Tell me how to upgrade my toaster

[Videri]

Hi folks. I zone slowly, drop quickly when levitating (even with FPS set to 100%), and experience very laggy and choppy gameplay in zones like Emerald Jungle, Trakanon's Teeth, and the Wakening Land. What aspect of my computer should I look at upgrading? RAM, internet connection, hard drive (as in get a SSD), something else?

[Baler]

Run EQ on a Ramdisk. (You can trim down the game directory to under a 1 gb, but you may have to exclude some classic zones to get it that low) My ramdisk copy is around 1.5gbs Which is pretty darn amazing seeing as how my harddrive eq folder is 11gbs

Upgrade your gfx card. (last time I was around 200+ players all casting spells and stuff my gfx card was overclocking and at max core clock. EQ may be an older game but god damn is it not optimized for those situations. I had to turn my spell effects to only myself)

If you hit F11 (I think) it will show your latency. What is your #ms?

As for falling while levitated and running even at sow speed. I notice that I gradually fall, The time it takes me to run across DL for example I'm pretty low by the end. Even with just facing 1 direction and Num lock running.
If you click outside of the game, while levitate running you will drop like a rock. This is because when the game loses focus it drops the fps and idk.. I think wineq has an option to fix this, maybe.

Why ramdisk? Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4wJlg53hlQ
Basically with a ram disk the only thing holding your load speed back is the old client code and the server. SSD probably even falls into this catagory too but meh, ramdisk is faster.

[Videri]

Thanks. I need to upgrade my RAM to even create a RAMdisk - I intend to try it.

I guess if that doesn't help I'll look at upgrading the graphics card.

My latency is usually between 40-70. I've been playing over a wireless connection. I tried plugging right into the modem via Ethernet and it seemed no faster.

[Thulack]

Upgrade to a SSD will drastically decrease loading times and also help your computer overall with speed(wouldnt waste time with a RAMdisk just spend 60 bucks on a SSD.) Try turning your FPS down to 30 or so. The game actually runs worse higher you set FPS(it was made in 1999 when things didnt go above 30fps.

[CmaN]

Certainly going to want to cap your FPS, I suggest 60. When levitating, remember that if you are in third person, there is a chance your camera is actually looking downward. Anytime you plan on levitating zoom in to correct your camera to make it level or slightly above level.. same goes for if you do actually want to decrease your height quickly - you have to zoom in and look down.

Insofar as your chopiness, more then likely it is related to graphics. Again, cap your fps to begin with. It would help to know what the specifications of your system. EQ is not very demanding, and there should be plenty of bandwidth for your ram in almost any configuration.

Loading times can be decreased with a ramdisk, but to me that's just overkill unless you are experiencing serious or significant loading times (1 minute+).

Your internet connection sounds fine.. wireless is not so bad at all. Test your throughput on a speedtest site and although it won't be wired speed, it will be more then enough to handle EQ and about anything else.

It really just sounds like a graphics issue.. again, it would help to know what you are using to better assist you to make things more enjoyable.

Edit:
Would also be helpful to know what cpu and os you are using, as well as how much and what type of ram. You may be paging if you have a seriously low amount of ram, which would certainly cause chopiness.

[Videri]

Hey! Thanks for the replies.

Originally Posted by CmaN [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Would also be helpful to know what cpu and os you are using, as well as how much and what type of ram. You may be paging if you have a seriously low amount of ram, which would certainly cause chopiness.

Intel 2.8 Ghz Pentium D
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
2 GB of ram - not sure how to tell what type. Is that "seriously low"?
Windows 7 (I always forget if it's 64-bit or 32. Computer is currently fried - having the doc take a look at it tomorrow.)

I updated the video card drivers a couple months ago. I do run WinEQ2.

About dropping when running with levitate - I mean I will be at ground level within 15 or 20 seconds. I can't hover forever like some people. I have never gotten from the ramparts of KC to that ledge in the entryway. When I lower my FPS from max, I drop even faster.

