ooo pretty :)

[orchard54]

1680x1050 Max Settings<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><img src="http://img125.imageshack.us/img125/3609/eq2000058ch0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /><img src="http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/2896/eq2000000er8.jpg" alt="" border="0" /><img src="http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/163/eq2000036fn0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /><img src="http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/6329/eq2000045kq0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /><img src="http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/3116/eq2000053bz8.jpg" alt="" border="0" />

[Zin`Car]

<p>Nice!  have you tried cranking your anti-aliasing up to 4x and your anisotropic filtering to 16x?  Don't forget to turn the anti-aliasing feature on in your EQ2.ini file.  Otherwise it wont matter.  the game wont use it unless you have it actually annotated in your .ini file.  Not sure why SOE doesn't build that logic into the actual options menu for people to adjust.</p><p>one other thing... be prepp'ed to get b!7c#ed at by others for this post.  i made one similar on a different thread showing the power and beauty of 1680x1050 at max quality and so on... people posted more whine on that thread then you can find in Napa Valley, CA.  Made me sad because i forgot to bring extra cheese and crackers for them.</p>

[EnderBeta]

<p>No doubt that is amazing and very pretty graphics. I wish I could play the game and have it look like that. lol</p><p>What frame rate are you getting at those settings?</p>

[Albrig]

<p>In 2 years from now, the awesome feeling that one day this will be possible, will leave a bitter bitter memory in you.</p>

[Dreyco]

Incredible <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> My breath is still taken away from this game sometimes with the way it looks.  It is really a beautiful game.  Best looking one i've seen, and i've played a lot of MMO's.

[orchard54]

I just got my new PC about 2 months ago or so. My old PC I've been using for EQ2 since the game launched, would only run the game at low to minimum graphics. Low if I was solo , and minimum if I was grouped.Also, at this setting I get on average 25-30 fps. Grouped 15-25 fluctuation. And if I turn only shadows off, get around 45-50 fps when solo, and about 35-45 grouped. Haven't raided on this new rig yet though.and in reply to Zin`Carla, from what I understand, Anti-Aliasing and anisotropic filtering is completely unnecessary if running at a high resolution like 1680x1050.

[EnderBeta]

<p>And you're crrently using the machine in your sig?</p><p>Amazing <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Do pc makers accept the fuzz from a empty wallet for these sort of computers? No ... ok what about string? No not that either? Ok well how about credit, I promise to pay you back. *crosses fingers behind back.</p><p>Seriously though, I think its time for me to pawn off my older laptop and dual xeon and go get myself a new machine. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[SilkenKidden]

Why didn't you put the settings in your subject line instead of in the text of the message. I woundn't have bothered trying to view this page if I had known it was so big. Can't view the text messages that follow either because the pictures skew the whole thread.

[EnderBeta]

<p>Seeing your screenshots I went back and dusted off my old rig to see how it would handle EQ2. Dual 2.4GHz 400FSB @ 2.93GHz 533FSB Xeons2GB PC2100 in dual channel2 x 60 GB 15000 RPM SCSI on a PCI-X 133MHz Bus raid controllerGF 6800 GT 256MB AGP overclocked to 385/10921280x1024 resolutionBack in the day it was a very nice machine but meant more for work. Ironicly though if EQ2 ever decides to support multi core the five year old machine will get a nice boost out of it too. But it doesn't hold a candle to yours, I had to trim some setings to get this screen shot and the frame rate just standing there was only 30 frames per second. I suppose I shouldn't complain since it was with shadows enabled and the machine is old.</p><p><img src="http://www.eliteavprogrammers.com/images/Sigs/EQ2_000081.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="968" border="0" /></p>

[Zin`Car]

<cite>Jablambo@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote>I just got my new PC about 2 months ago or so. My old PC I've been using for EQ2 since the game launched, would only run the game at low to minimum graphics. Low if I was solo , and minimum if I was grouped.Also, at this setting I get on average 25-30 fps. Grouped 15-25 fluctuation. And if I turn only shadows off, get around 45-50 fps when solo, and about 35-45 grouped. Haven't raided on this new rig yet though.and in reply to Zin`Carla, from what I understand, Anti-Aliasing and anisotropic filtering is completely unnecessary if running at a high resolution like 1680x1050. </blockquote><p>try it.  you'll be surprised.</p>

[orchard54]

Whenever I turn AA or the filtering on in any games when running at 1680x1050 my framerate drops to the unplayable amount. This happens to me in ANY game. BUT, if I take all those same games and change the resolution to 1280x1024 and turn the AA and filtering to maxed out, it runs really nice, but still looks kind of fuzzy on my LCD widescreen, which native resolution is 1680x1050. So I just run everything at that resolution and it looks crystal clear.

