Hardware

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Oakenblade, Sep 28, 2019.

  1. Oakenblade Former ForumQuest Champion

    Greetings ForumQuest Champions,

    I'm trying to get some ideas on how I can upgrade my rig strictly for EQ purposes. So inb4 "you can play EQ on a brick" I'm aware of that. But I want to increase performance whether it be during raids or multiboxing from a single PC. Typically I start to have issues with frame rate the more boxes I have up, or when there is a lot of incoming info to the log file when raiding. I often have to turn windows defender off during raids. From what I understand EQ is mostly intensive on the CPU, is that correct? If not I'd like to learn more. I'm not a hardware expert by any means whatsoever.

    Anyway I built this PC back in 2014 and it was pretty decent for the time. I'm wondering if there are any affordable approaches I can take to either upgrade a few slots, or possibly get a new motherboard and re-do the whole thing. If you guys have any ideas please let me know. This is what I'm currently running and how I have it configured.

    EQClient.ini - all affinities set to -1 (to utilize all cores of the cpu)
    3 monitor setup. 2 DVI's and one dataport using Eyefinity.
    Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA - UD5
    RAM: 16GB (not sure on the details but I can figure it out if it's important)
    CPU: AMD FX 8350 8 core. 4GHz.
    Graphics Card: AMD Radeon R9 200 series (4GB)

    I have the windows 10 OS operating from 1 SSD using SATA3, and I have the EQ directory on a secondary SSD also using SATA3.

    Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
  2. Teylana Elder

    The issues regarding your log file during raiding may not have anything to do with your rig. It may be Windows Defender. There are multiple threads on the forums giving instructions on how to fix that issue.

    If you're really looking to improve performance, a new CPU is in order. EQ is very processor dependent. Which cpu you should get depends on how many boxes you run (how many do you run?). More important than that though is ipc and sheer clock speed. Intel CPUs still tend to edge out AMD in that realm.
  3. kizant Augur

    AMD really isn't bad anymore but you do have to be careful. Those old 8 core processors weren't particularly great for EQ. If you were buying today then something like a Ryzen 5 3600 would be a good affordable option. It does pretty well and is only about $200.
    https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
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  4. Oakenblade Former ForumQuest Champion


    Seems that the Ryzen is AM4 socket whereas my MB is AM3. Not sure that would work
  5. Bigstomp Augur

    What others said above. Tell your virus scanner not to scan your log files.
  6. Bigstomp Augur

    Oh, and EQ really loves memory. A decent video card is cool, but lots of RAM is great.
  7. Oakenblade Former ForumQuest Champion

    Thanks for the input folks

    I suppose I wasn't entirely accurate in what I said earlier. I don't "often" turn off windows defender. I do it religiously before starting raids. These images will give you an idea of what I'm dealing with when I'm boxing.
    [IMG]

    [IMG]


    So looks like I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and upgrade to an AM4 socket motherboard and get a Ryzen CPU. Hopefully this will solve my issues.
  8. Zanarnar Augur

    to a point. However eqgame.exe is still a 32-bit process. As such it can only address 4GB of ram per process. (at least on a 64bit OS)
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  9. Tappin Augur

    Make sure to get proper cooling if you’re going with a box army (a decent air cooler). I would spend a few extra dollars on a GPU with decent cooling than worry about buying a high end one.
  10. Vumad Cape Wearer

    I have 8700k, 32gb ddr4, gtx1060 6gb, 100mbs internet. I laid down a whopping 12fps on a single client in alishai raids.

    I think it's the law of diminishing returns caused by the game engine itself, but who knows, maybe I have something wrong with my system.
    Funnonry likes this.
  11. kizant Augur

    How many clients are you running when boxing? What does task manager show for GPU activity? EQ is very CPU dependent but the GPU does take some of the work off the EQ client.

    Every EQ client I run increases my 3D GPU usage by 10% and 3 clients uses 1 gig of memory. So, if you have 6 clients running then you're probably OK with 4 gigs of VRAM. But my GPU would be running at 60% and I have a GTX 1070ti. Yours might be struggling?

    Also, your CPU usage does seem oddly high unless you're running more than 6 clients maybe? You said you turn off windows defender but what about when you were boxing for those screenshots?
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  12. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Couple things here...

