Can't run max settings with 4GHz Monster?

[Squirtle]

<p>I've got a 4GHz machine with 2xGTX460 and 12GB DDR3 triple channel running EQ2 from a SSD.</p><p>And I still get FPS rates in the teens and 20's when I try to run at max or next to max settings...</p><p>This seems a bit odd to me - are there some advanced setting tweaks I can do to keep things above 30FPS in all areas and still have great visuals?</p>

[Coolit]

<p>EQ2 wont make use of more than two cores on your cpu and sli wont help either as the game is cpu limited in most cases.</p><p>However at 4ghz you should still be able to run with decent performance. Make sure you have GPU shadows enabled and try without SM3.0 enabled (I assume you have it enabled).</p><p>There really isnt much else you can do except reduce your graphics settings.</p>

[Peogia]

<p><cite>Squirtle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've got a 4GHz machine with 2xGTX460 and 12GB DDR3 triple channel running EQ2 from a SSD.</p><p>And I still get FPS rates in the teens and 20's when I try to run at max or next to max settings...</p><p>This seems a bit odd to me - are there some advanced setting tweaks I can do to keep things above 30FPS in all areas and still have great visuals?</p></blockquote><p>I know the feeling it all lies in the poor graphics engine not supporting a video card all rendering is done by a single core on your cpu and a lil % goes to the second core if u have 1</p>

[Squirtle]

<p>SOE have any plans of fixing this? Do they know it's not 2005 anymore? <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[totlich02]

<p><cite>Squirtle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>SOE have any plans of fixing this? Do they know it's not 2005 anymore? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>I'm in the same boat.  Fighting with frames over 100 in some spots less then 20 in others, some animations not working properly, water ripples dont show.  The only recomended drivers they have in the knowlege bases for the 3 and 4 series cards are for xp.</p><p>There are a ton of drivers out there but I dont want to be downloading and trying each one to find some thing that sort of works.  Funny when I load up EQ 2 there is a huge logo that says NVIDIA on it, one would think my NVIDIA card would be able to run the game (yes I have dx9c, 10 and 11 installed)</p><p>my system</p><p>ASUSP6X58D Premium</p><p>6GB Corsair dominator 1600</p><p>Intel Core i7 920 DO OCed to 4.2 GHz bullet proof stable</p><p>MSI N460GTX Twin Frozr II 768 OCed to 950 core, 1900 shader, 1900 memory</p><p>Corsair H-50 cooled</p>

[Squirtle]

<p>Perhaps next month's expansion will focus on client enhancements?</p><p>Would be nice to have a response from somebody at SOE on this matter.</p>

[totlich02]

<p>First off some of the visuals are busted, I confirmed this by talking to several people on a couple different servers, running different computers and vid cards.  (xp, win7, vista, intel, amd, nvidia, ati, ect)  I know thorncoat and regenerating spores arnt showing right.  water ripples arnt showing for alot of people and 99% of every one I talked to said shader 3.0 junk.</p><p>That beings said, I have managed to get decent, if not great graphics that run at 60fps (refresh synced) most every where, they dip into the high 30s low 40s in Q harbor when there are a lot of people.</p><p>I followed this guide (below) and assumed I was a "high end" system for the purposes of the guide(it was writen in 2004 after all).  I then tweaked settings not covered in the guide.  I am NOT usings shader 3.0, it looks nice is some spots but is busted in too many areas for me to see it as being worth it.  I also am not running shadows at the moment, they are just too iffy.  They flicker and look pretty crappy.</p><p>Out side of EQ I went to my Nvidia control panel and forced Anisotropic filtering x4. and forced AA Setting and transparency x2.  This really smoothed things out visually.</p><p>Hope this helps.  EQ2 has always been a very very nice game visually, they just need to keep up with the tech, which they really are not.  Another thing SONY needs to work on is testing, the problems I found graphics wise I found in the first 20 minutes of game play after coming back after a break.  Either they dont listen to their beta testers or the testers them selves are smoking their lunch.....</p><p>*cough cough* This game is EPIC DOOOOOD!</p><p>guide on 10ton hammer  <a href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/54313" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/54313</a></p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>While I review the thread and try to come up with more specific resolutions, I did want to clear up the misunderstanding regarding the recommended drivers on our Knowledge Base.</p><p>Geforce 3/4 refers to the series released in 2001 and 2002 respectively.</p><p>This is different than The Geforce 300/400 series released in 2009 and 2010 respectively.</p><p>The latest Nvidia drivers are currently supported and recommended for all Nvidia cards, which is driver version 260.99 released October 25th, 2010.</p><p>In the meantime, the top 2 sections of DXDIAG can give us a good snapshot of your particular system and can help me further diagnose any issues.</p>

