How long will the CPU horror last?

[Pixiewrath]

I heard in a webcast that the game engine would be updated once the devs' new design tools were finished.So how is the process coming along? Any updates on this matter?The only thing that keeps me away from this game at times is the lack of multi cpu support...It's bothering my eyes and the general feeling of the game when it stutters at 20 FPS one second, 5 fps the next, and 50 the other... And with new staff announced and the fact that this is a known issue, it should be priority one to update the game engine to match today's technology to at least some extent.Words?

[SlashnGut]

Not everyone can afford a newer computer. They keep it so more people are able to play who have older computers.

[feldon30]

Hakdagutz@Butcherblock wrote:

Not everyone can afford a newer computer. They keep it so more people are able to play who have older computers.

lolwut?

Does anyone here play EQ2 on a single core CPU with a DirectX 6 graphics card?

[LordPazuzu]

LOL, updating the engine would make it play smoother on older computers. 

[Lamatu]

This games engine will not be updated anytime soon. In fact they have abandoned such things as shader 3.0 and others.

The only "engine improvements" are mostly likely touchup jobs like they have done in Darklight. They also refer to engine improvements when referring to chasing down lag bugs.

If anything this games servers have been going down the toilet. I reference chat lag on multiple servers and launchpad bugs that many still have.

Be assured anything new engine wise will be a beta test for EQNext.

[Windstalker]

We are always concerned about performance and will be looking at optimizations and improvements on an ongoing basis.  I'm not sure who said we were updating the "game engine," because we're not doing that specifically. 

What we are doing is working on terrain and art tools that will help us build environments that look and perform a lot better than they do now.  It's not a trivial task and we've been working on it for some time, but artists are already doing testing and working with it.  It's pretty amazing to see how quickly they can create things like mountain vistas compared to the tools they have now.  We're excited about it.

To be honest, we will never stop looking at ways to improve how the game performs while maintaining and improving the quality for players.  

[deadcrickets2]

Windstalker wrote:

We are always concerned about performance and will be looking at optimizations and improvements on an ongoing basis.  I'm not sure who said we were updating the "game engine," because we're not doing that specifically. 

What we are doing is working on terrain and art tools that will help us build environments that look and perform a lot better than they do now.  It's not a trivial task and we've been working on it for some time, but artists are already doing testing and working with it.  It's pretty amazing to see how quickly they can create things like mountain vistas compared to the tools they have now.  We're excited about it.

To be honest, we will never stop looking at ways to improve how the game performs while maintaining and improving the quality for players.  

Smokejumper said that the engine was being worked on.  

That being said I would love to see all the SF zones re-done especially spots like Paineel as they perform worse than even newer, better looking zones like DoV.

BTW, is one of the changes going to be the skeleton update that was talked about back in 07?  And will there be in change to the way the character models are done so they are more quickly rendered?   SIMD or one of the newer DirectX 10 features like DrawInstanced (http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GP...gems3_ch02.html)?  Right now it seems it's bogging down heavily with very few models onscreen.

[Lamatu]

deadcrickets2 wrote:

BTW, is one of the changes going to be the skeleton update that was talked about back in 07?

The skeletal revamp was confirmed as abandoned more than six months ago. If Smokejumper did mention engine improvements in a webcast I am sure he was refering to chasing down the lag monster.

We still have not had a official response to the chat delay lag on servers the last few weeks.

[deadcrickets2]

Lamatu wrote:

deadcrickets2 wrote:

BTW, is one of the changes going to be the skeleton update that was talked about back in 07?

The skeletal revamp was confirmed as abandoned more than six months ago. If Smokejumper did mention engine improvements in a webcast I am sure he was refering to chasing down the lag monster.

We still have not had a official response to the chat delay lag on servers the last few weeks.

I probably missed that as I took some time off due to moving.  

I haven't seen the chat delay lag on Freeport but I know a lot have been complaining about DungeonMaker zone lag.

[feldon30]

deadcrickets2 wrote:

BTW, is one of the changes going to be the skeleton update that was talked about back in 07?

The skeletal revamp was scrapped like 3 years ago.