    1. When xferring EQ files to a new PC, delete the eqclient.ini file. That file was built for your old system. Let the game engine build a new eqclient.ini file on the new machine. If you just build or bought a shiny new system and EQ is running like crap on concrete: close EQ >> nuke that eqclient.ini file >> Open launchpad >> Run a complete file check >> Relaunch EQ.
    2. When choosing a new CPU for multiboxing, the newer the better. i7-9700k or i7-9900k are great options in the blue camp. Ryzen 3700, 3800, or 3900 are great options in the red camp. The reasons for this are many, but it mainly comes down computes per clock (work per clock). The newest CPUs are capable of performing the most work per clock. This equates to less lag.
    3. GPUs are still important for EQ, but it's more about texture memory and texture swap rates. Newer hardware swaps faster and larger GPU memory can store more textures (more boxes).
    4. RAM - A single EQ instance can address 4GB of RAM (maximum). If you have 6 boxes, plan on getting 24GB RAM + 3GB for Windows. Can pretty much round this up to 2x16GB sticks for a total of 32GB.
    5. Power supply, buy the best you can afford for the wattage you NEED.
    >NOTE: AMD CPUs and Motherboards are INCREDIBLY sensitive to RAM. >>If building your own system, MAKE SURE you check with the motherboard manufacturer's website for your specific RAM sku. All motherboard manufacturers have a website page for this. Some of them call it a memory configurator. Intel CPUs and Motherboards are not sensitive to RAM, but you should still check your motherboard manufacturer's website to ensure compatibility.
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  13. kizant Augur

    I run EQ windows at 1080p and it never uses more than 800 megs of memory and I have it set to most memory usage. You really don't need to go crazy with RAM. 1 GB per client would be plenty for most people.
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  14. Tucoh Augur

    I noticed huge gains in my current pc when I upgraded from a 4ish year old i7 to a new i7. Probably got more gains from my cpu upgrade than i did from my gpu upgrade.
  15. Kukaw Augur

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  16. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    This is true for me in most zones as well. However, I have seen it max out in certain zones with more complex geometry and certain types of textures. A LOT of what amounts to memory usage depends on your specific graphics settings.
  17. NameAlreadyInUse #CactusGate

    I say trust your Task Manager & Performance Monitor results: You are not hurting for memory, but you could use more CPU. I agree that you might check into your GPU usage, but that can be strange territory: my old AMD card never reported particularly high GPU usage, but switching to a newer Nvidia 1060 6gb card definitely seemed to look better, even though it reported higher usage (still doesn't come close to maxing out before the CPU does).

    Tucoh's statement about getting huge gains from updating his 4-year old CPU to a newer one really intrigues me, and I'd like to hear more about the specifics (such as number of clients and FPS differences), as well as how much of the improvement can be directly tied to the CPU and not to other changes (like an OS refresh or other system changes).

    If there really is that much of a difference for boxing, it might convince me to upgrade also ;)
  18. NameAlreadyInUse #CactusGate

    I also think it is important to know how many clients you are trying to run and important to set expectations fairly. From your memory usage, my guess is that you are probably trying to 6-box. I use an Intel i7 3770, which should be very similar to your AMD (and the rest of my rig is also very similar), and from my experience your CPU usage seems normal (for 6-boxing).

    I am able to run up to 9 clients (probably even more), but they really start to suffer. I have 6-boxed through an entire expansion, but usually I only run 4 for peak performance. And during raids I often drop that down to only 2 or 3 clients. With 4 cores, running more than 4 clients means that no client is getting the CPU's full attention and other programs (like Discord, GINA, gamparse, browsers, etc.) take their toll also. Hyper-threading might show up in Windows as 8 cores, but those secondary cores are more like virtual cores and are almost best ignored for EQ, in my experience.

    I think it is really important when having these discussions to set expectations fairly and to compare apples to apples. Without actual numbers, everybody's definitions of "good", "bad", and "playable" are subjective. For me, anything less than 60 FPS is "bad" for my primary client, and anything less than 45 FPS is "bad" for any clients I have in the background (auto follow really starts to suffer and I think that is a great indication of playability). But even with my much newer i7 8750H (mobile, but still much higher benchmarks), I don't notice any performance difference on raids (I don't box more than 2 on that rig because it gets ridiculously loud :D). I don't think anybody consistently gets anything close to "good" performance during raids.

    EQ is not like other games, where you can throw hardware at it and make it better. Nothing is worse than spending money on hardware and then not really noticing any difference in-game.
  19. drizerker Lorekeeper

    Does anyone play EQ on a laptop with an intel 620 onboard video? How Does it handle? Obviously not as well as a 2g nvidia but we it should be half the price. Thanks for your time and feedback!
    Funnonry likes this.
  20. Nniki Augur

    Should be fine if you're just looking to run a single character. Could probably box a couple though, I imagine. CPU is the main roadblock as others have said.