Windows 7

[Rock_Mansions]

<p>wotcha,</p><p>before I try and compose my thoughts for a longer post about stuttering/hitching (or 'studdering' if you prefer), I notice from one online review that windows 7 supposedly gives a performance boost to many games, compared to vista.</p><p>I'm not worried about frames per second - on the face of it that's fine for me, but do wonder if Windows 7 results in DirectX managing texture supply to the GPU more effectively, with the result of smoother gameply in areas with a lot of loading going on (queen's colony, queynos for example, which I find very hitchy).</p><p>so: is anyone using windows 7 and feeling that it helps with this?</p>

[Rock_Mansions]

<p>well, just in case what I asked above seems too pseudo-technical - (the stuff about direct x comes from this thread exchange: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.xtremesystems.org/Forums/showthread.php?s=21e7e114708f108fdf3ff3a2cf4a122a&t=239332&page=2" target="_blank">http://www.xtremesystems.org/Forums...9332&page=2</a></p><p>see 'Xoulz's posts -dunno if he's right, but interesting) -</p><p>has anyone gone from Vista (or, indeed XP) to windows 7, and found hitching/stuttering at very high quality settings to be reduced?</p>

[Trellium]

<p><cite>Rock_Mansions wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>well, just in case what I asked above seems too pseudo-technical - (the stuff about direct x comes from this thread exchange: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.xtremesystems.org/Forums/showthread.php?s=21e7e114708f108fdf3ff3a2cf4a122a&t=239332&page=2" target="_blank">http://www.xtremesystems.org/Forums...9332&page=2</a></p><p>see 'Xoulz's posts -dunno if he's right, but interesting) -</p><p>has anyone gone from Vista (or, indeed XP) to windows 7, and found hitching/stuttering at very high quality settings to be reduced?</p></blockquote><p>This is an interesting question. I play on Test server and we had a patch about a month ago that was large (over 3gigs). After that our stutter has gone way up. When I went to live (Lucan DLere), I had smooth graphics at the Very High Quality setting. To get the same on Test I had to go to Balanced.</p><p>But, we have two Win7 systems and two XP's. We have a combination of ATI and Nvidia cards. All of them have the same stutter issue. We have been using Windows 7 for well over 6 months.</p><p>Overall, we certainly did not suffer any degradation from Windows 7 when we upgraded from XP. We would go with having all 4 systems with Win7, but we need the XP systems for other reasons as well. I do think we might have gotten a bump up in quality of the game, but its very subjective.</p><p>Right now we have more stutter on all systems, but we think thats an issue with the game engine itself and with luck will be resolved soon. I know they are working on the graphics optimizations with their Shader 3 support, so thinks will likely change when we get to see that.</p>

[Rock_Mansions]

<p>thanks for the reply, Trellium.</p><p>I, too, have the test server and agree that 'stutter' seems more pronounced on it....</p><p>It's funny: some areas that I found very bad when last trying to get EQ2 performance 'smooth', seem much better now (on the live server at least): places like the quayside in the butcherblock mountains, and the starting area in timorous deep. Is this due to GU shadows perhaps?</p><p>But then, other places, which have always been bad, like Neriak in general, and that 'underground commune' thingy there in particular, are really bad: worse than ever they were. These are 'inside', and so cpu dependent for shadows.</p><p>In queynos, there's a temple (?) you can go in with various teleport points arrayed around a pool: the areas one 'teleports' too are appalling - I wonder why?</p><p>I notice on the test server that you can't choose the 'CPU shadow' option for when 'inside'.</p><p>I wonder what's happening with that? Why don't GPU shadows work indoors, anyway?</p><p>I've been going round in circles now for some years trying to get smooth gameplay at high settings with EQ and games like it (Vanguard - etc, etc). You, know, EQ2 at high/est settings is a very beautiful thing to behold:I've been messing with Guildwars again, as well as trying the new DAO, and, really, the graphics for them just don't cut it. Seem so thin and cardboardy...</p>

[Rock_Mansions]

