How high can I run EQ2 without burning up my computer?

[bpgisme2]

<p>I've been playing EQ2 since February and I love it dearly, but my daughter wanted to know if I can up the graphics setting a bit.  She said I'm really missing out because I won't run it better than "high performance".  I tested it in "balanced" and "high quality" and of course, I'd love to run it in "high quality" because, oh my gosh, it looks beautiful!  But this is my main system and I really don't want to damage it.</p><p>What's the highest recommended setting to run on this Dell:</p><p>Inspiron 530 <strong>-</strong> Intel Core2 Duo processor E6550 (2.33GHz 1333FSB) w/Dual Core Technology and 4MB cache <strong>-</strong> 3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz <strong>-</strong> 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT- DDR3 <strong>-</strong> 500GB Serial ATA II Hard Drive(7200RPM)</p><p>I've been running Speedfan to get a chart on temps but honestly I still don't know what I'm looking at.</p><p>Thanks!</p>

[Smirk]

<p>there is no temperature differences between extreme performance and extreme quality so play at whatever settings you think looks best while performing ok</p><p>most hardware is ok heatwise as long as the system doesnt crash, but if your worried you can always look up the max temps for whichever hardware you think is in the danger zone</p>

[bpgisme2]

<p>Okay, cool!  Thank you very much!  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[TSR-DanielH]

<p>Greetings,</p><p>As Vissna stated, higher quality setting should not have any significant impact on your computer's lifespan.  Most hardware these days will automatically scale back when it starts to overheat.  Besides that, you shouldn't experience overheating unless the hardware is failing or if you're overclocking.  As long as you're comfortable with the framerate you can set it to whatever you like.</p><p>Edit: forgot the word 'not' in the first sentence, completely contradicting what I was trying to say.</p>

[Lethe5683]

<p><cite>bpgisme2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've been playing EQ2 since February and I love it dearly, but my daughter wanted to know if I can up the graphics setting a bit.  She said I'm really missing out because I won't run it better than "high performance".  I tested it in "balanced" and "high quality" and of course, I'd love to run it in "high quality" because, oh my gosh, it looks beautiful!  But this is my main system and I really don't want to damage it.</p><p>What's the highest recommended setting to run on this Dell:</p><p>Inspiron 530 <strong>-</strong> Intel Core2 Duo processor E6550 (2.33GHz 1333FSB) w/Dual Core Technology and 4MB cache <strong>-</strong> 3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz <strong>-</strong> 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT- DDR3 <strong>-</strong> 500GB Serial ATA II Hard Drive(7200RPM)</p><p>I've been running Speedfan to get a chart on temps but honestly I still don't know what I'm looking at.</p><p>Thanks!</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #00ccff;">Unless you have done something like improper overclocking then it's impossible to damage your computer simply by overloading it with work.</span></p>

[Timminx]

<p><cite>bpgisme2 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've been playing EQ2 since February and I love it dearly, but my daughter wanted to know if I can up the graphics setting a bit.  She said I'm really missing out because I won't run it better than "high performance".  I tested it in "balanced" and "high quality" and of course, I'd love to run it in "high quality" because, oh my gosh, it looks beautiful!  But this is my main system and I really don't want to damage it.</p><p>What's the highest recommended setting to run on this Dell:</p><p>Inspiron 530 <strong>-</strong> Intel Core2 Duo processor E6550 (2.33GHz 1333FSB) w/Dual Core Technology and 4MB cache <strong>-</strong> 3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz <strong>-</strong> 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT- DDR3 <strong>-</strong> 500GB Serial ATA II Hard Drive(7200RPM)</p><p>I've been running Speedfan to get a chart on temps but honestly I still don't know what I'm looking at.</p><p>Thanks!</p></blockquote><p>Your computer is similar to mine in specs.  The differences is that where your is dual core, mine is quad core and you have 3 gigs ddr2, I have 4 gigs.  I have the exact same video card and sata II hard drive.</p><p>I run my computer in balanced setting on raids and still get an average of 25-30 FPS during the raids.  There have been occaisions where the FPS would drop to about 8 briefly, but as I found out, some other process or program on my comp would start up (usually one of those maintenance programs like the automatic scans or that pop up telling my that my nortons antivirus subscription has run out) when my FPS dropped so much.</p><p>You should be fine running at a higher setting.  I play on a pvp server, so I run balanced pretty much all the time.  If you are on a non-pvp server, and not always experiencing alot of graphics display (like spells and etc.), then I would assume you could probably run high quality and still have good performance. </p>