Extremely Poor Performance, I am Defeated

[Amphitryon]

<p>I cannot seem to wring out acceptable performance and framerates from my machine in EQ II. This is the *only* game I have issues with, all of the other games I play (LoTR:O, TW2, BF3) are playable at maximum settings with AA jacked up as high as each game will allow individually (no AA forced through driver manipulation). So here are my specs, driver info, etc. If someone could tell me if I am expecting too much that would be great, as I know I am using last gen hardware, but I feel like more performance is warranted. </p><p>Computer: </p><p><ul><li>Core I7 950 @ 3.0</li><li>Asus Sabertooth X58 Mobo</li><li>Patriot DDR3 1600 running @ 1066 for tighter timings (6-6-6-20-1T)</li><li>[2] EVGA GTX 580 GPU's SLI Enabled (772/2024, Stock Settings)</li><li>Asus Xonar Essence STX Sound</li><li>1080P Monitor (LG LM556700) </li><li>Nvidia Driver Version: 306.02</li><li>Nvidia Global Settings: Default</li><li>Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit</li><li>EQ II Downloaded through Steam Client</li></ul><div>So, those are the specs, as far as performance goes (average FPS taken by in game FPS counter):</div><div></div><div>Area: Kylong Plains Dock (All tests done at 8X AA, Memory / GPU usage measured through EVGA Precision X)</div><div><ul><li>Extreme Quality: 15-25 FPS (GPU Memory Usage: 890 MB, GPU Usage: ~55% Per Card)</li><li>Very High Quality: 23 -30 FPS (GPU Memory Usage: 792 MB, GPU Usage: ~55% Per Card)</li><li>High Quality: 27-32 FPS (GPU Memory Usage: 745 MB, GPU Usage: ~50% Per Card)</li></ul><div>During GPU testing termperatures never crested 64C.</div><div></div><div>CPU Load according to Windows Performance Manager shows one CPU core (core 7) pegged at 100% usage during all tests, while the other's remain anywhere from idle to 5% use (seems like it is just background processes on the other cores). As far as I can tell EQ 2 is not using any of the other cores that is available to it. In order to resolve this I have attemted to assign it cores manually (it still only uses one) and I have done a re-installation of the program. Multi-CPU support is checked in the in game settings. Poor performance is evident whether SLI is turned on or turned off (though when it is turned off the single GPU it is running on is pegged at 100%, so SLI seems to be working correctly).</div><div></div><div>All of the above makes me thing this is some sort of a CPU bottleneck, and granted, my CPU is probably the most obsolete part of my computer, I was still expecting performance on par with today's games that *still* allow me to run max settings at max AA and have far greater graphics fidelity (Witcher 2, BF3, ETC). So help me out, is this the performance I should be expecting, am I expecting too much out of my hardware? Or is there some secret button somewhere that I have missed.</div><div></div><div>Thanks.</div><div></div><div>-Dinian </div></div></p>

[kdmorse]

<p>If you haven't already, do run a test backing off from 8xAA, to AA disabled.  It might quadruple your framerate.  Or it might do virtually nothing for you.  (And then, you will know if AA's involved).</p><p>But, going on, you hit the nail squarly on the head.</p><p><cite>Amphitryon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><div><div>All of the above makes me thing this is some sort of a CPU bottleneck, and granted, my CPU is probably the most obsolete part of my computer, I was still expecting performance on par with today's games that *still* allow me to run max settings at max AA and have far greater graphics fidelity (Witcher 2, BF3, ETC). So help me out, is this the performance I should be expecting, am I expecting too much out of my hardware? Or is there some secret button somewhere that I have missed.</div></div></blockquote><p>The game is, for all intents and purposes, single threaded.  If multithreading support is enabled (Advanced Options), if offloads some side tasks (texture loading, no idea what else) to another core, maybe 10%, but that's about it.  The entire client is really one giant CPU bound rendering loop.  Most graphics are primarially CPU rendered, all the GPU does is toss the picture on your monitor.  (There are exceptions, GPU shadows, etc...)</p><p>EQ2 was designed when Intel chips were getting faster and faster every year with no end in sight, and multi-core support was for servers.  As such, it has virtual no parallelizm in it.   The expectation was that by now that we'd all have 10Ghz single core chips (which could probably heat your house) .</p><p>The biggest determining factor in EQ2 performance, is how much work can you get done in a loop in one core. And while your CPU is no slouch, it's not ideally suited for high framerates in EQ2.</p><p>(On the upside, if you wanted to, you could probably run four clients at once on your system, without a noticable dip in framerate...)</p>

