Time for a change with the spell Spirit of the Wolf [Archive]

urgthock

04-19-2011, 12:28 PM

I think that the spell Spirit of the Wolf should be made to stack with all player mounts. This would revitalize the use of Spirit of the Wolf spell and it would suddenly be a useful and much used spell once again, particularly when you consider the fact that it is one of the very few spells that can be cast on others that are not in a group with you. Then all they would have to do is alter the mystic and warden AA that increase the speed of SoW to instead increase the duration (substantially more than the Warden AA does currently). Leave it at a flat 25% increase to movement speed and watch the crys of "donating for SoW" fly. Whatever economical impact this may or may not have, I still think it would be a worthwhile change.What do you think?

Seiffil

04-19-2011, 01:55 PM

No. It still has uses in dungeons where mount runspeed does not apply. Mounts as it is are fast enough and easy enough to get. If you had an active account and got all the rewards leading up to DoV release, you have a 70% runspeed mount. If you have an adventurer or tradeskiller who's high enough, you can get the flying mount who runs on the ground at 75%. These spells have use, just because they don't contribute when you're running around in the open with a mount doesn't mean they need to be improved. Also if you have enough +runspeed items, your runspeed will actually be used over the mount's runspeed, and that's where SoW is taken into account, just like pathfinding, or Selos.

Gungo

04-19-2011, 03:20 PM

There is a virtual cap on runspeed because at higher speeds it causes tremendous lag and rendering issues.This is why flying speed is much higher then run speed (less to render) and also why you also dont see any major increases in mount speed each expansion.

SomeDude

04-21-2011, 09:02 PM

<cite>Gungo@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>There is a virtual cap on runspeed because at higher speeds it causes tremendous lag and rendering issues.This is why flying speed is much higher then run speed (less to render) and also why you also dont see any major increases in mount speed each expansion.</blockquote>Not so, not at 150% flying speed.I can fly 1m above ground without any rendering issues and/or lag. That is caused by a crap graphics card.

EasternKing

04-21-2011, 11:16 PM

<cite>SomeDude wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>There is a virtual cap on runspeed because at higher speeds it causes tremendous lag and rendering issues.This is why flying speed is much higher then run speed (less to render) and also why you also dont see any major increases in mount speed each expansion.</blockquote>Not so, not at 150% flying speed.I can fly 1m above ground without any rendering issues and/or lag. That is caused by a crap graphics card.</blockquote>If the EQ2 game engine used a graphics card properly, you might have had a point.

Yohun

04-22-2011, 09:02 PM

<cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SomeDude wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>There is a virtual cap on runspeed because at higher speeds it causes tremendous lag and rendering issues.This is why flying speed is much higher then run speed (less to render) and also why you also dont see any major increases in mount speed each expansion.</blockquote>Not so, not at 150% flying speed.I can fly 1m above ground without any rendering issues and/or lag. That is caused by a crap graphics card.</blockquote>If the EQ2 game engine used a graphics card properly, you might have had a point.</blockquote>You're being obtuse. FPS issues are caused client side by the inability of hardware to render the graphics at the required rate.

The_Cheeseman

04-23-2011, 05:34 AM

This change would be fairly pointless, since 100% is the hard cap for ground speed, and if you can't reach that already, you aren't trying hard enough.

Tigress

04-23-2011, 06:31 AM

would be nice to increase the duration to an hour

EasternKing

04-23-2011, 05:41 PM

<cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SomeDude wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>There is a virtual cap on runspeed because at higher speeds it causes tremendous lag and rendering issues.This is why flying speed is much higher then run speed (less to render) and also why you also dont see any major increases in mount speed each expansion.</blockquote>Not so, not at 150% flying speed.I can fly 1m above ground without any rendering issues and/or lag. That is caused by a crap graphics card.</blockquote>If the EQ2 game engine used a graphics card properly, you might have had a point.</blockquote>You're being obtuse. FPS issues are caused client side by the inability of hardware to render the graphics at the required rate.</blockquote>No i am not, EQ2 forces pretty much all the graphics via the CPU, which means in todays computer age when your running 2-3ghz multi cores, it overloads them and slows everything down, when they designed this game engine graphics were on board shared systems. unless some huge secret project has gone on the game engine still does this, not utilizing the majority of GPU processing power.SOE assumed cores would stay single and graphics would stay shared, wrong on both counts, compound this with 32bit OS only allowing 3.5gigs of mem to be used unless you are running Win7, and i am pretty sure most of the people that play eq2 are still running XP or vista. meaning that a newer computer unless you massively OC the CPUS will be a downgrade on your old single core.So my point was if EQ2 used multicore CPUS and high end GPUs properly, you would be able to run everything on Max settings and be getting 70+fps in any situation, that is sadly far from a reality, i have a pretty high end gaming pc and i am lucky and i mean lucky if i can keep 20fps on high in raids, groups or even GH's etc.

