Intel Processor/Game Performance Need Help!

[Arkenea]

<p>I have an Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66GHz    2.67GHz</p><p>Ever since I got the new computer I've noticed that EQ has been a little choppy. Every few second it momentarily pauses for a few seconds. I've heard that EQ had a problem running on computers with Dual processors and whatnot but that there was something you could download to fix it. (Sorta like a patch I guess) So I was just wondering where I could get this 'patch' from OR is there something I can do manually to fix this problem? I thought I read something about if it's dual core change it a single core or something. Well how in the world do you do that? Is there some settings I'm supposed to mess with? Can I turn it back to default settings later? Any and all responses are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advanced.</p>

[Rothgar]

EQ2 doesn't have any problems running on dual or quad core machines.  It almost sounds like you're experiencing the problems that the NVIDIA 8800 series users experienced.  If you're running one of these cards, make sure you have the latest drivers and try enabling "Reuse Vertex Buffers" under performance settings.  If its not related to your video card, then we'll need to do some more digging to find out what could be causing your problems.

[Melodar]

EQ2 only uses 1 core the others just sit and spin. The hitches you describe sound like what Rothgar stated and will prob be fixed if you enable that option. If your running SLI that also contributes to the hitching sometimes as EQ2 at times hates SLI. Most of the time it works fine but sometimes EQ2 throws a fit over it. Turn off your shadows also, they will end up vanishing anyway due to a bug so just turn them off at the start. Some found reducing clip plane to help but i frown on reducing that but it's worth a shot for ya. check the tech forums for other posts on this issue and anyway I am sure a Mod will relocate this post there soon anyway.

[Mezza]

<a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?&topic_id=33475" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...;topic_id=33475</a><a href="http://www.expertsrt.com/articles/coral/dual-core-and-XP.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.expertsrt.com/articles/c...ore-and-XP.html</a><a href="http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=81429" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...ead.php?t=81429</a>Think the third is the main fix. I had this also but its primarily an XP fault which is seen in certain applications. EQ2 being 1 of them. The symptoms I had were stuttering sound which grew worse over time. I know alot of people that have had this and all they do is restart EQ and it fixes it, for a while. Please take the time to read through as this is not a guarantee and tends to fix at different times depending on setup.

[Arkenea]

<p>I have a Nvidia Geforce 8500 GT. I have the latest drivers so I'm going to check out the "Reuse Vertex Buffers' setting and will get back to you. Will I have to restart my computer after making this change?</p><p>EDIT: I went to the Nvidia Control Panel and didn't find any performance settings to mess with. And therefore didn't find the 'Reuse Vertex Buffers'...Is this a setting I mess with in-game?</p>

[Mezza]

Oh yeah to make sure its deffo the core problem try setting its affinity to just a single core whilst running EQ2. It explains how to do this on the site but its basically CTRL-ALT-DEL and find EQ2.exe under processes and right click then set affinity. This will allow you to select just one core. Good luck. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Bakual]

<cite>Arkenea wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I have a Nvidia Geforce 8500 GT. I have the latest drivers so I'm going to check out the "Reuse Vertex Buffers' setting and will get back to you. Will I have to restart my computer after making this change?</p><p>EDIT: I went to the Nvidia Control Panel and didn't find any performance settings to mess with. And therefore didn't find the 'Reuse Vertex Buffers'...Is this a setting I mess with in-game?</p></blockquote>It's in the EQ2 options, not in the drivers options <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Bakual]

<cite>Mezza wrote:</cite><blockquote>Oh yeah to make sure its deffo the core problem try setting its affinity to just a single core whilst running EQ2. It explains how to do this on the site but its basically CTRL-ALT-DEL and find EQ2.exe under processes and right click then set affinity. This will allow you to select just one core. Good luck. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>Doing that is quite stupid. It doesn't help with anything but slowing eq2 down a bit. EQ2 does in fact use both cores, just very bad. It's like the rendering of the UI is done by one core and all the game is rendered on the other one. If you're going to force it all on one core, then it can only be slower, not faster or better <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Mezza]

<cite>Bakual wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Mezza wrote:</cite><blockquote>Oh yeah to make sure its deffo the core problem try setting its affinity to just a single core whilst running EQ2. It explains how to do this on the site but its basically CTRL-ALT-DEL and find EQ2.exe under processes and right click then set affinity. This will allow you to select just one core. Good luck. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote>Doing that is quite stupid. It doesn't help with anything but slowing eq2 down a bit. EQ2 does in fact use both cores, just very bad. It's like the rendering of the UI is done by one core and all the game is rendered on the other one. If you're going to force it all on one core, then it can only be slower, not faster or better <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />" /></blockquote>OK I'm guessing you have typed this without reading the sites I posted. I wasn't recommending running the game on single core long term which is why I said "To make sure its deffo the core problem". Please look into what the dual core problems were before posting, the symptoms were showing that the cores were out of sync and getting progressively worse over time.  By carrying out my quick check this would have proven whether it was this fault or not.I haven't checked as to whether the case is the same when running Vista but EQ does actually predominantly run on just the one core in XP pro 32bit. This can be proven by checking the process when its running and iirc the only load that was seen was on a single core. One thing I did miss was I'm not sure whether this is just AMD or not, to be fair it was late and I was in a rush to get to bed. If you refer to the second site that I posted it does refer to some people having problems with pentium so I hope that the linked microsoft patch within works. I honestly don't know why I bother attempting to help when you just get idiots like you slating things that you haven't checked on. Hell one of the downloads is from the Microsoft website so if they have recognized this to be true then why can't you?