FPS drop - Help!

Hey everyone!

Good to be back in EQ. That said, I'm having an issue in-game where when I look at a structure, for example I look at the keep in Crushbone or the house in Unrest, my screen skips almost like it freezes until I look away from it and/or I get a massive dps drop. Everywhere else I look is fine but its specific to when I look at the buildings in there. I assume itll happen in other places but these two in particular is where I have noticied it and its quite annoying seeing as how I am running on a brand new system - i7 6700k, 980 TI.

Is there any setting or something wrong with why I keep getting this FPS drop/skipping when looking at these structures? Kind of annoying, especially when trying to group in these zones.

My first thought is to check this.

Find your eqclient.ini open it with Notepad (for example mines in C:\Games\SOE\EverQuest) if you don't know, run EQ launcher, login, click the gears icon (hovering over it, there is a popup that says Advanced Tools), click Open Game Directory. Windows Explorer opens.

In the Default section, for as many cores as you have in your system have a CPUAffinity line, i.e. for 8 cores you should have this:
CPUAffinity0=-1
CPUAffinity1=-1
CPUAffinity2=-1
CPUAffinity3=-1
CPUAffinity4=-1
CPUAffinity5=-1
CPUAffinity6=-1
CPUAffinity7=-1

Make sure there are no other CPUAffinity lines with different values.

Save and exit, close the launcher and restart EQ.

Quoting it to say like it again. Ask why? EQ by default (line of code in eqclient.ini) sets EQ to run only on one core some time now. CPU though have not increased its speed, much, if any. The only thing that has really happened is adding more codes. Adding the neg 1 allows the EQ work to be spread out so it is not capping one core.

New system? Power settings can and will cause weird issues, not just with EQ but other games.

Control Panel, Power Options, High Performance

Nvidia Control Panel, 3D, Power Management Mode - change from Adaptive to Max Performance. Ensures Nvidia card is used all the time, not switching back and forth with Intel GPU on the CPU.

It would not be bad to setup a profile in the Nvidia for EQ (launchpad.exe / eqgames.exe) and CAP FPS, or while editing the eqclient.ini change or add Vsync = TRUE . It would be better to put a FPS cap of 60-70ish. Having a huge FPS fluctuating occurring gives me a headache.

All good, additional things to try!

All good things you guys have recommended and I appreciate your time and help!

As for Caell's recommendations, I have done those. I did those back when I first got the system so its been that way now for a month or so. Still had the skipping/fps drop issue.


After messing around with a lot of things in-game I came to the conclusion that it was the "advanced lighting" that was causing the FPS drop/skipping when looking at a structure. Now... this is what stumps me... Having a good system, 980 TI graphics card, why the hell am I getting ANY choppiness in this game? My system back in 99 ran this with zero issues, zero lag and it was a hell of a lot less powerful than this thing. Granted, I understand all games wont run exactly the same way on every system but really? a 600 dollar video card struggling with Everquest? What's going on here?

EQ is more CPU bound than it is GPU bound, and it's still a single core based client. EQ doesn't need a super high end GPU, it needs the performance of a single core to be fast. Additionally, all the extra illusions and ornamentations that are available in every zone nowadays that weren't available back in 99 adds to the overhead. I would bet that computer from '99 wouldn't do so well running the game client of today.

You also might experiment with /shownames the more information above everyone's char the slower the game is.

EQ is not nearly the same game it was back in '99. A modern engine would run better. The client has had 17 years of updates tacked onto it, full-on feature-creep style. They optimize it from time to time but the end result is that it draws more and more CPU to run. One thing it doesn't handle well for example is a lot of text. Texture streaming might be a culprit as well.

The only thing I haven't really tried yet and it's because I haven't had much time the last few days is the whole switching the affinities to a single core up ^^^ with what Caell recommended trying. Think that may help some? The biggest difference that I noticed was turning off the advanced lighting. Once I did that, the skipping/fps drop while looking at strictures for the most part went away. But, I still want to try setting the cores to the single core with what Caell recommend. I'll try it and check back in. Thanks guys for all your input

For me, enabling Shadows and/or Advanced Lighting takes a big toll on my FPS. If I leave those two options off, the game runs much faster, no matter what else I turn on or turn up.

Advanced Lighting also makes the game way too bright and over-saturated for my eyes in areas with lots of people due to the large amount of light sources in one area, so I am fine leaving that off. I'm the type of guy who calibrates his TV on the "Movie" setting so to me AL just looks awful.

Shadows look really nice, but Shadows + Luclin models is unplayable for me. Shadows + Classic models is not as bad, so that's what I use now along with Velious textures enabled of course.

Update all your drivers + clean EQ install with DX included.
Try your 980ti manufac's drivers if no help with Nvidia's.

@ FixShamanplease

I'm playing on a clean install of EQ w/DX with updated drivers. The "Advanced Lighting" seems to be the culprit of my FPS drop/Stuttering. When I have time today, I will be trying what Caell recommended with setting the CPU affinities to a single core. Hopefully that'll help but if it doesn't, oh well. I can live with the advanced lighting being turned off. Not like it made much of a difference anyway.

Old Bump.
I filtered Other, Say, and Emotes to a Tab/window I collapse and it no longer hitches for me when aggroing or killing mobs.