Yohun

04-23-2011, 07:44 PM

<cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SomeDude wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>There is a virtual cap on runspeed because at higher speeds it causes tremendous lag and rendering issues.This is why flying speed is much higher then run speed (less to render) and also why you also dont see any major increases in mount speed each expansion.</blockquote>Not so, not at 150% flying speed.I can fly 1m above ground without any rendering issues and/or lag. That is caused by a crap graphics card.</blockquote>If the EQ2 game engine used a graphics card properly, you might have had a point.</blockquote>You're being obtuse. FPS issues are caused client side by the inability of hardware to render the graphics at the required rate.</blockquote>No i am not, EQ2 forces pretty much all the graphics via the CPU, which means in todays computer age when your running 2-3ghz multi cores, it overloads them and slows everything down, when they designed this game engine graphics were on board shared systems. unless some huge secret project has gone on the game engine still does this, not utilizing the majority of GPU processing power.SOE assumed cores would stay single and graphics would stay shared, wrong on both counts, compound this with 32bit OS only allowing 3.5gigs of mem to be used unless you are running Win7, and i am pretty sure most of the people that play eq2 are still running XP or vista. meaning that a newer computer unless you massively OC the CPUS will be a downgrade on your old single core.So my point was if EQ2 used multicore CPUS and high end GPUs properly, you would be able to run everything on Max settings and be getting 70+fps in any situation, that is sadly far from a reality, i have a pretty high end gaming pc and i am lucky and i mean lucky if i can keep 20fps on high in raids, groups or even GH's etc.</blockquote>Yes, I'm aware of this. However, Somedude replied to the statement that flying speed is higher than running speed because less rendering is required, which is BS. If you are experiencing rendering issues when flying close to the ground, you have a crap system, which will include the graphics card.This highlighted statement above is incorrect Graphic cards were always separate from the mother boards apart from some very low end systems, the only item shared were memory.

EasternKing

04-24-2011, 06:48 AM

<cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SomeDude wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>There is a virtual cap on runspeed because at higher speeds it causes tremendous lag and rendering issues.This is why flying speed is much higher then run speed (less to render) and also why you also dont see any major increases in mount speed each expansion.</blockquote>Not so, not at 150% flying speed.I can fly 1m above ground without any rendering issues and/or lag. That is caused by a crap graphics card.</blockquote>If the EQ2 game engine used a graphics card properly, you might have had a point.</blockquote>You're being obtuse. FPS issues are caused client side by the inability of hardware to render the graphics at the required rate.</blockquote>No i am not, EQ2 forces pretty much all the graphics via the CPU, which means in todays computer age when your running 2-3ghz multi cores, it overloads them and slows everything down, when they designed this game engine graphics were on board shared systems. unless some huge secret project has gone on the game engine still does this, not utilizing the majority of GPU processing power.SOE assumed cores would stay single and graphics would stay shared, wrong on both counts, compound this with 32bit OS only allowing 3.5gigs of mem to be used unless you are running Win7, and i am pretty sure most of the people that play eq2 are still running XP or vista. meaning that a newer computer unless you massively OC the CPUS will be a downgrade on your old single core.So my point was if EQ2 used multicore CPUS and high end GPUs properly, you would be able to run everything on Max settings and be getting 70+fps in any situation, that is sadly far from a reality, i have a pretty high end gaming pc and i am lucky and i mean lucky if i can keep 20fps on high in raids, groups or even GH's etc.</blockquote>Yes, I'm aware of this. However, Somedude replied to the statement that flying speed is higher than running speed because less rendering is required, which is BS. If you are experiencing rendering issues when flying close to the ground, you have a crap system, which will include the graphics card.This highlighted statement above is incorrect Graphic cards were always separate from the mother boards apart from some very low end systems, the only item shared were memory.</blockquote>No it is not incorrect, EQ2 was made in the late 90's early 2000.Read :<h3>Integrated graphics solutions</h3> Integrated graphics solutions, shared graphics solutions, or Integrated graphics processors (IGP) utilize a portion of a computer's system RAM rather than dedicated graphics memory. Exceptions are AMD's IGPs that use dedicated sideport memory on certain motherboards. Computers with integrated graphics account for 90% of all PC shipments.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit#cite_note-11">[12]</a> These solutions are less costly to implement than dedicated graphics solutions, but are less capable. Historically, integrated solutions were often considered unfit to play 3D games or run graphically intensive programs but could run less intensive programs such as Adobe Flash. Examples of such IGPs would be offerings from SiS and VIA circa 2004.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit#cite_note-12"></a>That is 90% of all PC's shipped for sale, even still today most PCs have intergrated graphics, unless the buyer specifically buys a card.

Yohun

04-24-2011, 08:30 AM

Yes, most PCs sold today still have intergrated graphics, but these are corporate PCs.EQ2 NEVER targeted these systems in the first place as they could not and never will display 3D graphics properly. I'll concede that my last sentence were too generalised, I should've specified that I'm refering to PCs targeting 3D applications.The developers only assumed that Moore's law will hold true, not that IGP will be the prevailing trend.Here is my Wiki quote: Video hardware can be integrated on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherboard">motherboard</a>. However limitation to this integrated graphics chip often only occurs with early machines. In this configuration it is sometimes referred to as a video controller or graphics controller. Modern low-end to mid-range motherboards often include a graphics chipset developed by the developer of the <a title="Northbridge (computing)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northbridge_%28computing%29">northbridge</a> (i.e. an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NForce">nForce</a> chipset with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia">Nvidia</a> graphics or an <a title="Intel" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel">Intel</a> chipset with Intel graphics) on the motherboard. This graphics chip usually has a small quantity of embedded memory and takes some of the system's main RAM, reducing the total RAM available. This is usually called integrated graphics or on-board graphics, and is low-performance and undesirable for those wishing to run 3D applications.

