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Thinking of playing everquest 2 read this.
daniel240279
Member Posts: 28
I have recently downloaded and played the demo of everquest 2. My thoughts, looks like a good game, one problem... It runs like a rancid one legged dog. Now i've read articles from sony saying this game is made for the future and it has this effect and that effect, to that i say bollocks, saying things like "we make no apologies for how the game will run, we are looking towards the future", comments like this are PR crap and don't convince me one bit.
When i can run a game like fear with full effects on and everything maxed out without a hint of slowdown indicates to me one thing and one thing only, lazy programming. Now sony can go on all they want about future proofing and fancy effects, the fact is even when turned up high i wasn't of the opinion that the game looked any better or in fact as good as other top games currently out, as well i am able to run battlefield 2 up full and with max draw distance on a 64 player map, how do you explain this away sony.
So to anyone thinking of trying this game i say don't and with one reason in mind it runs badly even on a good PC setup.
If you disagree with me then fine that's your opinion.
Oh and here are my specs just in case you think i'm full of it.
CPU: AMD 64 3500
Video: XFX 7800GTX 256MB Overclocked version
Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM 74 Gb HDD
2Gb Corsair Twinx Dual Channel DDR 400 RAM
ASUS A8NSLI Deluxe Mobo
Now to everyone who thought gee my PC is good i'll be able to run everquest 2 well on my PC i say look elsewhere.
Even on balanced settings (which don't look anything special by the way), as soon as you've got a few enemies on the screen slowdown occurs. Not good enough sony not by a long way.
If you are not convinced please try the demo and decide for yourself, if you don't mind a game that chugs up on a regular basis then this could be the game for you.
Comments
Well Mr. 1 post reviewer. I own the full version with all
expansion packs and running on a much lesser rig than you on Balanced setting,
and I haven't had any slow down at all even with many mobs, npc's, and players
on my screen.
My set up:
AMD 2700
Geforce 6200 256mb
1gb ram
250gb 7200rpm HD
Game looks great and plays great. Problem might be the free trial or something’s
going on with your computer. My friend just recently upgraded his pc and he's
amazed at the difference and his set up is still not as good as yours.
_________________________________
Currently Playing: Eve-Online
On the Backburner: EQ2
Retired: EQ, DAoC, WW2Online
RIP: AC2
Tried: Ryzom, Roma Victor, RoM, KH2, Forsaken World, AO, AoC, APB
Quit: SWG PRE-CU(Radiant/Starsider), WoW
Achiever 47% / Explorer 40% / Killer 87% / Socializer 27%
Note that i downloaded the trial of the isle demo.
If sony have fixed the problems kudos to them.
I will try it again then.
I would like to hear other peoples experiences with the game (both trial and full).
If the trial is at fault, then would it not be in sony's best interest to optimise it so that it runs like the full version?
And he's completely right. EQ2's graphics engine is coded like a two dollar Sunday night special. You know it, anyone who plays EQ2 knows it.
Blah, blah, I've played EQ2 since release too etc etc, and I've seen the game grow, evolve, get a LOT better. And pretty much the one thing that hasn't changed is the shoddy engine coding.
The game graphics look and play as though very unfinished. The diatribe about making it for the next generation are moot, it's a load of crud. For the simple fact that you can, like the OP said, play F.E.A.R on full settings with a high end PC (which is no mean fete at all), and then load up EQ2 and need to go to High Performance as soon as you enter DoF, esp the instances there. You're trying to say you get no lag at all on Balanced settings in Clefts within DoF? Uh huh.
The engine is very unfinished, and unless there's a 'from the ground up' overhaul, it probably won't change.
That's what happens when things are rushed.
All in all though, to the OP, it doesn't really detract from the game too much, as you still get as involved in the environments etc. It's just sad when you turn the settings up to Extreme Quality, take a screeny, then turn it back down to Balanced or lower to actually enter into combat.
At the moment I have an AMD3400+, 1.5gig ram, x800 XT Plat gfx and I usually run at Balanced or lower to get anything over 25 FPS in average group combat.