[Squirtle]

<p>Joshua, does the upcoming expansion address any of the technical problems with the EQ2 client? Are there any enhancements we should be aware of which address what has been discussed here?</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>Unfortunately I am not part of the community team that would receive that type of information ahead of time.  What I will do is promise to post what I can when I do receive information of that type.  But as I have stated in another thread at some point, our quality assurance efforts is an ongoing process that will exist as long as the game is running.  We are dedicated to resolving technical and compatibility issues as quickly as we can.</p>

[Squirtle]

<p><cite>TSR-JoshuaM wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Unfortunately I am not part of the community team that would receive that type of information ahead of time.  What I will do is promise to post what I can when I do receive information of that type.  But as I have stated in another thread at some point, our quality assurance efforts is an ongoing process that will exist as long as the game is running.  We are dedicated to resolving technical and compatibility issues as quickly as we can.</p></blockquote><p>A little concerning a SOE Tech representative isn't kept in the loop on such things. One would think you could at least comment on tech-related matters given you're... part of the tech team...?</p><p>Here's a question. Should EQ2 be able to run on Max settings on a 4GHz quad core 12GB DDR3 nVidia 480GTX system without dipping below 30FPS in any realm, including Moors?</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>I can absolutely comment on tech-related matters.  I cannot comment on an upcoming expansion that I am not part of the development of. </p><p>Should you be able to play with max settings without dipping under 30FPS with a system like that?  Absolutely, but there are so many other mitigating factors.  Aero, running in a window, background applications, driver compatibility, fragmentation, and much more may all have direct impacts on your FPS as well.</p><p>My home system is a Q9650 @ 4.2ghz with a GTX260, and 4GB DDR2 ram, and I do play at the Extreme Quality setting but I do hit large FPS spikes in many of the same locations you or anyone else would experience such performance hits but manage 30+ in most 1 group enclosed situations.  The amount of visual effects available while in an outdoor zone does bring me under 30FPS in areas where many reflections/water effects and shadows are visible at once.  More ram and a heftier CPU per core would greatly increase my performance with this.</p>

[Loxus]

<p>Are you running an i7 CPU? </p><p>If you are and you OC'd it automatically disables the dynamic overclock the chip has built into it (which I'm sure you knew).  I've found that EQ2 actually runs better (at least for me) running stock speeds and letting the dynamic overclock do it's stuff (it self-overclocks one core up to a 3.8 I think I haven't looked in awhile).  Well, at least on the 975, I can't speak for the 920.</p><p>I'm running a i7 - 975 extreme (stock speed 3.33), 12GB - 1600, on GTX-295 on modified extreme settings.  My raid frame rates sit about 25-55 fps (while fighting as MT depending on the encounter) and anywhere from 60 to 70 fps moving around.  Soloing I've seen as high as 104 fps though that's not common.  It usually sits about 60 to 70.  Running around in the guild hall, I'm pretty much running a steady 37-45 fps.</p><p>When I did overclock it actually dropped my frame rates in raid down to 10 to 15 in palace and labs.  Soloing and grouping didn't seem to have any change however.  I only ran it OC'd for a night and afterwards I dropped it back down to stock speed.  I can't really say if the OC was the cause of the lost performance but it's what I equate it to.  As soon as I returned it to stock, my frame rates went back up.</p><p>I'm not trying to [Removed for Content] anyone, just merely pointing out EQ2 and the i7 doesn't seem to like forced overclocking.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>The I7 issue has been the common denominator among many problems that have been cropping up lately across many of our games.  I am trying my best to identify exactly what it is that causes poor performance on a processor that should obviously handle it all and then some.</p>

