Hi, going to keep this brief as I have done a lot of research on this topic already and it seems that SoE simply did a terrible job at creating a logical, and functioning engine for EQ2. I've read that EQ2 desires a strong CPU to run high FPS/graphic stability, and that it prefers a single core processor. Not one bit of that makes a lick of sense to anyone with a technical background. I'm not going to post a DX output at this time but I'll list my hardware quickly for you. I run an MSI 990FXA-GD80 mainboard, AMD FX-8150 Eight-Core Processor, 16384 MBytes DDR3 RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 video, OCZ-VERT EX PLUS R2 SATA Disk Device SATA-II 3.0Gb/s SSD storage. In short this system is **** and capable of running near any game available at max settings while running multiple instances of auto-cad, running music files, and video processing software simultaneously. EQ2 runs like COMPLETE DOGSHIT. I am hoping strongly that a developer will just admit that from the ground up this game was designed terribly...or assist me in ways I've not ventured into thus far. I am more than willing to post DX info, 3d Mark info, any of that. I've petitioned as a gold member but of course I've known for a long time now that your customer service is terrible and I do not expect to hear from SoE directly for weeks. If anyone has ANY insight, input, or help they are capable of adding it would be greatly appreciated. As of right now I think my best option is to move on to a company that still gives a **** about it's game client, which sucks because the original EQ I played for 7 years and it's still the best game I've ever been a part of. Times change, just looking for some honesty on the matter. Cody
I guess I missed what the main gripe here is? You're after an increase FPS? What are you getting now?
As long as you aren't a jerk in your petitions, you usually hear back from someone at SOE (not just the canned response) within a day if it's not busy & 2-3 if they are in my experience. There are people running the game at a playable level with alright graphics on machines that are 5-6 years old, maybe even older. I do recommend you post you DX and whatnot. Presumably one of the TSRs can help you figure out your issue. Now there have been some stability issues and unexpected lag in a couple of zones (and crashes for some people while zoning) since the expansion released that have been slowly getting better.
I can completely sympathize in many ways; my system was just fine for everything else for several years except for EQ2. When I installed it on my laptop (which I'd bought specifically because of its gaming reputation [turned out to be an Alienware AFTER Dell bought it out; we were relying on old reviews... X-P]) and it acted up (though, I must admit, the graphics were lovely), it would refuse to get out of Windowed mode, and while in Windowed mode, would refuse to get out of 3rd person top-down viewing, which, of course, would make it useless for playing (couldn't see an opponent until I tripped over it). It also wouldn't give me my desired Alternate Models (which work best for the Barbarians, imho), but that was a very minor quibble. The techs I spoke to at the time, asking if there was something I could do about changing this and making it right, basically told me I'd "bought the wrong laptop" and "they couldn't be expected to make an engine for each model of laptop separately." I told them right back I could play World of Warcraft just fine on it, and hadn't heard back from them since. I struggled along on my desktop for more than a few years, first on dial-up, now on DSL. It was marginally okay for awhile, but with every new expansion from CoE on, I could do less and less and less and less on it; had to go to Extreme or Very Good Performance to have a prayer of staying in anywhere longer than a few minutes in single digit FPS (forget anywhere in Qeynos; 5-10 minutes, tops, before getting booted for Memory Issues), and finally had to move out of my main's 6-room house, apparently because it had too many items (slightly over 700 in a Large house with expanders) for me to get in. And don't even ask about Guild Halls... X-P Finally, all the brown-outs in our area fried the power supply, which passed it on to the motherboard, so we had to get some new stuff...new mobo, new graphics card, new RAM, new everything but the case and peripherals (Win7 64 bit), and it's been great so far! I have no problems getting in anywhere now, and am usually in the high double-digit FPS, if not triple-digit, on a Balanced graphics setting. On the other hand, I only have an i3, and downloaded DirectX 9.0c, which is apparently the only version EQ2 likes to run on. X-P If you're looking for triple-digit FPS on raids on Very High to Extreme Quality, I don't think even your set-up would handle it here; I wonder if we need Cray Supercomputers for that. :-/ Uwk
I run it just fine on max settings on my GTX760... but if you don't turn off CPU shadows and use GPU shadows instead well you can forget about it. Oh and the AMD CPUs are worse than the old Phenom II X4. I was a AMD "Fan Boy" for years... but my new Intel (first one I've ever owned) puts the new AMD to shame. And another thing when this game was designed we had Pentium III and AMD K6-2 CPUs. When it was released Pentium 4 and AMD Athlon CPUs. To completely redo the engine would make this 10 year game a new game and not a 10 year old game with new graphics.
Which may be one of the reasons for EQ3/Next, not just another bandwagon to jump on...it could be a way of solving all the various engine issues. /crossing_fingers Uwk