I have a new PC coming, 4200x2 core, SLI7900GTX (only one 7900 at this point though haha..), 2g PC4000 RAM. It'll be here Monday or so.
What I am going to do is when I get the PC, I am going to load up EQ2 and go to Clefts and see what settings I can play on and not get lag. I will do the same on this PC.
I honestly think there won't be too much difference.
The graphics engine in EQ2 is very lacking. It's my opinion of course. And the opinion of about every person I know who plays.
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
First I'll say my rig is pretty extreme. I can play EQ2 on max settings when I solo, when I group I turn them down one notch, and in laggy areas like Willow Wood or Qeynos Harbor I put them on balance.
Second: Use your heads, FEAR was designed to use the CURRENT TECHNOLOGY. No kidding you can play it with the settings all the way up with current technology, but using FEAR as a basis for comparison is a little rediculous. I can turn the setting up very high on FEAR ON MY LAPTOP. Hell I can play Alpha Centarui on max settings too, does that mean the graphics engine for EQ2 is horrible?
The game was designed for the future. When the game was released they told everyone no one would be able to play it on max settings using current technology, and now somehow you're suprised by this fact? Get over yourselves, while you're rigs may be impressive to you, they just don't stand up to what is coming in the future.
Your video card ... lacks enough RAM for all of the high quality textures in EQ2. 256mb? Ridicuous. Need a little more then that to load all of the High Quality textures and Char textures.
As far as FEAR is concerned. Thats not a lot of textures at all. You are confined to closed in areas with the same basic textures over and over again.
There are actually driver problems most of the time with new video cards. Has been like that for ages. I remmember when I first got my nVidia GeForce in 2000. New card but driver problems.
But yes, the engine needs work, however I am yet to find a video game that looks better then EQ2 with the same ammount of detail. Or any MMO that has a good looking graphics engine. The ammount of detail is amazing. Even some of the most random places like the Animators Cave in Antonica, which most people dont know about, has a lot of detail in it. Different carpets on the wall, food and tools on the table...
One thing that lags up ALL of the video cards is shadows. The trick is to turn down maxx player torches to 3, max lights to 4, and put shadows on medium. Otherwise the video card has to calculate an ennormous ammounts of shadows around everything.
The game has a lot of settings you can mess with, unlike things like FEAR where its a slider with (My Computer Sucks, Medium, and OMFG UBER COMPUTER I SHOULD BE ABLE TO RUN EVERY GAME WITH NO LAG CAUSE I AM UBER!!!)
Right now I run EQ2 on 2gb ram p4 3.8GHZ GeForce7800gt 512mb
It doesnt lag, but I still turn down the settings like shadows and particle reflections to make my gameplay smoother.
I guess the reason they did this with EQ2 is because of what happened to EQ1. EQ1 had OK graphics for its time, but today my PDA outputs better 3D graphics then EQ1. And there are still a lot of people playing that game. So the hope was to make the game last. Problem is that there is no longer the hype of EQ1. In fact a lot of people playing EQ2 are moving to Vanguard when it comes out.
For some reason I feel like EQ2 can no longer progress. Sure they fix bugs and add old promised features. Its a great game... But there is little sence of adventure now. I've been everywhere. I read a lot of the lore. The game is very unlikely to turn and go in a new direction.
"We feel gold selling and websites that promote it damage games like Vanguard and will do everything possible to combat it."
Brad McQuaid
Chairman & CEO, Sigil Games Online, Inc.
Executive Producer, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
www.vanguardsoh
But we really will never know any official numbers. They are not panicking, so I am guessing they are doing well enough. And the truth is, you can play EQ2 on an average computer. The original poster was just complaining that OMFG MY COMPUTER IS UBER AND THIS GAME SUXXORS. If you play EQ2 on medium settings it is more then comparable to WoW or L2.
See that plot of land over there? Yeah I know, it's pretty much swampland, it looks pretty from far away, but when you get up into it and venture deep into it, it's really pretty crap.
BUT it's going to mature into the most beautiful pasture in like.. oh two years. No serious. How do I know? Because I'm telling you, that's how.
What's a swamp now will become the most beautiful forest, just give it time for the environment to mature...
