How do I keep the game from unloading zones?

[Terina]

<p>What's the one thing that every person has, but nobody ever seems to have enough of? -- Answer: Time.</p><p>Time is an important factor on many levels. Many people playing the game suffer from an incurable case of A.D.D. and they don't want to have to wait while 1 or 2 group members load a new zone.</p><p>Personally, I am tired of waiting every single time I change zones. I want instantaneous zoning. No, what I really want, is for the game to stop unloading a zone I just left, and loading all of the resources, entities, etc. for the zone I'm entering.</p><p>I bought the disc version of the Sentinel's Fate expansion in the hopes that by actually installing all of the files on my hard drive, that this would speed up my zoning issues. It has not fixed the problem. I have tried looking around in my settings on the Station Launcher, but I find nothing that even resembles a setting to keep the zones I've been to loaded.</p><p>I'm at a loss for what to do, or how to do it. I've recently stopped using the Station Launcher in an attempt to change this issue, but I'm still dealing with it, and I don't want to deal with it any more.</p><p>Please help. Thank you.</p>

[Vonotar]

<p>Get an SSD drive for EQ2.</p><p>When you zone, the game has to load the zone from your HDD and load the list of other people etc who are in the zone.</p>

[Terina]

<p>I'm unfamiliar with what an SSD drive is. Would you be willing to educate me a little on what it is, and how to go about getting one? I'm not as tech savvy as I once was.</p><p>Edit* Just figured out what an SSD Drive is. -- Not quite ready to overhaul my system. Surely there's a less costly way to address the issue?</p>

[Skywarrior]

<p><cite>Noob71 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I bought the disc version of the Sentinel's Fate expansion in the hopes that by actually installing all of the files on my hard drive, that this would speed up my zoning issues. It has not fixed the problem. I have tried looking around in my settings on the Station Launcher, but I find nothing that even resembles a setting to keep the zones I've been to loaded.</p></blockquote><p>About the only thing you accomplished by installing the game from the disc (assuming you were already up and running EQ2 prior to the install) was to incur an unnecessary download as the Launcher re-patched all the old files you just loaded from the discs and taking you right back to the configuration you started with.  Everyone runs the same files (all of which reside on the client harddrive) and the game will not allow you to log into the game until and unless you are running the current live version of all files.</p><p>The only thing that will speed up your zoning is 1) a faster harddrive for the game (such as a Solid State Drive (SSD), 2) more system ram to minimize harddrive access, 3) faster system ram, 4) a faster CPU (note I said faster and not "more cores" - clock speed is king with EQ2).  In other words - hardware overhaul and optimization.</p>

[Tallisman]

<p>An SSD would certainly improve zone load times as Skywarrior suggests - a small sized one to house just EQ2 shouldn't break the bank although the pounds (or dollars or whatever currency you have) per gig is still a little high. Another option would be to mount a 10K Raptor drive. Either should be easy enough to install as a slave from which you should be able to play and neither are really a system overhaul.</p><p>(Caveat: I said "should" but you can never rule out something unforseen <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /> )</p>