New graphic card, no improve in FPS ?

[Elyara]

Hi all,

I just bought myself a new graphics card and power supply, but  no increase in FPS for me.

Can anyone help me out? - And yes I installed the latest drivers.

I currently have an intel dual core 2x 3.0Ghz processor. I also have an intel motherboard.

Windows XP

2Gb RAM

Sound Blaster XFi in PCI slot x1

Power supply: 500Watt

upgrade from nvidia 7800GTX 256Mb to nvidia 7900GTX 512Mb. (it's in a PCI x16 slot...)

[TSR-DanielH]

Greetings,

While you may see a small performance gain with that upgrade, those cards are virtually identical.  As far as I'm aware there are only 2 differences.  The 7900 has a smaller die and more memory bandwidth.  It also handled heat issues better than the 7800 model.  Most of the graphics processing in Everquest2 is done on the CPU, though, so those changes wont make a major difference.

[Elyara]

Oops, seems I was a bit too fast in writing...

So I come from a 7800GTX 265Mb and upgraded to a 9800GTX 512 Mb.

Sigh, I must say I am really disappointed.

[Eveningsong]

Have you made any changes to your graphics settings in game?  There's a great guide to getting the most out of your graphics settings here http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...?topic_id=17133 -- I'd highly suggest going through the guide and making adjustments using their suggestions.  There are several settings that can drop your fps significantly but add very little or nothing to graphics quality, depending on your other settings.

[Elyara]

Thanks, I'll certainly have a look at it!

[Grakkan]

Elyara wrote:

Oops, seems I was a bit too fast in writing...

So I come from a 7800GTX 265Mb and upgraded to a 9800GTX 512 Mb.

Sigh, I must say I am really disappointed.

Upgrade your memory.  2GB isn't all that much anymore.  EQII takes up about 3GB alone on my machine, so give it more of what it needs. 

[Cassea]

How does EQ2 take 3gb of memory?In XP EQ2 needs about 0.75gig and in Vista it needs 1gigExtra memory can help with hard drive caching and yes you can turn some settings up that will use more memory but a 2gig system is matched very nicely for EQ2 which was designed for about 512meg to 1gig.Adding more memory actually might slow down EQ2 if by doing so you have to use all 4 banks of memory which does slow down memory access. The "sweet" spot is to never use more than 2 banks of memory as each time you put in more sticks of memory your computer will slow down your memory access to keep them in sync.Yes it's better to run 4 banks with slower memory "if" you do not have enough memory to run the applications you use. Slower memory is better than not enough memory but I hardy think 2gig is too little for EQ2.My preference...2 sticks of 2gig each for 4gig with Vista 64. Running XP? Stay with 2gig until you are ready to move over to Vista 64.-JB

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Rise of Kunark RequirementsRequired Specs: Windows® 2000/XP Pentium® III 1 Ghz or greater 512 MB RAM DirectX 9 Compatible video card DirectSound compatible hardware; Pixel shader and vertex shader compatible hardware with 64MB of texture memory DirectSound compatible audio hardware 56k Internet Connection 16X DVD-ROM 10GB Hard Drive Space Original EverQuest II and a valid EverQuest II subscription are required Recommended Specs: Windows® 2000/XP/Vista Pentium® 4 2 Ghz or greater 1 GB RAM DirectX 9 Compatible video card; Pixel shader and vertex shader compatible hardware with 128MB of texture memory or greater DirectSound compatible audio hardware Broadband Internet Connection 16X DVD-ROM 10 Gigabytes Hard Drive Space

[Cassea]

Why are you not seeing a boost in speed? Simple... EQ2 uses your CPU, not your Video Card like it should, for many graphics functions. This is why you will not see a boost in speed as you are still using the same CPU. In your case, and with EQ2 only, your CPU apparently was the bottleneck and not the video card. Try other games that use the video card properly and see if you see a speed boost.At least you are not seeing a slowdown like some people who "upgrade" to a quad-core CPU that runs slower MHZ-wise who are seeing EQ2 actually slow down because EQ2 will only use one core.1 core at 3000mhz runs EQ2 alot faster than 4 cores at 2500mhz because EQ2 will not use the extra 3 cores. All EQ2 sees, in this case, is that you just "downgraded" from a 3000mhz CPU to a 2500mhz CPU.-JB

[Derrmerth2]

EQ2 may not take 3 gigs of memory, but your system will. The box/site may say 1 gig or so but that amount of memory is EASILY passed up in the game, even with out running max textures. If you try to play with better settings in ROK your gonna hit that RAM ceiling with two gigs, hard. It is not crazy for a normal system to eat up 512Mb to 1gig on its own, leaving little room for EQ2.

Having more then 2 gigs is a pretty solid investment for this game or for a lot of systems period. With max textures, which make the game look incredible, my client has used two gigs of RAM all by its self. Unless you are positve you will never ever use 2 gigs of memory, get 3 or 4. As soon as you involve virtual RAM/hard drive caching, you take a massive performance hit. The slowest DDR ram is faster then the fasest hard drive.

While the 2x2 configuration is indeed the best, leaving you room to upgrade again and giving your RAM some cooling room, the latency of cross channel access in RAM from using 4x1 is incredibly small. Unless you are trying to win a benchmark contest or are a performance OC'er, it dosen't matter. But since you can get high speed, high quality DDR2 RAM in a 2x2gig pack for about 100 bucks, you can't say no. Example.

However on the video card side, no truer words have been said. This game dose not take advantage of a GPU like it should (could?). I myself have an EVGA 9800 GTX SSC, love it to death. My other games just love it but EQ2 just kind of ignores it and hangs out with my CPU. Even with a E8500 @ 3.6Ghz, it wants more. The game settings are pretty much maxed out but several years after the game has come out its still slapping my (fairly) top of the line CPU around. I think the lesson is clock speed FTW?

[Elyara]

Thank you all for your info and comments,

at least now I know there isn't something wrong with my videocard.

And indeed, on other games I can set a lot of settings now to max and still have an increase in FPS.

A shame this game uses CPU so much, I really wish I could turn on shadows and such...

Will they ever change the code, so more GPU is used and so we may run this game somewhat smoother ?

[Naubeta]

You will be able to turn textures up to the highest detail now at least with 512mb.And then turn off smooth fonts (that makes a really big differnce to fps).