Reasons for doing a skeletal revamp:

• So it doesn't take 3 months to create a set of armor that fits all 21 races x male and female
• So it doesn't take weeks/months to add a new animation (ie dance animation or /sitchair) which must be re-mapped to all races x male and female

Reasons for not doing a skeletal revamp:

• Would take 9-12 months of solid programming and art redesign
• players would login afterwards and EVERY character would look significantly different, except Iksar and Sarnak -- characters that people have spent years customizing would look much different, leading to much grief and anguish

In the end it was unnecessary:

• Snap-on armor in 2009 allows pieces to be added to existing armor models and then modified to work for all races with only a few days effort
• Animation retargeting introduced in 2011 allows an animation to be created once and remapped to all races and genders automatically
• Totally new geometry (new geo) "naked" armor set produced in 2012 allows armor sets to be created and look great on all races and genders in a manner of days/weeks instead of months
• Characters didn't lose their unique appearance.

I'm not sure the intention of the skeletal revamp was ever to improve performance. I have to think character skeletons are a tiny part of what contributes to client side lag/performance. It's more about being able to create new armor sets quickly.

Too bad all of the above was not more heavily publicized beyond the Fan Faire panels. It was something pretty awesome IMO.

[deadcrickets2]

feldon30 wrote:

deadcrickets2 wrote:

BTW, is one of the changes going to be the skeleton update that was talked about back in 07?

The skeletal revamp was scrapped like 3 years ago.

Reasons for doing a skeletal revamp:

• So it doesn't take 3 months to create a set of armor that fits all 21 races x male and female
• So it doesn't take weeks/months to add a new animation (ie dance animation or /sitchair) which must be re-mapped to all races x male and female

Reasons for not doing a skeletal revamp:

• Would take 9-12 months of solid programming and art redesign
• players would login afterwards and EVERY character would look significantly different, except Iksar and Sarnak -- characters that people have spent years customizing would look much different, leading to much grief and anguish

In the end it was unnecessary:

• Snap-on armor in 2009 allows pieces to be added to existing armor models and then modified to work for all races with only a few days effort
• Animation retargeting introduced in 2011 allows an animation to be created once and remapped to all races and genders automatically
• Totally new geometry (new geo) "naked" armor set produced in 2012 allows armor sets to be created and look great on all races and genders in a manner of days/weeks instead of months
• Characters didn't lose their unique appearance.

I'm not sure the intention of the skeletal revamp was ever to improve performance. I have to think character skeletons are a tiny part of what contributes to client side lag/performance. It's more about being able to create new armor sets quickly.

Too bad all of the above was not more heavily publicized beyond the Fan Faire panels. It was something pretty awesome IMO.

Beautiful knowledge.  Too bad I missed the panel.  

[The_Cheeseman]

Believe it or not, I am still running EQ2 on the very same machine I built for the game back when it first came out in 2004. The old girl is definitely showing her age these days, but she's run almost non-stop for 8 years, and never given me a single problem. Just goes to show what buying the right parts and keeping-up with regular maintenance can do for a PC, even one that is VERY heavily used.

Athlon 64 FX-55 CPU, if anybody is curious. One heck of a hardcore chip in its day, but I've gotten my money's worth over the years!

[Celline-Layonaire]

Oh, some clarifications here...

1) There's still no hard evidence that they abandoned Shader 3.0. In fact, they initially said they're going to have Shader3.0 disabled temporarily(about 1~2years I guess) 'cause it wasn't up to par and wasn't a satisfactory implementation to their standards. Anyone remember the graphics programmer 'GermInUSA' ?

2) I recall them didn't even mention the 'game engine overhaul'. In fact I've never seen/heard of them(largely due to the complexity of this old engine). Believe me I come to and browse eq2 forum almost every day. Smokejumper did say in April 2011 that they're constantly working on overall server/client/raid/game performance and terrain/art generation pipeline to make new zones much more larger and faster. (so, what Windstalker said above is right)   

3) At that time, the dev team thought it'd be easier to make a entirely new engine from scratch than work on and complete Skeletal Revamp. They finally decided to rather work on more contents and bug bash and stuffs.

[wullailhuit]

There maybe no hard evidence , but the coder that started it all was moved on to other projects on another MMO , posted that he'd TRY and put in small fixes as and when he had the time...then soon after disspeared from the forums , may have been 'let go'.