Or something.
Uh huh. The gfx engine is coded like shit. That's why so many people have problems with it and end up using Very High Performance on raids.
I remember it used to be one of our 'steps' when getting everyone ready to head into a raid. Check durability all that jazz. Make sure you've dropped to VHP settings. Etc etc.
But, if you want to believe that SoE (of all companies) have a crystal ball to see what technology is going to evolve to in the future, thus allowing them to create an engine to suit - am engine which strangely enough doesn't suit the current technology too well - suit yourself.
Yes, yes. Using my head I load up F.E.A.R, Oblivion, turn the settings way up and it looks phenominal. I then play for hours and love it. That's soooo stupid.
In two years maybe the tech will have caught up for you to do the same in EQ2. Maybe. With a gfx engine code overhaul. In two years, well it's debatable if EQ2 will even exist, going on SoE's CU track record.
But then that's the difference that makes me a skeptic and you a fanboi. And that's the beauty of forums! We can debate about this all day long and no one gets hurt.
So anyway, want to buy that swamp?
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
(Nothing personal at you ke5aux, just for the humour of it)
edit: ugly bold!
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
Bringing Chaos to your locale.
I always find threads like this one rather funny.
I was in EQ2 beta for a long time and bought the game (pre order) when it went live. I've never had problems to the degree the OP described for performance.
In beta and when the game first came out I was playing on a AMD 2600+.
A while back we had an electrical problem at our apartment complex so I had to upgrade a bit. The local place no longer sold any motherboard except 939/pci-express.
So now I run an AMD 64 3200 and a GeForce 6600 (plain jane not the GT).
2 Gigs of memory and a WD Caviar SE16 for a hard drive.
I won't agree with you about the games performance (running slow / choppy) at least not on the client side. If you are having that problem I'd have to say its on your end some where.
Now what I would agree with is:
The EQ2 servers lag worse than the WoW servers. The main reason that irritates me is there is more people in Iron Forge (even after the Auction Hall changes) on a typical wow server than a crowded eq2 server has total.
Mail lag.. loot lag.. Which would make sense if they had the numbers of people on the servers WoW has. Sometimes the mailbox lag is just incredible.
The crafting system sucks. Most people use drop pieces because they are better. The fact most T6 crafted gear is better than most T7 crafted gear.
The fact that the stats on most gear make no sense. Like having INT on leather armor.. yet no INT class wears leather armor. Just stupid things like that.
The economy sucks. Rare drops for craftng were supposedly given a boost to chance to be harvested. Yet the high rares sell for ungodly sums of money.. so beyond the fact most drops are better.. Of course no one wants to pay the crafted prices.
One day I did a search (I played Antonia Bayle RP server which was one of the biggest population servers pre-mergers). Between levels 10 to 40.. There was between good/evil sides a total of 6 player crafted pieces of armor for sale. Toss in perhaps a total of 10 weapons. The rest was drops.
I personally see a problem with a 30 level range having a total of 16 player crafted things for sale.
They promised crafting changes with the KoS launch then said it would be publish 21 (that was 2 or 3 months ago). They now say the rest of the changes may come by July... meanwhile crafting pretty much ceased.
The only crafted thing that sells much is food/drink.
You can write 3 times what I just wrote easily to encompass...
Raiding Issues
PvE Issues
PvP Issues
Class Issues
...
So in the end I would agree there are many things to be aware of before you buy this game. The client performance is not one I would have imagined being listed tho.
Yet there are plenty of things to think about before jumping into this game.
I've been playing EQ2 for a couple weeks now. I run it on High Performance, because my specs are Pent. 4 2.00Ghz 756mb ram and a Geforce FX 5500 vid. card. Most of the time it runs fine, but sometimes I get lag. I always solo also.
I have a lot of fun in the game and would recommend it to people since it is only $30 at the moment. You don't need the other expansions until later levels, which by time then you will have a better understanding on whether or not you want to continue to play the game or not.
I think the graphics are pretty nice and are better than any other game I have played on the market right now, which includes: DAoC, SWG, COH, WOW, D&D, and GW. This was on one of the worst settings also. So I think the OP argument was pretty lame considering I play with a considerably worse computer and get better performance than he does, not to mention the graphics still are better than other games on the high performance setting I keep it on.