[EnderBeta]

<p>Good thing you don't need to worry about blurring such small pixels to look sharp when the image is sharp. lol <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>My displays are only 17" each so 1280x1024 is native. I don't have the desk space for two larger monitors. It would be nice though if everquest would use the second monitor. I can't even drag the other windows off the main window since they are not true windows but drawn in the game image.</p>

[Zin`Car]

<cite>Jablambo@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote>Whenever I turn AA or the filtering on in any games when running at 1680x1050 my framerate drops to the unplayable amount. This happens to me in ANY game. BUT, if I take all those same games and change the resolution to 1280x1024 and turn the AA and filtering to maxed out, it runs really nice, but still looks kind of fuzzy on my LCD widescreen, which native resolution is 1680x1050. So I just run everything at that resolution and it looks crystal clear.</blockquote><p>odd.  i have no problems what-so-ever...</p><p>i run at 1680x1050 with 16x Ani and 4x anti.  Everything is set to max (except shadows which is turned off).</p><p>running Win XP pro, AMD 3.0GHz (oc'd to 3.3, had been using 2.4 but it died), 4Gb of ram (800MHz, boot.ini modded to accomidate >2gb), NVidia 7950GX2 and West Dig Raptor 150Gb SATA.  Screen is Samsung 225BW -- 22" widescreen</p><p>Not bleeding edge tech to say the least and it looks great and i have no lag, not even on raids.  I have to turn off particle effects on raids though because i can't see my target(s) due to all the magic flying around.</p><p>So there must be something else going on in the background that's making you bog down is all i can think.  I wonder if you have something else set in your display panel that shouldn't be.  here's a screenshot of my video settings.  maybe it will help.</p><p><img src="http://home.neo.rr.com/reaver/settings1.gif" border="0" alt="" width="519" height="386" /></p><p><img src="http://home.neo.rr.com/reaver/settings2.gif" border="0" alt="" width="517" height="387" /></p><p>if not, well not sure what to tell ya.  but if you're happy with it as it is, Rock on!</p><p>here's a great shot of my fae swashy i started messing with.  The image is uneditted except simply to be optimized down from 1.47mb to 500-ish kb.  the glare on the wings is true to ingame effects.  He actually is not pink.  the lamp i was standing near is.  his wings are silver and his skin is a shiney gunmetal grey.</p><p>My avg FPS i get in GFay is 25.  WAY MORE THAN ENOUGH for ingame.  You can drop down to about 10-15 fps and not notice the difference.  I always crack up when people bawl about <b><i>needing</i></b> 30+ fps.  Just isn't necessary in an MMO.  Need twitch? go play Wii...</p><p> <img src="http://home.neo.rr.com/reaver/eq2_000107.jpg" border="0" alt="" width="1680" height="1050" /></p>

[Katariel]

<p>Your pictures are beautiful! I take screenshots all the time, but always forget to crank up my graphics. I'd lvoe to share a picture of my new girl conjuror, off the Throm caves in Timorous Deep. I just handed in some quests in the cave, turned aroudn and saw a beautiful sunset.. Here is the picture, with my graphics set to performance (from the profitui file).</p><p><img src="http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn276/Katariel/Katapult.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="400" border="0" /></p><p>KAt : )</p>

[EnderBeta]

<cite>Luinne@Kithicor wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>My avg FPS i get in GFay is 25.  WAY MORE THAN ENOUGH for ingame.  You can drop down to about 10-15 fps and not notice the difference.  I always crack up when people bawl about <b><i>needing</i></b> 30+ fps.  Just isn't necessary in an MMO.  Need twitch? go play Wii...</p></blockquote>If your frame rate stayed a constant 24 fps + I'd agree with you but you can see a <b>huge</b> difference between 25 fps and 10 fps. 10 fps is not animation, its clunky and more then likely you're getting tons of dropped frames too; it just looks bad. The reason why most people want more then 30 fps is so that when the frame rates are going up and down it still never never dips below 24 fps. It doesn't have anything to do with twitch game play. <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Albrig]

<p>"My avg FPS i get in GFay is 25.  WAY MORE THAN ENOUGH for ingame.  You can drop down to about 10-15 fps and not notice the difference"</p><p>It cracks me up too.</p><p>Here's the very very real truth of the matter.</p><p>If Blizzard decided to make their game engine only capable of running at most, 25fps (because they hated you) - I guarantee you, without a shred of a lack of confidence in what I claim, that their subscription rate would be halved overnight: or at the very least, seriously affect their business model during that year based on their regular forecast model.</p><p>So WoW is no way as good an mmorpg as EQ2. I understand this clearly too. Though I do play WoW more than EQ2. It's not because I don't dislike EQ2, it's because I know my system is fully being used correctly and I'll be damned if I have a game running on my system that doesn't nothing more than burn my CPU out 100% of the time.</p><p>But the fact is, I know that a million gamers will make a clear statement that anything lower than 30fps is simply unacceptable and any gaming company is asking for trouble if they announce their game is below 60fps. Games players are NONE TOO HAPPY when they hear the official figure - now this doesn'[t happen with the PC often; it happens with the console much more; which is pretty obvious why, but doesn't make sense if the developers know the limitation but instead enforce a low fps (that is easily avoided by toning down the game engine).</p><p>GTAIV may be the greatest thing for the GTA community, but it is absolutely clear that the majority of the games player who bought the game were utterly appalled at the frame rate once they got the game.</p><p>Wh did the developers do that? Why not optimize the game to 60fps and cut down the detail and draw distance, balancing gameplay with beatifully smooth visuals.</p><p>Now I believe I am backing myself into a corner with that argument, and this is done deliberately.</p><p>However, my point I am making if one person cries that an mmorp doesn't need to be more than 30fps - why in the [Removed for Content] is WoW running at 110fps on my PC with 16xAF, 4xAA with max detail at 1680x1050.</p><p>Why don't Blizzard just really stick it to the PC and force it down to 15-25 or 25-30fps?</p><p>It's obvious.</p><p>Games players, whether it's a Shoot em up or a MMORPG, [Removed for Content] hate chugging frames or juddery motion. The Srouce Engine was designed to elicit the greatest, most natural graphical effects, whilst also providing super smooth 60-160fps capability - it is HIGHLY HIGHLY optimized. The WoW engine provides enormous draw distance, rivalling EQ2, and still is quite capable of barely scratching the capability of a dual core CPU and makes good use of ANY GPU that I have seen so far. If WoW did Shadows, they would easily work within EQ2's realm. With the Source engine, the work so well that most people don't even notice they exist. With LOTRO, even low detail caused many frame rate problems - which have been sorted out completely over-time. The 60fps you can now get in Ultra detail will slowly but steadily, sell that game better than any PR campaign you could possibly think up.</p><p>Any one who opposes the idea that sub 30fps or sub 60fps is not required in an mmorpg - with a decent amount of detail expected of dx9</p><p>IS AN ANNOYING LITTLE [Removed for Content]</p>

[Albrig]

<cite>Jablambo@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote>I just got my new PC about 2 months ago or so. My old PC I've been using for EQ2 since the game launched, would only run the game at low to minimum graphics. Low if I was solo , and minimum if I was grouped.Also, at this setting I get on average 25-30 fps. Grouped 15-25 fluctuation. And if I turn only shadows off, get around 45-50 fps when solo, and about 35-45 grouped. Haven't raided on this new rig yet though.and in reply to Zin`Carla, from what I understand, Anti-Aliasing and anisotropic filtering is completely unnecessary if running at a high resolution like 1680x1050. </blockquote><p>My PC is better than yours.</p><p>In a group with extreme detail on (ok, I am pushing the reason for my statement here, but what the hell). The frame rate fluctuates so much  that it is unplayable (especially if you rotate your view IN ANY CAPACITY). In a RAID, logic tells me it would be suicide so I don't even try it.</p><p>Solo, yes, I hit the same as yours, but stil can't touch 60fps which always always surprises me. If so much as a single monster comes into view or anyone else for that matter, 40fps is not occuring even at a steady rate. You do understand that if you frames are NOT LOCKED at a frame rate you are not seeing ANY frame rate at all - it's fluctuating.</p><p>Frame rate should be treated as an absolute. In WoW, it's so high that anything over 60fps, your frame rate can change from 60-100 and you would never notice it occurring. But when it happens between 1 and 60, you see everything.</p><p>Every game engine should be fixed to 60fps (especially with LCD) and each detail setting should be designed so when you set to Extreme Performance - you are guaranteed 60fps even if you built your PC out of wood and plaster and a couple of band aids.</p><p>Like someone said, AF and AA is all but irrelevant if you're at 1680x1050 and anyone applying it at 1920x1200 or above is clearly a [Removed for Content].</p><p>Apologies for all morons. I hope to be one one day to experience it.</p>

