UI affecting frame rate?

[Astasia]

<p>Hello!</p><p>My husband is new to EQ2, thus me handling this situation.  When he is playing, his frame rate is absolutely terrible, so I tinkered with his UI settings a little bit.  He was originally getting 3-4 frames per second.  I disabled voice chat, which took him from 3-4 FPS to 4-5 FPS.  I disabled sound looping, which took him from 4-5 FPS to 5-6 FPS.  The odd part is that, when the UI is disabled via F10, the frame rate goes from slow as dirt to being flawless.  Turn the UI back on, and the frame rate goes back to being slow as dirt again.</p><p>I am going to note that he is playing with Windows XP on a Macbook with an Intel GMA 950 graphics card.  I know that this is not a supported card, and that it's more of a business-end card.  However, it is bizarre that the 3-D game graphics run perfectly while the UI is the real problem.  His system runs LOTRO absolutely beautifully.</p><p>I did a search for this issue in the support forums, and the only response a tech support person has offered on this issue is "That card is not supported", and nothing else.  I am not asking for anyone to magically make it run perfectly, just some improvement.  Is there anything I can do with the UI to make it less of a burden on the game, any tips?  Are there any alternate UI options I should be looking into?  The last time this situation was really spoken of in these forums was in 2006, so I'm hoping there may have been some advancement into the topic since then.</p><p>Any assistance would be very much appreciated.  Thank you.</p>

[Azol]

<p>I am using default UI.</p><p>When in raid in SoH I have 40FPS (Extreme Performance setting)</p><p>If I taret anyone in raid there are players names are being displayed above their heads - and from that simple action my FPS goes down to 17FPS.</p><p>If I clear the target so no names are displayed FPS goes back to 40FPS.</p><p>I would say the problem is with client engine.</p>

[Cassea]

It's not the UI, it's the horrible Intel 950 video.Look at this:<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.extremetech.com/image_popup/0,,iid=106130&aID=153045&sID=1017,00.asp" target="_blank">http://www.extremetech.com/image_po...sID=1017,00.asp</a>This 6200, a slow $30ish video card which is at least 3x faster (or more) and many games will not even run on the Intel.Look at the comments....<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1821806,00.asp" target="_blank">http://www.extremetech.com/article2...,1821806,00.asp</a>We can state flatly that if you buy a system using Intel's GMA950 integrated graphics and want to play 3D games, invest at least $60 in an add-on card. If what you want is simply a system that can run standard office software, plus maybe play some DVD movies, then Intel's new graphics core is probably suitable.<p>You might wonder what the point is of putting all the engineering effort into the 3D core, if it sucks so badly at games? The answer is pretty simple:</p><p>Longhorn.</p><p>Intel's new GMCH will probably run Longhorn's upper tier Aero Glass interface pretty well. And Intel certainly wants that, because its OEMs sell truckloads of systems with integrated graphics into businesses. So businesses whose users want to use the Aero Glass interface will have a solution that works, but the IT budget won't be severely impacted. If you're buying a system for the home with the intent of running the occasional 3D game, drop an extra $60 and get an add-in board. </p>I have Lotro and there is no way on the planet that an advanced game like Lotro which uses much more advanced video "runs LOTRO absolutely beautifully" on the Intel 950. I have run Lotro on the much faster 6200 and while you can run Lotro on the 6200, you have to shut down most of the graphics just to get a playable framerate. Sure Lotro "could" look beautiful on the 950 is true but how do you move on a video card that is at least 1/3 the speed of the 6200?The GMA950 was designed as a cheap laptop video... not as a real 3D video card.Sorry but facts are facts.<a href="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2427&p=3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.anandtech.com/video/show...?i=2427&p=3</a>The problem is that the 950 relies too much on your CPU to do much of the video work and as EQ2 will only use one cpu core and does much of the video work on your cpu this is a blessing and a curse. A blessing for some with very fast "mhz" CPU's because it allows EQ2 to run with some video cards that are sub-standard and a curse if you have a slower CPU because your CPU is too slow to run video and the game code at the same time.Try 640x480 and turn everything and I mean everything off that you can... especially font smoothing. See if that helps.