I've been trying to research this on the support forums but I'm not clear as to if this is really a problem that is serious.  I honestly don't recall if performance has changed or if my performance is just what it is.  I have not been playing EQ2 for long I started with the Kunark expansion.

My problem is I'm seeing very poor performance in certain areas.  Enchanted Lands will give me an fps that ranges from a low of 5 to maybe a high of 15.  I'm playing on high quality but dropped it to balanced and didn't see much improvement and I just can't believe this is right. 

I have a top end computer.  I have a 2.66ghz quad core intel cpu, 4gb ram, and 8800gtx, 2 raptors in raid 0.  Basically pretty much the top end system.  I'm only playing at 1280x1024 although I have a new monitor coming and expect to jump this up to 1920x1200 soon.  I'm running XP and I have all the latest patchs.  I was thinking maybe this was just something wrong with my system.  But recently I had my OS disk fail and had to rebuild everything from scratch.  All new drivers all new OS install.  After I finished I reinstalled EQ2 and logged into my necro who was camped in EL and again the performance sucks.  No change.

So I'm not getting anything helpful off the support forums and though I'd ask here.  I'm sure their must be people with a similar configuration to mine that have been playing eq2 for a long time and will know if there is a bug causing this problem.  BTW some areas I can get much better performance like Qeynos harbor I'll get like 40fps there.  Bonemire I was getting like 50 in the gnome camp.  Most dungeons I get like 40-50 except during fights when it drops to like 20 or so. 

Another thing if I put my performance setting to max quality I get problems with crashing and things like dxrenderer out of memory etc.  I have all the latest directx also.

I've also played many other games with no similar issues.  Witcher I played quite a bit, I also play vanguard which I'm playing on max settings and getting anything from mid 30s in towns to 60 outside.  Hellgate london I had some antialias issues but that seems like a common problem and support told me exactly what to do to resolve.  Anyway I've played lots of other games with no performance issues at all.  I've also run memcheck for like 15 hours straight with no errors.  So I've done about everything you can reasonably do to make sure my system isn't the cause of the issue...

Anyone have any solutions or if not at least can you confirm that their is a bug and you have the same problems or not?!

Well, since you have an 8800GTX - I'm beginning to think that EQ2 is probably to blame! :P

But there might be some things you could do to improve performance:

Reduce LIGHTING and LIGHT effects.

Remove Shadows / Blur / Fantasy effects.

Reduce "eye-candy" DISTANCE.

See if that helps. Dont use the Presets to drop settings, do the above and see first.

Regards.

turning bloom effects off helped my performance

The Complete Guide to Display Settings Options

www.theclenchedfist.com/Content/pa=showpage/pid=15.html

Originally posted by ethion

I've been trying to research this on the support forums but I'm not clear as to if this is really a problem that is serious.  I honestly don't recall if performance has changed or if my performance is just what it is.  I have not been playing EQ2 for long I started with the Kunark expansion.

My problem is I'm seeing very poor performance in certain areas.  Enchanted Lands will give me an fps that ranges from a low of 5 to maybe a high of 15.  I'm playing on high quality but dropped it to balanced and didn't see much improvement and I just can't believe this is right. 

I have a top end computer.  I have a 2.66ghz quad core intel cpu, 4gb ram, and 8800gtx, 2 raptors in raid 0.  Basically pretty much the top end system.  I'm only playing at 1280x1024 although I have a new monitor coming and expect to jump this up to 1920x1200 soon.  I'm running XP and I have all the latest patchs.  I was thinking maybe this was just something wrong with my system.  But recently I had my OS disk fail and had to rebuild everything from scratch.  All new drivers all new OS install.  After I finished I reinstalled EQ2 and logged into my necro who was camped in EL and again the performance sucks.  No change.

So I'm not getting anything helpful off the support forums and though I'd ask here.  I'm sure their must be people with a similar configuration to mine that have been playing eq2 for a long time and will know if there is a bug causing this problem.  BTW some areas I can get much better performance like Qeynos harbor I'll get like 40fps there.  Bonemire I was getting like 50 in the gnome camp.  Most dungeons I get like 40-50 except during fights when it drops to like 20 or so. 

Another thing if I put my performance setting to max quality I get problems with crashing and things like dxrenderer out of memory etc.  I have all the latest directx also.

I've also played many other games with no similar issues.  Witcher I played quite a bit, I also play vanguard which I'm playing on max settings and getting anything from mid 30s in towns to 60 outside.  Hellgate london I had some antialias issues but that seems like a common problem and support told me exactly what to do to resolve.  Anyway I've played lots of other games with no performance issues at all.  I've also run memcheck for like 15 hours straight with no errors.  So I've done about everything you can reasonably do to make sure my system isn't the cause of the issue...

Anyone have any solutions or if not at least can you confirm that their is a bug and you have the same problems or not?!

