TO DEVS: MUCH NEEDED CORE TECHNOLOGY CHANGES

[Vanyel]

<p>Devs... You constantly update the game content, features, gameplace, etc.. which is GREAT! But EQ2 is RAPIDLY falling behind other MMOs in technology. For example: Lord of the rings online with ONE client can use DX 9 OR DX 10 and use either single cpu machines or up to 4 GPU cores.. it's VERY GPU friendly... even with the game under HEAVY load on a 2 core system, I've never seen teh game go over 14 or 15% CPU load since it's mostly using the GPUs... EQ2 really needs to get with the times. We all pay monthy fees to play the game.. pay for our xpacks.. </p><p>I think it's time SOE took some time out and revamped the client (sort of like you did with Luclin expansion in Eq1) </p><p>1) Allow the client to use single and multi CPUs (up to 4 (8 would even better) cores) - just this alone would make a HUGE performance increase since you guys do most of the game on the CPU vs the GPU anyway and would be a much easier coding change vs moving it all to the GPU</p><p>2) STOP rendering 75% of the graphics on the CPU and move the rendering to the GPU (DX10 protocols would FORCE this change)</p><p>3) More Multi GPU friendly (#2 would have to be completed first). The reason why SLI and Crossfire have so little impact on the game is that that game doesn't use the GPUs much. And why people can run out and buy $600 video card and see only slight perf increases.</p><p>4) Allow the client to use either DX9 AND DX10</p><p>5) Allow the client to address more memory (actually you all just did this with the LARGEADDRESSAWARE version you just released allowing it to use 3GB of RAM on 32bit windows (IF 32 bit users change their boot.ini files) and up to 4GB of RAM on 64bit windows, but it took us 2 YEARS of HOUNDING SOE to impliment this.</p>

[Melciah]

<p><cite>I believe he meant the following:</cite></p><cite></cite><cite><p>2) STOP rendering 75% of the graphics on the CPU and move the rendering to the GPU (DX10 protocols would FORCE this change)</p><p>otherwise, I gotta agree, it is sorta sad the amount of system (not graphics) resources that EQ2 still takes up...</p></cite><p><cite></cite></p><p><cite>Vanyel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>2) STOP redering 75% of the graphics on the CPU and move the rendering to the CPU (DX10 protocols would FORCE this change)</p></blockquote>

[Freliant]

Would you guys like to delay the next few expansions to do this? What you are asking for is essentially to redo the entire game from the bottom up...

[Kitsune286]

Well, two problems here:1st. This is in testing feedback, so your thread, while it might be read by a dev, is technically the wrong place. =)2nd. As someone else mentioned, they would have to redo the entire client, and they would have to give up considerable manpower to that kind of project, which means no new content/feature/anything for who knows how long.

[Dacies18]

they did this in everquest live at some point in the expantion timeline. I cant imagine that this is not in the words or all ready being worked on. I think its pretty crappy that you knock everquest 2 a game thats been out over 4 years to a game that has barely been out a year. 

[Ahlana]

<cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would you guys like to delay the next few expansions to do this? What you are asking for is essentially to redo the entire game from the bottom up...</blockquote><p>As stated by others something like this was done in EQ1 during their expansion course. Luclin era introduced a new client with better graphical capabilities. It did not delay the expansion timeline in anyway. However that was simply a change from DX8 to DX9 and at the time EQ1 was the dominant player in the market, as such they had a dev team bigger than EQ1 and 2 does combined atm.</p><p>I think the most you might ever see of this client changed is to support dual cores. This wouldn't take much and they wouldn't have to change how the graphics are supported as it will still be all done on CPU. I don't think GPU's will ever play a large part in EQ2's overall design. Too big of a change too late in the game.</p>

[Vanyel]

<cite>Melciah@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><cite>I believe he meant the following:</cite></p><cite></cite><cite><p>2) STOP rendering 75% of the graphics on the CPU and move the rendering to the GPU (DX10 protocols would FORCE this change)</p><p>otherwise, I gotta agree, it is sorta sad the amount of system (not graphics) resources that EQ2 still takes up...</p></cite><p><cite></cite></p><p><cite>Vanyel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>2) STOP redering 75% of the graphics on the CPU and move the rendering to the CPU (DX10 protocols would FORCE this change)</p></blockquote></blockquote>Yes thank you. I just corrected my post <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Vanyel]

<cite>Ahlana wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would you guys like to delay the next few expansions to do this? What you are asking for is essentially to redo the entire game from the bottom up...</blockquote><p>As stated by others something like this was done in EQ1 during their expansion course. Luclin era introduced a new client with better graphical capabilities. It did not delay the expansion timeline in anyway. However that was simply a change from DX8 to DX9 and at the time EQ1 was the dominant player in the market, as such they had a dev team bigger than EQ1 and 2 does combined atm.</p><p>I think the most you might ever see of this client changed is to support dual cores. This wouldn't take much and they wouldn't have to change how the graphics are supported as it will still be all done on CPU. I don't think GPU's will ever play a large part in EQ2's overall design. Too big of a change too late in the game.</p></blockquote><p>Exactly. I know they probably can't/won't do everything I listed. My point is they need to so "something" and to the preve person.. yes I would give up an xpac to get needed tech updates... but as in eq1 it didn't delay the xpac... you have teams working on the xpacs and a team(s) working on a client overhaul.</p><p> But the best thing they could do at this point is add dual/quad core support. That in itself would give the game a HUGE performance jump</p>

[Vanyel]

<cite>Kittsune@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well, two problems here:1st. This is in testing feedback, so your thread, while it might be read by a dev, is technically the wrong place. =)2nd. As someone else mentioned, they would have to redo the entire client, and they would have to give up considerable manpower to that kind of project, which means no new content/feature/anything for who knows how long.</blockquote>I tired to find a good forum for this, and this seemed like the best one. Anytime I found a forum that I thought was proper, the forum mods locked my posts.

[Beldin_]

<p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=412574�" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...412574�</a></p><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>As you can see, we've been pretty busy over the past few GU's.  I'm sure some of you are asking, "Where is the multi-core support and better utilization of the GPU"?  As you can imagine, these aren't quick-fixes, and take some time.  We are definitely looking at many options for improving performance of the client as well as reducing lag on the server.</blockquote>

[Troubor]

<cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would you guys like to delay the next few expansions to do this? What you are asking for is essentially to redo the entire game from the bottom up...</blockquote><p>Myself, yes I wouldn't mind this at all.  Let the next expansion or two be delayed by let's say six months or so.  New content is wonderful, sure.  But if they did update the core application to use multi-core cpus, to use graphics cards more and so forth, then each future expansion can benefit from that too.  An improvement like this now means an improvement for the life of the game.  I think, IF it means delaying an expansion (who says it MUST delay one), that this is a worthy tradeoff.</p>

[Grimlux]

Screw redoing EQ2's core...  I hope they start Developing a Sequel, as the game is now reaching 5 years old. The graphics are getting a little rigid and this will allow EQ2 to implement all these features on a new pallet. If they havent begun on a sequel then they are falling behind. EQ1 was released in 1999, and EQ2 was released in 2004. If they have not begun development, then they are a roughly a year behind.

[Burnout]

check latest development inside sony -> soe integrated in the playstation department -> guess for which platform eq3 will come...

[Karlen]

<span class="postbody">>>>But if they did update the core application to use multi-core cpus, to use graphics cards more and so forth, then each future expansion can benefit from that too.  An improvement like this now means an improvement for the life of the game.  I think, IF it means delaying an expansion (who says it MUST delay one), that this is a worthy tradeoff.<<<A worthy tradeoff for those that use multi-core cpus anyways.  The performance is ok for me on my single-core CPU, so I would prefer the expansion on time rather than delayed for a client redo.</span>

[EnderBeta]

<cite>Burnout wrote:</cite><blockquote>check latest development inside sony -> soe integrated in the playstation department -> guess for which platform eq3 will come...</blockquote><p>>.< ugh, dear lord please don't make me buy a PS3 or for that matter any console to play a MMO on it.</p><p> Hopefully this is just a matter of a possible EQ3 being on the PC and the PS3 and not just on the PS3.</p>

[Grimlux]

<cite>Burnout wrote:</cite><blockquote>check latest development inside sony -> soe integrated in the playstation department -> guess for which platform eq3 will come...</blockquote>This does not surprise me. I used to work for Microsoft Game Studio's. Not only were multiple software studio's being housed within MGS but they supported both PC and 360 development. Some were designed for both, some just only the PC and/or 360. It makes sense that EQ2 SOE would be part of one large scale Game studio. Unfortunately, if SOE releases a "EQ3" on P3..thats it for me. The playstation 3 was the largest piece of garbage console ever released.

[EnderBeta]

<cite>Karlen@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote><span class="postbody">>>>But if they did update the core application to use multi-core cpus, to use graphics cards more and so forth, then each future expansion can benefit from that too.  An improvement like this now means an improvement for the life of the game.  I think, IF it means delaying an expansion (who says it MUST delay one), that this is a worthy tradeoff.<<<A worthy tradeoff for those that use multi-core cpus anyways.  The performance is ok for me on my single-core CPU, so I would prefer the expansion on time rather than delayed for a client redo.</span></blockquote><p>*raises handI use multi core. If by using my second core in my T2700 Core Duo in my laptop,  I can eek out a few more FPS to compensate for being limited to a Geforce 7300 Go then yeah by all means add the support.</p>

[GrunEQ]

<p>I'm all for a good fix up, so what if it delays new content....so be it, the new stuff will eventually come....meanwhile <i>I'd like some improved performance and nicer graphics.</i></p>

[Fatuus]

<cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'm all for a good fix up, so what if it delays new content....so be it, the new stuff will eventually come....meanwhile <i>I'd like some improved performance and nicer graphics.</i></p></blockquote>SOE doesn't make money fixing what they already have done, only by selling new expansions.

[EnderBeta]

<cite>Fatuus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'm all for a good fix up, so what if it delays new content....so be it, the new stuff will eventually come....meanwhile <i>I'd like some improved performance and nicer graphics.</i></p></blockquote>SOE doesn't make money fixing what they already have done, only by selling new expansions.</blockquote>If its not free stick it in the next expansion pack, I'll pay for it as long as its reasonable in price and a foot note feature included with new content.

[Darian]

I thought the game engine was built to scale with new technology? We have yet to really see that.

[Tamar]

<cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would you guys like to delay the next few expansions to do this? What you are asking for is essentially to redo the entire game from the bottom up...</blockquote>Yes...

[Naubeta]

I don't know much about computers aside from what I read before deciding on mine, but I think I can sum things up...<b>*</b> "multi-cores" would make very little difference, ppl are just asking for this because they've bought a PC with 4<b>*</b> same for direct 10<b>*</b> what would make a differnece is having the graphic card do animiations, particles and shadows<b>*</b> when they do do this (which they've said they will) the downside will be that the shadows won't look as nice since graphic card shadows are just made out of lots of little blobs (why they don't look very good)

[Beldin_]

<cite>Paznos@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>I thought the game engine was built to scale with new technology? We have yet to really see that.</blockquote>It was built to run better on the FASTER CPUs that they expected, however the CPU development took another route with the multi-cores, and thats the big problem <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Ahlana]

<cite>Naubitzi@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>I don't know much about computers aside from what I read before deciding on mine, but I think I can sum things up...<b>*</b> "multi-cores" would make very little difference, ppl are just asking for this because they've bought a PC with 4</blockquote><p>Actually since EQ2's graphic is mostly done on the CPU instead of the GPU putting in support for multiple cores would indeed make a huge difference as the cores could split up the work. It would act much like SLI acts on games that support dual video cards. </p><p>And this coming from a single core user!!! It is true with the current client setup, usage of more than one core would indeed make a very noticable increase in performance.</p>

[Naubeta]

I was just saying that it's probably easier to just get the graphic card to do things because that's what they do (it's just not being used in EQ2). Rather than come up with new ways to try and get the cpu to help (with more cores). I mean, if that was the way to go (or it was feasible) then everyone would be doing it.Changing so the graphic card does animations, partices and shadows would basically fix everything for anyone with a graphic card made in the last couple of years.And then direct 10 would add nothing... because it doesn't really from what I've read. In LoTRO it gives you water with smoother edges, and then makes everything go much more slowly. It doesn't speed things up at all.And there wouldn't be anything for more cpu cores to do. Maybe a few % help at most by putting some network things on there (I think that's all wow does)?

[seamus]

<cite>Ahlana wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would you guys like to delay the next few expansions to do this? What you are asking for is essentially to redo the entire game from the bottom up...</blockquote><p>As stated by others something like this was done in EQ1 during their expansion course. Luclin era introduced a new client with better graphical capabilities. It did not delay the expansion timeline in anyway. However that was simply a change from DX8 to DX9 and at the time EQ1 was the dominant player in the market, as such they had a dev team bigger than EQ1 and 2 does combined atm.</p><p>I think the most you might ever see of this client changed is to support dual cores. This wouldn't take much and they wouldn't have to change how the graphics are supported as it will still be all done on CPU. I don't think GPU's will ever play a large part in EQ2's overall design. Too big of a change too late in the game.</p></blockquote><p>Trust me, adding support for threading is not trivial, at least for anything that would provide a significant boost. It would take a significant effort to add multi-threaded support in a meaningful way. If it didn't take a significant effort and was risk free we would have already seen support for it. At the moment they are addressing what we call 'low hanging fruit' issues, issues that take relatively small effort and have less risk.</p><p>Personally I think they are definitely evaluating support for multiple threads as well as better use of modern day gpu's, that in itself may actually take longer then the implementation.</p>

[lstead]

<span class="postbody"><i><b>*</b> "multi-cores" would make very little difference, ppl are just asking for this because they've bought a PC with</i>I disagree. City of Heroes is another game that was created without dual core support. In order to enable it, you actually have to create a shortcut with a flag to render the graphics on the other core. With a slower processor the difference is extreme, you can virtually double your FPS by turning on that flag.Also, I have seen come up again and again complaints from people about the performance in EQ2. These are people who run current games and are shocked to see such poor performance from a game that is four years old. It's an impediment to gaining new subscribers.</span>

[Webin]

<cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><p>Trust me, adding support for threading is not trivial, at least for anything that would provide a significant boost. It would take a significant effort to add multi-threaded support in a meaningful way.</p></blockquote>I came to say the exact same thing, so I'll just quote for emphasis.As someone who has actually done multi-threaded programming (in Java, years ago), I can verify that it's not as a simple a task as saying "do some stuff on another CPU".  The programmer has to actually separate the required processing tasks into separate and unique tasks (that don't overlap or have much interaction).  If the game engine has been designed from the start to only have one "thread" of task (that being "present the game to the player"), then to retrofit it with multiple "threads" ("render the game on screen", "accept data from server", "calculate changes", "transmit new player info") is a very difficult process.   Granted I'm not a professional developer, but when faced with the problem of adding multi-threading, my approach would be to scrap the entire thing and start over.It's no simple task.  I do agree that it would be simpler (and more productive) to move some more rendering tasks to the video card.  Since I haven't done graphics programming on that scale, I can't say how difficult it would be to do that.

