me then either.</blockquote> This seems to be the attitude of a lot of people and thats fine but to those of us who have invested $1000s in high-end gaming hardware we fully expect ALL the games graphical options to function 100% as intended 100% of the time.That is exactly why we made the investment , so we do not have to sacrifice quality for performance. We paid the high prices so we can enjoy BOTH</blockquote>Did you send those thousands to Sony? No? You spent them on hardware, apparently expecting that they would cater to your every whim because of you spending money on upgrades to your system. Guess what, that Video Card? Nvidia had quite a few problems with the 8800 Series and you most likely spent well more than a years subscription on the card. In fact, their still working on fixing issues related to the 8800. Are you using onboard sound? I don't see a high end sound card listed in that mix? In some games, a high end sound card can actually add performance taking some of the load off the system.Hard Drive? Are you using a Raptor to get the most speed? When was the last time you did a defrag of the drive? Windows 64 Ultimate? Still major updates on that product. Guess Microsoft with their billions don't provide their customers with a 100% bug free product.Oh, and that last line of not having to sacrifice quality for performance? If your not getting the quality you enjoy with the FPS you desire, then your performance can't handle what the game is throwing at you. Edit: As a certified technician I have dealt with many gaming systems including my own. Most people that upgrade their systems for gaming do so to get better performance than they were getting on their older system. The read the boards on the game they play, discuss what components will provide the best bang for the buck and then purchase those items to reduce an inefficiency in their system. It's almost always an opinion of "I need this, to keep up with the game" not "I bought this, so the game better fix that". Software development typically uses a baseline of what an average user can be expected to bring to the table and then they design around that medium range. They typically don't worry about the guy with the 10 year old system that barely runs Donkey Kong anymore than they worry about the guy with the $10,000 gaming rig. Those are not the target customers who will make up the bulk of their sales and subscriptions. Much as I hate to beat a dead horse, Vanguard was a good example of what happens when you base the game around too high specifications. You wind up with people telling you "yeah. the game was awesome, but the lag was killer" who in the end leave when they discover their system would cost too much to upgrade to play the game. We had people there explaining to their fellow players that if you just buy a whole new rig, the game runs awesome. Apparently, not enough players were willing to pony up that much cash to play. </blockquote>Every single other game I have played runs flawlessly at max or near max settings. Nvidia 8800 card is the best Ive had so far. People say bad things about Vista but Ive never had a problem. The only game I couldnt run at total max was Crysis- but I only played the demo so not sure how the full version would run. All other games I play, the shadows stay on when selected too. Imagine that....Edit: Yes HD is Raptor and weekly defrags are setup to run automatically on Vista. Certified Techs should know these things imo <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /> Here is some good info for you about Vista defrag:<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.vistajuice.com/2007/02/windows_vista_defrag_tool_is_c.php" target="_blank"></a><blockquote>For those who do not know, Defrag is a special program, which on Vista runs even automatically in the background, whereby parts of data files on all segments of a computer hard disk are taken from their fragmented state (with parts of files spread all over the disk), and grouped together in complete-file segments. This makes it quicker for applications to find the files they need and frees up disk space, making the computer run more efficiently.</blockquote>In XP, defrag program would go, check the current status of the drive and suggest if we should defragment the drive. Then, it would read those files and try to piece their parts as close together as possible in order to remove those fragments and speed up the system. That was pretty much it. A linear process where your computer knew what has to be done pretty much before it even starts.In Vista, this process is a lot more complicated, but yet a lot more effective. One of the changes is the shadow copy optimization during the defragmentation in a way which optimizes the system and minimizes the space used by the shadow copy. (This space is significantly large; more on this in later posts).Also, Vista's defrag is smarter in comparison to the XP's defrag because it checks if the amount of time that would take to move files is larger than the performance benefit you gain. If the performance benefit is not too significant, it moves on to other files.The thing most people complain about is that there is no progress bar. This is because the defragmentation in Vista is non-linear, so there is no way to estimate (correctly) how much time a defrag could possibly take. Instead of trying to show estimates of how much the defragmentation will take, the defrag team worked on a better solution: reducing the impact of defragmentation on your computer by making it use low-priority I/O and low priority CPU, so you can still use it and do what ever it is you do while the defrag is on. No more wait like in XP... Heck, I'd rather chose not to look at it than wait 3 hours for the process to complete. That was exactly their point of view - remove it from the face of the user, and for those who never use the defrag (and there are many people like this) now they do not have to - it runs itself!And don't worry about sluggish performance while the automatic defrag is on - it wont happen... Defrag runs only while your computer is idle.

Zarador

05-24-2008, 11:28 AM

<cite>NiteWolfe wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jonna@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>So far as EQ2 goes, it looks fine to me. I'm not worried about realism or shadows -- I play to have fun and to socialize with my friends without having to leave home, so it doesn't matter if they are glitches or it's not "teh w00tsauce!" with all the graphics turned to max. I don't know my framerate and couldn't care less -- it plays decently. Occasional stutters in places like Neriak and TG, but for the most part it's fine. Used to be worse before I got more RAM, but wasn't a big deal ot me then either.</blockquote> This seems to be the attitude of a lot of people and thats fine but to those of us who have invested $1000s in high-end gaming hardware we fully expect ALL the games graphical options to function 100% as intended 100% of the time.That is exactly why we made the investment , so we do not have to sacrifice quality for performance. We paid the high prices so we can enjoy BOTH</blockquote> So you invested thousands of dollars on in new high end systems to play a older game and you really really expected this to make a difference in eq2 running? LMFAO!eq2 qas never designed with these new high end systems in mind. what made you think it would improve the game? You have been around a while did you NOT know before buying that rig that it wouldnt help? Hundreds of post in the tech area about non multi core support, problems with the new high end vid cards and so on. WOW i normally research a little b4 i spend that kind of money. This is like you complaining that you bought a formula 1 race care and now your [Removed for Content] that you can only drive 55 on the highway with it! I have nothing against high end systems. Mine probably blows yours and most others out of the water. But i didnt have it built for eq2 i had it built for AoC (a game i KNEW would take advantage of the hardware).Oh and if you spends THOUSANDS of dollars on thisAMD 5200 @3Ghz Nvidia 8800GTS 640mb 4G Corsair XMS 850mhz Vista64 then you got ripped off!</blockquote>It's a Don Quixote thing here tilting at windmills. You seem to have the right concept as many who keep their systems up to date have. You build to either improve a deficiency in your system or prepare for a new technology breakthrough designed to enhance your experience. For example, if a game takes full advantage of DirectX 10 technology, and you have an older DirectX 9 card, you may want to buy a new card. If a game can take advantage of massive amounts of memory, you may invest in a 64 bit operating system to take advantage of that.You hit it so on the head though. If an application is older, based on single core technology and won;t take advantage of many of the new features released in hardware, then how can you expect that to make a huge difference? People tend to look at the core engine of the games as something you replace like a video card in your system. Same with code, have a problem? Let your guys take out 10 minutes to fix it, should not be that hard. Obviously, if it were easy, it would be done already.I can, to a degree understand Claw's feelings as well. I upgraded to play Vanguard which totally would not run well on the system I was running Everquest II with. I enjoyed the game enough to replace a system and upgrade two others. When I returned to Everquest II this year I expected to see a huge gain in FPS and just general performance. The gain was marginal and somewhat disappointing. I did however accept that it just meant that on an older game, there is a diminishing point of return on investment as I was most likely running the game before the upgrades efficiently and the upgrades just added a small boost.