Why is it.....

[Weechoo]

So, today I raided for the first time since I upgraded my PC.  I upgraded so I can raid with actually seeing some effects and to play Age of Conan.Why is it I have to raid on extreme performance, and get 19 fps?  I play AoC at 1680x1050, 16xQ AF, 16 AA, shadows from everything, every detail maxed.I play everquest 2 with nothing turned on, with crappy performance.  Has to be my PC right?I mean a:e8400 3.0ghz Core 2 Duo8GB Patriot Viper DDR2 running at 1067 mhz 5-5-5-15 timings2x8800gt's running in SLI, 512mb of texture memory on each.Vista 64 Ultimate.OBVIOUSLY isn't enough.  This is a terrible disappointment.....I refuse to log into this game and raid with nothing turned on.  19 frames per second is NOT acceptable with this setup.  I'd like an explanation as to why a 4 year old engine that definitely has worse graphics than a new one can't run at somewhat of a decent performance with any sort of quality on.

[Wingrider01]

<cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote>So, today I raided for the first time since I upgraded my PC.  I upgraded so I can raid with actually seeing some effects and to play Age of Conan.Why is it I have to raid on extreme performance, and get 19 fps?  I play AoC at 1680x1050, 16xQ AF, 16 AA, shadows from everything, every detail maxed.I play everquest 2 with nothing turned on, with crappy performance.  Has to be my PC right?I mean a:e8400 3.0ghz Core 2 Duo8GB Patriot Viper DDR2 running at 1067 mhz 5-5-5-15 timings2x8800gt's running in SLI, 512mb of texture memory on each.Vista 64 Ultimate.OBVIOUSLY isn't enough.  This is a terrible disappointment.....I refuse to log into this game and raid with nothing turned on.  19 frames per second is NOT acceptable with this setup.  I'd like an explanation as to why a 4 year old engine that definitely has worse graphics than a new one can't run at somewhat of a decent performance with any sort of quality on.</blockquote>Need to look at the system, run on highest graphic settings in raid with only shadows (personal choice) and particle effects off on a similiar system. major difference is I rma's the 8800's because of problems with EQ2 and numerous other games and went back to my set of 7950GX2's

[Cassea]

The answer is easy...EQ2 only uses 1 core of your CPU and all the other cores do nothing.EQ2 does not use many features of your video card, running many things that are supposed to run on your much faster video card on your CPU.So when you only use one core and then saddle that one core with doing both it's own job and the job of many video functions you have a game with an out of date engine that needs to be fixed.SOE rewrote the EQ1 graphics engine twice. They have yet to touch the Star Wars Galaxy engine that EQ2 uses in over 4+ years.It's long long overdue but speculation is that SOE will not spend the $$$ to do so.I love EQ2. I love the gameplay, the races, the classes, the zones... everything "but" the outdated graphics. Sure they are better than some games that came out before EQ2 but right now that are showing their age and there is little you can do to fix it.Spend $1000 and upgrade to the fastest CPU and fastest video card on the market and you get very very little return for that investment.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" />-JB

[TSR-TrevorG]

<img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[TSR-DanielH]

Greetings,If you haven't already, you may want to turn on the 'reuse vertex buffers' for the game.  This is an option under the display settings in game.  Turning that feature on seems to help performance for people with your specific card. 

[Weechoo]

<cite>TSR-DanielH wrote:</cite><blockquote>Greetings,If you haven't already, you may want to turn on the 'reuse vertex buffers' for the game.  This is an option under the display settings in game.  Turning that feature on seems to help performance for people with your specific card.  </blockquote>Thanks, I'll try this, but having to run the game painfully bland makes me really wonder When there are games that recently launched or launching soon with easily 10x the detail and effects that run super, yet this game has 0 support for *todays* hardware.  It'd be nice to see some sort of effects while raiding.  And thanks for suggesting something and not just posting a sad face.Real professional support there, Trevor.

[TSR-TrevorG]

I'm sorry, but my frown was referring to "<span class="postbody">SOE rewrote the EQ1 graphics engine twice. They have yet to touch the Star Wars Galaxy engine that EQ2 uses in over 4+ years."I'm glad Daniel and the others was able to support you though sir.</span>

[Prestissimo]

I've got a few suggestions to help.  I found myself in that same unfortunate boat and was quite disappointed,  but rest assured that it has nothing to do with your system, and thats unfortunately just how things are.  In the mean time, there are several ways to increase your fps.  Keep in mind that one very high priority culprit of decreased FPS is actually the UI.  I'll cover a couple basic things you can do to reduce it's impact as well.1. Turning on the "Reuse Vortex Shaders" was already mentioned, but it does help.2. Turn off your targeting ring.3. Any windows that you do not constantly use, set the window settings to be "Normal Opacity" of 0 and Hover over opacity what ever the value that you desire, because each of these windows that are on seem to lower the fps.  The reasoning lies somewhere in the text and the fact that every frame, the system refreshes each of these windows and thus taxes a little more.  I'm pretty sure that at lvl 80, 140 aas, and 80 crafter, you probably never use the exp bar, and when raiding for loot and not quest updates, the quest journal can go, likewise, the compass, date windown, and start button could all go 100% opaque as well without missing them.4. Set your text to NOT use smooth fonts, it looks a little ugly, but will increase the fps a noticeable bit.5. An option is to disable as many chat channels and chat options as possible since every single line is one extra packet of info coming to you and being put into the window.  Although nickel and diming the chat channels wont do more than maybe 1 FPS, every little bit still helps.  The key to optimizing chat output is that if it's being posted into a tab, it is affecting the system tax, whether it is in the visible tab or a hidden one, it still hits your fps and ping to some degree.6. You could always just memorize your recast timers and all the other things that you do durring the fight and hit F10 2 times, but thats REALLY difficult to do unless you're a caster and just spam 1,2,1,3,1,2,1,4,etc.Just doing the top 4 things should increase your fps quite a bit.  It put me at the point where I could fluidly cast healer spells with flora and all the particle effects in the highest quality settings (standing in town of course).  Using #6, you can see exactly what your system is capable of doing with perfect optimization, but I'd almost recommend not testing it since it will make you as obsessed as I have become to maximize the UI to the point that I code my own.  There are many different threads and lists of trials and errors going on daily within eq2flames and eq2 interface's forums.  I'd recommend browsing around their forum via a search for "Increase FPS".  I seem to find ways to eek an extra ounce every week or so out of my system just by keeping updated on all the different tricks out there, but alot of these are more advanced alterations to the .xml files in the UI directory, or by digging into the system specs to tweak it's performance.  I wouldn't recommend going bananas with these unless your fairly savy on this type of activity as it could be very damaging to the system unless you know what your system can do safely.  Thats all I'll put in for now.

[Zliks]

<p>In the May 8th dev chat on Allakhazam it was stated "We are definitely looking into graphics improvements as well as utilizing multiple cores." I've also seen a recent reference to them wanting to move more of the load to the GPU.</p><p>So while improvements might not be right around the corner, at least they are in the works.</p>

[Cassea]

