EQ2 and Frames per Second

[McDozer]

I dont know if I have something set wrong or what....but it is very sad that a game that this game hasbeen out for several years and I can only get around 20 fps.  On newer games with much nice graphicsusing dx 10 or dx 9 i can usually squeeze out between 40-60 fps.  But not here, you guys at sony needto tighten up and get it together with this graphics engine.  The game is beautiful, its got rich content,but something seriously needs to be done with graphics compatibility and driver compatibility.  There isno reason with the current system I am running that I should only be getting on average 18-22 fps.......other than poorly written code.

[Smirk]

its known since ages now that eq2 is very dependant on cpu, so if your running a dual core or quad core cpu at low speeds that could be the reason, could also be nice if you posted your system specs, settings you play in etc

[Beausun76]

This info really sucks. I just bought a fairly new system with a 2.16ghz Duo Core running on Vista with 4 gigs of Ram and a 8800 GT card. I recently upgraded the RAM thinking my performance was linked to having only 2 gigs of RAM.So a lot of us are going to be penalized for purchasing PCs with Duo cores?So the bottle neck is my CPU, not my system RAM?That's bullcrap.Even WoW patched in code to make use of Duo Core Tech.

[Miladi]

<cite>Beausun76 wrote:</cite><blockquote>This info really sucks. I just bought a fairly new system with a 2.16ghz Duo Core running on Vista with 4 gigs of Ram and a 8800 GT card. I recently upgraded the RAM thinking my performance was linked to having only 2 gigs of RAM.So a lot of us are going to be penalized for purchasing PCs with Duo cores?So the bottle neck is my CPU, not my system RAM?That's bullcrap.Even WoW patched in code to make use of Duo Core Tech.</blockquote>With my system specs I can run the game at 40+ frames outside of cities on nearly extreme quality, I just turn off shadows and flora because of the known hit to performance. Your system should be able to do pretty good as well with your CPU and graphics card. There might be a setting, such as the reuse vertex buffers that you haven't changed yet to get better performance. Those options are there because not every system is identical and what works well for one computer might be different on another. Its not the fact of Core 2 Duos being the problem, its only the core speed of it. A C2D is basically 2 processors running at whatever speed they are, slower cores means slower processor. Having more cores doesn't cure anything, because there aren't many games on the market that multithread. There are games that are multiprocessor aware, such as EQ2 but they don't use both cores for different functions so you get the use of both cores, they just don't use them the way people want (and it would be EXTREMELY hard to reprogram this game to do it).

[vochore]

<cite>Miladiann@Butcherblock wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Beausun76 wrote:</cite><blockquote>This info really sucks. I just bought a fairly new system with a 2.16ghz Duo Core running on Vista with 4 gigs of Ram and a 8800 GT card. I recently upgraded the RAM thinking my performance was linked to having only 2 gigs of RAM.So a lot of us are going to be penalized for purchasing PCs with Duo cores?So the bottle neck is my CPU, not my system RAM?That's bullcrap.Even WoW patched in code to make use of Duo Core Tech.</blockquote>With my system specs I can run the game at 40+ frames outside of cities on nearly extreme quality, I just turn off shadows and flora because of the known hit to performance. Your system should be able to do pretty good as well with your CPU and graphics card. There might be a setting, such as the reuse vertex buffers that you haven't changed yet to get better performance. Those options are there because not every system is identical and what works well for one computer might be different on another. Its not the fact of Core 2 Duos being the problem, its only the core speed of it. A C2D is basically 2 processors running at whatever speed they are, slower cores means slower processor. Having more cores doesn't cure anything, because there aren't many games on the market that multithread. There are games that are multiprocessor aware, such as EQ2 but they don't use both cores for different functions so you get the use of both cores, they just don't use them the way people want (and it would be EXTREMELY hard to reprogram this game to do it).</blockquote><p>actualy if i remeber correctly when eq2 launched it did use both cores on duelcore systems but some farmers found a way of useing this feature for farming purposes.it alowed them to do whats called warping or seeming to run at 1000x run speed so soe simply disabled duelcore support and have just never bothered to fix the problem.</p><p>i actualy have a system now on pare maybe just a tad better then yours and i can run between 30 to 60 fps depending on where i am....qh about 30...other zone and instance 40 to 60 fps...and this is with floara and shadows turned on...all other setting to max.</p><p>just think how this game would play if it used both cores.</p><p>my full system specs are in my bio.</p>

