I've been having this problem for a while and Daybreak support wasn't able to help me out. I'll be running around or fighting monsters and the game will just randomly freeze for 2-3 seconds visually, but things will still keep happening while this is happening. It's caused me to run off cliffs a few times because of it. I've tried disabling logs, stopping my journal from updating, and making sure all my drivers are up to date and the game files have been validated. I'm at my wits end trying to figure out what the heck is going on. Anyone else having this issue? It happens on my laptop and my desktop with no discernible common cause.
It looks like you've done most of what you can. Other less likely things: Make sure the drive that holds EQ has room. Make sure it has been either Trimmed or Defraged within the last month. How much RAM does your PC have?.
The whole EQ folder including subfolders? Do you run multiple installations? I had a guildie talking to me about an issue, cleared up once the EQ logs folder was added to Norton exceptions, but also turning off logs helped so I knew this is what it was. Also make sure its the real time exceptions not the on-demand scan exceptions. Make sure your log files stays under oh like 100 MB or something. Are you playing a bard? Is your in-game options for FPS set to unlimited? Make sure your system clock is accurate to within 1 second and correct time zone. Reboot your router. Check for branded security service on your router like BitDefender/McAfee/ASUS something, those are known to interrupt EQ with the packet scanning, wanna disable those services but not the default in-built security. Alt-J, NPC Journal? NEVER have this running, even DBG gonna tell you this feature slows down the client and don't have it on, kinda surprised its not just been removed.
Live, test, or beta? Windowed or full screen? Default or custom UI? "Use New UI Engine" enabled or disabled? Can you take your laptop and try at a friends house? Bonus if they have a different ISP.
I'm playing on live, and the issue happens to me in windowed and full screen. I'm using the default UI, but I had the Use New UI Engine turned on. I'll turn that off and see if it helps. I'm not sure if the issue's going to be a network issue but if I can get to a friend's place to try it out I'll do that.
Theres been no real hubbub lately, and since you say both your laptop and your desktop, would leave something at your router or at your ISP. Maybe you can have your ISP run a check on your line, maybe they need to replace the line or clean a connection.
Unsure if this actually solved the problem but I forced EQ to run on only one core of my processor and haven't had a hitch since... I'm going to do some soloing on a lower level toon to see if it was actually the solution or not. The reason I'm dubious about the issue being network related is it acts like a graphical or processor issue. The entire game hangs for a second or two and then it starts working again. A network issue to me would be more like the game acts normal and then I jump back to a prior location or something.
While logged out, edit eqclient.ini. Add for however many clients you spin up on 1 machine to box, top section [Defaults]. ClientCoreX is the instance of eqgame, with 0 being the first instance. The reason to use even (0/2/4) OR odd (1/3/5), index starting at 0 going to [number of threads - 1], is with hyperthreading it puts 2 threads on 1 cpu core, so 0/1 would both be running on and having to share a core. If you box more clients than you have [threads / 2], then you will have to double up somewhere. A windows update or manufacturer update could have killed performance for your CPU recently. If you set =-1 then Windows will schedule on whichever core it wants to, which could induce switching cores that has impacted certain systems in the past. ClientCore0=0 ClientCore1=2 ClientCore2=4 etc.. Or ClientCore0=1 ClientCore1=3 ClientCore2=5 etc..
I only ever run one instance of EQ, but I modified my ini to reflect that and the issue took longer to crop up, but still happened. (I double-checked in task manager and it was still assigned to only one core, so that doesn't appear to be the solution either.) I'll have to check with friends to see if any of them are available for me to come by this week and see if it's my internet, but I've got high speed fiber so I hope that's not it.
Check your power savings settings are set to off, this might not help but it rules out CPU throttling. Also check your CPU & GPU temperatures.If they are high might be time to check your coolant system if liquid based &/or clean their heatsinks of dust build up, especially if air cooled. You could also try uninstalling your GPU drivers & re-installing the latest whql ones, sometimes corruption can happen when you install new drivers over the top of old ones.
I've got my power saving settings to off, I think that may have been the first thing I turned off on my laptop. Confirmed just to make sure. My GPU is hitting about 54C and my CPU is sitting around the same with the game running. Those temps don't seem alarming to me. I did try uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers as you suggested, but the problem persists. After I get off work today I'm going to try defragging my drive as someone suggested earlier to see if that helps. I'm not sure what else could possibly be the culprit as other games do work on my laptop and EQ is the only one having these issues.
Heavy packet inspection by the ISP (or modem/router) would induce enough latency that the (20 year old) client is unable to compensate for, despite nothing wrong on your system or having gigabit throughput. And, since its simultaneously 2 systems at the same location.
I just tried playing the game on my laptop with it tethered to my phone (and both off of my wifi) and the issue persisted. Something tells me it's not a network problem.
I ran the game with the task manager open beside it and all I noticed when the brief freeze happened is a 5% spike in my CPU usage that went back down almost immediately.
Too many directions to go with the information provided. But I'd start with a basic PC tune-up and debloat. And it could just be Windows attempting to update something.
Is there any information I could provide that would point us in more of a direction? I'm nearing the end of my rope with this problem, and all of my troubleshooting with Daybreak ended in them telling me to just ask here. The perplexing thing for me is that P99 works just fine and it's a much older client, it's only live EQ that has this issue.
Keep task manager open, and go to the processes screen. Instead of monitoring your performance, monitor your tasks themselves. Sort the list from largest CPU utilization to smallest. Whenever the hitching happens in-game, watch for new tasks rising to the top of the process list. Spend enough time cross-referencing the in-game hitching to the process list, and you should be able to correlate which task is increasing usage % (rising to the top of the list) whenever the in-game spikes happen. Thereafter, annihilate all evidence that program/process ever existed on your computer; or, you may have to be more thoughtful if you aren't lucky enough to just nuke it.