[deadcrickets2]

Celline-Layonaire wrote:

2) I recall them didn't even mention the 'game engine overhaul'. In fact I've never seen/heard of them(largely due to the complexity of this old engine). Believe me I come to and browse eq2 forum almost every day. Smokejumper did say in April 2011 that they're constantly working on overall server/client/raid/game performance and terrain/art generation pipeline to make new zones much more larger and faster. (so, what Windstalker said above is right)   

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=498016

Smokejumper posts:"Engine improvements are also on our list for this year. Those definitely take time to accomplish but there are some obvious things we should do to bring the engine up to par with other modern engines."

[Celline-Layonaire]

deadcrickets2 wrote:

Celline-Layonaire wrote:

2) I recall them didn't even mention the 'game engine overhaul'. In fact I've never seen/heard of them(largely due to the complexity of this old engine). Believe me I come to and browse eq2 forum almost every day. Smokejumper did say in April 2011 that they're constantly working on overall server/client/raid/game performance and terrain/art generation pipeline to make new zones much more larger and faster. (so, what Windstalker said above is right)   

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=498016

Smokejumper posts:"Engine improvements are also on our list for this year. Those definitely take time to accomplish but there are some obvious things we should do to bring the engine up to par with other modern engines."

This 'Engine improvements' will mainly cater to introducing new graphics/gameplay features and ongoing optimization, I guess. (features and programming tricks to accomplish their goal) Furthermore, that statement doesn't deviate much from his last year's producer letter.

I'd say major changes like 'implementing dx11 tech' or 'upgrading Shader model' won't come in the near future. 

And to Wullailduo : Right, but still circumstantial. Who knows what will happen in the future?  =)

[Pixiewrath]

Windstalker wrote:

We are always concerned about performance and will be looking at optimizations and improvements on an ongoing basis. I'm not sure who said we were updating the "game engine," because we're not doing that specifically.

What we are doing is working on terrain and art tools that will help us build environments that look and perform a lot better than they do now. It's not a trivial task and we've been working on it for some time, but artists are already doing testing and working with it. It's pretty amazing to see how quickly they can create things like mountain vistas compared to the tools they have now. We're excited about it.

To be honest, we will never stop looking at ways to improve how the game performs while maintaining and improving the quality for players.

deadcrickets2 wrote:

Celline-Layonaire wrote:

2) I recall them didn't even mention the 'game engine overhaul'. In fact I've never seen/heard of them(largely due to the complexity of this old engine). Believe me I come to and browse eq2 forum almost every day. Smokejumper did say in April 2011 that they're constantly working on overall server/client/raid/game performance and terrain/art generation pipeline to make new zones much more larger and faster. (so, what Windstalker said above is right)   

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=498016

Smokejumper posts:"Engine improvements are also on our list for this year. Those definitely take time to accomplish but there are some obvious things we should do to bring the engine up to par with other modern engines."

It was also mentioned in the webcast where he told us about the new dev tools.He said that engine overhauls were going the be the first thing to get done once the new dev tools were completed. And it is direly needed. Biggest reason I tire of playing sometimes and log out is because the framerate is so awful in certain areas.

[Pixiewrath]

Here is the video in question:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtaEY_NSFvkAt around 33:00 in the video.

[deadcrickets2]

Pixiewrath@The Bazaar wrote:

Windstalker wrote:

We are always concerned about performance and will be looking at optimizations and improvements on an ongoing basis. I'm not sure who said we were updating the "game engine," because we're not doing that specifically.

What we are doing is working on terrain and art tools that will help us build environments that look and perform a lot better than they do now. It's not a trivial task and we've been working on it for some time, but artists are already doing testing and working with it. It's pretty amazing to see how quickly they can create things like mountain vistas compared to the tools they have now. We're excited about it.

To be honest, we will never stop looking at ways to improve how the game performs while maintaining and improving the quality for players.

deadcrickets2 wrote:

Celline-Layonaire wrote:

2) I recall them didn't even mention the 'game engine overhaul'. In fact I've never seen/heard of them(largely due to the complexity of this old engine). Believe me I come to and browse eq2 forum almost every day. Smokejumper did say in April 2011 that they're constantly working on overall server/client/raid/game performance and terrain/art generation pipeline to make new zones much more larger and faster. (so, what Windstalker said above is right)   

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=498016

Smokejumper posts:"Engine improvements are also on our list for this year. Those definitely take time to accomplish but there are some obvious things we should do to bring the engine up to par with other modern engines."

