Tell me how to upgrade my toaster

[Thulack]

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

Look I'm only interested in getting OP playing in an enjoyable fashion. Here you say its not a hardware issue, but settings - but your suggestion on page 1 was to upgrade to an ssd and drop fps to 30? You seem more interested in forum warrior points then actually helping.

Slow zoning = hardware issue(suggest SSD)
Choppyness,etc = setting issue (turn fps to 30)

those were my 2 suggestions to his problems. What is your problem is another story.

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

And to me those other issues(my edit other issues are the choppyness) arent hardware issues as they are settings issues. Turning down FPS helps with the stuttering and choppy gameplay and it changes the way you float. The other thing i have seen cause issues with choppyness is systems that run over 4.0ghz clock speed on their cpu's. Judging that the op is calling his rig a "toaster" i just kinda ruled that out. But as you have said having specs will help rule out/in things as a issue.

[CmaN]

I have no problem, and you'll have to forgive my post suggesting you are forum warrioring. Constantly quoting and picking apart posts gave me the inclination, but even if that's the case, it's really not my place to suggest you are doing anything but trying to help. I guess the more options OP has in their toolbox to fix the problem, the better. Probably would be best to get back on track then. Hopefully OP posts that they have solved their problem, or can provide more information regarding hardware. Cheers!

[EQBallzz]

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

Slow zoning = hardware issue(suggest SSD)
Choppyness,etc = setting issue (turn fps to 30)

those were my 2 suggestions to his problems. What is your problem is another story.

That was what I was thinking as well but all the tweaking I did (including FPS) didn't help. After doing much searching I found some old posts about the hitching issues in EQ and people saying that there is some specific (poor) coding in EQ that requires HD access during gameplay in an unusual way that can't be prevented/limited with large amounts of RAM. When the game does this HD access it causes the hitching in game.

Since I had EQ on a separate drive and it was a SATA drive not SSD it was making this worse. After moving EQ to the SSD drive with my OS install the issue went away completely.

I suppose using a RAMDISK would achieve the same result but if the OP is spending money anyway it's probably worthwhile to get an SSD for overall PC speed and they are relatively cheap (recently got a 500Gb SSD for about 100 bucks).

[Daywolf]

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

Throw money at your problem,. then lower your fps to 30. wtf this is terrible advice.

He's actually right about the FPS there, it does go unstable at higher settings at least with some video cards/firmware. That was what I found out after smacking into that black hole issue. Once I turned down the FPS (not as low as 30) the issues were resolved. Even WinEQ2 was unable to resolve the issue.

But as for SSD, true it is a huuuuge performance boost, though it could be possible this system is too old to take full advantage of it. I can't really give much of a recommendation without some idea of the hardware for this bad dog (unless I mised it posted..). If that were the case, then other improvements may be possible, and likely. It could even be a case of severe HD fragmentation, or spyware/viruses killing performance. Even outdated sound or video drivers clunking to the current operating system version.

If other games work properly, I'd suggest getting WinEQ 2 Lite edition (free), it solves a host of impossible issues.

[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.

[Baler]

no that's not a throw money at it solution. That's a full system 'upgrade' solution which is no problem.

Could also spend like $30 or less for a 4gb stick of memory that could be used as a ramdisk plus additional ram.

For EQ 2.8ghz cpu and a 9600 GT are acceptable. If he was to switch to a laptop it would probably be integrated graphics, which isn't terrible but it's not exactly like a dedicated card.

---
Make sure you don't have things running in the background that you're not using. Optimize your services also.

[Videri]

Innnteresting. Really, a laptop?? Wouldn't a desktop in a similar price range be preferable?

[Videri]

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

Could also spend like $30 or less for a 4gb stick of memory that could be used as a ramdisk.

I think I might try this first and gauge its effect.

God, it's going to be cool when I'm not struggling to keep up on the little toaster that could. I should have asked this a year and a half ago. Thanks again for your replies.

[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.