<cite>TSR-TrevorG wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm sorry, but my frown was referring to "<span class="postbody">SOE rewrote the EQ1 graphics engine twice. They have yet to touch the Star Wars Galaxy engine that EQ2 uses in over 4+ years."I'm glad Daniel and the others was able to support you though sir.</span></blockquote>Let me somewhat justify my comment. I know that changes have happened in 4+ years to the graphics in EQ2 but the fact is that EQ1 did get two complete and total graphics revamps. Yes it can be argued that the SWG or shall I say "modified" SWG graphics engine was/is in better shape than the EQ1 engine but we have hit a wall here and now.When people are actually "downgrading" their performance with EQ2 as they "upgrade" their CPU's from faster single core (in MHZ) CPU's to slower multi-cores then something needs to be done and done fast.So look at it this way....You buy a brand new multi-core computer with Vista and a new video card and you take multiple hits...1. Multi-core's are often slightly slower when running single core apps2. Vista is slower when running a game designed for XP3. Vista runs the sound in slow software mode because EQ2 uses directsound instead of OpenAL.4. Your new "faster" video card can actually be slower because the newer video cards are optimized for the newer tech which EQ2 really does not useI know you are sick of hearing this but Lotro has been out for about a year now and it's a fine example of what can be done with Vista, Multi-Core, Modern Video Cards and OpenAL when you design a game from the ground up.Vista is not the problemOpenAL is not the problemMulti-Core is not the problemModern Video Cards are not the problemThe problem is that EQ2 needs a new graphics engine. I know this takes a ton of work and lots of cash but as I have also said before... we pay $15 a month just like all the other games. Heck... do it like EQ1 did... make the new graphics part of an expansion so you can recoup some of the costs. I love EQ2! I love everything about it but a few years ago I would show people EQ2 and they would be amazed at the graphics... enough to give the game a shot. Today I show it to them and they go... Ack!When people are used to COD4, Lotro, Bioshock and all the other scores of games with jaw dropping graphics... they look at EQ2 and the graphics look pretty bad. There is nothing about EQ2 that would prevent, for example, the game being moved over to the Unreal3 engine aside from $$$.I'm a realist and I do not think that SOE will spend the money on a game they feel is a has-been. Not a has-been you say? They where are the ads for EQ2 on the web, print media or anywhere else? I see WoW ads all the time and while I understand that are making 20x the money that EQ2 is I can't help feeling that SOE's "supposed" flagship game has seen better days.In closing just let me mention something...I built someone a system using 3-4 year old parts that were sitting on the shelf. This "frankenstein monster" of a machine plays EQ2 better than my custom built $2000 computer! My multicore $200 cpu runs EQ2 slower than the $30 CPU I put in. My $200 video card runs no faster than the $50 video card I put in. My 4 gig of memory runs the game no better than the 1gig of unmatched I popped into this crap system. Yes I will admit that some of this is due to the XP vs Vista but there can be many tweaks to help performance in Vista. Vista is not evil... it's just different. I know I'll get bashed by the anti-microsoft, anti-vista people here but I have played dozens of games designed for Vista and they run the games about the same speed as XP does.Why?-JBP.S. Please do not ever take my posts to be a knock on the programmers or other support staff at SOE. They have done amazing things with very limited resources and have, in fact, pulled EQ2 from the brink a few years ago into a really fun game. My hats are off to them! My ire falls on those bean counters at SOE who are only interested in maximizing profits and can see into the future no further that the next profit quarter.  If this is not true then let me assure you that the "perception" is that SOE has become the company that run/buys off has-been or never-was titles with little or no support... or just the very bare minimum to keep a core group of people paying. Fact? Maybe not but actions speak louder than words and right now we have no words or action... just hollow promises of "new toon graphics" or "we know the game needs some work" While making promises ahead of time can often come back to bite you in the backside at least we have some hope for the future. Tell me a new graphics engine, for example, will be introduced next year and this "hope" will allow me to justify all the issues we have now. Do we have hope?Hard to swallow when others are moving to some of the more modern MMORPG's without these issues. Sure "we" know that EQ2 has real substance but how many others know? As the numbers of subscribers on many servers dwindle it matters not how good EQ2 is when you cannot fine people to play with. EQ2 as a solo game does not compare to many of the non-monthly fee solo games out their now.

[Cassea]

<cite>Zliks wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>In the May 8th dev chat on Allakhazam it was stated "We are definitely looking into graphics improvements as well as utilizing multiple cores." I've also seen a recent reference to them wanting to move more of the load to the GPU.</p><p>So while improvements might not be right around the corner, at least they are in the works.</p></blockquote>I pray you are correct. It's great that they are talking about it. Now how about actually doing something about it? How about posting a "state of the game" post like they used to years ago... at least I seem to remember them from EQ1.When we are able to get more info from some of the devs personal Blogs vs the official channels then clearly something is wrong.-JB

[Zliks]

<cite>Cassea wrote:</cite><blockquote>When we are able to get more info from some of the devs personal Blogs vs the official channels then clearly something is wrong.-JB</blockquote>To be fair, I came across the information on the News section of the EQ2 Players site. Part of the problem is that different people have different ideas of what constitues "official channels".

[Weechoo]

Something in this thread made me get 30 fps on extreme quality while raiding in CoD and VP.Thank you.

[ganjookie]

woot technie nerd drama!

[ClawHammr]

<cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Something in this thread made me get 30 fps on extreme quality while raiding in CoD and VP.Thank you.</blockquote>Can you define what "Something" is ?

