After searching around the net a little I can't find anything about this specific 2 boxing issue I have - When both characters are in the same zone I will experience a 5 - 7 second lag on average BUT ONLY after they have been there for anywhere from 5min to as long as maybe 30min.... Runs perfect until then... Nothing will cure this unless you remove 1 character from the zone, then bring back in - and even that is only good for a few minutes. lol However, i don't believe this to be a hardware/resources problem or bandwidth, because again, no problems until several minutes into session. Can run both toons in different zones forever with no problem, and the kicker is not ALL zones act this way. There is no loss of framerate, no packet loss, no HDD lights and grinding noises, the cursor is smooth, hardware moniters say system is not "stressed". I have tried copying the EQ directory and running 1 toon from each directory and this still happens. I thought maybe they were sharing a file or something and plugging each other up.. umm sound off so again no shared sound file... followed some "anti lag" guides you can easily find - even tried different RAM sticks i had just for the heck of it. No use. so I ask.... 1. Do you also experience this problem? 2. Have you found a solution for this problem? It's only kind of a bummer because I forked over for another gold and a heroic to go with my main so I could give the boxing thing a shot, but spending quite a bit of time "tweaking" and tinkering trying to figure this one out... strange
in Alt+O Options, Display tab, [Advanced] Options window, is your Max. Background FPS set to Unlimited? if not, setting that to Unlimited will likely fix your boxing problems.
Also check that each is running on its own core. In windows 8 its <CTRL-Shift-ESC>, details tab and right click on 'everquest.exe' and set-affinity. You can also set this in the ini file but I don't have that info off hand. Maybe someone can chime in on that part.
Thank you for the suggestions - both good. Unfortunetly after doing both my situation has not really changed - lol! Although it is a little annoying, it really isnt the end of the world for me to camp and log back in a few times an hour on the alternate character, or even just zone. I mostly find it really curious that it only occurs when both toons are in the same zone. I mean, if it was a bottleneck somewhere system-wise wouldnt the problems always be there? I think it would just bog down as soon as another instance of the game was up and running and really not care what zone you were in. It's almost like something "builds up" and you can "clear" it by leaving the zone and re-entering. I dont however know what that would be or why - ha! Nothing to loose sleep over, but if ya get a hot idea let me know! (oh btw logging is off incase you are thinking that 'cuz i did)
Maybe try /bug report it? sounds like the timing is getting thrown off between your 2 accounts and the server. Maybe like when the Exp. Recovery is showing a cool down and you haven't used it?
If you don't mind try this. Have both toons looking at the ground. I 4 box on one laptop and to reduce lag I have them look down or face them at a zone wall. GTX770M, Core i7 and 24gb ram and after a while I get some lag. So I found having the toons look down or away helps a bit.
No, looking at the ground didn't seem to help. This has - I will say, helped me in other situations - but not here. Although it does not make a lot of sense, what warpeace mentioned about timing to the server being thrown off is more the feel of it. Everything on my end is smooth enough, no choppy looking around, can alt+tab between the windows as fast as i can press the buttons etc etc. Even the connection bar you can see in game by hitting F11 looks good with only 160ms+/- ping on each account, but when you cast a spell the gem will "depress", i cast it on "my end" but it does not actually take effect until 5 seconds or so later on the server side. That would be like having a 5000ms ping - LOL Again I'll say it takes several minutes for this lag to happen, but it's all of a sudden when it does and by moving 1 toon to another zone it instantly goes back to normal - it will continue to stay normal and fast and fine until a few minutes after you bring that toon back into the zone, then starts up again. I could have a trader up on one account, be adventuring on another no problem I could run an alt on one account from 6 or 8 zones away to meet my main no problem It's something about actually being in the same zone at the same time - weird....
lol! I agree Funny you should say that though because I did that on MY SIDE a couple days ago - ha! (that 9 gig download is an overnighter) Actually unrelated to this or everquest I have to get another computer anyways (or I should say a second, not a replacement) so it will be interesting to see if it acts the same on that one or maybe ill just end up running one account off each. /shrug we'll see!
My personal suggestion being a boxer that sees lag ... next time ask in general if anyone else is also having lag. might not be you ... if they aren't then u know it is.
Have you tried checking your Journal (Alt J) to make sure it is off? I think the setting nowadays is default to Off, but a (long) while ago I had that problem with lagging. If it was On for both I'd assume it would affect both of your characters, not just one. That's why I think it's a setting for that one character.
Not all the symptoms are the same, but I experienced something somewhat similar. Whenever I first loaded the game, everything was fine. After zoning one time, any sort of movement would cause me to get 5+ second lag, despite my network meter showing 80ms, no packet loss and nobody else reporting any lag in zone. The only way to fix the lag was to stand still for several seconds, at which point it would clear up until I moved again. If I camped all the way out and reloaded the game, it would clear up until I zoned again. In my case, it was something very odd with my anti-virus. I think it may have been secretly sandboxing EQ for some reason. Once I added the entire EQ folder to the exclusions list, everything was fine. Your case sounds a bit different, but you never know.
Logging turned on? Massive log files can cause all sorts of odd issues. And the background FPS setting in the options will screw with your auto follow, you can turn that down and they follow each other better.
