PSA: Fix for common game freeze issue

[vitas]

I have found a workaround for the issue I've seen many have with the game screen freezing.

The Issue:
The screen freezes or goes black but you are still in the world and the game still responds to input commands. This happens more in some zones than others, particularly bad zones are OT, PoM, Skyshrine, and parts of Kael. One place in particular that you are almost guaranteed to freeze is in OT, inside the tunnel to Skyfire.

The issue seems to be correlated with modern nvidia gpus.

Other posts about this issue:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=359131
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=342786
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=355553

The solutions posted in the threads above are either incomplete(only reduces occurrence for regedit fixes and wineq2), or unreasonable (alt enter can crash the game itself)

The solution:
If your motherboard has an onboard gpu (I'd wager most do nowadays), then you can set windows to use that gpu for everquest only.

• Go to control panel > Settings > Display (or windows key > "display settings") and click "Graphics Settings"
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• Browse for your eqgame.exe location to set a preference on that application
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• On the Graphics specifications dialog look at the Power saving GPU and High performance GPU. If you see a different gpu listed for Power saving, then you likely have an onboard graphics card that you can use (mine shows "Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630). In this case you can simply select the "Power Saving" radio to have everquest run solely on your onboard GPU.
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  If you do NOT see a different option for Power saving GPU, you may still have an onboard graphics card and simply need to enable it in BIOS (the steps for this will be specific to your motherboard so I cannot provide a universal guide to doing so)

So far this has been a 100% fix for myself and two others that have tested it with no real game quality difference resulting from not using the main gpu (eq is 20 years old afterall).

I hope this fix can help my friends and adversaries enjoy the game once more as I know this was an extremely debilitating bug to experience on red [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

-Mildew (red)

[guirssane]

Thank you man, I will try that and will update my post if I don't come across freezes again in the next 2 days

[gkmarino]

Does this create huge amounts of lag for you in raids? I remember being in a raid and the particles were starting to look like they do when you ALT-TAB and see the game FPS drop in the background but it was happening as my active window.

[guirssane]

Well my motherboard doesn't have any onboard graphic card so still no solution as of now [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.].

[Grimgor]

Another cause of EQ black screen is the User Account Control (UAC) prompt. Which is the yes/no popup when you run or install a program. To prevent this:



Control Panel > Security and Maintenance > Change User Account Control Settings > Change to second lowest "Notify me only when apps try to make changes to my computer (do not dim my desktop)"

[Jamesstone714]

Aww man, I'm not seeing any other option than the RTX 2070 on my machine either, mobo apparently doesn't have an integrated graphics option.

[mcoy]

You might have the integrated card disabled in BIOS.

-Mcoy

[Misanthrope]

im not sure if im having the same issues as everyone else in this thread. my computer fully locks up sometimes, but only when running eq and browsing web at the same time. cursor is always on the web page when it freezes. i havent had a freeze running eq by itself, using my phone to look shit up :P i had already set it to run from the onboard video, power saving whatever, but that didnt help. just changed uac settings, maybe thatll do it.

[digush]

Is there a similar solution for people that do not use on-board (motherboard) GPU?
I have an external GPU i.e. nVidia 1080Ti

The solution:
If your motherboard has an onboard gpu (I'd wager most do nowadays), then you can set windows to use that gpu for everquest only.

[merzcleric]

still happening to me, annnoying as fuck