[Squirtle]

<p>My specs are:</p><p><p><ul><li>i7 950 OC @ 3.8GHz</li><li>Asus Rampage III Formula Motherboard</li><li>12GB DDR3 RAM</li><li>2x EVGA GTX460 784MB</li><li>OCZ Vertex 2 SSD / RAID 1 SATA Mix </li><li>3×28″ HANNS-G 1920×1200 Cascading Desktop</li></ul></p></p><p>I run EQ2 from my SSD, and it still takes roughly two minutes for all of the objects to load in our Guild Hall.</p><p>Joshua, I'm happy to work with you to run some tests on my system.</p><p>Note on Max settings, the Moors will often jump down into the single digits on my system as I fly down into the "bottom" area.</p>

[Daladfar]

<p>If im reading your specs right you have 2 460's running -- as far as i know and have been told before EQ doesnt support SLI -- i have heard some say that this greatly hurts there performance and others have said it shows no impact -- so if you are running 2 vids try disabling one card and see what happens</p>

[Squirtle]

<p>I do not run in SLI mode. I run 3x monitors with a cascaded desktop. My center monitor is in one video card and the two sides are in the other.</p><p>I get great FPS in apps like Black Ops and high 3DMark scores, so having two cards shouldn't cause an issue.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>@Squirtle</p><p>Do you also experience a performance Increase when running at stock as opposed to your OC?</p>

[Conandar]

<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span>i7 950 OC @ 3.8GHz</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #000000;">This could be the problem....your CPU is overclocked, and a previous poster mentioned that overclocking</span> an i7 CPU automatically disables the internal overclocking and EQ2 suffers, greatly.  At least, that is what I read.</p>

[I_Love_My_EULA]

<p><cite>Squirtle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My specs are:</p><p><p><ul><li>i7 950 OC @ 3.8GHz</li><li>Asus Rampage III Formula Motherboard</li><li>12GB DDR3 RAM</li><li>2x EVGA GTX460 784MB</li><li>OCZ Vertex 2 SSD / RAID 1 SATA Mix </li><li>3×28″ HANNS-G 1920×1200 Cascading Desktop</li></ul></p></p><p>I run EQ2 from my SSD, and it still takes roughly two minutes for all of the objects to load in our Guild Hall.</p><p>Joshua, I'm happy to work with you to run some tests on my system.</p><p>Note on Max settings, the Moors will often jump down into the single digits on my system as I fly down into the "bottom" area.</p></blockquote><p>Guild halls. Well, I did not write the engine code for homes, but it seems to me the loading issue is a problem with the game engine actually rendering the objects placed into GH and not with our individual systems. Since each guild hall is different in that the objects placed within it are uniquely placed, there is no way to actually optimize the zone to speed loading times. This might be incorrect, but it makes sense given my load times depend on the number of objects within a GH.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>Your load times will always be partially, or mainly depending on how you look at it, dependant on how many items are in the Guild Hall.  Yes, they are all pre-loaded prior to actually rendering the hall.</p>

[Martinus]

<p>Hello Joshua,</p><p>Could you post an example of your graphics settings ? i to have an i7 950 (not overcloacked).  Or could anyone post their settings that I could compare with mine. Can't seem to get good fps.</p><p>My system is :</p><p>i7 950 stock, 12gb ram, 2x750gb in raid 0, GTX 580. playing at 1920x1200.</p><p>I want to see what others do in settings. i must miss something out. I just want to get constant 30-40fps. Would be happy with that. When I use the pad from  Painheel to Kerra or Toxxulia.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>Unfortunately I am not quite with the times as many of you are.  I am still using a Q9650, 4GB of DDR2 memory with an Nvidia GTX260.  I get access to a variety of high-end machines here in the office however.</p><p>I play on absolutely maximum settings with my specs above, but my FPS suffers.  I can function 100% in instances but when it comes to the outdoor areas my FPS plummets.  In raid, I do go with the Balanced setting, but I also turn particles down so that I can actually see the combat in the midst of 24 raiders bombarding our target!</p>