[EnderBeta]

<cite>Naubitzi@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I don't know much about computers aside from what I read before deciding on mine, but I think I can sum things up...<b>*</b> "multi-cores" would make very little difference, ppl are just asking for this because they've bought a PC with 4</p><p><span style="color: #ff0033;">Actually if the game engine supported multi core it would help a lot. It would allow different parts of the engine to execute at the same time instead of just running in one loop. If done right you could get a good boost in performance. However what's tricky is getting access to variables between threads. At the very least offloading sound, and maybe the AI and shadows to another thread could allow for a good boost in performance.</span><b>*</b> same for direct 10</p><p><span style="color: #ff0033;">As the engine is programmed now, yes. As new graphic cards come out that support DirectX 10 in hardware and games start to use the features no. But as of yet its true EQ2 doesn't gain anything from it.</span><b>*</b> what would make a differnece is having the graphic card do animiations, particles and shadows</p><p><span style="color: #ff0033;">Yes it would do wonders. However animation in general is a result of the processor and graphics card working together, because in the game animation is tied to either the AI or user input and the render loop. Which in itself also happens to be why making the engine into more then one thread is difficult.</span><b>*</b> when they do do this (which they've said they will) the downside will be that the shadows won't look as nice since graphic card shadows are just made out of lots of little blobs (why they don't look very good)</p><p><span style="color: #ff0033;">That's true, EQ2 appears to be using a very precise ray tracer to draw the shadows, which is both why the shadows are CPU intensive and very nice looking. If the devs could move the shadow routines to another thread it would offset a lot of the performance hit from enabling the shadows. However it wouldn't hurt to implement shadows from the graphics card and give the option to use either the graphics card shadows or the software shadows. Even better allow us to pick when and where, like leave the characters shadows the software but use the generic shadows from the graphics cards for the environment and torch shadows.</span></p></blockquote>

[Wingrider01]

<cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would you guys like to delay the next few expansions to do this? What you are asking for is essentially to redo the entire game from the bottom up...</blockquote>Expansions are already on a 12 month cycle, so you are basicly suggesting a 18 to 24 month delay before another expansion? No thanks.

[EnderBeta]

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would you guys like to delay the next few expansions to do this? What you are asking for is essentially to redo the entire game from the bottom up...</blockquote>Expansions are already on a 12 month cycle, so you are basicly suggesting a 18 to 24 month delay before another expansion? No thanks.</blockquote>Whos to say the devs can't work the engine upgrades into the dev cycle and both make new content and upgrade the engine over time? It doesn't have to happen all at once.

[Armawk]

<p>Noone is going to put effort into upgrading to exploit multi GPU systems. I dont believe its worth it, the crossfire/sli userbase is miniscule.</p><p>Multi CPU of course is a different kettle of fish and surely they are working on that...</p>

[EnderBeta]

<cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Noone is going to put effort into upgrading to exploit multi GPU systems. I dont believe its worth it, the crossfire/sli userbase is miniscule.</p><p>Multi CPU of course is a different kettle of fish and surely they are working on that...</p></blockquote><p>Since when have games not made their engines scale up to the highest performance machines? Lots of games scale up and down to support all range of machines. Don't make blanket statements.</p><p> Now regarding EQ2 specificly then yeah based on the engiens design of course supporting multi core and SMP machines would be the path of least resistance.</p>

[Radigazt]

<p>Honestly I'm not for a major revamp of this game engine, here's why.  </p><p>1) This game benefits from scaling more than tweaking.  By that I mean that expansions, level increases, new AA branches, etc. provide more to the majority of the playerbase than simply speeding up half of the users systems while leaving the other half farther in the dust.  </p><p>2) There are a lot of major changes that should probably be implemented, but they should all be addressed in a major game engine revamp or possibly an entirely new engine.  Things like a true 3D environment, full use of GPU's, multi-core capabilities, richer graphics, multi-monitor support, global chat, built-in chat support, and a host of other things.  This would be a major major project, and I don't see that being  accomplished in the next 3 years to be honest.  </p><p>3) By the time you create the new engine, EQ2 will be 8 years old, and despite the nice visuals, constant dev attention, and scalability of EQ2 itself ... the player base will not sustain the revenues of any MMO for 8 years.  Either they'll migrate to EQ3 or they'll migrate to a different MMO.  So, you might as well start building EQ3 today and just scale EQ2 up.  Now, as you build the new engine, you may be able to use some of the new system to retrofit EQ2 along the way.  But, IMHO, they need to start building the next generation of EverQuest soon, because every year new games set the bar higher and higher.  Given the amount of time it requires to actually bring a game from conception to launch, I hope they start soon.  </p>

[EnderBeta]

<p>I am sure that EQ3 is already in development just not announced. Yes its engine better be more modern, its a must considering it's a chance for new code base with lots of development time. But that doesn't mean they can't at least make this engine use multicore and possibly SLI. Who knows by doing so they could possibly have a solid base upon which to build up the sequel from the updated engine with updated rendering techniques.</p><p>I do not agree with your rational about it only leaving the people further in the dust with older slower machines. If you want faster performance buy a faster machine, if not live with what you have. Don't act like a crab and pull everyone else down to your level just because.</p>

[theriatis]

<p>Hi,</p><p>i would be pleased with just a little Dualcore Support. Even most of the older machines are now Dualcore based and with a little effort could give a lot people just a little bit more performance. EQ2 is more CPU dependant, so Dualcore Support may be easier to achieve than bringing the Effects to the GPU (even without SLI Support).</p><p>I raided in eq2 once with a 2800+ and a 128mb ati card on high settings (Lab) and now, with a 3800+ and a x850xt pe 256mb i'm not able to run high settings in groups or even soloplay... talking about performance degradation with every expansion, yeah...</p><p>I thought the Idea once was "buying a new PC = getting a nicer EQ2" and not "buying a new PC = counter the Performance hit which occurs with a new expansion". I'm wondering what my new PC (athlon x2 5000+ @ 3,2ghz, 8800gt 512mb, 4gb ram) will do to EQ2, maybe the 500€ will just be enough so i can play on high settings in groups again... yeah, well worth spent money (add sarcasm to the last sentence as you see fit).</p><p>So Dualcore support (not necessarily full optimization) may give the best performance boost with the least effort for a lot of players.</p><p>Regards, theriatis.</p>

[seamus]

<p>For folks interested in some insight into the difficulty of adding multi-threaded support to the engine in a 'meaningful' way check out Greg's blog here: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://blog.gregsplace.com/2008/03/armchair-programmers-4tw.html" target="_blank">Armchair Progammer's FTW</a></p><p>One response from Greg that is particularly interesting:</p><p><i>Someone pointing out an article that I saw today about MS's Flight Simulator being modified to use multiple cores, and even with lots of different areas getting re-written, they only report about a 20% increase in performance.Our network library is already multi-threaded and on top of that the game client spends less than 1% of its processing time in network overhead, so nothing to gain there either.Features like the G15 support also don't really do anything to performance thats noticeable. The switching between processes and locking memory would probably take more time than it currently does.I hope it doesn't sound like I'm being combative, we've just looked at a lot of options, and there really isn't any low-hanging fruit that we've found.I think the reason encoding/decoding scales so well is because you can take whatever you're encoding, divide it up into chunks, and have each core encode a chunk. Then you piece it back together.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. The idea at the time was that as processors got faster, the performance would improve over time. Unfortunately science didn't lead us in that direction. So if you want to run the game on a GeForce3 today, it will still look awesome! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /></i></p><p>Here is a response to a couple questions I posted in the Dev round-table <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=412574" target="_blank">What Bugs You the Most ...</a>: (Boy was I amazed that they were answered.)</p><p><i>The main systems that are CPU-intensive are animation, particles and shadows.  We choose to do some things on the CPU rather than the GPU for a few different reasons.  Our animation system, for instance, provides data to the particle system.  If we were to try and do animation on the GPU in the same way, there would be no gain due to the requirement of needing data back from the animation process.We're looking at moving some of these CPU-intensive systems to other threads to leverage multi-core systems while trying to maintain current performance for single-core systems.  Our engine was initially constructed with a single-core paradigm and multi-threaded programming is much more complicated.  We're currently looking for a </i><a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=410043" target="_blank"><i>Graphics Programmer</i></a><i> to add new features and consider improvements to our existing engine.We're always interested in making EQ2's client and server perform better, so this remains a high priority for us.  Thanks for your comments!</i></p><p>So lets make one thing clear, adding support for multi-threading is 1) not easy 2) not going to provide as big a boost to performance as many people think. Games just can't take advantage of multiple threads as well as some other applications. Multi-threading nets large gains in applications that can chunk work loads into independent tasks that need little or no synchronization. Game sub-systems require a significant amount of synchronization/communication (iow bottlenecks) so the benefits are not as great and require a lot more effort.</p>

[theriatis]

<p>@seamus</p><p>Thanks for the Info, didn't know that.</p><p>Regards, theriatis.</p>

[seamus]

<cite>theriatis wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>@seamus</p><p>Thanks for the Info, didn't know that.</p><p>Regards, theriatis.</p></blockquote><p>Sure thing, btw I'd like to credit <b>Iseabeil</b> with providing the link to Greg's blog. Thanks again Iseabeil.</p><p>I do find the plug for a graphics programmer interesting, does this mean they don't have a dedicated graphics programmer?</p>

[DngrMou]

<cite>Vanyel wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Devs... You constantly update the game content, features, gameplace, etc.. which is GREAT! But EQ2 is RAPIDLY falling behind other MMOs in technology. For example: Lord of the rings online with ONE client can use DX 9 OR DX 10 and use either single cpu machines or up to 4 GPU cores.. it's VERY GPU friendly... even with the game under HEAVY load on a 2 core system, I've never seen teh game go over 14 or 15% CPU load since it's mostly using the GPUs... EQ2 really needs to get with the times. We all pay monthy fees to play the game.. pay for our xpacks.. </p><p>I think it's time SOE took some time out and revamped the client (sort of like you did with Luclin expansion in Eq1) </p><p>1) Allow the client to use single and multi CPUs (up to 4 (8 would even better) cores) - just this alone would make a HUGE performance increase since you guys do most of the game on the CPU vs the GPU anyway and would be a much easier coding change vs moving it all to the GPU</p><p>2) STOP rendering 75% of the graphics on the CPU and move the rendering to the GPU (DX10 protocols would FORCE this change)</p><p>3) More Multi GPU friendly (#2 would have to be completed first). The reason why SLI and Crossfire have so little impact on the game is that that game doesn't use the GPUs much. And why people can run out and buy $600 video card and see only slight perf increases.</p><p>4) Allow the client to use either DX9 AND DX10</p><p>5) Allow the client to address more memory (actually you all just did this with the LARGEADDRESSAWARE version you just released allowing it to use 3GB of RAM on 32bit windows (IF 32 bit users change their boot.ini files) and up to 4GB of RAM on 64bit windows, but it took us 2 YEARS of HOUNDING SOE to impliment this.</p></blockquote>DX10 is going to be iffy.  Most people are still on XP, which will never have DX10 available to it.  Go with DX9, that's something everyone can take advantage of, and it will certainly make future upgrades, as customer hardware changes, much easier.

[gi]

I too would like to see support added form Multi-core systems, it needs doing, and sooner rather than later. I hope it becomes a major change in the next expansion myself.

[EnderBeta]

<p>seamus, </p><p>First I resent the arm chair programmer remark, not everyone here is an armature programmer. I may not program games, but I know quite a bit about multithreading in managed and unmanaged code for clinet/servers in the database market.</p><p>I never said it was going to be easy easy and frankly I don't care. These are professional programmers, they can handle it. The devs asked what the community wants added to EQ2 and that's it multithreading.</p><p>More likely its not a matter of being difficult but a matter of how best SOE can make use of the programmers time. So I propose that SOE include the engine upgrade in a expansion, and charge money for it. Don't enable the new engine features with accounts that have not purchased and activated the expansion. I'm sure most of us would buy the expansion for the content anyways so this could be a easy way to get the engine upgrades earmarked.</p>

[seamus]

<cite>EnderBeta wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>seamus, </p><p>First I resent the arm chair programmer remark, not everyone here is an armature programmer. I may not program games, but I know quite a bit about multithreading in managed and unmanaged code for clinet/servers in the database market.</p><p>I never said it was going to be easy easy and frankly I don't care. These are professional programmers, they can handle it. The devs asked what the community wants added to EQ2 and that's it multithreading.</p><p>More likely its not a matter of being difficult but a matter of how best SOE can make use of the programmers time. So I propose that SOE include the engine upgrade in a expansion, and charge money for it. Don't enable the new engine features with accounts that have not purchased and activated the expansion. I'm sure most of us would buy the expansion for the content anyways so this could be a easy way to get the engine upgrades earmarked.</p></blockquote><p><b>Armchair Programmer FTW</b> is the title of a blog entry by a programmer on the <b>EQ2 dev team</b>. It is not from me. I quote (in italics) only one of <b>Greg's</b> replies to comments in <b>his</b> blog post. Please follow the link, read the blog and its many comments and replies. The things they've investigated so far have provided minimal returns. Again please read Greg's blog he makes it clear that in addition to the difficulty of adding multi-threaded support they do have a 6 year old code base with over a million lines of code that have been touched by many devs that have come and gone.</p><p>The second quote, (again in italics) is from another dev posting in these forums, again there is a link to the original. They are investigating putting in multi-threaded support.</p><p>It is not a matter of whether they can 'handle' it. Its a matter of them not seeing many benefits from their investigations. A re-write of the client would take years and would probably require some work done on models, textures, etc. IOW it ain't gonna happen.</p><p>This is a quote from me: Reading Comprehension FTW. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /></p>

[seamus]

<p>For folks unable, (blocked), or unwilling to read <b>Greg's</b> blog here is another very interesting response from <b>Greg</b>:</p><p><i>I'm aware of tools out there such as OpenMP to handle parallel processing. We've actually written our own implementation of OpenMP, and by "we" I mean Autenil. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Our initial tests with splitting processing using this type of tool yielded very small performance gains which would probably go unnoticed by most people.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.</i></p><p>It's pretty clear that the code base for the client limits the kinds of things they can do to improve performance. They made architectural decisions based on the best info they had at the time and it just didn't work out. These architectural decisions hand-cuffs them.</p>

[Brinelan]

<p>CCP just did a rewrite of the EVE client to support moving graphics off the cpu and on to the gpu.  It took them several years to do this.  So if you think this is soemthing that can be done for the next expansion, doubtful.  Check out the dev blogs at eve onlines website and their devs get pretty in depth with what they did and why.  </p><p> It seems as if most mmo's that came out a few years back were developed using more cpu then gpu.  Technology changes quite fast, and a 3 - 4 year development cycle makes it very hard to change with technology when you made a choice early on.</p><p>Enjoy eq2 the way it is.  Be content with the fact that some decisions cant be unmade.  If eq2 isnt the game for you, then move on or go work for soe making the changes you feel should be made.</p>

[seamus]