It was also mentioned in the webcast where he told us about the new dev tools.He said that engine overhauls were going the be the first thing to get done once the new dev tools were completed. And it is direly needed. Biggest reason I tire of playing sometimes and log out is because the framerate is so awful in certain areas.

I agree on the framerate.  I tend to keep playtime under two hours, usually one hour.  Not enough time to bug Peaches.

[Liral]

feldon30 wrote:

Hakdagutz@Butcherblock wrote:

Not everyone can afford a newer computer. They keep it so more people are able to play who have older computers.

lolwut?

Does anyone here play EQ2 on a single core CPU with a DirectX 6 graphics card?

I most certainly do play on a single core computer.

[Wingrider01]

deadcrickets2 wrote:

Windstalker wrote:

We are always concerned about performance and will be looking at optimizations and improvements on an ongoing basis.  I'm not sure who said we were updating the "game engine," because we're not doing that specifically. 

What we are doing is working on terrain and art tools that will help us build environments that look and perform a lot better than they do now.  It's not a trivial task and we've been working on it for some time, but artists are already doing testing and working with it.  It's pretty amazing to see how quickly they can create things like mountain vistas compared to the tools they have now.  We're excited about it.

To be honest, we will never stop looking at ways to improve how the game performs while maintaining and improving the quality for players.  

Smokejumper said that the engine was being worked on.  

That being said I would love to see all the SF zones re-done especially spots like Paineel as they perform worse than even newer, better looking zones like DoV.

BTW, is one of the changes going to be the skeleton update that was talked about back in 07?  And will there be in change to the way the character models are done so they are more quickly rendered?   SIMD or one of the newer DirectX 10 features like DrawInstanced (http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GP...gems3_ch02.html)?  Right now it seems it's bogging down heavily with very few models onscreen.considering the limitations in DX10

Considering the limitations in DX10 -

1. not backwards compatible to any other version of Directx

2. to be dx10 complaint both the OS and the hardware have to be DX10 capable

to name a few, dx10 is pretty much a no go unles you are sure that your client machines are capable of supporting it, lot easier in a single player game then a online game

[deadcrickets2]

Wingrider01 wrote:

deadcrickets2 wrote:

Windstalker wrote:

We are always concerned about performance and will be looking at optimizations and improvements on an ongoing basis.  I'm not sure who said we were updating the "game engine," because we're not doing that specifically. 

What we are doing is working on terrain and art tools that will help us build environments that look and perform a lot better than they do now.  It's not a trivial task and we've been working on it for some time, but artists are already doing testing and working with it.  It's pretty amazing to see how quickly they can create things like mountain vistas compared to the tools they have now.  We're excited about it.

To be honest, we will never stop looking at ways to improve how the game performs while maintaining and improving the quality for players.  

Smokejumper said that the engine was being worked on.  

That being said I would love to see all the SF zones re-done especially spots like Paineel as they perform worse than even newer, better looking zones like DoV.

BTW, is one of the changes going to be the skeleton update that was talked about back in 07?  And will there be in change to the way the character models are done so they are more quickly rendered?   SIMD or one of the newer DirectX 10 features like DrawInstanced (http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GP...gems3_ch02.html)?  Right now it seems it's bogging down heavily with very few models onscreen.considering the limitations in DX10

Considering the limitations in DX10 -

1. not backwards compatible to any other version of Directx

2. to be dx10 complaint both the OS and the hardware have to be DX10 capable

to name a few, dx10 is pretty much a no go unles you are sure that your client machines are capable of supporting it, lot easier in a single player game then a online game

I expected that response.  Many games out there allow the user to pick between what version they want to run under.  In fact, many of this game's competitors allow it:  LOTRO, DDO, AoC, Rift, WoW amongst many.

It wouldn't be that difficult to set it as an option under advanced options much like the Godrays are now.  Dismissing it simply because some folks are still running old equipment is a bad business decision.  You create options for those who have the new modern equipment to see and run the game better while still able to maintain the old code for those who need it (which drops every month).

[Dillin]

Windstalker wrote:

We are always concerned about performance and will be looking at optimizations and improvements on an ongoing basis.  I'm not sure who said we were updating the "game engine," because we're not doing that specifically. 

What we are doing is working on terrain and art tools that will help us build environments that look and perform a lot better than they do now.  It's not a trivial task and we've been working on it for some time, but artists are already doing testing and working with it.  It's pretty amazing to see how quickly they can create things like mountain vistas compared to the tools they have now.  We're excited about it.

