Graphics stuttering; multiple computers; frustrated

[Lightloch]

Hello all.

I am having issues with a very irritating graphics "stutter" or "hitch" on P99. While playing EQ, essentially what happens is that every 5-10 seconds (randomly... sometimes happens more often when moving, etc.), the graphics/text/everything in game will freeze for 1-2 seconds on my end only e.g. if I'm casting a spell my spell bar will freeze with everything else, but then it will catch up real fast with the actual server when it unfreezes. This only started happening recently at some random point in time. I have been playing P99 for over a year without problems like this until now.

Initially I thought this might have been caused by a failing hard drive on my main computer. It seems like it's making subtle noises when it freezes, but read on b/c now I'm thinking it isn't the hard drive's fault.

Here are my main computer's basic specs:

-15.6" Sager laptop running Windows 7 x64
-NVIDIA GTX 460m (I use 1920x1080 res in-game)
-8 GB DDR3 RAM
-500GB 7200 RPM + 4 GB SSD cache hybrid drive
-EQ Titanium client patched with EQEmu


Here is what I have done to try and fix the issue:

-SMART test (complete) on hard drive. All okay, no issues, so no progress. I didn't believe it, so I continued to next step. Will probably replace the HD with an SSD, but read on.

-Defragged hard drive (no help).

-Updated graphics drivers (no help).

-Tried running game with and without WinEQ 2.0

-Installed on my work computer (MacBook Pro 15" running Windows 7 via Boot Camp... nice specs overall so plenty powerful to run P99) to see if my main PC's hard drive really was to blame. This PC uses an ATI Radeon 6750M, so different drivers. This install shed some light on the issue. I installed EQ fresh from the discs and made all the P99 changes manually because EQEmu patcher was down. When I logged in on this machine, it was smooth as butter... no issues. THEN, the next day I patched with EQEmu in case I was missing files or something. BAM, same problem! Same graphics stutter. I'm wondering if some file provided by the patcher is causing my issue?

Thanks for reading. Please help!

[fishingme]

Drop your resolution in game through "Alt- O" to 1024 x 768. Let me know if that doesn't fix it.

[Lightloch]

Thanks I will try that soon. Sometimes the stutter seems less than heavily populated zones, but still very annoying.

[Laugher]

I have noticed this too and am on a 30mb down/20up (maybe other way around) connection, while I wouldn't blame it fully on connection this issue seems to be exclusive to emu servers; never had it happen to me on live (or on mac). For me its like a stutter that happens every few seconds on the dot, same time interval every time.

My initial thoughts on this are that the pc I use for EQ is 2gb ram/winxp, but I also have a 512 vid card figured for non-luclin low and/or off particle effects I would think this system could run better, also tried turning my far clip plane all the way down which had little if any effect on the issue.

The reason I mention this now is because the lag in EC after the fungi event yesterday was huge and the problem was certainly worse than I've ever experienced during and after the giveaway even when not in a populated area of the zone.

[fishingme]

I have noticed this too and am on a 30mb down/20up (maybe other way around) connection, while I wouldn't blame it fully on connection this issue seems to be exclusive to emu servers; never had it happen to me on live (or on mac). For me its like a stutter that happens every few seconds on the dot, same time interval every time.

My initial thoughts on this are that the pc I use for EQ is 2gb ram/winxp, but I also have a 512 vid card figured for non-luclin low and/or off particle effects I would think this system could run better, also tried turning my far clip plane all the way down which had little if any effect on the issue.

The reason I mention this now is because the lag in EC after the fungi event yesterday was huge and the problem was certainly worse than I've ever experienced during and after the giveaway even when not in a populated area of the zone.

It's not going to be your connection. Just something you need to play with on your computer. You should have no problem with that computer. I've had a lot of problems similar to these, some were fixed by putting EQ onto a thumb drive or external hard drive and running it off of that. Make sure your directx is up to par along with your net framework. I'm unsure if it makes much of a difference but I have my winxp all with service pack 3, free download on microsoft site. With my desktop that I'm playing on (I have a 24" widescreen) I wanted to keep my desktop resolution at 1680x1050 but I was unable to. I had to drop my resolution on my computer to 1024x768, along with doing it in game before eq would work well. OP- I did leave that step out (changing desktop resolution down).