And this,as they say is (hopefully) me...takenawhile back granted but its me..i'll dig out a "billy" shot later as i never tire of seeing him in that illusion :)

Ok now you gone and done it. Im gonna start EQ2 up again! :D

Originally posted by BBlackford

Oh geeze, you have a nice PC there.

I swear the draw-distance only extends a few feet from my character with my setup.

The screen shots I posted are not maxed but definetly high settings and I get a fps of 45 to 65. The key to getting a good look in EQ2 is understanding all the graphic settings and how to balance them. The settings that have the best results are not alway obvious so many setup the graphics wrong. The many graphic settings seem like a great idea but they could have simplified it a bit for the average user. Also there difference between high settings and low ones is huge. Unlike WoW where the difference is not as great from low to higher settings. 

I mentioned my sound setup because EQ2 can really sound great. It has a good use of surround sound. Also fantastic music especially in battle it scales to the action. I also like the ambients sounds in EQ2 some of the best sound design in any mmo. WoW also uses sound really well.

What EQ2 does well for me is immersion. Even though EQ2 has its flaws, its subtle balance of graphics and sound make for a very immersive experience. WoW does this for me even with its cartoony look. LOTRO was a let down for me since it has all the right elements but somehow I never really felt immersed in the game world.

Occe in Qeynos North. If anyone from SOE happens to see this I got one question. When are we going to be allowed in the castle? I love a tiger in green armor.

I started this thread to show why I am passionate about EQ2. I am bias of course but I tried to be honest. I included a number of screens to support my reasons. I did this so that people can see my experience even if they disagree. Still not sure how so many still feel EQ2 has poor graphics. Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder even in the mmo world.

The castle is currently closed. It may be used sometime in the future for an expansion.Trust me, we all want to get in there.

I honestly don't know why people complain about the graphics in EQ2. Its all beautiful and doesn't look like anybody was smoking pot when they designed it the way WoW does.

Wait, no one can go in the castle? Phew, that makes me feel better. I thought I was missing something important because I'm still locked out after playing for 6 months, haha.

Now you've done it, Eccoton. I'm going to have to log in and see how much I can balance between graphics and game play. I've been playing with all the water-effects turned off for a long time now, maybe with some tweaking I can get that back on and continue to keep a good frame rate.

Kudos!

Edit: Maybe work on my UI setup as well, haha. I need to do some spring cleaning.

Originally posted by BBlackford

Wait, no one can go in the castle? Phew, that makes me feel better. I thought I was missing something important because I'm still locked out after playing for 6 months, haha.

Now you've done it, Eccoton. I'm going to have to log in and see how much I can balance between graphics and game play. I've been playing with all the water-effects turned off for a long time now, maybe with some tweaking I can get that back on and continue to keep a good frame rate.

Kudos!

Edit: Maybe work on my UI setup as well, haha. I need to do some spring cleaning.

How do you think I felt. I been playing for years and never got in. I started to think I smell bad or was ugly. HeHe.... ugly yea right, I am so awesomely good looking, so it can not be that. When that door opens I am there!

Water settings do not tax your system as much as other settings so some water effects should be fine.

Didnt you meet the queen in the old betrayal quest line? she must have been in the castle i suppose,but yeah i want to get in.

    me in fens

And me as billy in Fens..

Here is a link to some very nice screen shots of EQ2

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?&topic_id=344003

It is worth looking at; not sure what kinda PC these ppl have but it looks like a whole new game. 

Okay, I'll post a pic of my graphics as soon as I work out this problem. After a lot of experimenting I figured out finally that I can keep my fluid-like movement in the game with next to no lag with the graphic settings set high as long as i have the "complex shader distance" set at -1. The only problem with that is that my only source of lighting in the game is from the ambient light.  =/

Anyone know any tricks to improve graphics without killing performance? Maybe I just need a new graphics card...

Edit: I have an Acer AcerPower 1000, here's the specs:
2.4 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor, 1.4gigs ram, NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE.

Here is a shot in battle. One thing I like is how your character's expressions change in battle.

Originally posted by BBlackford

Okay, I'll post a pic of my graphics as soon as I work out this problem. After a lot of experimenting I figured out finally that I can keep my fluid-like movement in the game with next to no lag with the graphic settings set high as long as i have the "complex shader distance" set at -1. The only problem with that is that my only source of lighting in the game is from the ambient light.  =/

Anyone know any tricks to improve graphics without killing performance? Maybe I just need a new graphics card...

Edit: I have an Acer AcerPower 1000, here's the specs:
2.4 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor, 1.4gigs ram, NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE.

Here are a few things. Try setting complex shader to between 10 and 20. Be sure to turn off enviromental shadows but leave on character shadows. Turn off your torch light. Set you view distance to the middle. Turn off your simulated cloths. Set your flora to about half way for both distance and quanity. Turn off flora collison. There are more but these do impact performance a lot. Let me know if you need more info on graphic settings.