EasternKing

04-24-2011, 02:15 PM

<cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yes, most PCs sold today still have intergrated graphics, but these are corporate PCs.EQ2 NEVER targeted these systems in the first place as they could not and never will display 3D graphics properly. I'll concede that my last sentence were too generalised, I should've specified that I'm refering to PCs targeting 3D applications.The developers only assumed that Moore's law will hold true, not that IGP will be the prevailing trend.Here is my Wiki quote:Video hardware can be integrated on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherboard">motherboard</a>. However limitation to this integrated graphics chip often only occurs with early machines. In this configuration it is sometimes referred to as a video controller or graphics controller. Modern low-end to mid-range motherboards often include a graphics chipset developed by the developer of the <a title="Northbridge (computing)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northbridge_%28computing%29">northbridge</a> (i.e. an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NForce">nForce</a> chipset with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia">Nvidia</a> graphics or an <a title="Intel" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel">Intel</a> chipset with Intel graphics) on the motherboard. This graphics chip usually has a small quantity of embedded memory and takes some of the system's main RAM, reducing the total RAM available. This is usually called integrated graphics or on-board graphics, and is low-performance and undesirable for those wishing to run 3D applications.</blockquote>Still wrong, Most PC's and laptops are shared intergrated graphics, only specific designated gaming rigs/pcs come with a graphics card.Hewlet packard one of the biggest PC retailers in the world, sold by Micro Direct here in the UK, pretty much all desktops are intergrated, i bought 3pc's 2 years ago, not one had a card in it, i had to buy them seperately.every catalogue seller that sells pc's and laptops to general population, not corporations sell pc's with no GC in them, they are shared intergrated.Now if most PC's and laptops are sold sans cards, do you not think the game developers are aware of this? why do you think WoW is capable of running on very low spec PC's? proof is in the pudding.Only if you look at high end gaming rigs that cost thousands do you get a GC as standard, and the % of the population that plays MMOs and has that spending capacity are miniscule.

Roslyn

04-24-2011, 02:19 PM

Conversation hi-jacked...Back to the real topic, I don't think stacking is really necessary. As everyone's pointed out, we go pretty fast as is - but - 1 hour duration would be nice.

Yohun

04-24-2011, 08:26 PM

<cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yes, most PCs sold today still have intergrated graphics, but these are corporate PCs.EQ2 NEVER targeted these systems in the first place as they could not and never will display 3D graphics properly. I'll concede that my last sentence were too generalised, I should've specified that I'm refering to PCs targeting 3D applications.The developers only assumed that Moore's law will hold true, not that IGP will be the prevailing trend.Here is my Wiki quote:Video hardware can be integrated on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherboard">motherboard</a>. However limitation to this integrated graphics chip often only occurs with early machines. In this configuration it is sometimes referred to as a video controller or graphics controller. Modern low-end to mid-range motherboards often include a graphics chipset developed by the developer of the <a title="Northbridge (computing)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northbridge_%28computing%29">northbridge</a> (i.e. an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NForce">nForce</a> chipset with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia">Nvidia</a> graphics or an <a title="Intel" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel">Intel</a> chipset with Intel graphics) on the motherboard. This graphics chip usually has a small quantity of embedded memory and takes some of the system's main RAM, reducing the total RAM available. This is usually called integrated graphics or on-board graphics, and is low-performance and undesirable for those wishing to run 3D applications.</blockquote>Still wrong, Most PC's and laptops are shared intergrated graphics, only specific designated gaming rigs/pcs come with a graphics card.why do you think WoW is capable of running on very low spec PC's? proof is in the pudding.</blockquote>No not wrong, it will be nice if a developer can chime in here. EQ2 were never designed to run on integrated cards in 2004, whatever you may think. As my post states "and is low-performance and undesirable for those wishing to run 3D applications." EQ2 is a true 3D application and requires a decent graphics card to run properly, end of story.Wow runs on low end systems because it does not use DirectX, its graphics are far inferior to the graphics in EQ2. To be honest, it is awful.But as I pointed out in earlier you are obtuse, and I will not continue this pointless descussion.

Raahl

04-25-2011, 09:52 AM

While were at it let have the bard speed buffs stack with mounts. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />/sarcasm off.

The_Cheeseman

04-25-2011, 07:49 PM

<cite>Raahl wrote:</cite><blockquote>While were at it let have the bard speed buffs stack with mounts. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />/sarcasm off.</blockquote>I'll see your sarcasm, and raise you a "Give everybody a pocket bard that will buff my run speed and allow me to delete my travel gear-swap macro and dump all my run speed gear in the bank forever!"I call.