To be honest, we will never stop looking at ways to improve how the game performs while maintaining and improving the quality for players.  

Please don't say "never".  It's up there with there will never be beastlords in EQ2.  TA DA!  Beastlords... 

[MrWolfie]

Windstalker wrote:

build environments that look and perform a lot better than they do now. 

Does that include Freeport - 'cos I cannot traverse the "new, improved" city without getting an out-of-memory crash.

[Pixiewrath]

Aemm@Splitpaw wrote:

Windstalker wrote:

build environments that look and perform a lot better than they do now. 

Does that include Freeport - 'cos I cannot traverse the "new, improved" city without getting an out-of-memory crash.

I get that too on this machine sometimes. On my 12 GB RAM computer it works. But it's still having framerate issues.New Qeynos seems to not crash on test server anyway so it seems to be better optimized. And the framerate is decent too. Especially in the Temple of Life area. It kills my computer on live but on test it was a bit better. Still stuttering though.I just wonder why some high detail areas work fine and other don't... Could it be due to world leaks?

[LordPazuzu]

Liral wrote:

feldon30 wrote:

Hakdagutz@Butcherblock wrote:

Not everyone can afford a newer computer. They keep it so more people are able to play who have older computers.

lolwut?

Does anyone here play EQ2 on a single core CPU with a DirectX 6 graphics card?

I most certainly do play on a single core computer.

It's probably time to take that thing out to the back yard, shoot it, and bury it.

[Xanu]

Meaghan@Lucan DLere wrote:

Liral wrote:

feldon30 wrote:

Hakdagutz@Butcherblock wrote:

Not everyone can afford a newer computer. They keep it so more people are able to play who have older computers.

lolwut?

Does anyone here play EQ2 on a single core CPU with a DirectX 6 graphics card?

I most certainly do play on a single core computer.

It's probably time to take that thing out to the back yard, shoot it, and bury it.

That's kind of you to offer to buy a new computer for that user.  Will you purchase one for me, too?  I mean, I'm still quad core and all but I can always use more.

[LordPazuzu]

Xanu@Kithicor wrote:

Meaghan@Lucan DLere wrote:

Liral wrote:

feldon30 wrote:

Hakdagutz@Butcherblock wrote:

Not everyone can afford a newer computer. They keep it so more people are able to play who have older computers.

lolwut?

Does anyone here play EQ2 on a single core CPU with a DirectX 6 graphics card?

I most certainly do play on a single core computer.

It's probably time to take that thing out to the back yard, shoot it, and bury it.

That's kind of you to offer to buy a new computer for that user.  Will you purchase one for me, too?  I mean, I'm still quad core and all but I can always use more.

Pfft.  When it's time to upgrade, it's time to upgrade.  They shouldn't hold back game improvements to accomodate obsolete technology from a previous decade.  I'm not exactly rolling in cash, but I manage to keep my system reasonably up to date.  That's just part of the reality of being a gamer.

[Xanu]

Meaghan@Lucan DLere wrote:

Xanu@Kithicor wrote:

Meaghan@Lucan DLere wrote:

Liral wrote:

feldon30 wrote:

Hakdagutz@Butcherblock wrote:

Not everyone can afford a newer computer. They keep it so more people are able to play who have older computers.

lolwut?

Does anyone here play EQ2 on a single core CPU with a DirectX 6 graphics card?

I most certainly do play on a single core computer.

It's probably time to take that thing out to the back yard, shoot it, and bury it.

That's kind of you to offer to buy a new computer for that user.  Will you purchase one for me, too?  I mean, I'm still quad core and all but I can always use more.

Pfft.  When it's time to upgrade, it's time to upgrade.  They shouldn't hold back game improvements to accomodate obsolete technology from a previous decade.  I'm not exactly rolling in cash, but I manage to keep my system reasonably up to date.  That's just part of the reality of being a gamer.

My apologies, ma'am.  I truly thought you were simply being kind to a less well-off human being who shares the same interests we do. 

So you were just being mean and judgmental over those with less fortune than yourself.  I understand and will not make the same mistake in judgment again.  I wish you the best!

[Tantrasil]

When did this turn into a pity party? The game needs to be updated for success and if you cant save $800 over a 10 year period, then you probably shouldnt be spending $15 a month.