takes up memory ?
 

Im only familar with WoW's UI in that that the more mods you have installed the more memory the UI uses and the more lag it can contribute to.

Is this the same with EQ2 UI and the various mods available for it ?

thanks

Don't think so, I'm not having any problems at all. IT might use a little more memory, but I don't think CPU usage is even 5% worse

I run FRAPS and I notice the difference on my 2 gig, X2 dual-core 4800 AMD CPU PC with a 7900 GTX /w 512mb video card. If I hide the UI via the F10 command the fps lag decreases by a lot especially in areas like East Freeport.

It should be obvious...

Of course if you HIDE the UI your going to get better performance... good luck playing with no UI.

The real question is "Does a cutom UI lag you more so then the Default." and the answer is there is no real way to test it perfectly, but if there is a difference in either UI's favor its so minute that it does not matter.

If you are worried about performance with UI, having less windows open... regardless of if its defualt or custom will cut down on a tiny bit of the resource usage.

Actually, it depends a lot on the image files, for example profitui, if its windowelements.dds is really big then common sense tells you that it probably will take more time to load, therefore using more memory

Exactly, hence the reason I said the number of windows you have open could affect things. However there are cases where running a UI that uses graphics that are simpler and windows that are much smaller, etc.... could actually use less resources then the Default UI.

Regardless none of that changes the fact that the arguement of "When I hide my UI via F10 I get much better performance" so custom UI's decrease performace... is ridiculous. Its comparing apples and monkeys. Of course if you have NO UI regardless of what that UI is your going to see better performance, but that has nothing to do with debate of custom UI's taking more resources then the Default UI. Thats like me saying well if I run my UI on a 4ghz system with 4gig ram and 2x 7800 sli nvidia cards I dont have any problems with performace... so there must not be any difference between the Default UI and a custom UI. As I said, if there is a difference good luck meassuring it, and if a difference that small even matters... well perhaps one should look into other means of increasing performance.

haven't had any problems like this

Just the post I was looking for.

Obviously as said above having no UI will decrease FPS lag alot but I think the major issue is that the UI especially on not so great machines causes quite a considerable drop in FPS.

Its strange that NON-Moving icons can cause such a frame rate drop.

Heres a little test for you: *loads EQ2*

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7...reenie1ip4.jpg
http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/7...reenie2xo2.jpg

Yes I know the time switched, someone came and stood infront of me for a while.. grrr.

I mean its very apparent when the UI is not on that there is a significant improvement in the constant FPS compared to when the UI is on. I very rarely get 30fps, probably not the best place to do that and my FPS does drop to probably around 15 on average in groups but its bareable.. however if while in a group I turn my HUD off it very quickly raises again.

Another thing I've noticed is that it seems the server load contributes to FPS lag. This used to happen alot on Counter-Strike servers and even with excessive high pingers.

So basically I'm here to wonder if using the default UI would be better over the custom UI. I might just save the hotbar .xml files and remove the rest because while its nice to have that all over my screen if it is contributing to the lag then it has to go.

I will try the default UI after I've been to bed I just don't fancy having to re-arrange my windows and I like the uniform style of this one but tbh I don't need all the extra fluff around.

PC Spec:

AMD 2600
2gig of 333mhz ram
Radeon x800 GTO 128mb

Before you say it, yes I need to upgrade but even so the UI really shouldn't drop the FPS as much as it does. At a guess its rendering it as a sprite or at least not intergrating it properly into the game to reduce the resources it takes.

Sorry for the semi rant here I'm just trying to get the best out of my machine :P

A little bird told me running the UI from a ramdisk helps with performance.

Fyyre

Apart from the obvious truth that RAMdisks are faster than harddisks, it would only help with initial loading times. The game keeps the UI in memory anyway. Using a RAMdisk you'd have in memory twice, i.e. you'd use twice as much memory.

And just for the record: the windowelements.dds of ProfitUI has the same size as the same file in the default UI. ;)

So here's the 411 about UI impact on performance as I understand it.

This is really two separate issues.

1) Memory Usage: Generally speaking, a UI that uses larger image files will require more memory. However the EQ2 client uses a few tricks to optimize memory that make this a bit more complicated. For instance, the client only loads individual image slices to memory when needed. It does not load the entire image file if for instance only a small rectangle of that file is actually used, and it doesn't even load that slice if the window that uses it is never opened.

On systems with more than 1 gig of RAM, memory usage isn't likely to be an issue. Custom UI's might eat up an extra 2 MB of that 1+gig at worst.

2) Processing: Every UI window shown requires processing cycles to render, regardless of how large the image files are. Some UI options require more work to render. Complex transparencies for example take much longer to process than simple transparencies or no transparency. There are alot of different factors that can increse processing requirements for a UI.

That being said, the default UI is not the most optimized when it comes to procesing requirements. Some custom UIs might actually require less processing than the default, even if they provide some extra features.