[deadcrickets2]

<p><cite>Amphitryon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I cannot seem to wring out acceptable performance and framerates from my machine in EQ II. This is the *only* game I have issues with, all of the other games I play (LoTR:O, TW2, BF3) are playable at maximum settings with AA jacked up as high as each game will allow individually (no AA forced through driver manipulation). So here are my specs, driver info, etc. If someone could tell me if I am expecting too much that would be great, as I know I am using last gen hardware, but I feel like more performance is warranted. </p><p>Computer: </p><ul><li>Core I7 950 @ 3.0</li><li>Asus Sabertooth X58 Mobo</li><li>Patriot DDR3 1600 running @ 1066 for tighter timings (6-6-6-20-1T)</li><li>[2] EVGA GTX 580 GPU's SLI Enabled (772/2024, Stock Settings)</li><li>Asus Xonar Essence STX Sound</li><li>1080P Monitor (LG LM556700) </li><li>Nvidia Driver Version: 306.02</li><li>Nvidia Global Settings: Default</li><li>Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit</li><li>EQ II Downloaded through Steam Client</li></ul><div>So, those are the specs, as far as performance goes (average FPS taken by in game FPS counter):</div><div></div><div>Area: Kylong Plains Dock (All tests done at 8X AA, Memory / GPU usage measured through EVGA Precision X)</div><div><ul><li>Extreme Quality: 15-25 FPS (GPU Memory Usage: 890 MB, GPU Usage: ~55% Per Card)</li><li>Very High Quality: 23 -30 FPS (GPU Memory Usage: 792 MB, GPU Usage: ~55% Per Card)</li><li>High Quality: 27-32 FPS (GPU Memory Usage: 745 MB, GPU Usage: ~50% Per Card)</li></ul><div>During GPU testing termperatures never crested 64C.</div><div></div><div>CPU Load according to Windows Performance Manager shows one CPU core (core 7) pegged at 100% usage during all tests, while the other's remain anywhere from idle to 5% use (seems like it is just background processes on the other cores). As far as I can tell EQ 2 is not using any of the other cores that is available to it. In order to resolve this I have attemted to assign it cores manually (it still only uses one) and I have done a re-installation of the program. Multi-CPU support is checked in the in game settings. Poor performance is evident whether SLI is turned on or turned off (though when it is turned off the single GPU it is running on is pegged at 100%, so SLI seems to be working correctly).</div><div></div><div>All of the above makes me thing this is some sort of a CPU bottleneck, and granted, my CPU is probably the most obsolete part of my computer, I was still expecting performance on par with today's games that *still* allow me to run max settings at max AA and have far greater graphics fidelity (Witcher 2, BF3, ETC). So help me out, is this the performance I should be expecting, am I expecting too much out of my hardware? Or is there some secret button somewhere that I have missed.</div><div></div><div>Thanks.</div><div></div><div>-Dinian </div></div></blockquote><p>Turn off AA in the game.  Not only is it not optimized but it tends to produce white outline artifacting around some of the models.  Secondly, this game does not use SLI or Crossfire at all.  While the game is now using more of the graphics cards compared to the past, it is still fairly much a CPU/cache/memory bound game.  The only two options you would have to improve performance is either get a faster chip (can overclock but not supported by staff) or put the game on a SSD to smooth out the micro-stuttering you get from texture loading.  </p><p>When finding a chip for this game, ignore how it does in other game benchmarks.  Instead, look at how it does with encoding.  </p>