[Smirk]

<cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Miladiann@Butcherblock wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Beausun76 wrote:</cite><blockquote>This info really sucks. I just bought a fairly new system with a 2.16ghz Duo Core running on Vista with 4 gigs of Ram and a 8800 GT card. I recently upgraded the RAM thinking my performance was linked to having only 2 gigs of RAM.So a lot of us are going to be penalized for purchasing PCs with Duo cores?So the bottle neck is my CPU, not my system RAM?That's bullcrap.Even WoW patched in code to make use of Duo Core Tech.</blockquote>With my system specs I can run the game at 40+ frames outside of cities on nearly extreme quality, I just turn off shadows and flora because of the known hit to performance. Your system should be able to do pretty good as well with your CPU and graphics card. There might be a setting, such as the reuse vertex buffers that you haven't changed yet to get better performance. Those options are there because not every system is identical and what works well for one computer might be different on another. Its not the fact of Core 2 Duos being the problem, its only the core speed of it. A C2D is basically 2 processors running at whatever speed they are, slower cores means slower processor. Having more cores doesn't cure anything, because there aren't many games on the market that multithread. There are games that are multiprocessor aware, such as EQ2 but they don't use both cores for different functions so you get the use of both cores, they just don't use them the way people want (and it would be EXTREMELY hard to reprogram this game to do it).</blockquote><p>actualy if i remeber correctly when eq2 launched it did use both cores on duelcore systems but some farmers found a way of useing this feature for farming purposes.it alowed them to do whats called warping or seeming to run at 1000x run speed so soe simply disabled duelcore support and have just never bothered to fix the problem.</p><p>i actualy have a system now on pare maybe just a tad better then yours and i can run between 30 to 60 fps depending on where i am....qh about 30...other zone and instance 40 to 60 fps...and this is with floara and shadows turned on...all other setting to max.</p><p>just think how this game would play if it used both cores.</p><p>my full system specs are in my bio.</p></blockquote>i hope you meant shadows turned off :p because not even my system, c2d@4ghz, 4gb ram, radeon 4870 etc runs the game with it on, some zones even bring the pc to its knees anyway hehe, though it does run better than aoc on max settings despite what people say about newer games vs eq2

[vochore]

nope....i have shadows turned on all the time now including enviromental shadows

[Cassea]

2.1 is pretty slow.People just do not do their homework. I'm sorry you fell victim to the Intel Multi-core game but you were suckered.I am looking on newegg.com and I see the following:1. Intel Core 2 duo 3.16mhz = $1992. Intel Core 2 duo 3.00mhz = $1793. Intel Core 2 duo 2.66mhz = $1394. Intel Core 2 duo 2.40mhz = $1195. AMD x2 3.20mhz = $1496. AMD x2 3.00mhz = $1137. AMD x2 2.66mhz = $69All of these cpu's would smoke yours and see how little more $$$ it costs to get a much faster cpu?You are not being penalized for buying a 2x 3x or even 4x core... you are being penalized for buying a slow CPU. The above poster is correct... games run only as fast as the speed of your CPU and 2.1 is just too slow for games that are CPU intensive and EQ2 is one of them.-JB

[Beausun76]

I understand. Thanks for the info. At least I understand where the issue lies now. It's too bad they cant patch in code to rectify or adapt to take advatange of some of the newer code like some other MMO's have done.I cant afford another upgrade unfortunetly since I just upgraded my Video card and RAm hoping that would resolve the issue.I usually build my own systems from the ground up, but I was given a Brand new spanken Alienware PC last year and 2.16Ghz was the fastest they had and they were only offering Duo Cores or the Dual AMD option.I dont even know what speeds my Motherboard can handle and it may involve a BIOS update. Since it's an Alienware mother board with an Intel Logo I have been unsuccesful in finding a website that can identify which BIOS upgrade is appropriate for my machine.I'll see what I can do,  if the game continues to get real choppy me and my GF may end up back on an MMO that runs and performs more smoothly.Spore is looking good and WAR looks interesting since I am an avid Warhammer hobbyist.In the meantime I find EQ2 more in depth and fun than WoW and I cant see myself going back unless they update some features, graphics, etc for WoW.I still have my copy of LotR, so I could always go back, but I hated the limted amount of choices in regards to Class and Race combos. Plus the game is less magic oriented than most MMOs.