[vochore]

<p>not sure if this will help any 1 since it seems this is a diehard intel thread"lol" but my current specs are in my sig,just did a new rebuild a month or so ago and with what i have now i have all settings on max,2 spells per person,sm3.0 and i can average 30 to 60 fps thruout most of the game even on raids now.</p><p>only time i ever realy dip below 30 fps is in the gh,i have even overclocked my 965 be to 3.8 ghz and have seen no increase in performance.</p>

[Humayon]

<p>Right. I have built a new system for some upcoming games (crysis 2 for example).</p><p>The system has an i7 950 @4.2ghz with 6gb tripple channel ram, win 7 64 bit, some 10k rpm hds, (SSD not a big fan yet), 2x 5850s in crossfire also OC..Resolution 1080p.</p><p>Now i just wanted to see how big a difference it would be if installed eq2 from my q6660 oc setup and it turned out it was an impressive jump.</p><p>I run the game in extreme quality and sustain playable rates even in raids. In underfoot depths i managed to get over 40fps during a fight but particle effects really cripple performance.</p><p>The biggest fps killer. Qeynos harbour for some unknown reason that place is just stupid. whilst standing still i see fps spikes. high of 80 and low of 28.</p><p>Greayter faydark also brings down fps to 30s and guild halls is the usual case.</p><p>I have ran tests with this system and got really great results on my other games. Anybody who knows pc game knows how hard it is to get to high fps on Crysis (not warhead). With my system benchmarked at 1080p with 16xQ AA i get average of 50 fps.</p><p>So basically if you really have a desire to play this game only and have cash burning a hole in your pocket then get the new sandybridge cpus and clock the hell out of it. Up to 4.8Ghz is easily obtained on air cooling alone. And you will see fps go up.</p><p>Conversely, eq2 for me is not worth the extra money as at extreme quality the graphics look pretty ordinary by today's standards. I  also have to enforce Anisotropic filtering and Anti-aliasing from gpu CP to make them look better but that comes at the expense of a few frames. The texture filtering is just appaling sometimes. Cross fire does nothing in this game and actually i think i have lost a few frames with 2 cards.</p><p>Lastly, i still wonder when the game was launched with the caption "built with future hardware in mind" on the dvd box, exactly which future SOE was referring to anyway?</p>

[Loxus]

<p>Squirtle, check out this post made by another player:  <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?&topic_id=491925">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=491925</a></p><p>Page 2.</p><p>Something about a DLL file in the software package that comes with the Asus Rampage MOBO's  Might solve your problem.</p>

[Smirk]

<p>i have no problems running the game with all settings but shadows and sm 3 maxed. usually run 30 fps+ in instances and heavy zones. wish i could run with shadows on and still get decent fps but can't even with gpu shadows, flying through toxx forest with gpu shadows on drops me down to 25fps in some areas.</p><p>in raids i have to turn particle lvl of detail sliders down to half or so to get decent fps, or turn off max spell results per character.</p><p>system is core i5 2500k @ 4.8ghz, 4gb ram, gtx560, playing in 1920x1200 with 8xAA and 16xAF</p>

[elduron4406]

<p>hi,</p><p>my spec is    i7 2600k @4ghz , 8gb 1600mhz ram, gtx 480 and a 120hz tft.</p><p>in outside zones if i put shadows on it drops my frame rate down 60-80 fps to 30-40fps seems such a massive drop, do you recommend i run my i7 @ stock speed for improvement ?</p><p>if i turn everything to max my machine chugs along @ ~25fps max</p>

[Smirk]

<p><cite>Hammy@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>hi,</p><p>my spec is    i7 2600k @4ghz , 8gb 1600mhz ram, gtx 480 and a 120hz tft.</p><p>in outside zones if i put shadows on it drops my frame rate down 60-80 fps to 30-40fps seems such a massive drop, do you recommend i run my i7 @ stock speed for improvement ?</p><p>if i turn everything to max my machine chugs along @ ~25fps max</p></blockquote><p>keep it overclocked</p><p>you could probably even oc it higher, im at 4.8ghz now with my 2500k</p>