<cite>Brinelan@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>CCP just did a rewrite of the EVE client to support moving graphics off the cpu and on to the gpu.  It took them several years to do this.  So if you think this is soemthing that can be done for the next expansion, doubtful.  Check out the dev blogs at eve onlines website and their devs get pretty in depth with what they did and why.  </p><p> It seems as if most mmo's that came out a few years back were developed using more cpu then gpu.  Technology changes quite fast, and a 3 - 4 year development cycle makes it very hard to change with technology when you made a choice early on.</p><p>Enjoy eq2 the way it is.  Be content with the fact that some decisions cant be unmade.  If eq2 isnt the game for you, then move on or go work for soe making the changes you feel should be made.</p></blockquote><p>Yup. If we consider the comment about 20 percent gain, from <b>Greg's</b> blog, we would see an area performing at 20 fps increase to 24 fps, 10 fps to 12 fps. That just isn't noticable. Even if we saw a 100 percent gain in performance, (not possible), we're talking about increasing 20 fps to 40 fps. Keep in mind the only time we really notice a dip in performance is below 30 fps. I get into plenty of areas with 60+ fps, but a 20 percent boost wouldn't really matter as 60 fps provides a smooth experience.</p><p>Am I disappointed by this? You bet, my hardware is in my sig and running at 1920x1200 at high quality settings I frequently grind to below 20 fps. Hopefully with more investigation they will find ways to leverage multiple threads and modern gpus to increase performance in a meaningful way.</p>

[EnderBeta]

<cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EnderBeta wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>seamus, </p><p>First I resent the arm chair programmer remark, not everyone here is an armature programmer. I may not program games, but I know quite a bit about multithreading in managed and unmanaged code for clinet/servers in the database market.</p><p>I never said it was going to be easy easy and frankly I don't care. These are professional programmers, they can handle it. The devs asked what the community wants added to EQ2 and that's it multithreading.</p><p>More likely its not a matter of being difficult but a matter of how best SOE can make use of the programmers time. So I propose that SOE include the engine upgrade in a expansion, and charge money for it. Don't enable the new engine features with accounts that have not purchased and activated the expansion. I'm sure most of us would buy the expansion for the content anyways so this could be a easy way to get the engine upgrades earmarked.</p></blockquote><p>Uh, <b>Armchair Programmer FTW</b> is the title of a blog entry by a programmer on the <b>EQ2 dev team</b>. It is not from me. I quote (in italics) only one of <b>Greg's</b> replies to comments in <b>his</b> blog post. Please follow the link, read the blog and its many comments and replies. The things they've investigated so far have provided minimal returns. Again please read Greg's blog he makes it clear that in addition to the difficulty of adding multi-threaded support they do have a 6 year old code base with over a million lines of code that have been touched by many devs that have come and gone.</p><p>The second quote, (again in italics) is from another dev posting in these forums, again there is a link to the original. They are investigating putting in multi-threaded support.</p><p>It is not a matter of whether they can 'handle' it. Its a matter of them not seeing many benefits from their investigations. A re-write of the client would take years and would probably require some work done on models, textures, etc. IOW it ain't gonna happen.</p><p>This is a quote from me: Reading Comprehension FTW. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /></p></blockquote><p>You posted the quote so obviosuly you agreed and you're taking the tone of the devloper so while it may not be your direct words it is your tone. :p My reading comprahension is just fine, maybe you should be more careful with your insinuations.</p><p>I'm not going to argue why its difficult or cost to benefits, thats not the point. The devs don't need me to tell them whats involved and the majority of the people in the community would not understand it anyways. The point is the feature is on the top of the feature requests and it would be appreciated if the devs would just do it.</p><p> BTW I fail to see how moving portions of the code into different threads would affect the art assets in any way. You don't have to change shaders, shadows, or meshes to add multithreading. Your comment is totally baseless.</p>

[EnderBeta]

<cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Brinelan@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>CCP just did a rewrite of the EVE client to support moving graphics off the cpu and on to the gpu.  It took them several years to do this.  So if you think this is soemthing that can be done for the next expansion, doubtful.  Check out the dev blogs at eve onlines website and their devs get pretty in depth with what they did and why.  </p><p> It seems as if most mmo's that came out a few years back were developed using more cpu then gpu.  Technology changes quite fast, and a 3 - 4 year development cycle makes it very hard to change with technology when you made a choice early on.</p><p>Enjoy eq2 the way it is.  Be content with the fact that some decisions cant be unmade.  If eq2 isnt the game for you, then move on or go work for soe making the changes you feel should be made.</p></blockquote><p>Yup. If we consider the comment about 20 percent gain, from <b>Greg's</b> blog, we would see an area performing at 20 fps increase to 24 fps, 10 fps to 12 fps. That just isn't noticable. Even if we saw a 100 percent gain in performance, (not possible), we're talking about increasing 20 fps to 40 fps. Keep in mind the only time we really notice a dip in performance is below 30 fps. I get into plenty of areas with 60+ fps, but a 20 percent boost wouldn't really matter as 60 fps provides a smooth experience.</p><p>Am I disappointed by this? You bet, my hardware is in my sig and running at 1920x1200 at high quality settings I frequently grind to below 20 fps. Hopefully with more investigation they will find ways to leverage multiple threads and modern gpus to increase performance in a meaningful way.</p></blockquote><p>You're talking in circles. First you say it's not worth it to make the engine multithreaded then you ask for multithreading in a meaningful way. *shrugs* Not everyone gets 60 fps and a difference between 20 and 24 fps is huge. Its a difference between being slide show mode and being animation. At the very least it would even out the framerate and kill off the fps spikes and dips and keep it more consistant, which would be a major improvment.</p><p> Edit: btw it's naive to think that multithreading has not been in the works for some time. Dual core has been out for years now. If SOE has just now started work on supporting it then they are way behind the curve.</p>

[seamus]

<cite>EnderBeta wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Brinelan@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>CCP just did a rewrite of the EVE client to support moving graphics off the cpu and on to the gpu.  It took them several years to do this.  So if you think this is soemthing that can be done for the next expansion, doubtful.  Check out the dev blogs at eve onlines website and their devs get pretty in depth with what they did and why.  </p><p> It seems as if most mmo's that came out a few years back were developed using more cpu then gpu.  Technology changes quite fast, and a 3 - 4 year development cycle makes it very hard to change with technology when you made a choice early on.</p><p>Enjoy eq2 the way it is.  Be content with the fact that some decisions cant be unmade.  If eq2 isnt the game for you, then move on or go work for soe making the changes you feel should be made.</p></blockquote><p>Yup. If we consider the comment about 20 percent gain, from <b>Greg's</b> blog, we would see an area performing at 20 fps increase to 24 fps, 10 fps to 12 fps. That just isn't noticable. Even if we saw a 100 percent gain in performance, (not possible), we're talking about increasing 20 fps to 40 fps. Keep in mind the only time we really notice a dip in performance is below 30 fps. I get into plenty of areas with 60+ fps, but a 20 percent boost wouldn't really matter as 60 fps provides a smooth experience.</p><p>Am I disappointed by this? You bet, my hardware is in my sig and running at 1920x1200 at high quality settings I frequently grind to below 20 fps. Hopefully with more investigation they will find ways to leverage multiple threads and modern gpus to increase performance in a meaningful way.</p></blockquote><p>You're talking in circles. First you say it's not worth it to make the engine multithreaded then you ask for multithreading in a meaningful way. *shrugs* Not everyone gets 60 fps and a difference between 20 and 24 fps is huge. Its a difference between being slide show mode and being animation. At the very least it would even out the framerate and kill off the fps spikes and dips and keep it more consistant, which would be a major improvment.</p><p> Edit: btw it's naive to think that multithreading has not been in the works for some time. Dual core has been out for years now. If SOE has just now started work on supporting it then they are way behind the curve.</p></blockquote><p>Technically speaking, anything below 30 fps will be "slide show". It is a bit subjective though, I know people for whom 15 fps is smooth as glass. No you won't notice going from 20 to 24 fps, (its not huge, 20 to 40 fps is huge), you definitely wouldn't notice going from 10 to 12 fps, performance I frequently encounter.</p><p>I dunno what the point of your second statement is. I'm quoting the devs currently working on the system, (they were made within the last few months, one yesterday), and they seem to be fairly open about what they are doing. Here is a link to <a href="http://kriegshauser.blogspot.com/2008/03/memory-usage-and-everquest-ii-client.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Autenil's blog</a> it has some real nice information as well as Greg's. It certainly sounds like they've been investigating supporting multiple threads for a while now and Autenil's blog indicates they really want to get a graphics programmer in the shop and upgrade some stuff, shader 2.0 support for example, and add some new features. Sounds exciting and optimistic.</p><p>As for circles, I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not saying its not worth it I'm simply discussing what Greg has said about it. (They haven't seen any benefit.) If they can find a way to add support for multiple threads that provides a meaningful boost to performance that would be great. So far the devs haven't found a way to get a meaningful boost in perf by using multi-threading and their blogs explain why. This does not mean that they are not going to continue pursuing optimizations by taking advantage of multi-threading. In fact if you read Greg's blog the networking code is multi-threaded.</p><p>The thing is, several people posting here believe that by adding support for multi-threading the performance will magically improve because they do not know how threading works or what it has to offer nor the limitations that threading has. Sometimes what people want isn't what is best. By providing the information and links that I've provided I hope to provide some knowledge about the problems facing the devs and that the reality is, adding multi-threading to the client isn't going to magically fix the performance. The architecture and code base of the client ties their hands.</p><p>To really take advantage of multi-threading they would need to re-write the client which would take years and I don't expect its going to happen. Even then the benefit of multi-threading is limited, that is the nature of a game client.</p><p>Finally please stop trolling. You are not contributing anything to the discussion and are simply trying to bait me. Read the blogs, live and learn.</p>

[seamus]

<cite>EnderBeta wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EnderBeta wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>seamus, </p><p>First I resent the arm chair programmer remark, not everyone here is an armature programmer. I may not program games, but I know quite a bit about multithreading in managed and unmanaged code for clinet/servers in the database market.</p><p>I never said it was going to be easy easy and frankly I don't care. These are professional programmers, they can handle it. The devs asked what the community wants added to EQ2 and that's it multithreading.</p><p>More likely its not a matter of being difficult but a matter of how best SOE can make use of the programmers time. So I propose that SOE include the engine upgrade in a expansion, and charge money for it. Don't enable the new engine features with accounts that have not purchased and activated the expansion. I'm sure most of us would buy the expansion for the content anyways so this could be a easy way to get the engine upgrades earmarked.</p></blockquote><p>Uh, <b>Armchair Programmer FTW</b> is the title of a blog entry by a programmer on the <b>EQ2 dev team</b>. It is not from me. I quote (in italics) only one of <b>Greg's</b> replies to comments in <b>his</b> blog post. Please follow the link, read the blog and its many comments and replies. The things they've investigated so far have provided minimal returns. Again please read Greg's blog he makes it clear that in addition to the difficulty of adding multi-threaded support they do have a 6 year old code base with over a million lines of code that have been touched by many devs that have come and gone.</p><p>The second quote, (again in italics) is from another dev posting in these forums, again there is a link to the original. They are investigating putting in multi-threaded support.</p><p>It is not a matter of whether they can 'handle' it. Its a matter of them not seeing many benefits from their investigations. A re-write of the client would take years and would probably require some work done on models, textures, etc. IOW it ain't gonna happen.</p><p>This is a quote from me: Reading Comprehension FTW. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /></p></blockquote><p>You posted the quote so obviosuly you agreed and you're taking the tone of the devloper so while it may not be your direct words it is your tone. :p My reading comprahension is just fine, maybe you should be more careful with your insinuations.</p><p>I'm not going to argue why its difficult or cost to benefits, thats not the point. The devs don't need me to tell them whats involved and the majority of the people in the community would not understand it anyways. The point is the feature is on the top of the feature requests and it would be appreciated if the devs would just do it.</p><p> BTW I fail to see how moving portions of the code into different threads would affect the art assets in any way. You don't have to change shaders, shadows, or meshes to add multithreading. Your comment is totally baseless.</p></blockquote><p>As for the tone, its not about agreeing or not agreeing. Greg is telling us their experience. I'm just providing a link to it. I'm not going to tell Greg he doesn't know what the heck he is doing without any experience with their code base, which is the reason Greg titled the blog entry what it is. I'm going to read his posts, learn from them and enjoy the fact that he is posting the information. </p><p>As for the title of the link, I just used the title of the blog entry. No conspiracy here. I guess I could of used something like: "People starving in Africa".</p><p>Again, just because a lot of people want something doesn't make it the right thing to do. My comment about the art assets was in reference to re-writing the client where presumably they would take the opportunity to take advantage of multi-threading, modern gpus (they targeted the GeForce 3 after all) and re-architect how they work with art assets.</p>

[Phoenix force]

<p>May any Big Brother respond to us?</p><p>I'm really curious, what is the official response. <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p>

[seamus]

<cite>Phoenix force wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>May any Big Brother respond to us?</p><p>I'm really curious, what is the official response. <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p></blockquote><p>Here is a response to a couple questions I posted in the Dev Round-Table, (its in the same group of forums that this thread is in), <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=412574" target="_blank">What Bugs You the Most ...</a>: (Boy was I amazed that they were answered.)</p><p><i>The main systems that are CPU-intensive are animation, particles and shadows.  We choose to do some things on the CPU rather than the GPU for a few different reasons.  Our animation system, for instance, provides data to the particle system.  If we were to try and do animation on the GPU in the same way, there would be no gain due to the requirement of needing data back from the animation process.We're looking at moving some of these CPU-intensive systems to other threads to leverage multi-core systems while trying to maintain current performance for single-core systems.  Our engine was initially constructed with a single-core paradigm and multi-threaded programming is much more complicated.  We're currently looking for a </i><a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=410043" target="_blank"><i>Graphics Programmer</i></a><i> to add new features and consider improvements to our existing engine.We're always interested in making EQ2's client and server perform better, so this remains a high priority for us.  Thanks for your comments!</i></p><p>That seems pretty official to me. Original thread is linked, Autenil(Joshua) a dev on the EQ2 team and I believe the tech lead, provided the above answer to a question I posed about adding support for mutli-core systems as well as better gpu support two days ago. The blogs I provide links to from Joshua and Greg, both devs on the EQ2 team, give a bit of context to the above post.</p>

[Mihos]

<p>Performance upgrades over time is something I expect from any game.  *It's hard to do * doesn't concern me from a company as large as Sony with the money we invest in them every month for the last few years.  When they advertise hardware right on the box (Nvidia) I at least expect them to put some effort into using the features of that hardware.  Nothing is sadder than building a new machine with the latest stuff and dying to see what the game looks like, only to see only very slight upgrades from the machine you had 2 years ago.</p><p>I am sure they are working on it reguardless, I would expect features added slowly instead of one major patch.  Just offloading a few things to the GPU would be a good start and probably even fix crap like the crashes after the Elder Ekron fight.   </p>

[EnderBeta]

<cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EnderBeta wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EnderBeta wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>seamus, </p><p>First I resent the arm chair programmer remark, not everyone here is an armature programmer. I may not program games, but I know quite a bit about multithreading in managed and unmanaged code for clinet/servers in the database market.</p><p>I never said it was going to be easy easy and frankly I don't care. These are professional programmers, they can handle it. The devs asked what the community wants added to EQ2 and that's it multithreading.</p><p>More likely its not a matter of being difficult but a matter of how best SOE can make use of the programmers time. So I propose that SOE include the engine upgrade in a expansion, and charge money for it. Don't enable the new engine features with accounts that have not purchased and activated the expansion. I'm sure most of us would buy the expansion for the content anyways so this could be a easy way to get the engine upgrades earmarked.</p></blockquote><p>Uh, <b>Armchair Programmer FTW</b> is the title of a blog entry by a programmer on the <b>EQ2 dev team</b>. It is not from me. I quote (in italics) only one of <b>Greg's</b> replies to comments in <b>his</b> blog post. Please follow the link, read the blog and its many comments and replies. The things they've investigated so far have provided minimal returns. Again please read Greg's blog he makes it clear that in addition to the difficulty of adding multi-threaded support they do have a 6 year old code base with over a million lines of code that have been touched by many devs that have come and gone.</p><p>The second quote, (again in italics) is from another dev posting in these forums, again there is a link to the original. They are investigating putting in multi-threaded support.</p><p>It is not a matter of whether they can 'handle' it. Its a matter of them not seeing many benefits from their investigations. A re-write of the client would take years and would probably require some work done on models, textures, etc. IOW it ain't gonna happen.</p><p>This is a quote from me: Reading Comprehension FTW. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" /></p></blockquote><p>You posted the quote so obviosuly you agreed and you're taking the tone of the devloper so while it may not be your direct words it is your tone. :p My reading comprahension is just fine, maybe you should be more careful with your insinuations.</p><p>I'm not going to argue why its difficult or cost to benefits, thats not the point. The devs don't need me to tell them whats involved and the majority of the people in the community would not understand it anyways. The point is the feature is on the top of the feature requests and it would be appreciated if the devs would just do it.</p><p> BTW I fail to see how moving portions of the code into different threads would affect the art assets in any way. You don't have to change shaders, shadows, or meshes to add multithreading. Your comment is totally baseless.</p></blockquote><p>As for the tone, its not about agreeing or not agreeing. Greg is telling us their experience. I'm just providing a link to it. I'm not going to tell Greg he doesn't know what the heck he is doing without any experience with their code base, which is the reason Greg titled the blog entry what it is. I'm going to read his posts, learn from them and enjoy the fact that he is posting the information. </p><p>As for the title of the link, I just used the title of the blog entry. No conspiracy here. I guess I could of used something like: "People starving in Africa".</p><p>Again, just because a lot of people want something doesn't make it the right thing to do. My comment about the art assets was in reference to re-writing the client where presumably they would take the opportunity to take advantage of multi-threading, modern gpus (they targeted the GeForce 3 after all) and re-architect how they work with art assets.</p></blockquote><p>Please stop telling me what Greg said. I know what Greg said it's getting agravating.</p><p>Of course they are not going to do what you're talking about that's a total engine rewrite. >.< As nice as that would be of course its not going to happen. Multithreading has nothing to do with totally rewriting the engine to use new display technologies. It simply spreads the engine out over several threads and allows for machines with more then one core to run portions of the engine in parallel. Even if they did redo the entire engine to use new shaders they wouldn't have to remake all the meshes and textures, that ridiculous. Only the shaders would have to be updated, but again that has zero to do with multithreading.</p><p>Edit: Everquest 2's art assets are already very nice, its just a matter now of speeding up the engine any way they can to get the frame rates up. If the devs have a better way then by all means, but I have a 2.33GHz core idling and even if its just a 4 fps boost I still want it. A boost is a boost.</p>

[Armawk]

<cite>EnderBeta wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Noone is going to put effort into upgrading to exploit multi GPU systems. I dont believe its worth it, the crossfire/sli userbase is miniscule.</p><p>Multi CPU of course is a different kettle of fish and surely they are working on that...</p></blockquote><p>Since when have games not made their engines scale up to the highest performance machines? Lots of games scale up and down to support all range of machines. Don't make blanket statements.</p><p> Now regarding EQ2 specificly then yeah based on the engiens design of course supporting multi core and SMP machines would be the path of least resistance.</p></blockquote><p>Sorry if I wasnt clear, but thats what I meant. Of course new engines should use these architectures correctly.</p><p>Shaun</p>

[EnderBeta]

<cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EnderBeta wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Noone is going to put effort into upgrading to exploit multi GPU systems. I dont believe its worth it, the crossfire/sli userbase is miniscule.</p><p>Multi CPU of course is a different kettle of fish and surely they are working on that...</p></blockquote><p>Since when have games not made their engines scale up to the highest performance machines? Lots of games scale up and down to support all range of machines. Don't make blanket statements.</p><p> Now regarding EQ2 specificly then yeah based on the engiens design of course supporting multi core and SMP machines would be the path of least resistance.</p></blockquote><p>Sorry if I wasnt clear, but thats what I meant. Of course new engines should use these architectures correctly.</p><p>Shaun</p></blockquote><p>I see. Sorry for getting snippy too; with you and seamus. It's been  a long week, but I'll try not to be so short fused over diverging opinions.</p><p>*crosses fingers that the devs can get multithreading working.</p>

[DamianTV]

<cite>Fatuus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'm all for a good fix up, so what if it delays new content....so be it, the new stuff will eventually come....meanwhile <i>I'd like some improved performance and nicer graphics.</i></p></blockquote>SOE doesn't make money fixing what they already have done, only by selling new expansions.</blockquote><p>Not entirely true, SOE makes money from monthly subscriptions.  </p><p>However the only valid point I think I have is this:  If the game is playable at better framerates on more peoples computers, more people will subscribe.  Thus, its cost effective.</p>

[Noaani]

<cite>Praetorate@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote> the game is now reaching 5 years old. </blockquote>Release was in november of '04, we are now in may of '08. Seems to me the game is just short of 4 years old, not 5.

[seamus]

<cite>DamianTV wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fatuus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'm all for a good fix up, so what if it delays new content....so be it, the new stuff will eventually come....meanwhile <i>I'd like some improved performance and nicer graphics.</i></p></blockquote>SOE doesn't make money fixing what they already have done, only by selling new expansions.</blockquote><p>Not entirely true, SOE makes money from monthly subscriptions.  </p><p>However the only valid point I think I have is this:  If the game is playable at better framerates on more peoples computers, more people will subscribe.  Thus, its cost effective.</p></blockquote><p>Both statements are true to an extent. It's fairly well documented that expansions get players to re-subscribe. EOF got me to take a break from WOW. On the other hand I have a dozen or so friends, (from EQ), that have tried and given up on EQ2 in hours, sometimes in minutes because of the performance issues.</p><p>The performance of the client is definitely a barrier that discourages new subscriptions, but at this point how many new subscriptions can they expect? Think about it, if they could improve the client's performance by 50 fps for every hardware configuration would it dramatically increase subscriptions? At launch it would have, but now?</p>

[bryldan]

<cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>DamianTV wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fatuus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'm all for a good fix up, so what if it delays new content....so be it, the new stuff will eventually come....meanwhile <i>I'd like some improved performance and nicer graphics.</i></p></blockquote>SOE doesn't make money fixing what they already have done, only by selling new expansions.</blockquote><p>Not entirely true, SOE makes money from monthly subscriptions.  </p><p>However the only valid point I think I have is this:  If the game is playable at better framerates on more peoples computers, more people will subscribe.  Thus, its cost effective.</p></blockquote><p>Both statements are true to an extent. It's fairly well documented that expansions get players to re-subscribe. EOF got me to take a break from WOW. On the other hand I have a dozen or so friends, (from EQ), that have tried and given up on EQ2 in hours, sometimes in minutes because of the performance issues.</p><p>The performance of the client is definitely a barrier that discourages new subscriptions, but at this point how many new subscriptions can they expect? Think about it, if they could improve the client's performance by 50 fps for every hardware configuration would it dramatically increase subscriptions? At launch it would have, but now?</p></blockquote>Thats because WoW can take a 8yr old comp and run because there graphics are no where near as nice as in eq2. If you have a crappy machine your not going to run this game period the lil if they can improve it only by a lil bit but waste a lot of time doing it i say screw that I want more content to keep me busy. No matter what you do with it you are not going to get it running even 1/10th of that of WoW because of the way better graphics. They cannot improve it by 50 fps for every machine unless they redo all the graphics and make them well like WoW.I agree it is a barrier but overall that is what you give up for better graphics. If you dont mind what a game looks like go play WoW but if you like to be oooodd and awwwdd well then dont go there.

[-Aonein-]

<cite>bryldan wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>DamianTV wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fatuus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'm all for a good fix up, so what if it delays new content....so be it, the new stuff will eventually come....meanwhile <i>I'd like some improved performance and nicer graphics.</i></p></blockquote>SOE doesn't make money fixing what they already have done, only by selling new expansions.</blockquote><p>Not entirely true, SOE makes money from monthly subscriptions.  </p><p>However the only valid point I think I have is this:  If the game is playable at better framerates on more peoples computers, more people will subscribe.  Thus, its cost effective.</p></blockquote><p>Both statements are true to an extent. It's fairly well documented that expansions get players to re-subscribe. EOF got me to take a break from WOW. On the other hand I have a dozen or so friends, (from EQ), that have tried and given up on EQ2 in hours, sometimes in minutes because of the performance issues.</p><p>The performance of the client is definitely a barrier that discourages new subscriptions, but at this point how many new subscriptions can they expect? Think about it, if they could improve the client's performance by 50 fps for every hardware configuration would it dramatically increase subscriptions? At launch it would have, but now?</p></blockquote>Thats because WoW can take a 8yr old comp and run because there graphics are no where near as nice as in eq2. If you have a crappy machine your not going to run this game period the lil if they can improve it only by a lil bit but waste a lot of time doing it i say screw that I want more content to keep me busy. No matter what you do with it you are not going to get it running even 1/10th of that of WoW because of the way better graphics. They cannot improve it by 50 fps for every machine unless they redo all the graphics and make them well like WoW.I agree it is a barrier but overall that is what you give up for better graphics. If you dont mind what a game looks like go play WoW but if you like to be oooodd and awwwdd well then dont go there.</blockquote><p> You do realise that dual core processors are normalized today right? Every single system you buy to date now wether it be a desktop, laptop has in them standard, dual core processors, SoE is only shooting themselves in the foot and pretty much riding this game down the toilet especially when people spend massive amounts of money and expect to see a 50 FPS increase, especially in terms of people making the jump from AGP to PCI express systems and dual cores just now while the price is right, if they do not see these jumps in FPS, then you have to ask yourself, [Removed for Content] is going on?</p><p> This is the one and only game I have seen where people have grown with it technology wise and haven't had a substantial increase in FPS, if any at all for some people. People upgrade thier systems when playing MMO's to crank the graphics up to see the goodies and all the eye candy the devs spend so much time implementing, whats the point of them spending so much time doing all that code work when majority of the people have the game running in a setting that is compareable to WoW graphics?</p>

[Aoelis73]

<p> Oh, this is so good that I had to reply to this maddness.</p><p>  Ok. Agreed what is being suggested is a complete overhaul of the game engine. Yes, it is true in EQ1 the game engine was overhaul from using Directx 6 to use Directx 7.  The reason for this engine rebuild is that alot of the API functions were deprec(meaning abosolute). Directx API changed to be more developer friendly from this point on.</p><p>  Most of the graphics were still redener by the CPU, not the video cards. They were limited in memory 32megs was smoking back then. How people become placated, and forget. The upgrade require hundrends of people to find video cards that support TL version 1.0 and also support directx 7 or higher. </p><p> Supporting Directx 10 with Directx9 ; yes Lords of Rings did this but it was in development for a long time well after launch and well after the first generation of Directx 10 video cards were release. Did it improve the story? (hmmm.. let me think.. nope. no improvement)</p><p> Core Technologies changes, are not the issue.  The game engine I would image is able to do some pretty awesome stuff already. Why would you force people to spend more money on a directx 10 compatible video card which are PCI-e only, good luck finding a directx 10 video card for APG support. Shell out some money for a new system atleast. </p><p> Upgrading the game engine also create a large memory footprint. System running 512megs of memory would be on a boat with no paddles. $$ for a new system. Back in 1989 Might and Magic 2 was release and it was hard hit to find a computer with 256k of memory much less a 8086 running at 4.5mhz.</p><p> Upgrading the game engine doesn't change the story of the game, does not change the envirnoments in the game, does not making the game work harder by offsetting GCPU process. What makes a game, is the story that needs to be told by the developers. Having a state of the art next gen game engine is just 1% of the development that goes into the game.  I believe, Vangard was all hype of the next gen game engine.. how much of the story has improved because, they have a next gen game engine? </p><p> Anyone can make a next gen game engine with all the bells and whistles and including Directx 10 and Directx 9, but you lack vision, or lack of story or lack of game design or lack anything to do with game development, the only thing that seems reasonable is upgrade technologies because there is no an understand of game engines do not make games. People, creative, talent people make these games and create these worlds we play in. </p><p> Does anyone know if ever release Sentinel Worlds 2 ? from EA, can't seem to get Sentinel Worlds I to boot anyone more(evil grin).</p><p>¡chicos necesitan juega la vida!</p>

[bryldan]

<cite>-Aonein- wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>bryldan wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>seamus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>DamianTV wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fatuus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>GrunEQ wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'm all for a good fix up, so what if it delays new content....so be it, the new stuff will eventually come....meanwhile <i>I'd like some improved performance and nicer graphics.</i></p></blockquote>SOE doesn't make money fixing what they already have done, only by selling new expansions.</blockquote><p>Not entirely true, SOE makes money from monthly subscriptions.  </p><p>However the only valid point I think I have is this:  If the game is playable at better framerates on more peoples computers, more people will subscribe.  Thus, its cost effective.</p></blockquote><p>Both statements are true to an extent. It's fairly well documented that expansions get players to re-subscribe. EOF got me to take a break from WOW. On the other hand I have a dozen or so friends, (from EQ), that have tried and given up on EQ2 in hours, sometimes in minutes because of the performance issues.</p><p>The performance of the client is definitely a barrier that discourages new subscriptions, but at this point how many new subscriptions can they expect? Think about it, if they could improve the client's performance by 50 fps for every hardware configuration would it dramatically increase subscriptions? At launch it would have, but now?</p></blockquote>Thats because WoW can take a 8yr old comp and run because there graphics are no where near as nice as in eq2. If you have a crappy machine your not going to run this game period the lil if they can improve it only by a lil bit but waste a lot of time doing it i say screw that I want more content to keep me busy. No matter what you do with it you are not going to get it running even 1/10th of that of WoW because of the way better graphics. They cannot improve it by 50 fps for every machine unless they redo all the graphics and make them well like WoW.I agree it is a barrier but overall that is what you give up for better graphics. If you dont mind what a game looks like go play WoW but if you like to be oooodd and awwwdd well then dont go there.</blockquote><p> You do realise that dual core processors are normalized today right? Every single system you buy to date now wether it be a desktop, laptop has in them standard, dual core processors, SoE is only shooting themselves in the foot and pretty much riding this game down the toilet especially when people spend massive amounts of money and expect to see a 50 FPS increase, especially in terms of people making the jump from AGP to PCI express systems and dual cores just now while the price is right, if they do not see these jumps in FPS, then you have to ask yourself, [Removed for Content] is going on?</p><p> This is the one and only game I have seen where people have grown with it technology wise and haven't had a substantial increase in FPS, if any at all for some people. People upgrade thier systems when playing MMO's to crank the graphics up to see the goodies and all the eye candy the devs spend so much time implementing, whats the point of them spending so much time doing all that code work when majority of the people have the game running in a setting that is compareable to WoW graphics?</p></blockquote>You do realize that not everyone has a duel core machine? The thing i was saying was that they were talking about ppl moving onto WoW because of the performance that has ZERO TO DO WITH ANY OF WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. WoW has less graphics than eq2 less of everything than EQ2 in terms of graphics that is why you can run WoW on a machine thats 8-10 yrs old. Plus I do not think they support duel core not that they really have to because there game takes NOTHING to run.I am running the game on max settings and I do not have a new comp by any means. If a person is upgrading there system for this game they should have upgraded it right then not went out and bought that 2.1 ghz quad core knowing full well that this game does not support it. They could have easily went with a 3.0 ghz duel core (dual for future games just in case) and had way better performance than that 2.1 ghz at a lower cost also lol.Plus you would have to run your graphics on the lowest settings to match wow's graphics and if you are running that low then obviously you havent recently got a new comp lol.