[Cassea]

<cite>Beausun76 wrote:</cite><blockquote>I understand. Thanks for the info. At least I understand where the issue lies now. It's too bad they cant patch in code to rectify or adapt to take advatange of some of the newer code like some other MMO's have done.I cant afford another upgrade unfortunetly since I just upgraded my Video card and RAm hoping that would resolve the issue.I usually build my own systems from the ground up, but I was given a Brand new spanken Alienware PC last year and 2.16Ghz was the fastest they had and they were only offering Duo Cores or the Dual AMD option.I dont even know what speeds my Motherboard can handle and it may involve a BIOS update. Since it's an Alienware mother board with an Intel Logo I have been unsuccesful in finding a website that can identify which BIOS upgrade is appropriate for my machine.I'll see what I can do,  if the game continues to get real choppy me and my GF may end up back on an MMO that runs and performs more smoothly.Spore is looking good and WAR looks interesting since I am an avid Warhammer hobbyist.In the meantime I find EQ2 more in depth and fun than WoW and I cant see myself going back unless they update some features, graphics, etc for WoW.I still have my copy of LotR, so I could always go back, but I hated the limted amount of choices in regards to Class and Race combos. Plus the game is less magic oriented than most MMOs.</blockquote>If you can live without shadows and a few other CPU intensive features then EQ2 should run just fine. Not 60fps but maybe 30ish. I have found that under Vista that the forced sound emulation (Vista does not support EQ2 directsound so it runs in slower emulation mode) takes a big bite out of your CPU. You would think that this sound emulation would run on the second core and as such not impact EQ2 but for some reason it shares the same core. When I ran the Creative Labs Achemy program (only good for Xfi and Audigy2/4 cards) that it allowed sound to be run in hardware and I gained a large bump in fps.Now there is something you can do (your risk not mine!) and this is to OC your CPU. Supposedly the Intel Duo's will OC very very well but I'm more of an AMD person so you would have to check into this yourself.Example: My AMD Black Edition 2500mhz CPU has been running at 3100mhz since day one. I'm sure you can get at least 2400mhz and maybe more out of that 2.1 cpu you have.DISCLAIMER: YOU DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. IF YOU SET THINGS WRONG YOU CAN FRY YOUR CPU!Having said this...<a href="http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=9808" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=9808</a><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfqBubBOpZQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfqBubBOpZQ</a>

[Beausun76]

Thanks. I have OC'ed previous AMD PC's myself and found that certain model lines were easier than others. I even had a Laptop CPU in my PC at one point because it was easier to OC and for some reason it barely generated any heat.I'll look into OCing my Current chipset and see if it's worth it.

[Smirk]

<cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote>nope....i have shadows turned on all the time now including enviromental shadows</blockquote><p>i can run character shadows np around 30 fps, but once i turn on environment shadows and shadow specular fps dips down to low 10's or even further.. guess i could try playing with shadows and no anti aliasing but i probably prefer running aa, will try when i get home.. this is with every other setting on max btw</p>

[vochore]

<cite>Smirkna@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote>nope....i have shadows turned on all the time now including enviromental shadows</blockquote><p>i can run character shadows np around 30 fps, but once i turn on environment shadows and shadow specular fps dips down to low 10's or even further.. guess i could try playing with shadows and no anti aliasing but i probably prefer running aa, will try when i get home.. this is with every other setting on max btw</p></blockquote>you should be able to leave aa on becuse thats all done on the vid card.....i leave aa set to 8x."i hate jaggys"

[Beausun76]

<cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Smirkna@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote>nope....i have shadows turned on all the time now including enviromental shadows</blockquote><p>i can run character shadows np around 30 fps, but once i turn on environment shadows and shadow specular fps dips down to low 10's or even further.. guess i could try playing with shadows and no anti aliasing but i probably prefer running aa, will try when i get home.. this is with every other setting on max btw</p></blockquote>you should be able to leave aa on becuse thats all done on the vid card.....i leave aa set to 8x."i hate jaggys"</blockquote>Where do you see the options for AA in EQ2? I couldnt find it anywhere? Or is it on the Video Card Software?