[Weechoo]

<cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Something in this thread made me get 30 fps on extreme quality while raiding in CoD and VP.Thank you.</blockquote>Can you define what "Something" is ?</blockquote>I turned on Reuse Vertex Shaders and turned off targeting rings.  Pretty sure thats everything I did.  I have 8 max quality max distance particle effects on now, per character.Very smooth, even in zones that destroy performance like VP, Mistmoore castle, and Chamber of Destiny.

[ClawHammr]

<cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Something in this thread made me get 30 fps on extreme quality while raiding in CoD and VP.Thank you.</blockquote>Can you define what "Something" is ?</blockquote>I turned on Reuse Vertex Shaders and turned off targeting rings.  Pretty sure thats everything I did.  I have 8 max quality max distance particle effects on now, per character.Very smooth, even in zones that destroy performance like VP, Mistmoore castle, and Chamber of Destiny.</blockquote><p>Thats good news</p><p>Imagine what EQ2 would look like if it took advantage of multi-cores and more of the GPUs <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Wingrider01]

<cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Something in this thread made me get 30 fps on extreme quality while raiding in CoD and VP.Thank you.</blockquote>Can you define what "Something" is ?</blockquote>I turned on Reuse Vertex Shaders and turned off targeting rings.  Pretty sure thats everything I did.  I have 8 max quality max distance particle effects on now, per character.Very smooth, even in zones that destroy performance like VP, Mistmoore castle, and Chamber of Destiny.</blockquote><p>Thats good news</p><p>Imagine what EQ2 would look like if it took advantage of multi-cores and more of the GPUs <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></p></blockquote>without a complete redesign of the graphics themselves (not the rendering engine), probably the same.

[ClawHammr]

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Something in this thread made me get 30 fps on extreme quality while raiding in CoD and VP.Thank you.</blockquote>Can you define what "Something" is ?</blockquote>I turned on Reuse Vertex Shaders and turned off targeting rings.  Pretty sure thats everything I did.  I have 8 max quality max distance particle effects on now, per character.Very smooth, even in zones that destroy performance like VP, Mistmoore castle, and Chamber of Destiny.</blockquote><p>Thats good news</p><p>Imagine what EQ2 would look like if it took advantage of multi-cores and more of the GPUs <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />" width="15" height="15"></p></blockquote>without a complete redesign of the graphics themselves (not the rendering engine), probably the same.</blockquote>Imagine then how it would <b>perform </b>

[Wingrider01]

<cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Something in this thread made me get 30 fps on extreme quality while raiding in CoD and VP.Thank you.</blockquote>Can you define what "Something" is ?</blockquote>I turned on Reuse Vertex Shaders and turned off targeting rings.  Pretty sure thats everything I did.  I have 8 max quality max distance particle effects on now, per character.Very smooth, even in zones that destroy performance like VP, Mistmoore castle, and Chamber of Destiny.</blockquote><p>Thats good news</p><p>Imagine what EQ2 would look like if it took advantage of multi-cores and more of the GPUs <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />" width="15" height="15"></p></blockquote>without a complete redesign of the graphics themselves (not the rendering engine), probably the same.</blockquote>Imagine then how it would <b>perform </b></blockquote>How do you get around the biggest bottleneck for performance - the internet?

[Cassea]

Why?Right now EQ2 uses subroutines to perform graphics calculations on your CPU. What is so hard, aside from the programming and testing, of rerouting those routines to use video card calls instead of CPU calls?Work yes but very doable and it does not mean the game has to be totally redone from scratch.I think we all would be shocked if we knew how few people are actually on the payroll for EQ2 Live. Hiring programmers cost alot of money. Can SOE afford it? Of course they could but each programmer costs at least $100,000 for payroll and benefits. 10 programmers cost a cool million bucks give or take. Why should SOE spend that kind of money if we are content to play an aging game with an out of date graphics engine?Will they ever get that money back? Will spending a million dollars make them more than if they would just tweak the graphics with the existing skeleton crew of programmers? SOE will not change course unless they see that not spending the money will cost them in the long run. As long as we have people who say "so what? I don't care about graphics" they will be able to hang their hat on that.I do not expect we'll ever get a new graphics engine. EQ2 is in "milk mode" and the goal right now is to spend as little money as possible to keep the largest number of people just happy enough to keep paying. Eventually they will reach a point in time (maybe we're already here) in which they have a solid core group of people who will play EQ2 no matter what. Like UO has. Even 50,000 people paying $15 a month is a nice profit if you keep your expenses down. IMHO the most we can hope for is a few tweaks here and there and maybe (PLEASE!) a new set of toon graphics which has been hinted at for quite some time without any firm date. If I know SOE they are going to hold this for this falls expansion and toss in a few zones and call it an expansion. After all... why give us something for free even though we are paying a monthly fee?-JBP.S. Kunark was very nice so I'm holding my breath that I'm all wrong on this <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Cassea]