Lethe5683

04-25-2011, 08:48 PM

<cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote>No i am not, EQ2 forces pretty much all the graphics via the CPU, which means in todays computer age when your running 2-3ghz multi cores, it overloads them and slows everything down, when they designed this game engine graphics were on board shared systems. unless some huge secret project has gone on the game engine still does this, not utilizing the majority of GPU processing power.SOE assumed cores would stay single and graphics would stay shared, wrong on both counts, compound this with 32bit OS only allowing 3.5gigs of mem to be used unless you are running Win7, and i am pretty sure most of the people that play eq2 are still running XP or vista. meaning that a newer computer unless you massively OC the CPUS will be a downgrade on your old single core.So my point was if EQ2 used multicore CPUS and high end GPUs properly, you would be able to run everything on Max settings and be getting 70+fps in any situation, that is sadly far from a reality, i have a pretty high end gaming pc and i am lucky and i mean lucky if i can keep 20fps on high in raids, groups or even GH's etc.</blockquote> The only thing more obvious than the fact that video cards significantly impact EQs performance is how little people know about what affects EQ2s performance. Sure, processor plays a huge role in performance for EQ2, more so than in modern games but that doesn't mean that switching to a better video card won't give you a considerable performance boost.

EasternKing

04-25-2011, 09:52 PM

<cite>Lethe5683 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote>No i am not, EQ2 forces pretty much all the graphics via the CPU, which means in todays computer age when your running 2-3ghz multi cores, it overloads them and slows everything down, when they designed this game engine graphics were on board shared systems. unless some huge secret project has gone on the game engine still does this, not utilizing the majority of GPU processing power.SOE assumed cores would stay single and graphics would stay shared, wrong on both counts, compound this with 32bit OS only allowing 3.5gigs of mem to be used unless you are running Win7, and i am pretty sure most of the people that play eq2 are still running XP or vista. meaning that a newer computer unless you massively OC the CPUS will be a downgrade on your old single core.So my point was if EQ2 used multicore CPUS and high end GPUs properly, you would be able to run everything on Max settings and be getting 70+fps in any situation, that is sadly far from a reality, i have a pretty high end gaming pc and i am lucky and i mean lucky if i can keep 20fps on high in raids, groups or even GH's etc.</blockquote>The only thing more obvious than the fact that video cards significantly impact EQs performance is how little people know about what affects EQ2s performance. Sure, processor plays a huge role in performance for EQ2, more so than in modern games but that doesn't mean that switching to a better video card won't give you a considerable performance boost.</blockquote>No it wont give you a significant boost at all.The biggest issue with Graphic cards (thesedays) at the moment is that the GPU has to literally wait for the CPU, the CPU is still the biggest bottleneck to better graphics. and eq2 is hardcoded to use the CPU over the GPU further slowing everything down. So the better your card, the quicker it does it's work, the longer it hs to wait for ther CPU, totally cancelling the supposed performance increase.Otherwise i wouldn't be getting sub 20fps in groups, raids and GH on my high end machine.The biggest performance increase you will ever see in EQ2 comes from increasing the power of your CPU, and on board ram.Keep talking about things you have no understanding of Lethe, i mean you talk all over this board giving your incorrect opinion on things, i am surprised it took you this long to show up here.

Yohun

04-26-2011, 04:44 AM

EasternKing, how old are you? Did you even own a PC in the '80's or ‘90’s? I’ve built my first PC in 1987, and that PC had a separate VGA graphics card. You are the last one to tell anyone here that they do not know what they are talking about, as you are the clueless one, insisting that PCs only had integrated graphics unless you shell out thousands of dollars. Hell, you could not play Doom, Heretic or Hexen properly on an integrated system; you had to have a separate graphics card. They were all 3D games, in case you did not know. Get a clue and stop showing your ignorance.

Raahl

04-26-2011, 09:54 AM

<cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote>EasternKing, how old are you? Did you even own a PC in the '80's or ‘90’s? I’ve built my first PC in 1987, and that PC had a separate VGA graphics card. You are the last one to tell anyone here that they do not know what they are talking about, as you are the clueless one, insisting that PCs only had integrated graphics unless you shell out thousands of dollars. Hell, you could not play Doom, Heretic or Hexen properly on an integrated system; you had to have a separate graphics card. They were all 3D games, in case you did not know. Get a clue and stop showing your ignorance. </blockquote>EQ2's bigggest bottleneck has been the CPU. The way EQ2 was originally programmed it relied heavily on the CPU to process graphics. Now I thought I saw something about them moving stuff from the CPU to the GPU. So this may have changed some.Integrated graphics has always lagged behind the separate cards. I've never used integrated graphics for that reason.

EasternKing

04-26-2011, 01:59 PM

<cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote>EasternKing, how old are you? Did you even own a PC in the '80's or ‘90’s? I’ve built my first PC in 1987, and that PC had a separate VGA graphics card. You are the last one to tell anyone here that they do not know what they are talking about, as you are the clueless one, insisting that PCs only had integrated graphics unless you shell out thousands of dollars. Hell, you could not play Doom, Heretic or Hexen properly on an integrated system; you had to have a separate graphics card. They were all 3D games, in case you did not know. Get a clue and stop showing your ignorance. </blockquote>Yup i did thanks for asking.Now smarrt guy, want to explain why my PC that can run new games at everything max settings 70fps+ easy suddenly when i open EQ2 and put max settings i am sat at 6-8 fps sat in an empty zone doing nothing?Could it possibly be that EQ2 relies entirely on the CPU to much and doesn't utilize any where near enough of the GPU?I dunno, that seems to be the general consensus from gamers and devs, you how ever seem to have some other idea why this happens, want to share?Could me saying that most PC's back when they designed this game engine were shared, be the reason its CODED TO USE THE CPU AND NOT THE GPU?!I am getting pretty tired of trying to put this simple enough for you to grasp.