[Zin`Car]

EQ3 will get the changes you are asking for.  Until then, don't hold your breath.

[EnderBeta]

<cite>bryldan wrote</cite> <blockquote><blockquote>You do realize that not everyone has a duel core machine? </blockquote></blockquote>So because not everyone has something it shouldn't be supported?

[Todra_B]

<p>First, I have to say that this is a great looking game. When I looked for an MMO to buy in the beginning I looked at WoW since it was the most popular. To me it looked to cartoony. I love high fantasy but it looked cheesy. I looked at EQ2 and there was the balance I was looking for and to this day I have not been disappointed.</p><p>When I bought the game dual cores were just hitting the market. I still run the game on a Sony VAIO with a 3 ghz P4 with HT, and 1 gig of ram with XP sp2. Withing a few weeks of playing my 128mb graphics card died so I replaced it with a 256mb card. It gave a marginal increase in performance. I run on high with shadows and flora turned off. Lag happens but its not game breaking just annoying in QH and neriak.</p><p>Sony placed a bet in development and lost. They chose betamax<img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />. They were hoping that single core cpu's would be pushing 8 to 12 ghz by now ( and need a circulating liquid nitrogen heat sink to cool them <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />&nbsp<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.</p><p>Instead we have multicore processors. I doubt I would see noticable performance improvements unless I went with a new pc with intel's latest chip, a 3.2 ghz quad core that costs $1700 by itself.</p><p>I could check to see if my pc can handle 2 gig of ram and defrag my HD but for now this is the game we have. I enjoy it for what it is. </p><p>If EQ3 is in development then they can correct they old mistakes. I'm not expecting them to alter the engine now. When everyone is at lvl 100 two expansions down the line we will be told about EQ3 and all the great things it will do with the new 4ghz 16 core, 16gb ram, 8gb dual gpu pc's that are on the market. Then in a year after release we will be complaining that the game can't take advantage of the new quantum 8qbit processors. EQ4 anyone. Tech marches on....</p>

[orchard54]

I don't think modifying EQ2's game engine to utilize dual core and/or possibly change some of the graphical calculations to be done by the GPU instead of CPU. Sure, programming is never easy, but they made the game didn't they? You'd think they could alter it to properly use current technology. I feel sorry for anyone who tries to play EQ2 on a quad core.I've even seen quite a few old (and newer) single player games release patches to allow them to take full advantage of dual core processors.

[-Aonein-]

<cite>bryldan wrote:</cite><blockquote>You do realize that not everyone has a duel core machine? The thing i was saying was that they were talking about ppl moving onto WoW because of the performance that has ZERO TO DO WITH ANY OF WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. WoW has less graphics than eq2 less of everything than EQ2 in terms of graphics that is why you can run WoW on a machine thats 8-10 yrs old. Plus I do not think they support duel core not that they really have to because there game takes NOTHING to run.I am running the game on max settings and I do not have a new comp by any means. If a person is upgrading there system for this game they should have upgraded it right then not went out and bought that 2.1 ghz quad core knowing full well that this game does not support it. They could have easily went with a 3.0 ghz duel core (dual for future games just in case) and had way better performance than that 2.1 ghz at a lower cost also lol.Plus you would have to run your graphics on the lowest settings to match wow's graphics and if you are running that low then obviously you havent recently got a new comp lol.</blockquote><p> The fact that Single core processors are simply no longer made should spell it out for you.</p><p> You over-exagerate something fierce too, here I will explain:</p><ol><li>WoW's graphics are nice, they are nothing like you say in comparison to EQ2 on lowest settings, I currently raid on the lowest settings you can possibly get and let me tell you, remember what DoS games used to look like? Lego come to mind?</li><li>Why on god's green earth would anyone in thier right mind even waste thier time battling with a 8-10 year old machine? To begin with it wouldn't even run WoW.......you literally need a Direct x9 compatable machine to run it, same as this.....so basically your telling me I could run WoW on a Pentium II 800 mhz, 16meg Voodoo Banshee with 64 meg of ram and a whooping 4 gig hard drive???? Oh by the way, this is a Direct x5 compatable machine <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></li><li>Multithreading is multithreading reguardless of wether you have 2 or 4 core CPU, it will still utilize ethier 2 OR 4 depending on if its coded to do so, in the event its coded for a 2 core CPU and you have a 4 core CPU, thats even better again then 2 core CPU playing a game designed for a single core machine. Just because you have a 4 core CPU and the game is designed to support a 2 core CPU, doesn't mean it will not utilize 2 of the 4 cores, how do you think Hyperthreading works for single core cpu's? It is somehwta similar, but not quite as effcient for obvious reasons, your tricking the system.</li><li>Direct x10 is not about a performance increase, it is about what new features you can add to a game because the boundries are that much bigger, its about where they can take gaming rather then performance increase, actually, Direct x10 has nothing at all to do with system performance......unless you run a Direct x9 machine I guess.</li><li>Ask 20 people online in ooc channels what kind of CPU they have in thier system, I will place a bet with you and say 80% of them have ethier a 2 or 4 core CPU desk top or laptop with maybe 25-30% of that total having SLi OR Crossfire also and to top it off, maybe 8-10% having a Direct x10 compatable machine. Reguardless of the speed, it is not the point, the point is, these people could/would see performance increases with these changes.</li></ol><p> As a previous poster pointed out, SoE took a technology gamble and lost, miserably, they put thier money on people having massive single core CPU's today and it didn't happen, again, the performance boost people were having with hyperthreading tecnology enabled should of pointed this out years ago that dual core CPU's were a strong possibility, but they probally put thier money on the table betting that they would be 3-4 times as powerful now but with hyperthreading still.</p><p> I think alot of people put way to much thought into things, SoE has professional game designers and coders for a reason, they are not some bunch of kids fresh out of kinder with no knowledge of multithreading coding procedures and I am 100% sure that they would know exactally how to do it, it is a question of wether SoE CEO big man himself and the reast of his finacial lackeys find it in thier best interests to put a team of 10 coders on the job to do it OR keep them on thier next biggest project. Multithreading is not some big secret, anybody who went through code school in the past 10 - 15 years or so will know how to execute it and follow through with it. So please guys, enough with the bs excuses on how much of a huge monumental change this would be, we all get that, but thats why people get paid, the world is progressively changing, you ethier keep up with it, or die out.</p><p> Time is money, something that obviously cannot be replaced with a company like SoE, while it would be a absolute <b><u>thrill</u></b> to get a mutlithreaded EQ2 Direct x10 application + client, I honestly don't know if it will ever happen. I know I would be jumping over the moon for these changes and I can beat that once implemented would make everyone happy.</p>

[theriatis]

<p>Hi,</p><p>honestly, i personally don't care about new graphical features added to the game, if i could just run it in high settings... i upgraded from a 2,4ghz single core to a 3,2ghz dual core and hardly note the difference.</p><p>After disabling all the graphical features, setting everything to minimum (on 1280x1024) i got as low as 4 dps in our Shard of Hate Raid yesterday. System Spec is down below. </p><p>Best Regards,</p><p>theriatis.</p><p>--------------------------------------------</p><p>Athlon 64 x2 5000+ at 3,2Ghz, 4GB Corsair CL4 DDR2-800, GF8800GT 512MB.</p><p>EQ2 Settings: No Smooth Fonts, Standard UI, Reuse Vertex Sharders enabled, r_aa_blit 1 /w Performance Settings in the NVidia Control Panel...</p>

[Besual]

<cite>-Aonein- wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><snip><p> Time is money, something that obviously cannot be replaced with a company like SoE, while it would be a absolute <b><u>thrill</u></b> to get a mutlithreaded EQ2 Direct x10 application + client, I honestly don't know if it will ever happen. I know I would be jumping over the moon for these changes and I can beat that once implemented would make everyone happy.</p></blockquote>You miss a very important point: Thanks MS you have to run Vista to use DX10. And the majority of the players is running XP.To make you happy SOE should jump to DX10 => force players to run Vista => force players to upgrade PC to be able to run Vista. What do you guess: How many subscriptions would cost this?

[Burnout]

the question on soe side is: is it worth doing such a core-code revision on eq2? the numbers of incoming new mmo's is increasing each year, most are little projects that never manage to attract a broad customer base. but the next 2-3 years have potential projects that can hammer eq2 in it's current state down.has a reworked eq2 engine the chance to compete with the grfx of a u3 based mmog? i doubt it...does a reworked eq2 core enhance the chance against a diablo3 mmog from blizzi? i doubt it...so the normal way for soe would be to focus on a eq3 game - on the other hand, soe showed they're often doing things noone would expect that a normal company would do...

[NiteWolfe]

<cite>Besual wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>-Aonein- wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><snip><p> Time is money, something that obviously cannot be replaced with a company like SoE, while it would be a absolute <b><u>thrill</u></b> to get a mutlithreaded EQ2 Direct x10 application + client, I honestly don't know if it will ever happen. I know I would be jumping over the moon for these changes and I can beat that once implemented would make everyone happy.</p></blockquote>You miss a very important point: Thanks MS you have to run Vista to use DX10. And the majority of the players is running XP.To make you happy SOE should jump to DX10 => force players to run Vista => force players to upgrade PC to be able to run Vista. What do you guess: How many subscriptions would cost this?</blockquote> I like to point out here that even the newest game on the market (age of conan) decided against releasing a DX10 version until later this summer. Thats right as of release day of the 20th AoC will not be running in DX10. I love for eq2 to support multi core and get a new game engine as long as they still supported the older rigs also. I have one rig that is up to date and is a screaming game rig. Guess what. A large % of the gamers buying rigs still order them with XP pro IE no DX 10 just like i did. I refuse to run Vista most gamers buying new rigs refuse to buy vista. If eq2 forced me to go to vista i quit the game in a heart beat. If eq2 stopped working on my other boxed systems( older machines) i would quit eq2. So support the new systems all you want  just make sure they are backwards compatible!

[EnderBeta]

<cite>NiteWolfe wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Besual wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>-Aonein- wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><snip><p> Time is money, something that obviously cannot be replaced with a company like SoE, while it would be a absolute <b><u>thrill</u></b> to get a mutlithreaded EQ2 Direct x10 application + client, I honestly don't know if it will ever happen. I know I would be jumping over the moon for these changes and I can beat that once implemented would make everyone happy.</p></blockquote>You miss a very important point: Thanks MS you have to run Vista to use DX10. And the majority of the players is running XP.To make you happy SOE should jump to DX10 => force players to run Vista => force players to upgrade PC to be able to run Vista. What do you guess: How many subscriptions would cost this?</blockquote> I like to point out here that even the newest game on the market (age of conan) decided against releasing a DX10 version until later this summer. Thats right as of release day of the 20th AoC will not be running in DX10. I love for eq2 to support multi core and get a new game engine as long as they still supported the older rigs also. I have one rig that is up to date and is a screaming game rig. Guess what. A large % of the gamers buying rigs still order them with XP pro IE no DX 10 just like i did. I refuse to run Vista most gamers buying new rigs refuse to buy vista. If eq2 forced me to go to vista i quit the game in a heart beat. If eq2 stopped working on my other boxed systems( older machines) i would quit eq2. So support the new systems all you want  just make sure they are backwards compatible!</blockquote>Adding multithreading will not break single core machines. I honestly don't think making eq2 use dx10 is worth the time and effort. I just want multithreading.

[Therendil]

I'm not going to use Vista any time soon, if ever. DX10 can wait. Multi-core support would be good.They need to fix/rewrite other things first, however. DX10 and multi-core isn't going to mean squat if most of the graphics work is still done by the CPU  instead of the GPU. Won't mean much either, if the client keeps running out of memory and crashing.-= Therendil =-Ranger of Tunare since 1999

[Eldonko99]

<p>No support for multi-core and SLI/CF is the top issue for me in this game. I understand it is difficult to implement, but cant you take a few dollars from all the money we pay you each month to do something about it? </p> <p>Everything has a multi core processor these days. I could care less about bank slots and other stuff in the updates, I want the hard earned $ I spend on upgrades to actually do something. After multi core CPUs, CF and SLI would be nice. It’s not too fun disabling SLI everytime I play EQ bc it makes the game unplayable from lag.</p> <p>I would like to see a graph of the number of subscriptions by month, I bet it has shown a sharp decline for a long time now. Why don’t you set up a poll that asks what the #1 thing people hate in EQ2?</p>

[Satu]

<cite>Eldonko99 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why don’t you set up a poll that asks what the #1 thing people hate in EQ2? </blockquote>They did... The results are posted <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=412574" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> 

[Eldonko99]

Figures, the #1 and 2 issues overall dont get addressed. Too much trouble I guess, who cares what the people that pay your salaries want. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Satu]

That post is all of 2 months old.  Adding dual core support, and moving things off the cpu to the gpu is not an overnight fix.  They have various teams working on various things.  I'm sure there is a team working on that, which has been stated by SOE more than once.  It's going to take ALLOT to do those things.  Give the guys a break.  If you want it done right, it's going to take a long time.  If you aren't happy with the game, then leave.  I'm no SOE fanboi by any means, but, if something about a game bothered me that much, I would find another game to play.

