Reduce graphics lag significantly

Well, it was a miracle cure for me, anyway. Recently I splurged on a new BenQ XL2420T 120Hz LCD monitor to try 3D gaming. It's really neat in a lot of games - not perfect in EQ, but it does work.

Anyway, I don't play EQ in 3D, but I was poking around my graphics options in-game last night, and on a whim I set my refresh rate (under Video Modes on the Display tab) to 120Hz. The difference was astonishing. I am now able to bounce around in the middle of the buff pile in the Guild Lobby, mouse-looking all around with very little lag. Before, that would have produced a slide show on my screen, and I would have ended up stuck crouched between a wall and one of those standing torch lamps.

I've got better than average hardware, but not bleeding edge by any stretch, and I've always suffered the same lag as everyone else in EQ:
Processor: Intel Core i5 3570K
Video Card: eVGA GTX 670 2GB
Memory: 8GB DDR3

What's more, while I could always run two instances of EQ in full screen, now ALT+TAB'ing between them is nearly instantaneous.

Unfortunately, most LCD displays don't support 120Hz refresh rates. They are typically fixed at 60-70Hz. If you do have a 120Hz-capable monitor or are still using a CRT, try setting your refresh rate to 120Hz in the game options.

Hope it works as well for others as it has for me.
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Refresh rate has absolutely nothing to do with any of that. Just turn vsync and frame limiting off, problem solved.

I guess it was just a massive coincidence then. My bad. /eyeroll

If those are your specs and you get lag in the GL...you've been watching too much . I can load up an army, all with max graphics with:

i7 2700k
GTX 660 ti
16 gigs

Not one bit of lag in the GL, even when the clowns leave 500 deleveled corpses. You either need to get 64 bit Win7, or fix the bugs your pc has.

I'm running 64-bit Win 7. Been playing EQ since 2001. The Guild Lobby has been commonly known to have insane lag since its introduction (or since players began congregating there). This wasn't a hardware issue, it was a coding issue. It's just the the way it was - for *everyone*.

All I know is that when I set my refresh rate to 120Hz in the game options, it all but went away. Draw your own conclusions, but it seems pretty straightforward to me. I still see a very small amount of lag when maneuvering around in the buff pile - not much, but noticeable. If you're going to claim you experience "not one bit of lag", then I'm sorry, but I just don't find that believable - either that, or we're talking about different things when we say "lag".

I swear, I never will understand the compulsion some people have to hate on things.

The Guild Laggy, I mean the Lag Lobby, I mean...

Yeah, everyone I've ever asked about it has said they get lag there. It varies depending on the system of course.

This inspires me to experiment with my settings a bit.

Do you actually maintain 120 FPS when in lobby or on raids?

I have an overclocked 2500k and GTX 570, and even with EQ running on all cores, @1080p my FPS in guild lobby can drop under 60.

With modern games, your setup wouldn't yield more than 25-30% increase over mine, and "in theory" it shouldn't yield any benefit in EQ. I ask if you actually get 120 fps in lobby to see if improvements in Ivy Bridge beyond the clock speed benefits EQ.

CPU speeds for overclockers haven't changed in 2.5 years, but Ivy Bridge and Haswell can run some CPU-intensive apps far better even at the same clock speed; I wonder if EQ is one of them since EQ is quite dependent on how powerful a single CPU core is.

i dont get lag in the lobby either except the 1 dude that left 500 corpses by the pok door, i have varying machines, varying operating systems (mostly xp 64bit and all machines 3-6 years old, none intel either) not sure waht people do to get lag on decent machines but i havent had lag since i left behind the pentium 4 1gb ddr400 wiht onboard video years ago lol, except when its a ping issue but thats ocmpletely unrelated as my roadrunner has rocky periods

Oh, most assuredly not. I haven't checked the effective FPS. All I can say is that it improved dramatically.

And you're running all the newest models with most graphics options maxxed? I guess I wouldn't be shocked to hear that AMD processors run EQ better than Intel, as EQ does tend to utilize the CPU for graphics more than other, more modern games.

Do you have your settings turned up? I have better computer than you and I lag in the lobby with only 1 instance of EQ up. PC has no bugs.

yes i run all new models i get deep into graphics bc im big into building housing designs etc and dont want to miss waht things really look liek etc only thing i dont run are shadows. however all my machines ARE amd, though 1 is also amd video.blech...rest are nvidia (hate intel cpus but i stick with their video due to old issues bt radeon and eq) my amd cpus arent all the newer ones with the gpu etc though 1 is first generation phenom x4 1 is athlon none are the newest socket as all as said are 3-6years old, but only 1 isnt built by myself and that one of course though the newest and highest spec, is the worst performer lol, so the big difference could truly be in who builds the machine, yourself or an assembly line with cheap parts and proprietary software bogging it down.

however since thread is about screens, my screens are cheap and old too newest is a refurb 22" paid like 70bucks for on newegg. there may be other things the op is overlooking that also changed or software that was installed somewhere along with the screen or a setting he changed to go with it etc. 1 thing i do on all machines that many may not realize, is turn off buff and song timers and counters and online leave up limit/limituses. found that back on the pentium 4 when those were all itnroduced that it significantly cut down lag probably due to all the seconds counting down all over, counters may not make anyh different i jsut keep them off anyway

"Lag" is subjective, what may be smooth for him may be lag to others. Specifically, many gamers are content with 30 FPS. Think about how many people got used to 40 FPS EQ that winEQ defaults to.