Yohun

04-26-2011, 09:45 PM

EasternKing, please read carefully to the end and make sure you understand before hitting reply: Many posts ago I said, and I quote “The developers only assumed that Moore's law will hold true”. You do know what Moore’s Law is without Googling it, right? I never argued the point about the CPU! The issue with the CPU is that EQ2 were not coded to spawn processes or threads over multiple CPUs or cores. And I’m not saying that EQ2 is not multi-threaded before you jump to conclusions again. Seeing that you are so knowledgeable, you do know that even with IGPs, the graphics processing are still handled by the graphics processor, which is separate from the CPU and NOT by the CPU? The only component shared by the CPU and the GPU is the RAM, as your Wiki quote confirms. By the way this is not true as of last year as with the latest processors the IGP is part of the CPU, but that is not relevant to this conversation. I really should not have to explain this to someone as knowledgeable as you, but there is a big difference between server side and client side “lag”. Client side lag is caused by an inferior PC; server side lag is what you experience during raids and in busy zones. EQ2 is a client-server application, which means that the server receives hundreds of messages from the clients, process them and then send them back to the relevant clients. Because EQ2 was programmed to rely on a single CPU on the server, the server cannot keep up with processing these messages in a timely manner, hence the “lag” caused by the server. Due to this, it does not really matter how much they upgrade the game servers (which everyone is shouting about), as all the latest servers are multi-cored which is not of much benefit to the EQ2 engine. You will see small improvements, but that is due to better bus speeds and higher memory access speeds. The only solution is a rewrite of the engine. Continued....

Yohun

04-26-2011, 09:46 PM

Client side the EQ2 application uses DirectX for graphics, which is a Microsoft offering. DX controls where the graphics are processed and as mentioned previously even with an IGP all graphic instructions are handled by the GPU not the CPU. The issue here is the amount of instructions that the game engine must send to the GPU, a single core cannot process the amount of instructions in a timely manner, hence the low FPS you get when using the high settings. Have you seen the message you get when trying to run the game on the high end settings? Newsflash mate, that hardware still does not exist and never will as CPU design took another direction. As you’ve said in your reply to Lethe, the GPU has to wait for the CPU for instructions, at least you’ve got that part right, but there ARE NO GRAPHICS PROCESSING ON THE CPU. This has nothing to do with IGP or dedicated graphic cards, which is the bit you cannot seem to grasp. Having said all that, you WILL notice an improvement in the game when using a top end dedicated graphics card as oppose to an IGP or a low end card as the latter offerings cannot deal with 3D graphics in an efficient manner, which is the other bit you fail to understand. And that explains why your crappy PC cannot do better than 8FPS in an empty zone, and it is not because the developers relied too much on the CPU as opposed to the GPU, as they have no control over which processor handles the graphics! At the time of development they clearly stated that the hardware does not exist to run the game at the high end settings as they assumed the CPUs will get faster and will be able to send the instructions to the GPU much faster. This did not materialise as we all know now.

Lethe5683

04-26-2011, 11:27 PM

<cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote>No it wont give you a significant boost at all.The biggest issue with Graphic cards (thesedays) at the moment is that the GPU has to literally wait for the CPU, the CPU is still the biggest bottleneck to better graphics. and eq2 is hardcoded to use the CPU over the GPU further slowing everything down. So the better your card, the quicker it does it's work, the longer it hs to wait for ther CPU, totally cancelling the supposed performance increase.Otherwise i wouldn't be getting sub 20fps in groups, raids and GH on my high end machine.The biggest performance increase you will ever see in EQ2 comes from increasing the power of your CPU, and on board ram.Keep talking about things you have no understanding of Lethe, i mean you talk all over this board giving your incorrect opinion on things, i am surprised it took you this long to show up here.</blockquote>You obviously have very little idea as to what you are talking about but I guess the fact that you purchased your computer rather than building it speaks for itself. It's funny how you always say I have no understanding as to what I am talking about every time that you are the one who is wrong.

