Any chance of getting a 64-bit client?

Would really like be able to use maximum texture resolutions and right now I can't because it blows through the 4gb address space causing the game to crash (verified in process explorer) and it doesn't help that there is a memory leak that has been around since the beginning.

x86-64 was designed in such a way that porting x86-32 programs is simple unless you did something stupid in your code.

Now we have three years later and still 32bit client.
I crash really often with outofmemory messages.
Having 64GB ram installed, not really a hardware-problem.

It's about as likely as updating the gfx engine for RTX. IE 0.

I think most of us would welcome a 64-bit client, but I suspect that the conversion is a bit more complicated than you make it out to be or DB would have done it already. Maybe if MS dumped 32-bit support....but that seems fairly unlikely, too.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...rop-support-for-windows-10-on-32-bit-systems/
https://en.iguru.gr/2020/05/14/microsoft-stamataei-tin-ypostiriksi-gia-windows-10-32-bit/
https://www.engadget.com/windows-10-32-bit-oem-173055990.html

No longer providing a 32bit version of Windows is not the same as dropping support for 32-bit applications. There's far too many legacy applications that will never be updated.

A 64-bit client should have been done 10 years ago, not doing it was Sony and DB milking cash out of the product and no-reinvesting into a long term plan.

To be fair, I think there was a long term plan, but Everquest Next didn't exactly turn out the way they wanted. If things had gone well with that, I think EQ2 would have been closed and replaced long ago.

EverQuest Next never was an option to replace EQ2. It was a comic grafik game with only a very low number of abilites. If you want play somthing like this, then go play Guildwars 1 and 2 or Rift or Aion or TESO.

I also think it would be worth finally getting a 64bit client to improve the RAM usage problems.

Furthermore, in this context, the DEV Team should think about full CPU multicore-support.
Because nowadays there are virtually no single core CPUs anymore.

Most players have PCs with at least a 6 core CPU, some like me, even more.
It would be nice to be able to use all this unused performance.

And the graphics card support with Directx 12 should also be considered.
Because directx 9.0c has been over a decade now "out of service".

Today most graphics cards have at least 8GB of RAM. With current high-end game PCs it is 24GB DDR6.

Today's PC games have roughly:

• at least 16Gb RAM
• at least one graphics card with 8Gb RAM
• at least one 6 core CPU usually i5, i7, i9 from intel or comparable AMD CPUs
• an SSD hard drive, usually even an M.2 SSD

That should offer a lot more possibilities for using it for performance improvements.

Certainly this takes a lot of work to compile a new client, certainly 2 to 3 months for 1 or 2 programmers, but the benefits, much higher game stability and happier customers should definitely be worth the effort.

What you're asking for is a rewrite of a large portion of the game engine, it would take a lot longer than 2 to 3 months.

As nice as it would be, the ROI isn't there so it probably won't ever happen. Sans maybe a 64bit client someday because it's probably easier than the fixing memory leak issues at this point.

When I ask people which games, they own programming, for e.g. EA, they disagree on exactly this point because they have already done this type of reprogramming themselves.

But this is certainly also dependent on many things, which you can hardly estimate in general if you do not know everything in detail.I'm not a programmer myself, so I rely on it when I've been told about people who program games themselves.

In the end, such a decision is not up to us anyway, but you can always inquire about it as a suggestion for improvement.

For years, the game's crash problems have been increasing year on year. Just like the sporadic client closings. Graphic freezes and so on.

Most of the time it can be traced back to an overflow of the 3Gb limit. What is the maximum RAM usage for a 32bit application.

I have also worked with Kyle (Kander) a number of times to help isolate and resolve the crash issues.Unfortunately, apart from very small successes, there has been no solution for most of the memory leak issues.

If EQ2 uses graphical or engine libraries/modules created by external companies then it is going to be even more complicated.

On the one hand, only the developers themselves can really answer this, so neither you nor I, on the other hand it doesn't really matter.