[Zin`Car]

<cite>Albright wrote:</cite> <blockquote><p>My PC is better than yours.</p><p>In a group with extreme detail on (ok, I am pushing the reason for my statement here, but what the hell). The frame rate fluctuates so much  that it is unplayable (especially if you rotate your view IN ANY CAPACITY). In a RAID, logic tells me it would be suicide so I don't even try it.</p><p>Solo, yes, I hit the same as yours, but stil can't touch 60fps which always always surprises me. If so much as a single monster comes into view or anyone else for that matter, 40fps is not occuring even at a steady rate. You do understand that if you frames are NOT LOCKED at a frame rate you are not seeing ANY frame rate at all - it's fluctuating.</p><p>Frame rate should be treated as an absolute. In WoW, it's so high that anything over 60fps, your frame rate can change from 60-100 and you would never notice it occurring. But when it happens between 1 and 60, you see everything.</p><p>Every game engine should be fixed to 60fps (especially with LCD) and each detail setting should be designed so when you set to Extreme Performance - you are guaranteed 60fps even if you built your PC out of wood and plaster and a couple of band aids.</p><p>Like someone said, AF and AA is all but irrelevant if you're at 1680x1050 and anyone applying it at 1920x1200 or above is clearly a [Removed for Content].</p><p>Apologies for all morons. I hope to be one one day to experience it.</p></blockquote><p>for those who feel justified in calling someone a [Removed for Content] for reasons stated above... make sure of two things:  1, have proof to back up what you are saying and 2, get your mirror out to talk with yourself about how ignorant you sound for making blanket statements which ultimately can and will be disproven each and every time.</p><p><img src="http://home.neo.rr.com/reaver/eq2_000112.jpg" border="0" alt="" width="1680" height="1050" /></p><p><img src="http://home.neo.rr.com/reaver/eq2_000113.jpg" border="0" alt="" width="1680" height="1050" /></p><p>For anyone that believes the differences shown above are minimal, that's fine but keep one thing in mind:  if the above differences are indeed nominal then you have absolutely ZERO right to be whining about wanting anything above 20-30 fps minimum.</p><p>And yes, we all know the sky sucks in EQ2.  there's no amount of helping that no matter what your settings are...</p>

[EnderBeta]

<p>Thank you for the comparison pictures, but please there is no need to yell. That goes for you and Albright. Lets not turn this into a flamefest.</p><p>However everyone said that AA is not as important at high resolutions no one said anything about texture filtering. Here's a shot from my laptop, a 2.33 core duo 2GB RAM and a nVidia 256MB 7300 Go. As you can see at 1280x800 AA is very important because without it you get this. Problem is this config gets a average of 15 fps so aa is not a option. Compared to this the two screens above are minimal, but even so that doesn't mean we can't demand more then 30 fps because when the screen gets busy and hte frame rate takes a dive you see it. Unless Vsync is on a maximum frame rate is stupid, especially one so low.</p><p><img src="http://www.eliteavprogrammers.com/images/Sigs/EQ2_000078.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="750" border="0" /></p>

[Davic]

1900x1200<img src="http://stanton.landofwindandghosts.com/EQ2/1900x1200EQ2.jpg" alt="" border="0" />

[EnderBeta]

<p>The detail in the screen shot looks nice, but without shadows everything looks like it is floating and no based in reality.</p><p> What was your frame rate on screen when everyone was moving about?</p>

[Davic]

I get around 20fps. Shadows are on but they don't always show. I have the AA stuff turned on in the ini file and in my video card settings but no clue if it is doing any good.  My system is E6600 Dual Core at 2.4gigGeforce 7950GX2 1gig3 gigs PC2-6400