EasternKing

04-27-2011, 06:18 AM

A graphics chip, whether it's dedicated to 3D or a dual-purpose 2D/3D chip, removes the bulk of the load off the CPU and performs the rendering of the image itself. All of this rendering, or drawing, is accomplished through the graphics pipeline in two major stages: <a href="http://www.pctechguide.com/PATH_FOR_LINKS/glossary/WordFind.php?wordInput=Geometry">geometry</a> and <a href="http://www.pctechguide.com/PATH_FOR_LINKS/glossary/WordFind.php?wordInput=Rendering">rendering</a>. The geometry stage, performed by the CPU, handles all polygon activity and converts the 3D spatial data into pixels. The rendering stage, handled by the 3D hardware accelerator, manages all the memory and pixel activity and prepares it for painting to the monitor. For a brief period, the only way a PC user could have access to 3D acceleration was via an <a href="http://www.pctechguide.com/PATH_FOR_LINKS/glossary/WordFind.php?wordInput=Daughter">add-on</a> card that worked alongside a conventional 2D card. The latter was used for day-to-day Windows computing, and the 3D card only kicked in when a 3D game was launched. As 3D capability rapidly became the norm, these 3D-only cards were supplanted by cards with dual 2D/3D capability. These 2D/3D combo cards combine standard 2D functions plus 3D acceleration capabilities on one card and represent the most cost-effective solution for most gamers. Almost all modern-day graphics cards have some kind of dedicated 3D acceleration, but their performance varies a lot. For the serious gamer, or those who already have a 2D card and want to upgrade to 3D, there remains the option of a dedicated 3D add-on card. Handling the various 3D rendering techniques involves complex calculations which stretch a CPU's capabilities. Even with dedicated 3D accelerators performing many of the functions identified above, the CPU is still the biggest bottleneck to better graphics. The main reason for this is that the CPU handles most of the geometry calculations - that is, the position of every filtered, mip-mapped, bump-mapped and anti-aliased pixel that appears on-screen. With current 3D accelerators spewing out over a 100 million pixels per second, this is beyond the abilities of even the fastest CPUs. The 3D accelerator literally has to wait for the CPU to finish its calculations. There are two very different means of getting over this problem. The 3D-hardware manufacturers advocate the use of a dedicated geometry processor. Such processors take over the geometry calculations from the main CPU. On the other side of the debate, this is the least acceptable solution for processor manufacturers because once geometry processors become standard on graphics boards, it only takes a mediocre processor to perform other functions such as running the operating system and monitoring devices. Their response has been to boost the 3D performance of their CPUs by the provision of specialised instruction sets - Katmai New Instructions (<a href="http://www.pctechguide.com/glossary/WordFind.php?wordInput=KNI">KNI</a>) in the case of Intel and 3DNow! in the case of AMD. The problem, however, is that in the longer term even the performance increase provided by these new <a href="http://www.pctechguide.com/glossary/WordFind.php?wordInput=MMX">MMX</a>-style instructions appears insufficient to cope with the brute power of the new generation of 3D accelerator. Furthermore, most users - even gamers - do not upgrade their systems regularly and have CPUs which are relatively slow. Given this, dedicated geometry processors appeared to offer the best solution.Now with me knowing this (Above) why on earth would you think, that i do not grasp how EQ2 runs? (Yohun) EQ2 has terrible performance on modern machines because the game engine is all designed to run around a super powerful single core, with graphics cards only doing the very lightest of workloads.And as for a crappy computer? i mean really i have a quad core 3ghz Intel,i5, with 8 gigs of ram, and a<h3><a href="http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/50334/Asus-GeForce-GTX-560-Ti-1GB-GDDR5-PCI--E-2-0-DVI">(Asus GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB GDDR5 PCI- E 2.0 DVI HDMI )</a></h3>card in my machine, which should be sufficent to run eq2 on everything max settings and be getting 60-70fps, this how ever is impossible, and not because i have a poor machine.

Yohun

04-27-2011, 09:48 AM

LOL you "knowing" this, what a joke! Why don't you quote the rest of your 5 year old Googled article which goes on to prove you wrong? I will do you the favour:-----------------------------------------------------nVidia was the first to market with the first mainstream Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in the autumn of 1999, its GeForce 256 chip having the hitherto unique ability to perform transform and lighting (T&L) calculations. Since these are highly repetitive - with the same set of instructions performed millions of times per second - they're a prime candidate for hardware acceleration. A dedicated engine can be optimised for the necessary mathematical functions, making it fairly simple to create an efficient, purpose-focused silicon design - and one that is capable of far outperforming the CPU's efforts at performing these tasks. Furthermore, off-loading the T&L functions to the GPU allows the main CPU to concentrate on other demanding processing aspects, such as real-time physics and artificial intelligence.Comprising nearly 23 million transistors - more than twice the complexity of the Pentium III microprocessor - the GeForce 256 GPU is capable of delivering an unprecedented 15 million sustained polygons per second and 480 million pixels per second and supports up to 128MB of frame buffer memory._______________________________________-With me "knowing" that nVidia already had a card available in 1999 which would take the job of the calculations off the CPU, which by the way is not controlled by the developers, but by the graphics libraries, in this case DirectX, I really find it hard to comprehend how the EQ2 developers somehow forced the calculations onto the CPU. I told you to carefully read my post before hitting reply, you chose not to, confirming to anyone following this "discussion" that you truly are a fool. You see mate, I do not have to Google this stuff to try and make a point with selective cut and paste jobs, I know what I’m talking about, as I’m a software engineer. Over and out.

SomeDude

04-27-2011, 10:12 AM

ROTFLMAO, I missed all the fun!In my opinion,Score:Yohun 1EasternKing 0Should change your name to King of fools!