[Smirk]

<cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Smirkna@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote>nope....i have shadows turned on all the time now including enviromental shadows</blockquote><p>i can run character shadows np around 30 fps, but once i turn on environment shadows and shadow specular fps dips down to low 10's or even further.. guess i could try playing with shadows and no anti aliasing but i probably prefer running aa, will try when i get home.. this is with every other setting on max btw</p></blockquote>you should be able to leave aa on becuse thats all done on the vid card.....i leave aa set to 8x."i hate jaggys"</blockquote>did some tests now and cant get shadows to run with a playable fps in towns/ places with few to lots of npc's etc

[Miladi]

<cite>Beausun76 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Smirkna@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote>nope....i have shadows turned on all the time now including enviromental shadows</blockquote><p>i can run character shadows np around 30 fps, but once i turn on environment shadows and shadow specular fps dips down to low 10's or even further.. guess i could try playing with shadows and no anti aliasing but i probably prefer running aa, will try when i get home.. this is with every other setting on max btw</p></blockquote>you should be able to leave aa on becuse thats all done on the vid card.....i leave aa set to 8x."i hate jaggys"</blockquote>Where do you see the options for AA in EQ2? I couldnt find it anywhere? Or is it on the Video Card Software?</blockquote>If you have an Nvidia card its in the performance settings of the Nvidia control panel, there's settings for individual games in there. You might have to add EQ2 by pointing to the everquest.exe program (or is it eq2.exe?) and changing the AA settings there. Then in your eq2.ini file there's a setting to add in there to enable AA, I <i>believe</i> it's "r_aa_blit 1" that you put into your .ini file, I'm not at home so can't check to be 100% sure.

[Cassea]

If you are running at a very high resolution that anything more than 2x for FSAA is a bit of a waste because the jaggies are alot smaller. I like to use at least 2x because it gets rid of the shimmerings and dot crawl you can get as you move.-JB

[Beausun76]

<cite>Miladiann@Butcherblock wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Beausun76 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Smirkna@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote>nope....i have shadows turned on all the time now including enviromental shadows</blockquote><p>i can run character shadows np around 30 fps, but once i turn on environment shadows and shadow specular fps dips down to low 10's or even further.. guess i could try playing with shadows and no anti aliasing but i probably prefer running aa, will try when i get home.. this is with every other setting on max btw</p></blockquote>you should be able to leave aa on becuse thats all done on the vid card.....i leave aa set to 8x."i hate jaggys"</blockquote>Where do you see the options for AA in EQ2? I couldnt find it anywhere? Or is it on the Video Card Software?</blockquote>If you have an Nvidia card its in the performance settings of the Nvidia control panel, there's settings for individual games in there. You might have to add EQ2 by pointing to the everquest.exe program (or is it eq2.exe?) and changing the AA settings there. Then in your eq2.ini file there's a setting to add in there to enable AA, I <i>believe</i> it's "r_aa_blit 1" that you put into your .ini file, I'm not at home so can't check to be 100% sure. </blockquote>Hmm, I found where to change the options in my Nvidia Control panel and changed it to x8, but in the Program FilesSonyEq2 folder there is no EQ2.INI file.  The closest file I could find that resembled any similiar was:eq2_default.inieq2_recent.iniNeither file seems to reder to any aa settings.

[vochore]

<cite>Beausun76 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Smirkna@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote>nope....i have shadows turned on all the time now including enviromental shadows</blockquote><p>i can run character shadows np around 30 fps, but once i turn on environment shadows and shadow specular fps dips down to low 10's or even further.. guess i could try playing with shadows and no anti aliasing but i probably prefer running aa, will try when i get home.. this is with every other setting on max btw</p></blockquote>you should be able to leave aa on becuse thats all done on the vid card.....i leave aa set to 8x."i hate jaggys"</blockquote>Where do you see the options for AA in EQ2? I couldnt find it anywhere? Or is it on the Video Card Software?</blockquote>you have to add a line in your eq2 ini file r_aa_blit 1 and save it...then make sure you turn off bloom effect...aa will then work...just set it in your vid card control panel.since i use fetish as my ui i just made a new ini file that loads my ui and thats where i also put my r_aa_blit 1 line

[Beausun76]

<cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Beausun76 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Smirkna@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote>nope....i have shadows turned on all the time now including enviromental shadows</blockquote><p>i can run character shadows np around 30 fps, but once i turn on environment shadows and shadow specular fps dips down to low 10's or even further.. guess i could try playing with shadows and no anti aliasing but i probably prefer running aa, will try when i get home.. this is with every other setting on max btw</p></blockquote>you should be able to leave aa on becuse thats all done on the vid card.....i leave aa set to 8x."i hate jaggys"</blockquote>Where do you see the options for AA in EQ2? I couldnt find it anywhere? Or is it on the Video Card Software?</blockquote>you have to add a line in your eq2 ini file r_aa_blit 1 and save it...then make sure you turn off bloom effect...aa will then work...just set it in your vid card control panel.since i use fetish as my ui i just made a new ini file that loads my ui and thats where i also put my r_aa_blit 1 line</blockquote>Since there is no eq2 ini file per se, we are going to assume you are referring to <span class="postbody">eq2_default.ini. Correct?</span>

[Beausun76]

Ok, I need some advice since EQ2 is CPU intensive and my current CPU is a Duo Core 2 E6400 which translates into a 2.16ghz L2 Cache 2M and we went over some of the performance hits a lot of us are taking because of the Duo Core clock speeds.The only choices that my current Mother Board will allow are the following:Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor  X6800  2.93 GHz   L2 Cache 4 MB orIntel® Core™2 Duo Desktop Processor  E6700 2.66 GHz L2 4 MB Which of the above 2 would give me the most bang for the buck.Unfortunetly I couldnt find either of these CPU's on newegg.com.I am using an Intel D975XBX Motherboard. Not sure if this is a user friendly board to OC my old CPU with or not.Any suggestions?I dont have the money to folk over $200 worth of new equipment for both a new CPU and a new Motherboard. I would like to be running close to 3Ghz as possible, even if it means OC my old chip through my current Motherboard.Thanks.

[Wingrider01]

<cite>Cassea wrote:</cite><blockquote>2.1 is pretty slow.People just do not do their homework. I'm sorry you fell victim to the Intel Multi-core game but you were suckered.I am looking on newegg.com and I see the following:1. Intel Core 2 duo 3.16mhz = $1992. Intel Core 2 duo 3.00mhz = $1793. Intel Core 2 duo 2.66mhz = $1394. Intel Core 2 duo 2.40mhz = $1195. AMD x2 3.20mhz = $1496. AMD x2 3.00mhz = $1137. AMD x2 2.66mhz = $69All of these cpu's would smoke yours and see how little more $$$ it costs to get a much faster cpu?You are not being penalized for buying a 2x 3x or even 4x core... you are being penalized for buying a slow CPU. The above poster is correct... games run only as fast as the speed of your CPU and 2.1 is just too slow for games that are CPU intensive and EQ2 is one of them.-JB</blockquote><p>Sorry - your numbers mean nothing - if you do the homework and search the reviews the Intel DC core out performs the AMD, including the latest release by AMD. Before you say anything, I run both sets of processors for vertical market software performance and stablity. Same with the latest technology graphics processors cards.</p><p>Interesting read here</p><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQyMiwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA" target="_blank">http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/artic...oZW50aHVzaWFzdA</a>==</p><p><a href="http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI2MiwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/artic...GhlbnRodXNpYXN0</a></p>

[Cassea]

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Cassea wrote:</cite><blockquote>2.1 is pretty slow.People just do not do their homework. I'm sorry you fell victim to the Intel Multi-core game but you were suckered.I am looking on newegg.com and I see the following:1. Intel Core 2 duo 3.16mhz = $1992. Intel Core 2 duo 3.00mhz = $1793. Intel Core 2 duo 2.66mhz = $1394. Intel Core 2 duo 2.40mhz = $1195. AMD x2 3.20mhz = $1496. AMD x2 3.00mhz = $1137. AMD x2 2.66mhz = $69All of these cpu's would smoke yours and see how little more $$$ it costs to get a much faster cpu?You are not being penalized for buying a 2x 3x or even 4x core... you are being penalized for buying a slow CPU. The above poster is correct... games run only as fast as the speed of your CPU and 2.1 is just too slow for games that are CPU intensive and EQ2 is one of them.-JB</blockquote>Sorry - your numbers mean nothing - if you do the homework and search the reviews the Intel DC core out performs the AMD, including the latest release by AMD. Before you say anything, I run both sets of processors for vertical market software performance and stablity. Same with the latest technology graphics processors cards.</blockquote>I never said that a 3000mhz Intel runs at the same speed as a 3000mhz AMD. I do say that a AMD x2 3000mhz runs faster than an Intel 2100mhz CPU and is cheaper.I am not a fanboy. I buy Intel or AMD and ATI and Nvidia... whichever gives the best performance for my $$$.This is why AMD survives today and why Intel survived yesterday when AMD was better than Intel. I'm sorry but a 2100mhz Intel just is not very fast as compared to CPU's that cost only a few $$$'s more.Look at this chart:<a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2007/quake-iv,389.html?p=1272%2C1307%2C1264%2C1252%2C1228%2C1 243%2C1258%2C1257%2C1239%2C1237%2C1236%2C1305%2C13 00%2C1232%2C1233%2C1230%2C1299%2C1293%2C1221%2C128 9%2C1287%2C1312%2C1313%2C1315%2C1218%2C1311" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...5%2C1218%2C1311</a>The Intel Core 2 Duo running at 2400mhz is about the same speed.Intel is clearly the faster CPU mhz vs mhz whithout question.So the AMD "is" faster than the 2100mhz Intel.What some people fail to take into account is the cost for these CPU's. Why do people like me still prefer AMD?Two reasons:1. I will NEVER forget that Intel can and will screw us as soon as they are able. Without AMD their CPU's would cost 3x as much and be half as fast.2. AMD is one hell of a steal. $$$ for $$$ you cannot beat AMD for price vs performance. Sure this means that you must go Intel is you want top of the line performance but the vast majority of people buy "average" CPU's and not the headliners and I still laugh when I read that people pay twice as much for slower CPU's just so they can "brag" that they got a core 2 duo.I'm not an AMD fanboy. I would NOT buy AMD if it was slower in the same "price range" IE $100 AMD vs $100 Intel - If I was rich I would own the fastest Intel $$$ could buy without question. I'm not rich. I (as have many many others on this board) have been building custom systems for over 25 years from the days of the original 4.77mhz Intel 8088 8/16bit CPU that we all replaced with the NEX V20 Intel clone chip (really a 186) that was 5% faster. I have seen Intel dominate, I have seen AMD dominate as did Matrox, 3DFX, Nvidia and ATI (and a few others) and the one thing I have learned...NEVER NEVER buy based on passion. Look at the raw numbers and make educated choices and fanboys who buy only one brand get burned sooner or later because the companies do not have loyalty... only their bottom line.Right now a large number of people are buying into Intel's anual 100 million per year ad campaign to sell us on a name. That name, of course, is Core 2 Duo and people are buying systems that are laking in memory, video or even MHZ speed just to be able to buy that name.I say do your homework and if you can same $100 buy getting an AMD x2 3000+mhz CPU then take that savings and get a better video card or more memory.People buy these Dells, Gateways, HP's etc... based upon seeing "Intel Core 2 Duo Inside" which is a very good thing provided it's a "fast" CPU and by speding the extra $$$ on the Intel name you do not sacrafice on a crappy vid card, too little memory or one of the worse offenders... a crappy Power Supply.If you can afford "all" then by all means even I recommend the fastest Intel Core 2 Duo but when I see people buying a 2100mhz Core 2 Duo I know they bought based on the name without doing their homework.Then they come to boards like this and complaint that something is too slow because everything should run at 10,000fps because they listened to the ad and got what Intel told them to.Maybe this is not always the case but how many people go out and buy a car without doing "any" research? Some but not many. How many people buy a fridge or oven without looking up at least a few models?Well why would people pop $1000 give or take on a computer system they will be using for years and not even spend 10 minutes with google looking up a few things?When people ask for advice the most important questions are....1. What will you use this computer for2. How much are you willing to spendIf the answer is $1000+ then I recommend Intel, if they only have $600ish then I recommend an AMD as its a great value and then they can afford more memory or a better vid card. Saying that Intel is your only option does a dis-service to many people on a buget.It does not take alot of $$$ to run EQ2 very well. What is does take is "smart spending" of that $$$ because if you want you could blow your wad on some overpriced video card ora CPU that costs too much for the speed you get. I did not mean to get into all of this but I do know my stuff and I'm not some blink AMD fanboy who tells people to buy AMD just because I do.I buy AMD currently (I've owned Intel many times in the past) because it's a great value. It's NOT the fastest but it is the fastest for your $$$ and I value that alot. Sorry for the long post everyone.-JB