Graphical/Performance Issues - Top of the line PC - Any help appreciated

Loftless · 07-01-2008, 10:03 PM

Hi.

I recently built a new PC, hoping to run Vanguard/EQ2 on full settings, to get the full extent of the graphical beauties of both the games.

After loading Vista SP1 on both the systems, I loaded both games up. I have had the system for about a month now.

Vanguard im having no issues with, thusfar. I can run the game on full graphical settings, all fog off, full distance, and I sit around 30FPS steady. 20FPS while flying.

I loaded up EQ2 today to play with a friend, set it to high quality... total lag. Barely even able to move. I set it to balanced, still, maximum 20fps, but while moving, it dropped to almost 5fps. I Had to set everything to lowest, then manually tweak, and it still looks absolutely horrible, and runs the same. Not to mention everything has horribly hard edges on them, like anti-aliasing is NOT working one bit.

I have my DXDIAG stats right here, for ease.

Any ideas?

With 4 cores, and 2 GPUs... and more ram than windows can even recognise... I don't see what the problem should be.

------------------System Information------------------Time of this report: 7/1/2008, 20:53:04 Machine name: ROBSPC Operating System: Windows Vista^TM Ultimate (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.longhorn_rtm.080118-1840) Language: English (Regional Setting: English)System Manufacturer: System manufacturer System Model: System Product Name BIOS: BIOS Date: 04/02/08 Ver: 08.00.14 Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9550 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs), ~2.2GHz Memory: 3070MB RAM Page File: 2938MB used, 3432MB available Windows Dir: C:Windows DirectX Version: DirectX 10DX Setup Parameters: Not found DxDiag Version: 6.00.6001.18000 32bit Unicode

---------------Display Devices--------------- Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 Manufacturer: NVIDIA Chip type: GeForce 9800 GX2 DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC Device Key: EnumPCIVEN_10DE&DEV_0604&SUBSYS_050410DE&REV_A2 Display Memory: 1774 MB Dedicated Memory: 495 MB Shared Memory: 1279 MB Current Mode: 1680 x 1050 (32 bit) (60Hz) Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor Driver Name: nvd3dum.dll,nvwgf2um.dll Driver Version: 7.15.0011.7474 (English) DDI Version: 10Driver Attributes: Final Retail Driver Date/Size: 3/25/2008 02:52:00, 5537792 bytes

Llach · 07-02-2008, 04:44 AM

May be wrong here but...

You are only playing the game with a single core 2.2ghz AMD processor (regardless of how many cores you have in reality).

As for the 9800x2. Does that count as sli (which alot of folk have reported as being a pain in eq2)? Look at the stickies above regarding the 8800 cards. Try enabling the vertex buffers "thingie" in the options in game.

ZThoth · 07-02-2008, 12:44 PM

What the above poster is telling you...EQ2 does not support more than one core and does not support more than one card. You'd have better results with a high clocked single core processor and disabling SLi.

Also worth noting....Vista is the suxors for resources and gaming in general is worse. I use XP, my wife uses Vista and we have near identical systems and mine runs EQ2 smoother. Another thing, just run EQ2 at the setting up from Balanced...any higher and we always get memory leaks.

Llach · 07-02-2008, 12:55 PM

Yup that's what I was saying, but was in a rush so didn't polish it!

Disagree on the Vista bit, but that's a whole different kettle of fish (with a free minefield thrown in)!