EasternKing

04-27-2011, 03:14 PM

<cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote>LOL you "knowing" this, what a joke! Why don't you quote the rest of your 5 year old Googled article which goes on to prove you wrong? I will do you the favour:-----------------------------------------------------nVidia was the first to market with the first mainstream Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in the autumn of 1999, its GeForce 256 chip having the hitherto unique ability to perform transform and lighting (T&L) calculations. Since these are highly repetitive - with the same set of instructions performed millions of times per second - they're a prime candidate for hardware acceleration. A dedicated engine can be optimised for the necessary mathematical functions, making it fairly simple to create an efficient, purpose-focused silicon design - and one that is capable of far outperforming the CPU's efforts at performing these tasks. Furthermore, off-loading the T&L functions to the GPU allows the main CPU to concentrate on other demanding processing aspects, such as real-time physics and artificial intelligence.Comprising nearly 23 million transistors - more than twice the complexity of the Pentium III microprocessor - the GeForce 256 GPU is capable of delivering an unprecedented 15 million sustained polygons per second and 480 million pixels per second and supports up to 128MB of frame buffer memory._______________________________________-With me "knowing" that nVidia already had a card available in 1999 which would take the job of the calculations off the CPU, which by the way is not controlled by the developers, but by the graphics libraries, in this case DirectX, I really find it hard to comprehend how the EQ2 developers somehow forced the calculations onto the CPU. I told you to carefully read my post before hitting reply, you chose not to, confirming to anyone following this "discussion" that you truly are a fool. You see mate, I do not have to Google this stuff to try and make a point with selective cut and paste jobs, I know what I’m talking about, as I’m a software engineer. Over and out. </blockquote>Right great man i get it, you know more than i do, you are not how ever explaining why EQ2 is so CPU heavy, when apparently they had the technology availiable when they designed the game engine, which was where i messed up, assuming SOE were forced by limitations in the hardware to code the way they did do.I mean you keep shooting me down, well done, but EQ2 still doesn't use a GPU properly, because it was never ever coded to, can you explain why? can you explain why my machine will run brand new games at 70+fps on everything max, yet EQ2 will crash if i max every setting and try doing anything other than standing still in an empty zone?My whole argument was EQ2's game engine is terrible, and the more you upgrade your PC the worse your performance will be in EQ2, and you have still not managed to refute this, other than picking apart my reasoning behind the choices SOE made, can you?Also you are telling me GPU's now have the function of a dedicated Geometry processor? and that the CPU isnt a bottle neck for most GPU's? just curious.

Lethe5683

04-27-2011, 05:27 PM

<cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote>Now with me knowing this (Above) why on earth would you think, that i do not grasp how EQ2 runs? (Yohun) EQ2 has terrible performance on modern machines because the game engine is all designed to run around a super powerful single core, with graphics cards only doing the very lightest of workloads.And as for a crappy computer? i mean really i have a quad core 3ghz Intel,i5, with 8 gigs of ram, and a<h3><a href="http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/50334/Asus-GeForce-GTX-560-Ti-1GB-GDDR5-PCI--E-2-0-DVI">(Asus GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB GDDR5 PCI- E 2.0 DVI HDMI )</a></h3>card in my machine, which should be sufficent to run eq2 on everything max settings and be getting 60-70fps, this how ever is impossible, and not because i have a poor machine.</blockquote> If I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you did know all that, it is still obvious that you have only memorized it because you defiantly do not understand it. Yes a CPU limits how much a GPU helps (somewhat) but that hardly means that a GPU does nothing. Does your MB have integrated graphics? If so try disabling your graphics card and running the game on integrated, you will see just how much of a difference the GPU made. The reason your computer runs EQ2 like crap is your processor has a very slow core speed and your GPU cannot do everything, but even so you shouldn't be getting 8FPS on maximum settings with no one around and nothing going on (that's more like what you would get with an integrated graphics processor).

Talathion

04-27-2011, 07:28 PM

How about...Add a little bit of In combat Run speed<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Yohun

04-27-2011, 07:48 PM

<cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote>LOL you "knowing" this, what a joke! Why don't you quote the rest of your 5 year old Googled article which goes on to prove you wrong? I will do you the favour:-----------------------------------------------------nVidia was the first to market with the first mainstream Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in the autumn of 1999, its GeForce 256 chip having the hitherto unique ability to perform transform and lighting (T&L) calculations. Since these are highly repetitive - with the same set of instructions performed millions of times per second - they're a prime candidate for hardware acceleration. A dedicated engine can be optimised for the necessary mathematical functions, making it fairly simple to create an efficient, purpose-focused silicon design - and one that is capable of far outperforming the CPU's efforts at performing these tasks. Furthermore, off-loading the T&L functions to the GPU allows the main CPU to concentrate on other demanding processing aspects, such as real-time physics and artificial intelligence.Comprising nearly 23 million transistors - more than twice the complexity of the Pentium III microprocessor - the GeForce 256 GPU is capable of delivering an unprecedented 15 million sustained polygons per second and 480 million pixels per second and supports up to 128MB of frame buffer memory._______________________________________-With me "knowing" that nVidia already had a card available in 1999 which would take the job of the calculations off the CPU, which by the way is not controlled by the developers, but by the graphics libraries, in this case DirectX, I really find it hard to comprehend how the EQ2 developers somehow forced the calculations onto the CPU. I told you to carefully read my post before hitting reply, you chose not to, confirming to anyone following this "discussion" that you truly are a fool. You see mate, I do not have to Google this stuff to try and make a point with selective cut and paste jobs, I know what I’m talking about, as I’m a software engineer. Over and out. </blockquote>Right great man i get it, you know more than i do, you are not how ever explaining why EQ2 is so CPU heavy, when apparently they had the technology availiable when they designed the game engine, which was where i messed up, assuming SOE were forced by limitations in the hardware to code the way they did do.I mean you keep shooting me down, well done, but EQ2 still doesn't use a GPU properly, because it was never ever coded to, can you explain why? can you explain why my machine will run brand new games at 70+fps on everything max, yet EQ2 will crash if i max every setting and try doing anything other than standing still in an empty zone?My whole argument was EQ2's game engine is terrible, and the more you upgrade your PC the worse your performance will be in EQ2, and you have still not managed to refute this, other than picking apart my reasoning behind the choices SOE made, can you?Also you are telling me GPU's now have the function of a dedicated Geometry processor? and that the CPU isnt a bottle neck for most GPU's? just curious.</blockquote>I've explained it all in my long post where I told you to read it carefully before hitting reply, you obviously didn't. I even told you that you were right in saying that the CPU is the bottleneck, but not for the reasons you think it is.Go read the post again, carefully. I'm not about to repeat myself.

