EQ Graphics Engine - Hitches

[Jaytee]

So I have been back a week or so and I've noticed something just odd about EQ. Back in the old days when I was raiding I had all the textures set to low particles off clip down pretty low etc. I had a mundane system then. Now I have an I7-920, 6GB DDR3-Corsair Dominator, Asus P6T Deluxe with a BFG GTX295 video card and a 24" LCD. I cranked everything to absolute max at 1920x1200. The game runs fine but I still get the odd hitch when running through Guild Lobby or god forbid Emerald Jungle.

So is there anything you guys do specifically to increase framerate on EQ these days?

[Danille]

Under ingame options, display tab, advanced, what do you have the new "Memory Mode*" set to?

[Jaytee]

Most Memory Usage

[Danille]

Try lowering it

[Jaytee]

I'll try that tonight. Are they talkingg system ram or video card ram?

[Mendoros07]

Having upgraded system after system over the years and still playing EQ -- honestly, no matter what system you currently have, how many cores, how much RAM, how fast your video card is, it still bogs down in a heavily populated area like the GL.

I even went one step further and got 2 SSD drives in RAID 0 and again, the games loads fast as lightning, and raids are no issues but still when I blow by the GL, it still shows a slowdown. I am simply going to chalk that up to network traffic.

Also noted that after a certain generation of video cards/GPU's, nothing really made a difference. I went from an Nvidia Ti 500 to an ATI X1900 to a crossfire X1950xt system, to an Nvidia 8800GTX to SLI 8800 GTX and now to an ATI 5870 and the last few jumps made NO difference. EQ is pretty much maxed a while ago -- newer improvements in video cards are aimed at newer games and EQ simply cannot take advantage. You GTX 295 is a two cards sandwiched together in native SLI so not sure how that works.

IN the next patch they are talking about a serious change to the UI system and it's supposed to help on performance/lag. We shall see.

[Jaytee]

I tried the mem change but same issue in Guild Lobby - I think it must be network related as well. My system is so overpowered for EQ it should never have issues on it's end. (I'm using intel extreme SSD's myself)

[Mendoros07]

Again in the display options I have my LOD BIAS set to very low (far left on the slider). In the advanced tab I Max frames per minute set to Unlimited (far right), Max background FPS to MIn CPU (or far left), advanced lighting is off along with the crazy shadows thing. I also make sure the refresh rate matches that of my desktop (60hz for my LCD).

Also for Nvidia GPU's I have "read" that you should disable Physix rendering in your Nvidia drivers settings. It's useless for EQ.

Lastly and most importantly, EQ, at least for me benefits little if any from having high levels of AA and AF. All it's good for is slowing it down. I have mine set on OFF in my GPU's driver settings.

Lastly... if none of this helps, can you see if you can manually disable SLI for this game? Is there a way to set the SLI rendering method? I know my old ATI crossfire gave me 3 choices as to how I wanted to use my 2 cards in crossfire. If possible I would start by seeing if I could disable any sort of SLI from your GTX 295 and see if that makes a positive dif.

[Danille]

I'll try that tonight. Are they talkingg system ram or video card ram?

They are talking system RAM. EQ does not use GRAM. I have the exact same system you have JT, dual SLI engaged and I have zero lag issues.
My guess is your router is dying or needs to be reset?

[Jaytee]

The problem would be my ISP not my Cisco router

I live in BFE Mississippi, my ISP routinely loses ~7% of my packets.