Cassea · 07-02-2008, 01:11 PM

EQ2 will only run as fast as your slowest part and you only have a 2200mhz CPU. EQ2 will not see or use the other cores. Your video card is not the issue. I'm going to guess that Vangard being a newer game was programed more with multi-core and Vista in mind. EQ2 also uses you CPU to perform some video functions such as shadows. If you turn off shadows you should see better performance.The model of Phenom does not have the defect of the earlier models but it's also the slowest quad core out there. Sadly there is little you can do to correct this aside from turning off CPU intensive functions. 2200mhz is still 2200mhz and it's a shame that people are jumping on the quad core bandwagon when a $50 single core will run most games faster than a $200+ quad core.I'd suggest overclocking (I've been doing it for 20+ years) but you really have to know what you are doing and risk frying your CPU if you do it wrong. Unless you have an unlocking CPU (if you don't know what I'm talking about then stop right here and forget about it) it can be tricky to overclock unless you've had experience doing it.I'm running my 2x core AMD Black Edition at 3100mhz from the stock 2500mhz but Quad cores are hard to overclock. You see when you overclock you overclock all the cores and it only takes one core to fail and you're out of luck. Example: If 3 out of the 4 cores will do 2800mhz but the 4th core will only do 2300mhz then you're stuck at 2300mhz.This is why 2x cores are the much better deal for gamers. Not only are the CPU's cheaper but they also run faster, OC better and allow non-game funtions to run off the 2nd core while the game runs off the main core.In this case I'm guessing that Vangard uses your video card better than EQ2 does being the newer game. Being able to "offload" more funtions to the video card allows your relatively slow 2200mhz CPU to be freed up to do other things.I'm hoping that Sony gets around to reworking EQ2 to work better with multi-core CPU's and use our video cards better.Sorry for the bad news SMILEY

-JB

Cassea · 07-02-2008, 01:14 PM

Sorry to disagree but Vista is far better than XP ever was. While it's true that Vista eats more CPU time and uses more memory, so did XP over Windows 98 or ME. Vista runs EQ2 very very well. Yes it takes a 15% hit in speed but that's to be expected as EQ2 is an older game. Memory is cheap, CPU's are cheap and video cards are cheap. I would not install Vista on an older machine but when buying a new machine it only costs a few extra $$$'s to get a slightly faster system to over come the extra hit Vista takes.I seem to remember people running XP with a 64meg system when it came out on Pentium 2 systems and saying how rotten XP was as compared to Windows 98 SMILEY

-JB

07-02-2008, 01:11 PM	#5
Cassea Loremaster Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 269	EQ2 will only run as fast as your slowest part and you only have a 2200mhz CPU. EQ2 will not see or use the other cores. Your video card is not the issue. I'm going to guess that Vangard being a newer game was programed more with multi-core and Vista in mind. EQ2 also uses you CPU to perform some video functions such as shadows. If you turn off shadows you should see better performance.The model of Phenom does not have the defect of the earlier models but it's also the slowest quad core out there. Sadly there is little you can do to correct this aside from turning off CPU intensive functions. 2200mhz is still 2200mhz and it's a shame that people are jumping on the quad core bandwagon when a $50 single core will run most games faster than a $200+ quad core.I'd suggest overclocking (I've been doing it for 20+ years) but you really have to know what you are doing and risk frying your CPU if you do it wrong. Unless you have an unlocking CPU (if you don't know what I'm talking about then stop right here and forget about it) it can be tricky to overclock unless you've had experience doing it.I'm running my 2x core AMD Black Edition at 3100mhz from the stock 2500mhz but Quad cores are hard to overclock. You see when you overclock you overclock all the cores and it only takes one core to fail and you're out of luck. Example: If 3 out of the 4 cores will do 2800mhz but the 4th core will only do 2300mhz then you're stuck at 2300mhz.This is why 2x cores are the much better deal for gamers. Not only are the CPU's cheaper but they also run faster, OC better and allow non-game funtions to run off the 2nd core while the game runs off the main core.In this case I'm guessing that Vangard uses your video card better than EQ2 does being the newer game. Being able to "offload" more funtions to the video card allows your relatively slow 2200mhz CPU to be freed up to do other things.I'm hoping that Sony gets around to reworking EQ2 to work better with multi-core CPU's and use our video cards better.Sorry for the bad news -JB

07-02-2008, 01:14 PM	#6
Cassea Loremaster Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 269	Sorry to disagree but Vista is far better than XP ever was. While it's true that Vista eats more CPU time and uses more memory, so did XP over Windows 98 or ME. Vista runs EQ2 very very well. Yes it takes a 15% hit in speed but that's to be expected as EQ2 is an older game. Memory is cheap, CPU's are cheap and video cards are cheap. I would not install Vista on an older machine but when buying a new machine it only costs a few extra $$$'s to get a slightly faster system to over come the extra hit Vista takes.I seem to remember people running XP with a 64meg system when it came out on Pentium 2 systems and saying how rotten XP was as compared to Windows 98 -JB

07-01-2008, 10:03 PM	#1
Loftless Newbie Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 1	Hi. I recently built a new PC, hoping to run Vanguard/EQ2 on full settings, to get the full extent of the graphical beauties of both the games. After loading Vista SP1 on both the systems, I loaded both games up. I have had the system for about a month now. Vanguard im having no issues with, thusfar. I can run the game on full graphical settings, all fog off, full distance, and I sit around 30FPS steady. 20FPS while flying. I loaded up EQ2 today to play with a friend, set it to high quality... total lag. Barely even able to move. I set it to balanced, still, maximum 20fps, but while moving, it dropped to almost 5fps. I Had to set everything to lowest, then manually tweak, and it still looks absolutely horrible, and runs the same. Not to mention everything has horribly hard edges on them, like anti-aliasing is NOT working one bit. I have my DXDIAG stats right here, for ease. Any ideas? With 4 cores, and 2 GPUs... and more ram than windows can even recognise... I don't see what the problem should be. ------------------System Information------------------Time of this report: 7/1/2008, 20:53:04 Machine name: ROBSPC Operating System: Windows Vista^TM Ultimate (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.longhorn_rtm.080118-1840) Language: English (Regional Setting: English)System Manufacturer: System manufacturer System Model: System Product Name BIOS: BIOS Date: 04/02/08 Ver: 08.00.14 Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9550 Quad-Core Processor (4 CPUs), ~2.2GHz Memory: 3070MB RAM Page File: 2938MB used, 3432MB available Windows Dir: C:Windows DirectX Version: DirectX 10DX Setup Parameters: Not found DxDiag Version: 6.00.6001.18000 32bit Unicode ---------------Display Devices--------------- Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 Manufacturer: NVIDIA Chip type: GeForce 9800 GX2 DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC Device Key: EnumPCIVEN_10DE&DEV_0604&SUBSYS_050410DE&REV_A2 Display Memory: 1774 MB Dedicated Memory: 495 MB Shared Memory: 1279 MB Current Mode: 1680 x 1050 (32 bit) (60Hz) Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor Driver Name: nvd3dum.dll,nvwgf2um.dll Driver Version: 7.15.0011.7474 (English) DDI Version: 10Driver Attributes: Final Retail Driver Date/Size: 3/25/2008 02:52:00, 5537792 bytes

07-02-2008, 04:44 AM	#2
Llach Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 87	May be wrong here but... You are only playing the game with a single core 2.2ghz AMD processor (regardless of how many cores you have in reality). As for the 9800x2. Does that count as sli (which alot of folk have reported as being a pain in eq2)? Look at the stickies above regarding the 8800 cards. Try enabling the vertex buffers "thingie" in the options in game.

07-02-2008, 12:44 PM	#3
ZThoth Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 103	What the above poster is telling you...EQ2 does not support more than one core and does not support more than one card. You'd have better results with a high clocked single core processor and disabling SLi. Also worth noting....Vista is the suxors for resources and gaming in general is worse. I use XP, my wife uses Vista and we have near identical systems and mine runs EQ2 smoother. Another thing, just run EQ2 at the setting up from Balanced...any higher and we always get memory leaks.

07-02-2008, 12:55 PM	#4
Llach Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 87	Yup that's what I was saying, but was in a rush so didn't polish it! Disagree on the Vista bit, but that's a whole different kettle of fish (with a free minefield thrown in)!