Devs: What effects do we have to have on?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Fanra, Oct 1, 2015.

  1. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    This is a long running (years) issue that keeps coming up. Under our Display options we have a bunch of settings.

    Some people just turn them all on because they have the hardware and they don't mind tons of extra sparkly stuff. But most people would really like to know what the minimum settings are in order to be able to see what we need to on groups and raids.

    Very often when my guild is raiding there are certain effects that you can see that are very helpful or even necessary to win the raid. So people ask what settings they need to have. And no one can really answer it.

    For example, in the Arx Mentis raid Praetor Vitio, the screen changes color when you need to move to avoid Vitio's area effects. No one knows what setting that is. That is just one of the many different effects that no one knows what settings they are for.

    Besides all the raid emotes and auras that people need to see, there are also campfire and mount smoke, and other things that people would like to not see. No one knows how to turn off smoke and yet leave what they need on.

    Those are just a few of the many issues that people have with these settings.

    I've got a page on my wiki about the various settings. If I can get an answer, I'll update it so everyone in the future has a place to go for the answer and you don't need to answer this again unless you change things.

    So here is my question: You guys have made the raids and various things. Are you able to tell us what we need to have on in order to see it without us having to turn on everything?

    Starting with:

    [IMG]

    Particles:

    Spell > Near Clip: ? Density: ? On For: ? Opacity:?
    Env > Near Clip: ? Density: ? Opacity:?
    Player > Near Clip: ? Density: ? On For: ? Opacity:?



    Now on to Advanced:

    [IMG]

    Which of these do we need to have on?

    Thank you for both myself and my guild mates, and, I'm sure, a lot of other people.
    Perplexed, Mayfaire, Xeladom and 3 others like this.
  2. Randragon Augur

    Praetor Vitio= clicking on the Post Effects box
    Iila likes this.
  3. Axxius Augur

    I know for sure that you want to have HW Vertex Shaders and all Pixel Shaders on.

    Unchecking HW Vertex Shaders will add more load to the CPU. Vertex shading must be performed either way, so if you turn off the hardware (HW) shader the game will have to use the software one. All video cards have them.

    Pixel shading is optional but every single video card made in the 21st century has built-in pixel shaders that will not make the game any slower but only prettier.

    So the top 4 options there are really antiquated and should be removed. The game should always use hardware vertex and pixel shaders.
  4. Motherlee Augur

    For stuff that you need to see like portals and targeting rings, I turn Player tab and turn it on high. You could do lower settings if you like. I turn off when I don't need it except sometimes to marvel at Ice Comet effects. PHOOM!
  5. Metanis Bad Company

    Great thread! It would be awesome to have these settings revisited since today's hardware probably makes many obsolete or redundant.
  6. Koryu Professional Roadkill

    "Enable Post Effects" setting determines whether the game can tint your screen a color. This is what turns your screen blue for standing in the wrong place during the Praetor Vitio event, red when you get the enraged buff during the Plane of War anniversary mission, or gray when doing the dracoliche part of the J5 merc quest in Dream Feerrott. It can do a little more than simple tinting, such as the color dimming in Miragul's Nightmare that was gradually restored to normal colors as you completed more quests in the zone.

    Opacity being the opposite of transparency. 0% opacity is 100% transparency, therefor you cannot see the spell effects at all, which is not useful. 100% opacity is 0% transparency, therefor you cannot see the character or creature models anymore when a spell goes off and they are buried under particle effects. I recommend selecting Me + NPC to limit whose spell effects you can see, and choose somewhere between 10-20% opacity, whatever is comfortable for you so that you do not feel like the spells are blocking your vision of the action. You do want to see NPC spells, because as an example, the fiery targeting rings in the Plane of War counts as spell effects cast by NPCs, and you don't want to stand in the fire. As for the opacity, the only time I run into problems with spell particle effects lagging me out is when I proc the AE from Gilded Hammer of Ro's Light, there is just something intensive about that blooming white spark animation (which used to be attached to really old aggro procs like Pique and was noticeable even then).

    Radial Flora is all of the useless grass and flower ground clutter that is not actually part of the zone geometry, you can walk right through it unhindered and it does not block line of effect to characters or creatures. It can look nice if you like that sort of thing, but can block your ability to see collectibles. A generally unimportant setting.