[Beldin_]

<cite>Eldonko99 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Figures, the #1 and 2 issues overall dont get addressed. Too much trouble I guess, who cares what the people that pay your salaries want. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote><p>Have you read the second post ? :</p><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>As you can see, we've been pretty busy over the past few GU's.  I'm sure some of you are asking, "Where is the multi-core support and better utilization of the GPU"?  As you can imagine, these aren't quick-fixes, and take some time.  We are definitely looking at many options for improving performance of the client as well as reducing lag on the server.</blockquote>

[ClawHammr]

<cite>Troubor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would you guys like to delay the next few expansions to do this? What you are asking for is essentially to redo the entire game from the bottom up...</blockquote><p>Myself, yes I wouldn't mind this at all.  Let the next expansion or two be delayed by let's say six months or so.  New content is wonderful, sure.  But if they did update the core application to use multi-core cpus, to use graphics cards more and so forth, then each future expansion can benefit from that too.  An improvement like this now means an improvement for the life of the game.  I think, IF it means delaying an expansion (who says it MUST delay one), that this is a worthy tradeoff.</p></blockquote>Wow I actually agree with Troubor

[ke'la]

<cite>Vexus@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Honestly I'm not for a major revamp of this game engine, here's why.  </p><p>1) This game benefits from scaling more than tweaking.  By that I mean that expansions, level increases, new AA branches, etc. provide more to the majority of the playerbase than simply speeding up half of the users systems while leaving the other half farther in the dust.  </p><p>2) There are a lot of major changes that should probably be implemented, but they should all be addressed in a major game engine revamp or possibly an entirely new engine.  Things like a true 3D environment, full use of GPU's, multi-core capabilities, richer graphics, multi-monitor support, global chat, built-in chat support, and a host of other things.  This would be a major major project, and I don't see that being  accomplished in the next 3 years to be honest.  </p><p>3) By the time you create the new engine, EQ2 will be 8 years old, and despite the nice visuals, constant dev attention, and scalability of EQ2 itself ... the player base will not sustain the revenues of any MMO for 8 years.  Either they'll migrate to EQ3 or they'll migrate to a different MMO.  So, you might as well start building EQ3 today and just scale EQ2 up.  Now, as you build the new engine, you may be able to use some of the new system to retrofit EQ2 along the way.  But, IMHO, they need to start building the next generation of EverQuest soon, because every year new games set the bar higher and higher.  Given the amount of time it requires to actually bring a game from conception to launch, I hope they start soon.  </p></blockquote>To point 3, you are aware that EQlive has been out for almost 10years, and month to month it's numbers Rivel EQ2s, right? Making EQ3(though it won't be called that) will not migrate people to a new engine, though it may get a % of people from EQ2, it's also defiantly not going to be anything close to a sure hit, and considering the extreme over saturation of the Fantasy MMO marketplace to spend upwards of $50million on just another in a long list of Fantasy MMOs is not good business, especially when you can upgrade your current system for maybe half that and get your graphics just as good as the other games out there... IMO I personally think when fully enabled, EQ2's Graphics outshine even the most modern MMOs, the problem is getting them to run fully enabled on the development path computers took. Which is why I think once the skelily  revamp is complete they will devote the resouces working on that to revamping  the EQ2 core engine to do some of the things talked about in this thread.

[ke'la]

<cite>Jablambo@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote>I don't think modifying EQ2's game engine to utilize dual core and/or possibly change some of the graphical calculations to be done by the GPU instead of CPU. Sure, programming is never easy, but they made the game didn't they? You'd think they could alter it to properly use current technology. I feel sorry for anyone who tries to play EQ2 on a quad core.I've even seen quite a few old (and newer) single player games release patches to allow them to take full advantage of dual core processors. </blockquote>Accually, um with the exception of one or two devs, the people developing EQ2 did not make the game. As for Single player games adding full Duel/Multi Core support in patches, and comparing it to MMO watermelon, first off in 90-95% of the Single Player games out there the things you can do in them are extremely limited, compared to an MMO. Secondly, once the game goes out the door in a single player game, the code is fixed and therefor the people that worked on it know where everything is, MMOs are kinda like the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgxXdJ-E5Cw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Winchester Mystery House</a> basically they built continuously as such, much like the Mystery House you end up with code that you can easily get lost in. In fact I was told by an EQlive programer at the last fan faire that EQlive has reached the point with thier code that they can't even make basic changes without breaking the "something".

[ShashLigai]

<p>As much as I would like to see EQ2 use the latest tech, I have to ask myself, how would this make the game better? It might make it more convenient for me to be able to load wiki and EQ2 simultanously, or make the game look a little better, but would it actually make the game better? </p><p>I would like to see more new areas and reworked areas, new mobs, new quests in old areas, etc.</p><p> btw, i have a dual core.</p>

[xpraetorianx]

<cite>Vanyel wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Devs... You constantly update the game content, features, gameplace, etc.. which is GREAT! But EQ2 is RAPIDLY falling behind other MMOs in technology. For example: Lord of the rings online with ONE client can use DX 9 OR DX 10 and use either single cpu machines or up to 4 GPU cores.. it's VERY GPU friendly... even with the game under HEAVY load on a 2 core system, I've never seen teh game go over 14 or 15% CPU load since it's mostly using the GPUs... EQ2 really needs to get with the times. We all pay monthy fees to play the game.. pay for our xpacks.. </p><p>I think it's time SOE took some time out and revamped the client (sort of like you did with Luclin expansion in Eq1) </p><p>1) Allow the client to use single and multi CPUs (up to 4 (8 would even better) cores) - just this alone would make a HUGE performance increase since you guys do most of the game on the CPU vs the GPU anyway and would be a much easier coding change vs moving it all to the GPU</p><p>2) STOP rendering 75% of the graphics on the CPU and move the rendering to the GPU (DX10 protocols would FORCE this change)</p><p>3) More Multi GPU friendly (#2 would have to be completed first). The reason why SLI and Crossfire have so little impact on the game is that that game doesn't use the GPUs much. And why people can run out and buy $600 video card and see only slight perf increases.</p><p>4) Allow the client to use either DX9 AND DX10</p><p>5) Allow the client to address more memory (actually you all just did this with the LARGEADDRESSAWARE version you just released allowing it to use 3GB of RAM on 32bit windows (IF 32 bit users change their boot.ini files) and up to 4GB of RAM on 64bit windows, but it took us 2 YEARS of HOUNDING SOE to impliment this.</p></blockquote>I love the armchair programmers and engineers who think they can just say do this and do that and thats the end of it.  Wow.  I feel sorry for the EQ2 development staff who read posts like this.

[Eldonko99]

This armchair programmer just bought AoC and is very pleased with its ability to utilize multi core, new gen GPUs, DX10, etc. I have been an EQ2 subscriber from the day it was released and am tired of this same old excuse. Its too hard, its too expensive, and so on. I will miss EQ, and may return if these changes ever get implemented.

[NiteWolfe]

<cite>Eldonko99 wrote:</cite><blockquote>This armchair programmer just bought AoC and is very pleased with its ability to utilize multi core, new gen GPUs, DX10, etc. I have been an EQ2 subscriber from the day it was released and am tired of this same old excuse. Its too hard, its too expensive, and so on. I will miss EQ, and may return if these changes ever get implemented.</blockquote>FYI AOC does NOT use dx10 currently. It was pushed off till late summer for dx10. But i so agree AoC is a stunning game. Iam blown away every time i log in!

[Faelgalad]

<p>I have less Lag in overland AoC zones, then in instanced EQ raidzones. </p><p>Only in big Citys in AoC, I get the same while fighting...</p>

[EnderBeta]

<p>Do they have a trial for AoC?</p>

[xpraetorianx]

<cite>Eldonko99 wrote:</cite><blockquote>This armchair programmer just bought AoC and is very pleased with its ability to utilize multi core, new gen GPUs, DX10, etc. I have been an EQ2 subscriber from the day it was released and am tired of this same old excuse. Its too hard, its too expensive, and so on. I will miss EQ, and may return if these changes ever get implemented.</blockquote>have fun

[EnderBeta]

<cite>xpraetorianx wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Eldonko99 wrote:</cite><blockquote>This armchair programmer just bought AoC and is very pleased with its ability to utilize multi core, new gen GPUs, DX10, etc. I have been an EQ2 subscriber from the day it was released and am tired of this same old excuse. Its too hard, its too expensive, and so on. I will miss EQ, and may return if these changes ever get implemented.</blockquote>have fun</blockquote>You know honestly, your patronizing attitude is every bit as annoying as arm chair programmers telling the devs how to fo their job. However I don't believe anyone has told them how to do it so much as what they want done. There is a difference. Kindly stop trolling.

[1000Words]

OT, only because I find it so funny so many people are praising AoC when they haven't even tried it yet and I'm getting a little sick of it.You're going to get let down.. a lot.Unless you meet or pass the recommended system specs don't even bother, or have an ATI video card -since they don't work with Funcoms [Removed for Content] optimization-, there is horrible performance for a lot of people, with or without really good computers. Besides that, the game is buggy and there are missing core features.To me, it's like another Vanguard:SoH. Why do you think the forums require the game to be bought to even read them? Because a lot of people are [Removed for Content] and it's going to scare off potential new customers.*Edit, also meant to put in ATI cards*

[Therendil]

I played EQ 1 from 1999 to 2003 and came back early this year. During that time, I saw *massive* changes in the client. Major changes to the EQ2 client, or even a core rewrite, are not out of the question. The trick is deciding what to do and how much to spend doing it. It's worth figuring out, because there will be a lot of people who will stay with EQ2 even if an EQ3 is released. It happened with EQ1 and EQ2.My wish list:* Change the client to let the GPU do the heavy lifting.* Support <i>but do not require</i> Vista / DX10 / multi-core / etc.* Consider the costs and benefits of separate optimized builds for newest vs. older systems.That ought to keep the devs and managers busy for a while....

[ZThoth]

<cite>Vanyel wrote:</cite> <blockquote><p>5) Allow the client to address more memory (actually you all just did this with the LARGEADDRESSAWARE version you just released allowing it to use 3GB of RAM on 32bit windows (IF 32 bit users change their boot.ini files) and up to 4GB of RAM on 64bit windows, but it took us 2 YEARS of HOUNDING SOE to impliment this.</p></blockquote><p>When did this happen and where can I find info on this?</p><p>Thanks.</p>

[ZThoth]

<p>ok, I found this:</p><p><a href="http://www.pctools.com/guides/registry/detail/1268/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.pctools.com/guides/regis...ry/detail/1268/</a></p><p>I have 3GB of Ram, do you need 4GB to use this or can I use this with 3GB?  Also, is it true that EQ2 now uses this flag?</p>

[Oidan]

I believe the reference was for City of Heros. I am unsure if EQ2 does this.

[Novusod]

<cite><span style="color: #cc0000;">Gnobrin</span> wrote:</cite><blockquote><span class="postbody"><p><b>GAMEPLAY</b></p><ul><li>A change was made to the client that should result in a performance improvement.</li></ul></span></blockquote>I tested this out a few hours ago and there was a noticeable performance increase. I hit 70 fraps at points and no more freeze frame lag.  This was not a small change. There is still a little but of a choppy motion while running into crowded areas but hopefully they can get to that next. My thanks to whoever figured this one out.

[Ama]

<p>Well i'm going to build me a monster of a computer when I get the money.  I just hope down the road EQ2 can utilize quad cores and up to 4 gigs of ram (I'll have 8, but not expecting everyone to have <img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.</p>

[SilkenMaid]

same old tiresome story from those that whine to loud for no purpose. SOE could spend a fortune redoing the EQII client but at the end of the day the few here who obviously still should be in nappies, crying that the game isn't meeting their 'Uber System Specs' would be nowhere to be found. Those dozen would be elsewhere..still whining, screaming and crying foul. But not playing EQII...In the meantime..the other tens of thousand who pay their subscriptions would end up paying and paying and PAYING the price for those few immature loudmouths. Updates after update for no real purpose..15 years online game playing here and its the same old story, the few who whine loudest are heard while the silent majority are screwed...Plus who is to say that the one who started this thread doesn't work for another company and is simply about tearing strips off SOE.This whole thread simple smells bad..

[theriatis]

<p>@Silkenmaid</p><p>If your comment was targetted at Amana, then: You just didn't get any better at "Detecting Sarcasm (1/400)".</p><p>If it was targetted at the Rest of the Postings: Did you even read the Thread ?</p><p>Utilizing Multicore CPUs (which are not just in overpowered Uber Systems, bought mine for about 60€) and utilizing the GPU more as it's currently done, would bring a benefit to almost everyone, not just those with Uber Powered System Specs...</p><p>Those with Uber Powered Systems (yeah, i'm overstretching that Term a bit, to help you get your Detecting Sarcasm/Irony/Humor Skill up <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />) don't care, because EQII runs fine on their systems and they don't need a Change.</p><p>Best Regards,</p><p>theriatis.</p>

[orchard54]

If a game has been out for over 4 years, and not even some of the BEEFIEST computers can run this game on max everything without any problems, then that to me is a problem. Specially in an Online game. It's just unacceptable really. So SoE thought single core technology was going to evolve into huge numbers, but it didn't. So they need to change as technology changes. They can do this while not affecting the people without current technology like multi-core, which is the norm now with any PC you buy.Doesn't it seem wrong that as hardware advances, but the game runs worse and worse?Single Core - Had some good ones at the end, but hardly available anywhere now.Dual Core - The standard in PC's everywhere.Quad Core -  There are quite a few out there, but the numbers of gamers that own are few.Whats next?1Ghz 12 core processors for $1000? That wont run EQ2 at all!I don't plan on not playing EQ2 anytime soon, but I'm just saying, you are SoE! Take your moneys and give more devs more $$$ to upgrade engine to utilize current technology and then hey! Now EQ2 is going in the right direction to keep this game alive as long as possible!!!Happy Customer knowing EQ2 is utilizing his new parts in PC = Good <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />Sad Customer with brand new Godly PC that can only play EQ2 on medium? = Bad <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />64 Bit support and Sli I can see as not being as urgent of a change. Seeing as how these things aren't quite a popular as Multi-Core CPU's are.WTB Horse mounting animation back in the game! Plz K thX!Final Note. Here is what I think.Someone with...2.0 GHz dual core CPU2-3GB Ram256 or higher MB Video cardThat set up, which would be inexpensive, would be able to run EQ2 on maximum settings, shadows and all if EQ2 only utilized multi cores.

[ClawHammr]

<cite>Jablambo@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote>If a game has been out for over 4 years, and not even some of the BEEFIEST computers can run this game on max everything without any problems, then that to me is a problem. Specially in an Online game. It's just unacceptable really. So SoE thought single core technology was going to evolve into huge numbers, but it didn't. So they need to change as technology changes. They can do this while not affecting the people without current technology like multi-core, which is the norm now with any PC you buy.Doesn't it seem wrong that as hardware advances, but the game runs worse and worse?Single Core - Had some good ones at the end, but hardly available anywhere now.Dual Core - The standard in PC's everywhere.Quad Core -  There are quite a few out there, but the numbers of gamers that own are few.Whats next?1Ghz 12 core processors for $1000? That wont run EQ2 at all!I don't plan on not playing EQ2 anytime soon, but I'm just saying, you are SoE! Take your moneys and give more devs more $$$ to upgrade engine to utilize current technology and then hey! Now EQ2 is going in the right direction to keep this game alive as long as possible!!!Happy Customer knowing EQ2 is utilizing his new parts in PC = Good <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />Sad Customer with brand new Godly PC that can only play EQ2 on medium? = Bad <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />64 Bit support and Sli I can see as not being as urgent of a change. Seeing as how these things aren't quite a popular as Multi-Core CPU's are.WTB Horse mounting animation back in the game! Plz K thX!Final Note. Here is what I think.Someone with...2.0 GHz dual core CPU2-3GB Ram256 or higher MB Video cardThat set up, which would be inexpensive, would be able to run EQ2 on maximum settings, shadows and all if EQ2 only utilized multi cores.</blockquote>It is rather unbelievable how SOE just shrugs it off and says "Oh well,we were wrong" and has done nothing to adapt to the direction that Technology has evolved (multi-cores)

[orchard54]

Same company that makes an 8 Core CPU for its Playstation 3!!! You think they'd upgrade all their games to do at least dual core! (maybe it was 7 cores on the ps3's cpu... can't remember exactly). Of course I understand different branches, but it all leads back to Sony!