Excuse me jodokai, but didn't you say this "When the game was released they told everyone no one would be able to play it on max settings using current technology" and how long ago sir was the game released? November 2004 that's when, which makes the game about a year and a half old, thus making your point invalid in my opinion with reason being the future they were referring to in previous comment is now and therefore shouldn't current top end technology be able to run the game at least somewhere near full. As for being able to run FEAR in full detail on a laptop, I doubt you have even played the game by the sound of that comment, what resolution did you have it on 640x480, oh and by the way what are the specs on your laptop?
Why is using FEAR as a comparison ridiculous, it has many special effects and is very taxing on a system, therefore making it a good comparison. Well here's a comparison as well, playing WOW when in ironforge with resolution set to 1280x1024 settings max everything (anti aliasing, anisotropic filter, you name it all turned on) if i was unlucky with over 50 people standing around i might drop to 18 fps, then why on high settings eq2 should slowdown occur? Bad programming, perhaps poor servers that's why.
My rig sir was not put in to impress people but merely to allow people to see what setup i have and the performance achieved and then be able to compare it to what they have to determine how the game may run on their PC.
No one seems to be mentioning Battlefield 2 here whilst granted a different sort of game it does feature large outdoor areas like eq2 as well as many players and effects on screen at the one time.
"First I'll say my rig is pretty extreme. I can play EQ2 on max settings when I solo, when I group I turn them down one notch, and in laggy areas like Willow Wood or Qeynos Harbor I put them on balance". I noticed you ommitted yours specs from this sentence what does "pretty extreme" equate to, I'd sure like to know, i haven't heard of anyone being able to achieve max settings with a playable frame rate before, you must own a super computer with a terabyte of RAM and a geforce 10000 with 4 Gb of RAM. By the way what are Max settings to you? Is that say 1600x1200 all shadows full and every effect on full, I'm sorry sir but i'm having some trouble believing you.
The problem is that people like this have clearly gotten use to the lag and are no longer noticing it... It must be either sloppy coding or horrible servers... Don't get me wrong here, I like EQ2 and still play it, but it is way choppier than your average MMO... Right now it is the only game worth playing IMO... The graphics are quite astounding though, I also agree that there are plenty of other games that are just as nice and a couple out there that are superior to EQ2, with much less lag...
Your kidding yourself if you think EQ2 runs as good as a game should... It's like all of SOE's programmers are missing their pinky's, I mean, so many games, so many coding problems...
My old system:
Amd fx 53
2 gig ram
ati x800xt 256mb saphhire.
80gb WD 7200 8mb
Not amazing but it could play EQ2 on extreme settings when soloing and Balanced when in large groups. EQ2 is a mmorpg so performance will be worse than a Single player game.
Try playing SWG, crap graphics engine and poor FPS on the best of systems.
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Don't click here...no2
Your analogy is TOTALLY off. You see it's not swamp land, it's actually the most beautiful piece of property every seen, the problem is your eyes just aren't equipied to handle it. In a couple of years when you can upgrade your eyes, THEN you will see how beautiful the property really is.
They told you your eyes couldn't handle how beautiful it is, but I guess you didn't believe them and because you didn't believe them, that somehow makes it their fault. I mean if I tell you not to play with that gun it's loaded, and you shoot yourself, don't come back and say it was my fault (which is exactly what you're doing).
EQ2 ran playable on my Laptop, 3.2ghz intel mobile processor and GeForce 440 Go with 64 meg of vram. And I can play it on max settings at 1600x1200 with my new dual-core Intel and GeForce 7800 GTX, I'm not even SLI.
My favorite part is I can get more out of it now than when I bought it, whereas crap like Auto Assault runs at like 90FPS in max settings at 1600x1200, and will never look any better as long as I play it.
Here are the recommended specs for the game in case anyone is interested, off the official site https://store.station.sony.com/hardgood.jsp?SKU=EQ2RE-HG-SW1104-EQ2DVD.
Recommended Specs: