Played Everquest 2 for the first time...

[DJB]

EQ2 messed with memory big time. From time to time the develope memory leasks in it, but by far the worst is that it allocates and additional page of VM for every page of physical memory is uses. So, even if I have 2GB of ram, and I have 1.5GB free, if EQ2 loads up and grabs 1GB of it, it also increases the swap file by 1GB, even though I have yet to max out my physical memory.
Also, EQ2 has a bad habit of failing to release memory when you zone to a new zone. Go ahead and run from zone to zone in Qeynos for a bit and see what happens to your memory, and virtual memory.

The game runs fine when you first start it, but once it begins all the "paging with every step" behavior, you are going to get jerky slow downs.

I still like to play when I have time, but I find that once again I have to log off and back on every 30 min or so to loose the jerkiness. They had this licked for a time a year or so ago, but in some update or expansion they screwed it up again and can't ever seem to figure it out or get a handle on it.

DJB

[Sgt_Pitt]

I've been playing the game fine for over a year

I dont see where everyone is getting this bad performance from

I play in modified high end settings in 1600 x1200, maybe my 2 gig is helping alot

[Hambone]

A better internet connection may help, but what the hell do I know.

I heard that the more RAM you've got the better EQ2 will run even if it goes over the 2 GB common high-end.

I use to look. 1.75GB was the max physical RAM used EQ2 would take a system to. 1.6GB - 1.75GB seemed to be the range EQ2 would stay in at all time. 1GB in a system would create horrible page file access lagging.

[DJB]

As I stated above, the crazy thing is that EQ2 causes page file activity even when you have not maxed out your physical RAM! It is just poor coding somewhere.

This doesn't keep me from playing, and I play with very high settings and 16X AF and 4X AA as well. There is no slow down on the GPU side in this game when you have a top end card, the only slowdowns are causes by CPU and page file access, IMO.


You know, I can have fun in a game even if I don't get max performance in it. I don't understand why folks can't get over a little glitch here and there and just enjoy what games have to offer in playability.

DJB

[Sgt_Pitt]

ahh ok i disable my paging file, i guess thats why i dont see any :) Had it disabled for 2 years now

Only problem ive ever had with disabling page file was a warning when photoshop starts up :P

but seriously i dont have the best pc, maybe tweaked a little, but i run eq2 in 1600x1200 windowed mode while running teamspeak, act parser, media player, msn, and sometimes even have a little cable tv window on top of eq2.

i toggle shaders off during raids, and shadows are off
try keep the particle effects medium, and lights medium, anything thats too gfx intense, adjust to suit your pc

turn your character lod distance to low, but keep all other textures at high, and make sure environment cube map updates are set to 1 time only

cl_maximized false
cl_screenwidth_windowed 1585
cl_screenheight_windowed 1069
r_performance 7
cl_fullscreen false
cl_screenwidth 1600
cl_screenheight 1200
cl_screenrefresh 70
o_max_farplane 650.000000
r_fast_layer_min_distance -1.000000
cl_textureshrink 1
cl_charactertextureshrink 1
r_texture_lodding_shrink 4
r_heatshimmer true
r_underwaterdistortion true
r_splashes 1
splash_particles_enabled true
r_drawocean_quality 3
r_envcube_updates 2
r_reflections 0
r_reflectionsinhouse 1
r_particle_priority 0
num_active_spell_results 2
r_particlesinreflectionsinhouse true
r_particle_lod_scale 1.637000
r_point_particle_near_plane -2.100000
r_point_particle_max_size 0.172500
r_light_priority 1
r_max_torches 2
r_max_lights 5
r_max_spec_lights 2
r_light_bump_max_distance 10.000000
r_min_dir_ambient_intensity 0.300000
r_shadows_torch false
r_shadows_characters false
r_shadows_keep false
r_ec_max_lod0 4
r_ec_max_lod1 25
r_min_anim_update_rate 0.408000
r_anim_update_start 0.030000
r_initial_point_weight 0.648500
r_particle_cloth true
r_flora true
r_flora_radius_scale 0.564400
r_flora_density_scale 0.891100
r_gamma 1.565000
r_contrast 1.040000
r_brightness 0.040000