<p>hmm, I might be buttering my own scones here, but am a bit surprised by the lack of response on this, although I guess it might just reflect that those who have moved to windows 7 have seen no real change in performance?</p><p>Mind you I notice a couple of comments that performance is (even) worse today after a supposed patch.</p><p>must admit I'm finding it more hitchy than ever - although maybe for another reason as I've just copied the game onto a newly installed samsung 64gb SSD.</p><p>these have been getting good user reviews and seem to be the most popular ssd in the uk atm at least...</p><p>fair to say that my crests are most definitely fallen, as I really expected to see some sort of improvement with the game moved to this ssd.</p><p>But, I really should have learned my lesson tbh. I've been through any number of loops with 'hitching' and these kind of games (in which I include Oblivion, Vanguard etc etc: games which seem to be loading textures dynamically (?) as one moves through an area).</p><p>Raid 0, Raid 1, the first gen of SSDs (with the dreaded Jmicron controller I guess), raptors, ramdisks with junction, setting core affinity for multi-core processors, even a 'superfast' scsi drive !</p><p>And nothing ever seems to have made a difference <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></p><p>As the 'look' is primary to me in these games looks like I'll either have to lump it, or bow out again for a while.</p><p>I just wish that someone more technically qualified than most of the users who post on forums (i.e a Dev ??!!!) would post in detail on the question of hitching - what, exactly it is and is caused by etc etc, and what might, really, help. I'm talking about the game with very high settings here - hopefully it would be 'understood' what hitching refers to in this context.</p><p>I'm sure someone is going to tell me that if I go I7 etc, etc, I should get smooth gameplay, and there's a guy posted on the Vanguard tech. forum (I think) trumpeting his success (finally)in banishing this lack of 'smoothness' by having a real top end up setup comprised of the latest tech (inc. 2 ssds in raid!) but I dunno... dunno... dunno... (bring the strait-jacket nurse)...</p>

[Trellium]

<p>I think I would have a hard time convincing myself to spend massive amounts of cash on high end parts in order to play a game designed almost a decade ago, and seems to be primarily capped by CPU speed. The engine really needs to be updated in a big way. Here we are almost into 2010, and the game engine is struggling to put in Shader support for DX9. Other games are working on their DX11 support.</p><p>EQ2 makes up for that by having a ton of content, and also being available on more modest hardware. But at the same time even fairly high end systems like Rock_Mansions' are struggling so something just seems to be wrong.</p><p>I don't get it either, but the current graphics degrades make it hard to want to play the game. My eyes get tired very fast, and on top of that we almost never zone successfully (end up dropping to char select). It used to be we could zone, but something changed.</p><p>For the most part, I just don't log in anymore.</p>

[Rock_Mansions]

<p>I know what you mean, Trellium, although it's tantilising: as I mentioned above, a player on the Vanguard tech forum has stated that a top end system centered on an i7 processor has finally 'done it'... mind you, how many times have I read something similar with regard to earlier generation 'best' hardware only to find my own experience sadly contradictory...  that's why I'd really like someone technically qualified to explain what's going on with EQ2 and similar games that cause such problems, although it may well be a combination of things, and a decidely lengthy reply (fine!)!    the posts by Goulz that I linked to in my first post argue strongly against the 'CPU bottleneck' mantra, remember...: probably BS, but then again...?    the other thing that strikes me is that, having seen the 'latest' games on a friends PS3 when last in london, graphics in general seem to have been 'dumbed' down in many titles (although that may be my taste to a certain degree: I like neither the gameplay or appearance of games like 'crysis' and 'gears of war'<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.   I wonder if this is an admission that for certain game types (MMO for sure) the requirements placed upon a system are such that for truly smooth gameplay, graphics have to be scaled back? At top settings, EQ2 is extraordinarily rich (in some respects) graphically, and when one considers how much else is being asked of a computer in running such a game in real time, perhaps it should come as no surprise that, 10yrs old (?) or not, systems/software still struggle... one only has to look at the oddly poor, cardboard-y, graphics for dragon age origins (not an MMO of course, but...) to begin to suspect that reality has bitten (particularly in the 'console' age) and ambitions scaled down accordingly...? anyhow, I'm really waffling I guess: have to hope a magic wand gets waved somehow or other, sometime soon.</p>