[AngusMcLachlan]

<cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would you guys like to delay the next few expansions to do this? What you are asking for is essentially to redo the entire game from the bottom up...</blockquote><p>Yes</p><p>What's more f'd up... i was running 2.4 ghz dual core 8 gigs memory on vista 64 with a 8800 512 meg memory and only able to get high performance (15 fps) unless i could deal with a little lag and then go up to balanced (10 fps).</p><p> I switched from a 7200 rpm 160 gig drive to mirrored (raid 1) dual 150 gig 10k rpm's... and i'm able to get up to extreme quality with comparable lag (10fps) or blanaced for (20-30 fps).</p><p> How messed up is a prog that this much of a difference is gained out of increasing the reads to the hd.???</p>

[Squigglle]

Id honestly rather see the performenced buffed rather then content. I would gladly sacrifice 8 months no new content to see duel core supported and see the gpu have more load then the cpu. please address this SOE!

[Trilarian-2]

I'm all for the client making use of newer technology (being an owner of a quad-core + sli box), but I think people continously miss the point.  Mutli-Core usage will not speed up the client by any noticable amount, as the way this render works is each step is dependant on the previous step to continue.  So even if the client made 4 threads to put out on the 4 cores, core 2 would wait on core 1, core 3 would wait on core 2, and core 4 would wait on core 3 - netting you no to minimal gains.The biggest performance boost I see that could come would be to convert the ASM code (which is run by the CPU) to a DirectX format that is GPU friendly.  However, while it is easy to make that one statement, it is not easy to implement.  More than likely, the original programmers that did the ASM code are not working on the project anymore, so you have a daunting task to dig through millions of lines of ASM code you didn't write and replicate in a newer code set.  Personally, I don't think you could pay me enough to attempt that headache.  It would be much easier to start from scratch with a new game engine, which will happen in EQ3 (or whatever they decide to call they next incarnation) as the task to redesign every single map in a new engine would be too great.If they do manage to find someone (and he doesn't lose his sanity before completion) and come out with a new version of the client, I'd be so happy I wouldn't know what to do with myself.  However, I know the reality of the situation at hand.  If you take the time to tweak and optimize your computer, the game is very playable at high settings with the exceptions of full raids and a handful of trouble areas.  I listed a lot of these tweaks in the 8800 stuttering thread if you feel adventurous.

[Mezza]

Hmm tricky one this to be honest. But to save wasting peoples valuable time I'll try listing my feelings.1) To all the "Oh so the uber PC nerds want more FPS do they?", well erm yes actually. I spent my hard earned cash on hardware and expect to see a difference. If there is no point in upgrading I would like to be informed. Where have SoE ever stated that I shouldn't waste money on going dual core, or get anything better than a 7xxx nvidia graphics card?? After all, I'm the first to admit I play EQ exclusively and was massively disappointed to see 3-400 quids worth of hardware improve framerates by around 5 per second?2) With the RoK update, it was hailed as massive areas etc. Well why can't each zone in Norrath require the same PC? By this I mean I can wander around 1 zone at a certain setting but then try another and the FPS drop drastically. 99% of all games I have played in the past require 2 minutes at the very beginning to sort out settings and then the rest of the game requires no further adjustment. 3) Ah well I'm hoping that this isn't a slight derailment as it doesn't refer to multi core, but there is the whole "UI effect" as I like to call it. The chat window alone drops my FPS by 5-10. Then if I delete all via the F10 button my FPS doubles to around 110-120 FPS. In my humble opinion, time should be spent looking into "greedy" resources such as this rather than the  "effectively" impossible task of multi core  enhancements. I know that I have stated 1 or 2 of these points elsewhere on these boards but I do feel if is relevant. Especially if you own a single core 4GHz rig and are currently looking at upgrading to multi core. My advice? If its to improve EQ in anyway, stick with what you've got.And now my parting shot... No sarcasm and no bs, thankyou Rothgar and all others as I have recently reaped rewards from your hard work. I only complain as I enjoy the game so much, does that make sense??

[Trilarian-2]

To follow up my previous post, these are the tweaks I have worked out over time that have netted me a 20-30 fps gain overall.  Your mileage may vary~<div align="center"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u><b>Overview</b></u></span></div>Unlike most modern video games, EQ2 does almost all the image processing work exclusively on the CPU.  The idea was as CPUs got faster and faster, the game would automatically scale in performance.  However, the road modern CPUs took was not ever increasing frequency, but to make threads to split amongst multiple cores.  Also, back when EQ2 was in development, the GeForce 3 was the top-of-the-line GPU at the time, which did not offer GPU rendered shadows and particle effects (big part of EQ2's engine).What all of this means is that unless SOE does a massive redo of their entire game engine, a better video card will not net you any performance boost.  If you are upgrading, it would be better to spend money on a faster CPU, more RAM, or faster hard drive I/O speeds.Aside from upgrading hardware, here are some software tweaks that may help you out.<div align="center"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u><b>Generic Windows Settings</b></u></span></div><ul><li>Operating System: Many test have shown that Windows XP 32-bit is the fastest OS for EQ2.  64-bit does tend to pull ahead with large amounts of RAM (over 3.5GBs), but on <3GB RAM systems, WinXP 32 still has a slight edge.  So, if you are on a system older than XP try and upgrade.  If you are on Vista, get the free downgrade option.  As for do I pick 32 or 64 bit?  That depends on how much RAM you are planning to have (or do).  If greater than 3GB, get 64-bit, if less, get 32-bit.</li></ul><ul><li><b>Drivers</b>: Make sure you have the most up-to-date drivers for your motherboard chipset, video card, sound card, etc.  Also make sure to get the latest version of DirectX.</li></ul><ul><li><b>Page File</b>: Windows has a file that it stores cached information from your RAM too when it gets low on memory.  This file often becomes fragmented as it scales in size as needed.  It is better to give it a static size so that it is not broken up all over your drive, which increases I/O speed.   Here are the steps to achieve this:</li></ul><ol><ol><li>Set it to 0MB (Off) by going to Control Panel => System => Advanced => Performance Options => Advanced => Virtual Memory</li><li>Reboot</li><li>Set max and min to same size (atleast 2560MB up to 1.5x installed RAM)</li><li>Reboot</li></ol></ol><ul><li><b>File System Indexing</b>: Turn off FS Indexing(improve drive performance) by right click drive => Properties => Uncheck Allow Indexing Service => Apply to folder, files, subfolders.</li></ul><ul><li><b>Unused/Duplicate Devices</b>: Uninstall unused or duplicate devices by typing the following in a prompt.</li></ul><ol><ol><li>set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1</li><li>devmgmt.msc</li></ol></ol><ul><li><b>Monitor Drivers</b>: Install the drivers for your montior instead of using "Default Monitor".</li></ul><ul><li><b>Delete Unused Files</b>: If you are not used to doing this manually, <a href="http://www.ccleaner.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this</a> program will do it for you.</li></ul><div align="center"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u><b>Registry Settings</b></u></span></div>Anytime you fool with your registry, it is a good idea to back it up first.  To edit your registry, run "regedit" from a command line (or the run option under start).<u><b>Menu Responsiveness</b></u>:<b>[HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop]</b><ol><li>HungAppTimeout=4000</li><li>WaitToKillAppTimeout=4000</li><li>MenuShowDelay=20 </li><li>AutoEndTask=1</li></ol><u><b>NTFS Speedup</b></u>:<b>[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlFi leSystem</b><ol><li>NTFSDisableLastAccessUpdate=1</li><li>NTFSDisable8Dot3NameCreation=1</li></ol><u><b>Foreground Priority</b></u>:<b>[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlPr iorityControl]</b><ol><li>Win32PriorityControl=38</li></ol><u><b>Disable MSN</b></u>: This is for anyone that hates MSN as much as I do.<b>[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftMesseng erClient]</b><ol><li>PreventRun=1</li><li>PreventAutoRun=1[/list][/list]</li></ol><div align="center"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Multi-Core CPUs</b></span></div>I don't remember which, but there was a Game Update that suppossedly set the CPU affinity for you.  So this now may be a moot point.  To set CPU affinity for a program, first backup the main EXE(I made a copy of the exe as *-backup).  Then download and use <a href="http://www.robpol86.com/pages/imagecfg.php" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">imagecfg</a> from a command line(change the path to match your path).<ol><li>imagecfg -a 0x1 "C:Program FilesEverquest2Everquest2.exe"</li></ol><div align="center"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>ForceWare Settings</b></span></div>If you have a NVIDIA card(s), here are the settings I used under ForceWare.<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/7277/sli1ae6.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/7875/sli2kk4.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></div>With all the above settings, I can run the game full maxed in most zones with exceptions like G-Fay, Kelethin, etc.  If I'm in a large group, turning down (or off) shadows and flora effects gives me the largest FPS boost.  I have two presets, one which I use for solo and small group and one I use for trouble zones or raid size groups.EDIT => Editted to remove the HTML tags (I have this guide on my guild's website).

[OutcastBlade]

^^^<cite></cite>What are your system specs?Because I can run a raid in Korsha, and PR at 30-80fps, with outdoor areas at 25-40fps, and thats only with shadows disabled.Core2Duo 2.53 (So P4 2.53 :p )2gb ddr2 800mHz RAM7800 GTX 256 mb.I didn't have to do any of the steps above, which I find completely redundant. And I dont get any lag in LFay. Simply having a machine that can run the game is what you need.

[dawy]

Having both SLI and a duel core machine i would welcome some of the changes listed in here but if i'm honest i just dont see them coming sadly

[Trilarian-2]

<cite>Kanolth@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>^^^<cite></cite>What are your system specs?Because I can run a raid in Korsha, and PR at 30-80fps, with outdoor areas at 25-40fps, and thats only with shadows disabled.Core2Duo 2.53 (So P4 2.53 :p )2gb ddr2 800mHz RAM7800 GTX 256 mb.I didn't have to do any of the steps above, which I find completely redundant. And I dont get any lag in LFay. Simply having a machine that can run the game is what you need.</blockquote>I don't lag in LFay, it is GFay that gives me issues around certain points in the zone.  I think it has more to do with the issues of the 8800 series and this game engine than system specs though.  The reuse vertex option helps, but it does not 100% solve the problem.  You mention turning off shadows, thats what I mentioned as my second setup for raids or problem areas. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  I just mentioned that flora was the 2nd biggest boost to turn off should someone still need more FPS.Redundant - no, tedious - yes.  However, you would see a gain in all your games in doing the steps as it is tweaking your system for performance of a single program (your game).For specs, my machine out classes you on all accounts, so your last statement is off.  That is where a lot of frustration comes in, the more advanced your machine the worse your performance will be.Core2Quad 3.2GHz4 GB DDR3 RAM2x NVIDIA 8800 GT 512MB (1024MB effective) in SLIWith all that, I average 40-60 FPS (I cap at 60 because of V-Sync), but in trouble zones I drop to the teens and can have 0 FPS spikes that last for a few seconds.  Switching to option 2 cures the problem.  It would just be nice to one day have one setting for the entire game.

[Espyderman]

<p>Ok first im gonna say to you armchair programmers out there: What makes you think any of these client changes are even possible? Have you seen the code? Do you know how to program at all?</p><p>As a programmer i havent seen any code for EQ2. With that being said, i cant even guess as to what they can and cant do. Saying you know they can upgrade this and that is like saying you know you can upgrade a 67 corvette but you have no clue how they built their engine. Even if you have engine knowledge, if you dont know the corvette engine a mechanic wont state he can upgrade it, he would say "i need to see the engine first".</p><p>So, since that is stated i can clearly state anyone who has said EQ2 dev can make these enhancements its full of preverbial [I cannot control my vocabulary] and is speaking out of their preverbial [I cannot control my vocabulary].</p><p>Secondly, EQ2 graphics by todays standards is very well done. Its not the best, but its very high end. I run a 7950 GTO 512 Geforce and i run eq2 on very high and i get 30fps on average. People saying their fps is low, need to get with the new cards. Im not even using a dx10 card and get 30fps average so im not sure why people are complaining.Also adding DX10 to the game is shooting itself in the foot. The fact AoC touted DX10 as part of their game, then the fact they decided to not release it on game launch says alot of things to me. Number one: DX10 isnt widely supported mostly due to Vistas inability to sell. Number 2: DX10 obviously caused problems for DX9 users still on XP, therefore using DX10 was no feasable considering the gaming market is still mostly windows XP. So DX10 is nothing but a waste of time.</p><p>Thirdly: Even if EQ2 added multi core support, from what i read from actual programmers who make games for a living, doing so would not see an increase in FPS that would be very noticeable, therefore all the work going into that would be considered mostly a waste of time. So what i could get 5 fps more from dual core?</p><p>Id rather see SOE spend their time making expansions and EQ3, then to update our client. If they say its easy and wont impede anything then im all for it, after all they are the ONLY ones who can make such a statement beleivable. I doubt they will though, else they probably would have already.</p><p>So armchair programmers need to zip it, and let eq2 dev do what it does best and thats develope games not talk about it like all us armchair programmers are doing here.</p><p>If you think its so easy to implement, write up your theory on how you would do this, the cost and time involved and send it off to SOE and see what they say...otherwise why bother? Anything you post here in regards to how easy this might be is really falling on deaf or dumb ears (depends how you see it i guess)</p><p>Id love to hear what a dev has to say on this, if its even a feasable approach. Im sure if one dev said forget it, it cant happen for various reasons this topic would dwindle into non-existance and we can look forward to fact instead of fiction.</p><p><cite>Trilarian-2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><cite>Kanolth@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>^^^<cite></cite>What are your system specs?Because I can run a raid in Korsha, and PR at 30-80fps, with outdoor areas at 25-40fps, and thats only with shadows disabled.Core2Duo 2.53 (So P4 2.53 :p )2gb ddr2 800mHz RAM7800 GTX 256 mb.I didn't have to do any of the steps above, which I find completely redundant. And I dont get any lag in LFay. Simply having a machine that can run the game is what you need.</blockquote>I don't lag in LFay, it is GFay that gives me issues around certain points in the zone.  I think it has more to do with the issues of the 8800 series and this game engine than system specs though.  The reuse vertex option helps, but it does not 100% solve the problem.  You mention turning off shadows, thats what I mentioned as my second setup for raids or problem areas. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" />  I just mentioned that flora was the 2nd biggest boost to turn off should someone still need more FPS.Redundant - no, tedious - yes.  However, you would see a gain in all your games in doing the steps as it is tweaking your system for performance of a single program (your game).For specs, my machine out classes you on all accounts, so your last statement is off.  That is where a lot of frustration comes in, the more advanced your machine the worse your performance will be.Core2Quad 3.2GHz4 GB DDR3 RAM2x NVIDIA 8800 GT 512MB (1024MB effective) in SLIWith all that, I average 40-60 FPS (I cap at 60 because of V-Sync), but in trouble zones I drop to the teens and can have 0 FPS spikes that last for a few seconds.  Switching to option 2 cures the problem.  It would just be nice to one day have one setting for the entire game.</blockquote><p>Your x2 Nvidia Setup does nothing to help the game really considering it is CPU intensive. My dual Core is 3.6 and im fine, yours is 3.2 and your lagging? I find it hard to beleive. My only suggestion to you is to set your graphics to realistic settings, meaning turn off specular lighting, turn off shadows (the shadow feature is pretty useless anyways except character shadows, any other shadow increases CPU useage too much) and i also suggest using High instead of very high for some of your settings such as lighting and character shaders, world shaders...</p><p>I can set everything to high, lighting to very high, shadows off, flora up 3/4, specular lighting and such and i get 30fps. Either you got a ton of spyware, or running apps in the background, or you just dont know how to run a system properly. </p><p>I find it hard to beleive your set up causes this many problems. I run a 7950 512 GTO Geforce and i get very little fps lag, and your a full generation ahead of me and you do...either your card is crap, or your system is bogged....</p>