A) XP, unless 64bit edition, does not register above 3.2gigs of ram. Having 4gigs really does nothing for you until you get 64bit edition or you go Vista (ps: vista for users who are familiar with google can turn everything that makes vista bad OFF, making it an improved XP)

B) From the 2nd area I noted in red, it sounds like your 8800GTX is defective in some way. The reason I say this, is because my 8600GT 512mb is OC'ed to near 8800 standards and those same games your talking about I get well over +60 more FPS than your getting.

I suggest you run a 3DMark run with their free trial and test to see your overall stats amongst users whom have the same components as you.

-Faded

Originally posted by ethion 

Hellgate london I had some antialias issues but that seems like a common problem and support told me exactly what to do to resolve

from the link I posted earlier

TIP: If you are trying to run the game with Anti-Aliasing on do not turn bloom effects on. All current games that use bloom use the same video buffers that would be used for Anti-Aliasing. Thus, you can only have one or the other, but not both.

By default AA is disabled completely in EQ2. In order to use AA perform the following steps:

1. Open notepad.
2. Type in the following line:
   
   r_aa_blit 1
3. Save this as eq2.ini in your everquest2/ directory.

AA will now work in the game based on your video card control panel preferences.

Note: as of Live Update #13: September 13, 2005 (Desert of Flames), this setting can cause severe graphics corruption. Problems can be worked around by resetting the Widescreen Letterbox settings once in-game, or by removing the setting altogether.

There is a known issue with 8800 cards. You really should check the EQ2 forums.

I know 8800 has  issues

but as an owner of 8800 GTX myself on XP

-- I'm not having issues with EQ2

I'm using  video driver  6921

Thanks for all the great info.  I'm gonna give it a try tonight and see if it helps.  I did check the forums and I do see that many people are having some issues but there is soo much stuff there and nothing really helpful.  I did see a dev saying there is a problem but I couldn't figure out how to look for other posts by that dev and didn't see anything talking about resolution to the problem.

I rather doubt the issue is with my card or system since I have great performance in everything else I play and have not had any issues with other games.

One thing I do know is that there are issues with things like bloom and antialiasing and I'll play with that to make sure AA is off.  I normally keep bloom off as I don't like the effect but it might be on since I've been flipping between performance settings and not looking too closely at the details of the settings while I've been trying to get enough performance to play.

Nadia you are running incredibly old drivers I'll give that a shot also.  That would be interesting if running old drivers was the solution.  I'm running 172.20.

Here's my system summary

------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 3/17/2008, 09:56:32
       Machine name: HULK
   Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)
           Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
       System Model: System Product Name
               BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
          Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU           @ 2.66GHz (4 CPUs)
             Memory: 3326MB RAM
          Page File: 860MB used, 4350MB available
        Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
    DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
     DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode

169.21 for 8800 GTX is the latest driver for XP  (the driver I'm using)

 www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_169.21_whql.html

dxdiag displays it as   Driver Version: 6.14.0011.6921 (English)

I should not have said 6921 - sorry

I dont know if it matters but I also run EQ2 in windows mode

after reading the Nvidia forums

163.75, from November 2007, seems to be less buggy for graphic issues

www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_163.75.html

ah too bad... I'm pretty sure that's the driver I was running before I rebuilt my system...

Nadia how is your performance in enchanted lands or greater feydark and what graphics settings are you using?  If you try it just using high quality and run from the docks in EL to the spires along the coast there what is your fps.  It's great that they now have an fps meter.  For me I'm getting like 10-15 maybe it might hit 20 a bit but generally it is on the low end of my range.   Also when looking away from the water it is sometimes better but not always if I run upto the hill to the left of the coast after running 1/3 or 1/4 to the spires it droped to like 8fps for me so I'm not seeing a lot of rhyme or reason to it :(

Originally posted by Fadedbomb

 

Originally posted by ethion

I've been trying to research this on the support forums but I'm not clear as to if this is really a problem that is serious.  I honestly don't recall if performance has changed or if my performance is just what it is.  I have not been playing EQ2 for long I started with the Kunark expansion.

My problem is I'm seeing very poor performance in certain areas.  Enchanted Lands will give me an fps that ranges from a low of 5 to maybe a high of 15.  I'm playing on high quality but dropped it to balanced and didn't see much improvement and I just can't believe this is right. 

I have a top end computer.  I have a 2.66ghz quad core intel cpu, 4gb ram, and 8800gtx, 2 raptors in raid 0.  Basically pretty much the top end system.  I'm only playing at 1280x1024 although I have a new monitor coming and expect to jump this up to 1920x1200 soon.  I'm running XP and I have all the latest patchs.  I was thinking maybe this was just something wrong with my system.  But recently I had my OS disk fail and had to rebuild everything from scratch.  All new drivers all new OS install.&nbs