There are reproducible errors and problems that have not been resolved for years and that are occurring more and more frequently. So basically you should find a solution for it. A 64bit client doesn’t solve all problems for me either, but it offers RAM usage and the possibility to address more RAM addresses and thus to use more RAM.

Reproducible errors are for example:

• raid for about 3 hours, then zone into a guild hall => follow client crash and when you not directly crash the lastest if you log then on an other char
• play with heroic instances for about 4 hours, then zone to "Seru" and run once through the city => usually leads to a client graphics freeze
• zone through a large number of different instances one after the other => usually leads to a client crash after a while or the client simply closes without an error message.

The problem occurs more often or faster the higher the graphic resolution is, which is used for the game.Nowadays a lot of people are already using 2k and 4k resolutions, which of course causes the problems to occur more often, but in terms of graphics it offers a much nicer ambience. After all, with 4k you are show 4 times as much as with 1k.

It doesn't matter whether the solution is a difficult one or an easy one. Basically the problems should be solved. Using new techniques for this, which can bring further advantages, makes perfect sense.

Are we still talking here about 64-bit EQ2 client?

Jokes aside I think that it is too complicated since it was not done yet and not even promised as far as I know.

A small practical advice: ACT takes a lot of memory during raid. If laptop/PC has a low memory, it would help to restart ACT before the raid and during raid pause. It helped me when my PC had 8 GB of memory in the past.

You can be sure we are talking about a 64bit client.

You can also be sure that it is not due to my hardware.

I own one:

• i9 7980XE => decapitated and watercooled directly on the silicon via liquid metal, clocked at 4.7Ghz => 18 physical cores, 36 with hyperthreading
• 2 NVIDIA Titan V => water-cooled
• 1 ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3090 => water-cooled
• 32Gb DDR4 RAM => clocked to 3800 Mhz |4000 Mhz are also possible, but not stable enough for me.
• M.2 SSD Samsung 970 Pro NVMe 1Tb
• everything operated with a 1600 watt power supply from Corsair.

This is definitely not a standard PC.

It would be nice to be able to use the full power of it in EQ2, so far only FFXV does this to my knowledge. Might be that Cyberpunk 2077 it also can use fully, we will see.

There are definitely no problems that ACT cannot use enough RAM here. ACT is also limited in its RAM usage capacity. 32bit applications nerver can use more than 3Gb RAM.

The problems that exist are unfortunately client-related and everyone I know has them in some form and there are so many players in EQ2.

What if they used Black Desert Online graphics engine for EQ2?

These issues will only be solved by creating/adopting a whole new game engine. The current game engine touches everything, so changes to it have vast possibilities to whack the whole game. It's firmly tied to DirectX 9.0c, for one thing, because the CPU is doing a lot of rendering. Not too many years back, they did have a guy in to look into moving rendering to the GPU, but all they were able to shift were shadows.

We are just not gonna see 64-bit support until a new game engine comes in with EQ3, or whatever they call it.

I'm curious how you got from me saying that there was a plan for another game to me wanting to play that game.

When the game had resources with SOE that poor old single developer was working on smart shader 3.0 if you recall from the presentation slides during the Fanfaire and a video or two. That was canned due to resources not being available. In what mind should we even remotely think that client or engine optimisation is ever going to be on the to-do list with the EQ2 team. It is just not going to happen.

I still remember the EQ2 original DVD case saying "Built with future hardware in mind" well the future is here and so is the hardware but the game missed that train years ago.

I recall Kander saying once in a podcast that "just run in balance settings" and that's good enough -- if the lead designer is setting the bar this high, what else can you possibly expect.

These items are just wishful thinking. The game model/scope/plan does not revolve around investing in to the game but maximise profits.

You would need code writers and/or software engineers to do something in this area and even though Dreamweaver touts about new hires, they are only temps who would never have enough time to do something like this.