EQ 2 and Graphics.

[Flask]

My question is,

I am running a ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 256 AGP of course, on a nice little rig that I have (See link below).

And I want to know what kind of settings I can have custom done, to reduce some of the town/group lag that I get.

Should I just upgrade to the GeForce 7800 GS AGP?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130274

Let me know what advice you guys have. I do not want to upgrade to PCI - Express atm because of having to buy a new proc/board. This box does most of what I need, HL2 on full and runs great etc. Farcry on full runs great.

Thanks,
Flask

 

[Looney]

Yep, the 7800GS would be a HUGE upgrade to you. If you upgrade your memory to 2GB, you could easily do Very High Quality.

 

[Ika]

7800GS is a good upgrade, or you could get a used 6800GT for ~$175. It depends on how much money you're willing to spend.

 

[Markbnj]

I'm probably going for one of the new 7xxx series AGP boards that are supposed to pop soon. Will have a 6800 GT w/NVSilencer that will be redundant at that point.

 

[Flask]

Now would you suggest the BFG series or the eVGA? Also there is XFX, but I am gearing towards that BFG haha, little pricey, but freakin nice.

 

[Drift3r]

Looking at your rig you are gonna need 2 gigs of mem and a faster CPU. EQ2 is very mem and cpu greedy. Sad thing is EQ2 cant take advantage of dual-core CPU's so it ain't as future proof and some people like to tout

 

[Looney]

A faster CPU really isn't needed. It's much more GPU intensive than CPU. The AI, is all processed server end. Other players... well, are other players, they're not AI. The world is mostly rendered on the GPU. Textures, spell effects, etc are all GPU. Where does the CPU come in?

 

[FlasHBurN]

Originally posted by: Looney
Yep, the 7800GS would be a HUGE upgrade to you. If you upgrade your memory to 2GB, you could easily do Very High Quality.

VERY HIGH? That would be extremely doubtful. Sure maybe in certain situations you will get decent (around 10fps), but as soon as there are a couple people around, your frame rates will drop hardcore. Even with a 7900GTX I doubt you could set it to very high and still have frame rates above 20 at all times.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: FlasHBurN

Originally posted by: Looney
Yep, the 7800GS would be a HUGE upgrade to you. If you upgrade your memory to 2GB, you could easily do Very High Quality.

VERY HIGH? That would be extremely doubtful. Sure maybe in certain situations you will get decent (around 10fps), but as soon as there are a couple people around, your frame rates will drop hardcore. Even with a 7900GTX I doubt you could set it to very high and still have frame rates above 20 at all times.

With his 17in CRT, he's probably running at 1024x768, he should be able to make Very High Quality with a 6800GT class GPU and 2GB of RAM.

I wouldn't go for the 7800GS though, try to find a cheaper used 6800GT if at all possible. Ideally, going PCIe is the best, although not the cheapest route. I have a 7800GS, OCed by 100Mhz, and its still barely faster than my old 6800GT in EQ2.

There are a few things that you can do in EQ2 to up your frames. Shadows is a big one, turn those to minimal or off. Foliage, I just turn that completely off most of the time.
Because I run EQ2 at my monitors native res of 1680x1050, I also need to turn terrain textures down to medium. When in groups, I also turn down character details to medium. If we have a lot of casters in the group, then I need to turn down the lighting and spell effects. EQ2's engine is really a beast, and its HIGHLY custimizable.

Although, EQ2 is not a multi-threaded app at this time, it will still benefit from a dual core CPU because you can set processor affinity. CPU 0 for Windows, CPU 1 for EQ2.

 

[Flask]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: FlasHBurN

Originally posted by: Looney
Yep, the 7800GS would be a HUGE upgrade to you. If you upgrade your memory to 2GB, you could easily do Very High Quality.

VERY HIGH? That would be extremely doubtful. Sure maybe in certain situations you will get decent (around 10fps), but as soon as there are a couple people around, your frame rates will drop hardcore. Even with a 7900GTX I doubt you could set it to very high and still have frame rates above 20 at all times.

With his 17in CRT, he's probably running at 1024x768, he should be able to make Very High Quality with a 6800GT class GPU and 2GB of RAM.

I wouldn't go for the 7800GS though, try to find a cheaper used 6800GT if at all possible. Ideally, going PCIe is the best, although not the cheapest route. I have a 7800GS, OCed by 100Mhz, and its still barely faster than my old 6800GT in EQ2.

There are a few things that you can do in EQ2 to up your frames. Shadows is a big one, turn those to minimal or off. Foliage, I just turn that completely off most of the time.
Because I run EQ2 at my monitors native res of 1680x1050, I also need to turn terrain textures down to medium. When in groups, I also turn down character details to medium. If we have a lot of casters in the group, then I need to turn down the lighting and spell effects. EQ2's engine is really a beast, and its HIGHLY custimizable.

Although, EQ2 is not a multi-threaded app at this time, it will still benefit from a dual core CPU because you can set processor affinity. CPU 0 for Windows, CPU 1 for EQ2.

Thank you, I really appreciate the help.

I just got a little into the reviews on that 7800 go slow. I really want to look into something else, but everyone else says that the 9800 is fine for what I need until I can upgrade to PCI-E.