Despite my rather enviable ping of 40-70, characters are still pretty jumpy sometimes, to the point that it's hard to hit other players. I play on Red and I definitely want to improve my zone time, levitation, and "resolution" as to exactly where my and other characters are. Thanks for any input.

[Thulack]

Originally Posted by Videri [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Hey! Thanks for the replies.



Intel 2.8 Ghz Pentium D
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
2 GB of ram - not sure how to tell what type. Is that "seriously low"?
Windows 7 (I always forget if it's 64-bit or 32. Computer is currently fried.)

I updated the video card drivers a couple months ago. I do run WinEQ2.

Yep thats a toaster. Just save up 200-250 and get a semi decent laptop to use if you can since you say the pc is fried. I know thats "throwing money at it" as some like to say but if its not dead maybe upgrade to 4gb of ram if the motherboard allows it. SSD would help some but at that point you have put 100 bucks into it when your halfway to a laptop that would be 2-3x better.

[Daywolf]

Originally Posted by Videri [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Hey! Thanks for the replies.



Intel 2.8 Ghz Pentium D
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
2 GB of ram - not sure how to tell what type. Is that "seriously low"?
Windows 7 (I always forget if it's 64-bit or 32. Computer is currently fried.)

I updated the video card drivers a couple months ago. I do run WinEQ2.

About dropping when running with levitate - I mean I will be at ground level within 15 or 20 seconds. I can't hover forever like some people. I have never gotten from the ramparts of KC to that ledge in the entryway. When I lower my FPS from max, I drop even faster.

Despite my rather enviable ping of 40-70, characters are still pretty jumpy sometimes, to the point that it's hard to hit other players. I play on Red and I definitely want to improve my zone time, levitation, and "resolution" as to exactly where my and other characters are. Thanks for any input.

Coo. memory shouldn't be a big prob unless you have tons of other programs running. When it runs out of memory, winders uses virtual memory, which is just a swap file on your hard drive (slow). I'd look closer at your hard drive, run a deep virus scan, run the defrag program with windows. Run something that looks for adware which can murder performance.

Then run task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and shut down anything non-essential if all your memory is being drained. You are likely using all your memory, but you should have enough to run essentials and just EQ. Really you should be at 4GB of RAM for Win7, it can hurt a lot when you go short on memory. But maybe you can get usage down some, including not running your web browser while you play, they usually trash free memory like mad.

Oh and about non-essential programs, you can type the names into google and get reports on what it is and if you can close them out. This will probably be the best chance to solve the problem w/o adding more memory, though you still should.

[Videri]

Originally Posted by Daywolf [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Coo. memory shouldn't be a big prob unless you have tons of other programs running.

Actually...I always run Teamspeak when playing, as well as GINA for audio triggers, and it kind of sucks not having a browser window open to research on the wiki, browse these forums, or check my DKP (religiously).

I'm not against spending some money. It makes sense to if it's going to improve my Norrathian experience.

[Baler]

Originally Posted by Thulack [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Upgrade to a SSD will drastically decrease loading times and also help your computer overall with speed(wouldnt waste time with a RAMdisk just spend 60 bucks on a SSD.) Try turning your FPS down to 30 or so. The game actually runs worse higher you set FPS(it was made in 1999 when things didnt go above 30fps.

Throw money at your problem,. then lower your fps to 30. wtf this is terrible advice.
The titanium client is from 2006 not 1999 despite when the original client/game was released.

For anyone else I'm not saying an SSD is a bad choice. But if the OP doesn't already have one then a ramdisk is an above viable solution.

Originally Posted by CmaN [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Loading times can be decreased with a ramdisk, but to me that's just overkill unless you are experiencing serious or significant loading times (1 minute+).

This is because of the client and server not necessarily the person's hardware. A ramdisk would ensure that the information is being read at the maximum potential speed. After that it's up to the client to dictate how quickly it proceeds and the server to pass back and forth information.