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Something in this thread made me get 30 fps on extreme quality while raiding in CoD and VP.Thank you.</blockquote>Can you define what "Something" is ?</blockquote>I turned on Reuse Vertex Shaders and turned off targeting rings.  Pretty sure thats everything I did.  I have 8 max quality max distance particle effects on now, per character.Very smooth, even in zones that destroy performance like VP, Mistmoore castle, and Chamber of Destiny.</blockquote><p>Thats good news</p><p>Imagine what EQ2 would look like if it took advantage of multi-cores and more of the GPUs <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" width="15" height="15" />" width="15" height="15"></p></blockquote>without a complete redesign of the graphics themselves (not the rendering engine), probably the same.</blockquote>Imagine then how it would <b>perform </b></blockquote>How do you get around the biggest bottleneck for performance - the internet?</blockquote>The internet is not a bottleneck. The internet has latency or lag. A game such as COD4 can have 64 players all in close proximity with far far better graphics than EQ2 does and still handle it far better than EQ2 does not. The difference is that COD4 uses a new graphics engine that puts those shiny graphics on your video card where they belong and also uses multi-cores. Lotro has far better graphics than EQ2 yet has little issue with framerate... they do have an issue with slight pauses in large towns.Playing on a modem... yes the internet will be an issue... on Cable or DSL... NP <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />-JB

[Wingrider01]

<cite>Cassea wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>ClawHammr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Weechoo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Something in this thread made me get 30 fps on extreme quality while raiding in CoD and VP.Thank you.</blockquote>Can you define what "Something" is ?</blockquote>I turned on Reuse Vertex Shaders and turned off targeting rings.  Pretty sure thats everything I did.  I have 8 max quality max distance particle effects on now, per character.Very smooth, even in zones that destroy performance like VP, Mistmoore castle, and Chamber of Destiny.</blockquote><p>Thats good news</p><p>Imagine what EQ2 would look like if it took advantage of multi-cores and more of the GPUs <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" width="15" height="15" />" width="15" height="15"></p></blockquote>without a complete redesign of the graphics themselves (not the rendering engine), probably the same.</blockquote>Imagine then how it would <b>perform </b></blockquote>How do you get around the biggest bottleneck for performance - the internet?</blockquote>The internet is not a bottleneck. The internet has latency or lag. A game such as COD4 can have 64 players all in close proximity with far far better graphics than EQ2 does and still handle it far better than EQ2 does not. The difference is that COD4 uses a new graphics engine that puts those shiny graphics on your video card where they belong and also uses multi-cores. Lotro has far better graphics than EQ2 yet has little issue with framerate... they do have an issue with slight pauses in large towns.Playing on a modem... yes the internet will be an issue... on Cable or DSL... NP <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src=" width="15" height="15" />" width="15" height="15">-JB</blockquote><p>Played Lotro, think the graphics compare to WOW's. </p><p>Sorry, but latency is present in every connection, from the lowly DSL circuit to the bonded T1's. The only place you get your promised level connections is from your dmark to the providers dmark, once it goes onto the backbones you are subject to the exact same conditions that are present in POTS DUP modems. </p><p>Currently run my systems at the highest graphic settings with shadows turned off(personal preference). Only time I have to turn the particle effects down is in a full raid, other then that it is set and forgot. Never bother to compare apples to oranges, the game you mention does not use the same network setup as what a eq2 server farm uses, so the comparision is not valid.</p>