    Shadows I do not recommend that you enable. It effectively doubles the number of character and creature models that have to be animated, which definitely increases CPU usage, cripplingly so for older machines. The shadows are generally unappealing to me anyway, since they can be cast in some really strange directions that the lighting does not make sense for, and are sometimes absent where you would expect them (such as on walls).
    Fanra likes this.
  7. Brogett Augur

    I used to have major trouble getting settings such that I could see ingame effects from mobs (auras, etc) while also being able to see, well, anything at all due to bard songs, nukes, etc. It was always a fine balance. Then something pointed out the obvious - duh! /showspelleffects off.

    I'd always, incorrectly, assumed that the 3 sliders had spell as player spells and env as mob auras etc, but it just doesn't work that way and player spells aren't controlled via the UI it seems. Anyway, somehow I got a set which works at last. :)
    Motherlee likes this.
  8. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    I may go through my settings and turn up some of the settings while greatly lowering the opacity; and see how I like it. Love the thread, hoping for a Dev/Coder response. I think they have discussed some of these settings before but a few of them are still kind of confusing can could use a reliable place that describes their use well.

    The Devs and coders did too, I think they finally figured out that, and I think that they have fixed it sometime in the last year or so (at least I think I read that they did).
  9. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    Thanks guys for the help with this.

    Koryu, I've added your comments to my wiki page to assist others.

    Perhaps one day Daybreak can give us a full explanation of what settings we need but in the meantime this may help.
    Koryu likes this.
  10. Beimeith Lord of the Game

    The following settings will allow you to see all relevant auras and things you need to see without being too overwhelming...except in certain situation where things were poorly designed. (Arx 3).

    Particles:

    Spell > Near Clip: Near Density: Low On For: Me + NPC Opacity: 25%
    Env > Near Clip: Near Density: Low Opacity: 25%
    Player > Near Clip: Near Density: Low On For: Me + NPC Opacity: 25%
    Fanra, Axxius and Kiillz like this.
  11. Kiillz Augur

    Beimeith ftw
  12. Wizdons Augur

    What i would like to know is if there is an easy way to save settings for different accounts or chars.

    for example i want to see all the cool stuff on my main but i would like my boxed chars to be set to minimum.

    As far as i know the only way to do this is to have 2 copied EQ folders. one with all the settings and one with the reduced settings.

    I would like to just have 1 EQ folder and have it use different settings for different chars.
  13. fortuneteller Augur

    How about advanced ligthning / Bloom lightning.

    What precisely are those ?
  14. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    Use Advanced Lighting - Toggles whether a dynamic lighting algorithm is used or a less advanced one. It determines whether or not EverQuest is using per pixel or per vertex lighting. Per Pixel Lighting does its own unique lighting calculation for each location on the screen. Per Vertex Lighting simply calculates lighting on each vertex and blends between them. Advanced lighting may over brighten some areas with multiple light sources, and has a high impact on performance in crowded areas, even without many light sources.

    Enable Post Effects and Enable Bloom Lighting - These effects work best with graphics cards that have Pixel Shader 2.0 (or higher) support. Older or lower-end cards may experience trouble with frame rates.

    Unchecking Post Effects may also help. Post effects provide some nice flavor to some stuff in House of Thule and up. It appears the post effects so far range from simple screen tinting, to color filters (color grading, desaturation, etc), to bloom. Some early Shader 2.0 cards might see a performance hit from these, seriously doubt any Shader 3.0 or better cards will even notice.

    As Koryu said above, Post Effects is important for some quests, missions, and raids.

    If you are experiencing severe lag, try unchecking Bloom Lighting. Bloom overexposes bright areas of the screen to make it appear to glow, and requires Post Effects turned on to function.
  15. Lianeb Augur

    The only way i know how to do that is with WinEQ
    The free version of the software provides that feature so no need to pay.

    Just load up a boxed toon set it up the way you want it and then log completely out then rename the eqclient.ini to something else and then set wineq to run that ini for that character profile. Log back into EQ on your main and go through the process of turning it all back on to your liking. You can run your main with the normal eqclient.ini through the launcher and your boxes through wineq with the custom Ini. or all through WinEQ your choice.
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.
  16. Makavien Augur


    Hi, you can also copy eq and make multiple copies of it and run each of them for certain characters.

    I used to do this to have separate settings for each of my boxes with my ssd right now till I can buy a big regular hd or another ssd I have them all running from one install.

    With the separate installs you can also rename the folder to the name of your character that you box from that for example in my lower task bar it used to show all 3 eq boxes running but they were named Finalstand > Casttalot > Amping for my 3 main characters.

    I really liked this way because I box doing it without any of those programs that I feel give me an unfair advantage over other players.
  17. Viper1 Augur

    3 words, eye es boxer. What you want is the default way the program works.
  18. Wizdons Augur

    i dont thank that is a free software like winEQ?