Lethe5683

04-27-2011, 10:16 PM

<cite>Failathion@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>How about...Add a little bit of In combat Run speed<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>That would be nice.

Talathion

04-27-2011, 11:12 PM

In-Combat Run Speed would be nice... <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

jabbu

06-09-2011, 07:35 AM

Yes.....um, what was the question again? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" />

CorpseGoddess

06-09-2011, 02:39 PM

Hey guys...wanna play Pong? I had Pong when it was new. It ran on my parents' black and white TV. It had some white bars and a white square. It ran on some crap piece of equipment that had really bad fake wood panelling on it.Wanna play? It's super l337.

Crismorn

06-09-2011, 02:53 PM

<cite>Failathion@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>In-Combat Run Speed would be nice... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>There is enough running midfight already.ffs make it give yuo 100% out of combat run speed, there is nowhere to travel to in this game that takes more than 5 minutes.Enjoy getting there in 4mins 30secs and thank you for wasting dev time yet again

HBP

06-10-2011, 02:17 PM

<cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote>LOL you "knowing" this, what a joke! Why don't you quote the rest of your 5 year old Googled article which goes on to prove you wrong? I will do you the favour:-----------------------------------------------------nVidia was the first to market with the first mainstream Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in the autumn of 1999, its GeForce 256 chip having the hitherto unique ability to perform transform and lighting (T&L) calculations. Since these are highly repetitive - with the same set of instructions performed millions of times per second - they're a prime candidate for hardware acceleration. A dedicated engine can be optimised for the necessary mathematical functions, making it fairly simple to create an efficient, purpose-focused silicon design - and one that is capable of far outperforming the CPU's efforts at performing these tasks. Furthermore, off-loading the T&L functions to the GPU allows the main CPU to concentrate on other demanding processing aspects, such as real-time physics and artificial intelligence.Comprising nearly 23 million transistors - more than twice the complexity of the Pentium III microprocessor - the GeForce 256 GPU is capable of delivering an unprecedented 15 million sustained polygons per second and 480 million pixels per second and supports up to 128MB of frame buffer memory._______________________________________-With me "knowing" that nVidia already had a card available in 1999 which would take the job of the calculations off the CPU, which by the way is not controlled by the developers, but by the graphics libraries, in this case DirectX, I really find it hard to comprehend how the EQ2 developers somehow forced the calculations onto the CPU. I told you to carefully read my post before hitting reply, you chose not to, confirming to anyone following this "discussion" that you truly are a fool. You see mate, I do not have to Google this stuff to try and make a point with selective cut and paste jobs, I know what I’m talking about, as I’m a software engineer. Over and out. </blockquote>Right great man i get it, you know more than i do, you are not how ever explaining why EQ2 is so CPU heavy, when apparently they had the technology availiable when they designed the game engine, which was where i messed up, assuming SOE were forced by limitations in the hardware to code the way they did do.I mean you keep shooting me down, well done, but EQ2 still doesn't use a GPU properly, because it was never ever coded to, can you explain why? can you explain why my machine will run brand new games at 70+fps on everything max, yet EQ2 will crash if i max every setting and try doing anything other than standing still in an empty zone?My whole argument was EQ2's game engine is terrible, and the more you upgrade your PC the worse your performance will be in EQ2, and you have still not managed to refute this, other than picking apart my reasoning behind the choices SOE made, can you?Also you are telling me GPU's now have the function of a dedicated Geometry processor? and that the CPU isnt a bottle neck for most GPU's? just curious.</blockquote>Then Google your "argument"....copy/paste it here....then call it as your own....Rest of the world - 1Eastern"king" - 0

Hamervelder

06-10-2011, 04:06 PM

<cite>Yohun wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SomeDude wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote>There is a virtual cap on runspeed because at higher speeds it causes tremendous lag and rendering issues.This is why flying speed is much higher then run speed (less to render) and also why you also dont see any major increases in mount speed each expansion.</blockquote>Not so, not at 150% flying speed.I can fly 1m above ground without any rendering issues and/or lag. That is caused by a crap graphics card.</blockquote>If the EQ2 game engine used a graphics card properly, you might have had a point.</blockquote>You're being obtuse. FPS issues are caused client side by the inability of hardware to render the graphics at the required rate.</blockquote>Yes and no. The client's machine can only process the code as it is written. EQ2's code is horrible, and any graphics issues probably have more to do with the CPU and/or RAM than the graphics card.