[Trilarian-2]

<cite>Stavros@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Your x2 Nvidia Setup does nothing to help the game really considering it is CPU intensive. My dual Core is 3.6 and im fine, yours is 3.2 and your lagging? I find it hard to beleive. My only suggestion to you is to set your graphics to realistic settings, meaning turn off specular lighting, turn off shadows (the shadow feature is pretty useless anyways except character shadows, any other shadow increases CPU useage too much) and i also suggest using High instead of very high for some of your settings such as lighting and character shaders, world shaders...<p>I can set everything to high, lighting to very high, shadows off, flora up 3/4, specular lighting and such and i get 30fps. Either you got a ton of spyware, or running apps in the background, or you just dont know how to run a system properly. </p><p>I find it hard to beleive your set up causes this many problems. I run a 7950 512 GTO Geforce and i get very little fps lag, and your a full generation ahead of me and you do...either your card is crap, or your system is bogged....</p></blockquote>Obviously reading comprehension is not your strong point.  :)If you actually read my few post on this page, you will see I am not complaining that the game doesn't run as you seem to think.  I first posted my understanding of what improvements would even net a gain if they could find a person to stay sane long enough to implement them.  (Read 7 post up from this one).Then since I mentioned that making some tweaks would improve performance, I took the time to put those tweaks in this post instead of the 8800 stuttering thread I originally posted them in. (Read 5 post up from this one).Then as Kanolth felt the tweaks were not necessary, but that it was indeed my old hardware (and he posted his for a baseline) I responded with my specs which are higher than his said baseline - meaning these tweaks help even on high end machines.  (reread the post above yours)  I also mention that the handful of problem locations to spike me to 0 FPS for a brief moment (repeatable and documented) are more likely due to the fact that the 8800 series have an issue with the release() command used frequently by the EQ2 engine (so 88xx specific).  As a solution, I turn down shadows and flora and have a steady game again.Where in all of this do you see me saying EQ2 should support SLI, or anything about SLI should work better?  Where do you see me mention anything other than the engine is CPU heavy (read my first post)?  Where do you ever see me mentioning the changes would be easy (again read my post)?  I do find it funny you wish to throw the programmer tag around, though, as if that means we should all listen to you and no one else.  I could respond in kind, as I program for a living.  I, however, am focused on database design and maintenance and programming for Linux, not versed in the intracies of DirectX protocal.  I can, though, assure you that my card is not crap, my system is not bogged, and I'm not hallucinating when I see a 0 FPS spike.  I found a solution for me, and am trying to share it with others.  Try and respond withconstructive posts, its a neat thing.

[Zyphius]

<cite>Aoelis73 wrote:</cite><blockquote> Core Technologies changes, are not the issue.  The game engine I would image is able to do some pretty awesome stuff already. Why would you force people to spend more money on a directx 10 compatible video card which are PCI-e only, good luck finding a directx 10 video card for APG support. Shell out some money for a new system atleast. </blockquote><p><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=48&Description=&Type=&N=2010380048&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=696%3A9639&PropertyCodeValue=686%3A25271" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...lue=686%3A25271</a></p><p> Oh yea, that was hard         /sarcasm</p><p>The engine needs a complete rewrite. I don't CARE how hard it is. I PAY for this [Removed for Content] game every month. I was TOLD that it was built to be future proof when I bought it. Dual core, Crossfire, 3GB RAM, and it runs like [Removed for Content]. Unacceptable.</p><p>Either write the engine to be SMP aware and support multiple GPU's, or lose your customers to other games. EQ2, while beautiful, looks no better than many other games out there, but performs much worse.</p><p>Oh... and multi core/multi processor systems were out long before EQ2 launched. Both of the major CPU manufacturers made it CLEAR that multi-core was the direction they were going, and became available to the x86 desktop market right about the time EQ2 launched. If SOE was too wrapped up in their own little world to see the way this was going, then they have only themselves to blame for this major screwup.</p><p>Also, SLI/Crossfire is not a new concept. PCIe was already out when the game launched as well. It was touted that PCIe was going to make SLI make a comeback. Again, SOE ignored this.</p><p>Rewrite the engine.</p>

[Bobbiac]

as a side note, please look at what EvE Online <a href="http://www.eve-online.com/trinity/index.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">did with their engine</a>. There are now 2 clients and i must say they are doing a great job with the new graphics.

[orchard54]

This thread shall never die until the day EQ2 utilizes at least dual core! Everyone who feels the same way, I strongly encourage to send a /feedback every day about it until something gets done!

[TabrisNightwind]

<cite>Zyphius wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aoelis73 wrote:</cite><blockquote> Core Technologies changes, are not the issue.  The game engine I would image is able to do some pretty awesome stuff already. Why would you force people to spend more money on a directx 10 compatible video card which are PCI-e only, good luck finding a directx 10 video card for APG support. Shell out some money for a new system atleast. </blockquote><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=48&Description=&Type=&N=2010380048&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=696%3A9639&PropertyCodeValue=686%3A25271" target="_blank">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...lue=686%3A25271</a></p><p> Oh yea, that was hard         /sarcasm</p><p>The engine needs a complete rewrite. I don't CARE how hard it is. I PAY for this [I cannot control my vocabulary] game every month. I was TOLD that it was built to be future proof when I bought it. Dual core, Crossfire, 3GB RAM, and it runs like [I cannot control my vocabulary]. Unacceptable.</p><p>Either write the engine to be SMP aware and support multiple GPU's, or lose your customers to other games. EQ2, while beautiful, looks no better than many other games out there, but performs much worse.</p><p>Oh... and multi core/multi processor systems were out long before EQ2 launched. Both of the major CPU manufacturers made it CLEAR that multi-core was the direction they were going, and became available to the x86 desktop market right about the time EQ2 launched. If SOE was too wrapped up in their own little world to see the way this was going, then they have only themselves to blame for this major screwup.</p><p>Also, SLI/Crossfire is not a new concept. PCIe was already out when the game launched as well. It was touted that PCIe was going to make SLI make a comeback. Again, SOE ignored this.</p><p>Rewrite the engine.</p></blockquote>I was gonna post my say also, but Zyph summed it up nicely for me.

[Shenyen]

I agree that Everquest 2 needs an upgrade of the engine, but i don't think that multicore-support should be the main focus of an engine upgrade - the game has no real physics system, no client side artificial intelligence, WHAT part of the engine should run on a second (third, fourth) processor?The performance won't benefit from a rewrite of the engine if it would only add multicore-support, just look at all those FPS-games like Crysis, that game is using AI, physics etc. but the benefit of using dualcore or quadcore-processors is very small.The main feature of a new engine should be better support of modern graphic cards, particles and shadows rendered on the GPU instead of the CPU, THAT would increase the performance of the game.They don't need to support DirectX 10 (for better performance with same graphics (as done with Flight Simulator X DX10) or better graphics with same performance (Crysis DX10) because only few players will benefit from it at the moment, but maybe it would be easier to implement it now than later.

[orchard54]

<cite>Shenyen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I agree that Everquest 2 needs an upgrade of the engine, but i don't think that multicore-support should be the main focus of an engine upgrade - the game has no real physics system, no client side artificial intelligence, WHAT part of the engine should run on a second (third, fourth) processor?The performance won't benefit from a rewrite of the engine if it would only add multicore-support, just look at all those FPS-games like Crysis, that game is using AI, physics etc. but the benefit of using dualcore or quadcore-processors is very small.The main feature of a new engine should be better support of modern graphic cards, particles and shadows rendered on the GPU instead of the CPU, THAT would increase the performance of the game.They don't need to support DirectX 10 (for better performance with same graphics (as done with Flight Simulator X DX10) or better graphics with same performance (Crysis DX10) because only few players will benefit from it at the moment, but maybe it would be easier to implement it now than later.</blockquote>You are completely wrong. Try running Crysis on only 1 of your cores, and then both on, and then try and tell me utilizing dual core doesn't improve performance. I agree DX10 doesn't really matter because unless a game is built to take advantage of DX10 features, It wont help much, if at all.To answer your question in your first paragraph, there is a whole bunch of things SOE could switch to be calculated by the 2nd core. Cloth Physics, Spell particles, water, shadows, entities, models, textures, complex shaders or anything client side based in EQ2.You are correct that switching over some of the CPU calculated graphic options to the GPU, would allieviate a lot of the stress on people's CPU's. Although I think changing the structure of the engine for calculations being changed between hardware is a lot harder than current calculations on the CPU having some offloaded to the other core.I think the primary change should be in Multi Core Utilization because it is the standard technology used in any PC you buy, and have been for years. 64 bit and SLI/Crossfire are still relatively new technologies that MOST of the population doesn't have, most likely because it is not the standard in PC's yet. Most 64 bit and SLI/Crossfire PC's are built customely from people who know more about computers than the average person. But this is still something SOE should look into. Or else EQ2 will slowly drift into a pile of games people can't play because it's rigged for ancient hardware that is no longer available.Keeping the engine the same, I give EverQuest 2, 2-5 years at MOST before technology has changed so much, no new computer past 2012 will be able to play EQ2 due to incompatible hardware.SOE "built eq2 for the future hardware not yet available," and that hardware changed, so either change with technology, or get left in the dust. I love EQ2 and I'm going to play it as long as I can, heck I've bought 2 computers now just to play it. 1 PC to be able to run it, even on min settings when EQ2 launched, and another one just a few months ago in order to play it as high of setting as I can. As much as we all love this game, I think we can all agree that something, not matter what it is,  SOMETHING needs to be done about the game engine and its little to no utilization of current, standard technology.

[Shenyen]

You kinda wrong - Crysis benefits from dualcore processors, but only by a relatively small amount, i even saw a test in which a cpu has been underclocked to 1,2GHz and the negative effect on framerate was much smaller than anyone would have expected, what makes the difference between good and awful framerates in Crysis is the GPU.Switching the parts of the graphics engine which are rendered on the CPU to the second core would increase the performance of the game, but it would be a kind of band-aid. and will perhaps even handle physics simulationIf they are going to redo the engine, than they should redo it right, rendering everything on the GPU, because it is optimized for doing these things if Nvidia's PhysX wins the war against Intel's HAVOK. While they are at it, they could also add multicore-support, but when every part of the graphics engine is processed on the GPU, multicore support will have only a small benefit on performance.And you are very wrong if you say that multicore utilization is the standard technology used in every pc at the moment - yes, you are right, even the cheapest PCs you can buy for 300$ will use multi core processors and if SOE won't move the graphics rendering from the cpu to the GPU it would be smarter to add multi core support - BUT the standard technology used in absolutely every pc since the Voodoo 1 in 1996 are GPUs, it's their job to render Headcrabs in HL1, Balmora in Morrowind, dark corners in Doom 3 and they do it sooo much better than any CPU ever could 

[Nembutal]

Some people are saying EQ3 is the solution for these issues.I for one disagree.... if they keep losing subscribers from EQ2 at the rate they are there is no point in making an EQ3.They have a chance to fix their "flagship" game one that people have a vested interest in staying in and re-recruiting their buddies that quit appeals to them.  Or getting new buddies to play.EQ3 on release day with the current reputation of EQ2 will be less than fantastic.  SOE has continually beat down new subscribers to new games by releasing horribly bug ridden code and ripping combat engines out a week before release and replacing it with untested code.  No one in their right mind will want to be in EQ3 for the first couple mths.SOE has to prove to the gaming community that they are committed to quality and to the customers.  If they don't do this soon they will fade... there is far too much competition today for them to continually avoid doing this.  Back when EQ1 was released they had hardly jack to compete with.... times have changed and it's time they realized it.I am happy to hear they are integrating voice chat into the game... this is one feature that people want that is modern.  I would hope they would be smart enough to add this feature in to access a 2nd core rather than adding stress on the first core or I will continue using ventrillo because it will use whichever core is less stressed.I will say they proised us a skeletal revamp and guild housing "shortly after RoK release" and well... shortly has come and gone... right now I am wondering if it will even happen prior to the next expansion.If SOE wants to compete with the big dogs... and keep in mind they used to BE the big dog. they need to revamp and regain the support of the MMORPG community.Not only that but they need to learn from Vanguard's code... too bad they canned so many of those devs when they bought them.  The Graphical engine is WAY better IMHO.EQ3 could really be something special if they combined what they know from EQ1 , EQ2 , and VG into one good game... but without the support of the community even the best of games will flop.  IMHO most of the people I know right now play EQ2 because they don't want to start from lvl 1 in a new game... not because they think it's the best out there.  That's a sign that things are turning sour... a sign that EQ3 is probably a waste of development time and money.  They need to change the communities opinion on EQ2.

[DamianTV]

<p>I thought Vanguard essencially had a UT core...  I could be totally wrong on that.</p><p>Just gotta add tho, again, that the frame rate is really driving me up the wall.  Im in an off phase right now so only firing up every couple of weeks for a few hours at a time, but I have been trying out Age of Conan, and I dont really like its gameplay.  But there is a problem, the game runs very smooth with everything turned up.  Then I try to come back to EQ2, and played for a few minutes and playing with everything turned up even on my strong of a box chunks like a well, it is very chunky.  I just cant get back into playing it again.  Its a shame because there are so many other positive things about the game but if I cant get a decent framerate with half way turned up graphics, I'll have to start playing something else, and I dont really want to have to.  There was another game that had issues with framerates many many years ago that were not resolved with faster machines.  Wasnt a very good game but I've always wanted to see if a newer computer would run it any better.  Trespasser.  (Way ancient Jurassic Park game).  Guess what.  It STILL TO THIS DAY on a NVidia 9800GX2 runs like [Removed for Content] with everythign turned up.  Im sorry to say that I think EQ2 is really suffering from Trespasser syndrome.</p><p>My two cents.  I would rather wait a couple of months or however long it takes, even delaying another expansion and more content to get a good frame rate.  At this point I have to put framerate as the highest priority, even over other bugs.</p><p>Please please do whatever it takes to give us with really high end machines the ability to run at very smooth framerates.</p>

[Darklupus]

/signedme and my whole family wanted to play a good MMORPG (stopped playing WoW) and were sad to see the poor performanceWe all run <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>                 4gb DDR2 800Mhz ram                 8800GTX@625/2000PS: The whole "would you be willing to lose content for (expansion) to fix this?"  WHY YES I WOULD!!! performance wins over content everytime fix this and i can promise you you will get more people then you ever dreamed! content doesnt matter if 80% of your players cant run it<ul><li>Change CPU dependance     </li></ul><ul><li>Add multi core use   </li></ul><ul><li>Make more use of the GPU    </li></ul>