Why would you think that AMD would beat Intel in EQ? In benchmarks I've seen of CPU-intensive apps, it seems that if all CPUs are at the same speed, it's usually Haswell > Ivy Bridge = Sandy Bridge-E > Sandy Bridge = AMD.

Maybe you're thinking about integrated graphics, which AMD is quite better with, but doesn't matter if you're using a discrete graphics card.

I have mine oc'd to 4.2 currently. OS is on an SSD and all my games are run off external HDs.

For those with excess lag and older systems, turn your graphics settings down, particles off and StickFigures=1 ftw.

I7 930 (2.8ghz only)
24 GBs DDR 1600
ATI 7850

All options on no lag (i force Vsync off in ATI CCP. Full raids no lag although when logging it does lag some but that is a CPU/HD issue not Graphical one. A faster clock speed would reduce that lag or an SSD.

As far as FPS. You know anything over 30 fps the human eye sees as fluid motion right ? And most doctors agree once you get to 50-60 you cannot notice a difference.

i5 3570k
8gb DDR3 1600mhz
HD 7870Ghz
Crucial M4
Windows 7 or 8

I lag badly with options turned off, I lag badly with them on, I lag worse than should be possible with logs on for the raid and even logging myself causes issues. No journal isn't on, etc.

This game is a beast, but I'm guessing it's my OS because hardware wise I shouldn't have issues and I know I have nothing wrong there as I get roughly the same score on benchmarks as people with a similar setup. It has gotten infinitely worse as I upgrade, I was better off with my old E8400 setup and Windows Vista actually. I should add that I play new games easily almost maxed or maxed out, it's just EQ I have these problems, no other MMO runs this badly.

Are you running the game in fullscreen or windowed ? That has a huge effect on FPS

Not sure how you could be any more wrong here.

Try hooking your up PC to your monitor via HDMI (most cables/monitors claim it's 60hz via HDMI but in reality it's closer to 30-40 for lower end monitors)...move around a bit then hook it back up using DVI. The difference is quite real, the only change simply being refresh rates.

How do I know? This has happened to me, every game I played felt sluggish when using HDMI connections. I switched to DVI and the difference is instantaneous --- the only real solution being a step up to higher refresh rates.

I've yet to make the jump from 60 to 120hz but I hear it is also quite noticeable and very hard to go back to 60 after using 120hz.

This is a myth and entirely dependent on how the individual perceives motion. For me, 60 FPS is NOT completely fluid/smooth but 80+ FPS is (the difference dropping off around 80, nothing higher produces any noticeable difference).

The human eye doesn't work like a camera in that there's a "fixed" framerate. Much of this can be read here and many other places

http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frames_can_humans_see.htm

Resolution plays a huge role in FPS also.

That's absolutely wrong.

That myth comes from the argument: "Cinema is only 24 fps, therefore 30 FPS on a computer is more than enough." Thing is, cinema has motion blur. Games on consoles that are locked @ 30 FPS like Battlefield also have motion blur, but post processed motion blur will never work as good as the real thing, that's why watching an action flick @ 24 fps will appear smoother than a PS3/Xbox game locked @ 30 fps.

EQ has no motion blur, and anything w/o motion blur will appear noticeably slow @ 30 fps.

As your claim about 50-60, well, first I'd like to point something out.

If you're running at 30 fps on a 60hz monitor, the monitor is displaying each from twice. If you're running 60+ fps, each frame is being displayed once. If you're between 30 and 60, some frames are displayed once, some twice. This will take smoothness out of the video quality even if it's decent FPS (say, like 45.) That's why console games are almost always locked at either 60 or 30. I've played games @ 1080p 50hz before and despite being able to run them fine, they definitely aren't as 'smooth' on a 60hz monitor as 1080p 60hz. As an aside, this is also why people recommend 120 or 240hz TV's for Blu Rays, since a 60 hz monitor can't provide a truly smooth 24 fps.

Secondly, I can immediately tell when a vsync game isn't triple buffered. That means anytime the game dips under 60 FPS, it will run at 30 fps. Even with triple buffering on, the in between level of 45 FPS is quite noticeable, and since it's not constant frames, it's not as smooth.

Like I said before, lag is subjective. Some people are fine with 30 fps. I notice 60 FPS and I'll happily lower settings to get it. Some FPS players insist they can tell differences in FPS into the 100s, hence a market for 120hz and 144hz monitors exists.

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Ok, this part is a myth. Since you use a 60 hz monitor, I assume you can't see the other 20 frames.

That is, I assume you're not a cyborg that can directly interface with your GPU, but short of that, your monitor isn't displaying those extra 20 frames, and you're just being an economic stimulus for your utility by using more power to increase your graphics load by 33% to create frames no human will ever see.