Make EQ go warp speed

[Dylan]

Hey so I've been playing EQ lately with at least 3 different screens running on one computer and sometimes I go up to 4, but the problem is load times and zone times are kinda slow so I was wondering if I upgraded my processor or ram or something like that what would make the most drastic difference for me? My specs are as follows:

AMD Athlon 2.00GHZ
1.5gb RAM
Radeon 9800 XT vid card

Also... I play with my screen stretched across two monitors, will switching to 1 monitor only effect my load times?

P.S. Posted this here cause I think more people will notice it

[Tikker]

not really

atensen keeps telling me that using a couple of EQ folders will speed up load times

[Gidan]

If your running multiple EQ instances on the same comp, you definatly should be running each from a different folder, its not a huge help but every little bit counts.

Switching to 1 monitor might help a little as well as it will decrease the load on your video card. As for your CPU and RAM, I doubt your maxing them out with what your doing now, though more ram never hurts. You could try a higher end video card, it may help.

Whats the upload speed of your internet connection? Its possible you are maxing it out.

[Harrison]

RAM is your biggest friend with multiple instances of EQ running.

[Tikker]

also

google up wineq2

it basically forces EQ to playnice with system resources

i found it made a difference for me


if you buy the paid version, it also lets you tile the accounts, and do other fancy things

[Gargamellow]

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

thnx fuckers:)

[Dylan]

Wait, how do I play them from different folders? Like install eq more than once?

[Dylan]

Or copy/paste a new one?

[Yamori]

To state the obvious (just in case):

Turn all particle effects off, and drag the 'opacity' bar down to 0% on all 3 categories in the particle section. (makes a huge difference, especially in newer zones)

Have skies turned off.

Have as few Luclin character models on as possible.

Have graphics settins as low as possible in options.

Bring clip planes down to 30-40%ish on main character and to 0% on all the others.

-

And yeah WinEQ is great - it's helped a lot since I started using it awhile ago.

[Captain Insano]

when I need more power I just press the "turbo" button on the front of my computer.

[10sun]

RAM doesn't help all that much honestly, I have 2 gigs in my main machine and I can't run more than 3 instances without stuttering in the old zones and timing out while zoning.

The biggest difference I have found is having multiple EQ folders spread across multiple HDs. Even on the same drive, you'll see an increase in performance with a seperate folder for every instance... also turn on caching, it helps tons when you are going to be zoning characters around a lot.

Turn off dynamic lighting etc, old water surfaces, etc, etc...

and uh, be sure not to try zoning multiple characters at the same time. Especially not into PoK, that zone kills me. More than 2 characters in that zone and I run the risk of crashing.

[Harrison]

I have 2 gigs and can run 4 (possibly 5, haven't tried it honestly)

Smooth as shit on 3, 4 slows a bit, 5 will lag but it will work.

[Yamori]

RAM totally helps up to a certain point. Going from 512mb to 1 gig RAM pretty much made it possible for me to 2 box effectively.

[Griever]

Certain games can only utilize so much RAM. The rest is overkill. The same goes for graphics cards.

[Dylan]

So if I do the EQ from multiple folders do I want a straight copy/paste job each time? Or only certain files etc?

[Harrison]

copy/paste

[kaharthemad]

when I need more power I just press the "turbo" button on the front of my computer.

you scare me Ralf....you really do.

[Captain Insano]

heheh...My 386 used to have one of those. Talk about warp speed computing!

It was like OMFG 33MHz! Then I would play another round of X-Wing.


PS I used to PWN at X-Wing.

[ClakarEQ]

So you know the folks that think EQ runs better in two folders, I hate to say are wrong.

There are some conditions though and that would be using WinEQ via lavishsoft.

You actually decrease overall performance by duplicating the folder structure, let alone the HD space u suck up.

There are some very nice right ups via lavishsoft about this exact issue and it lays out all the techy reasons etc for it.

I use a 2.8GHz Intel, 1GB system, run 3 accounts (all old skool graphics, no pretty pictures, etc), and the box runs pretty well, but load times on a zone suck. When I run 2 accounts on the same box it is very responsive to zone times, etc.

[10sun]

Keep thinking that.

[ClakarEQ]

And you do the same, but everyone else that does multibox agrees with me and your way has been proven to be slower.

Everything about your suggestion is a DUPLICATE, the very word implies slow, lets copy everything to another folder, don't use HD cache, etc etc. So many things about what you are suggesting are just wrong, sorry. You increase disk IO, Processor IO, everything, you don't use any potential re-entrive code, you load potentialy twice the required amount.

Tell me wise one, how does it go faster when you run it from two different dirs?

I know someone that has a really nice AMD box, 2GB ram, 512MB vid card and he quad boxes with full graphics, ALL from one DIR and he even tried (prior to my sound advice) to do exactly as you suggest, and it was SLOWER, NOTICABLE SLOWER.

You check again on how to really multibox and anyone that suggests "make two copies..." bla bla gets shreaded.

[ClakarEQ]

Here 10, educate yourself :p (bit of sarcasm, don't get offended)

http://p199.ezboard.com/fprexus81531frm ... 5976.topic

http://www.lavishsoft.com/forum/viewtop ... irectories

Hope those urls work :p

EDIT

This makes me recall a thread some time ago about folks who thing running a RAID SATA setup makes game play faster. ROFL, don't get me going on this one, I'd be happy to prove someone wrong