One machine, two EQ2's

[Eloora]

OK so after finally getting my Assassin to 70 and being on the same page for quests and things as my Mystic, I've taken to running both characters (2 accts.) at once on my PC for convenience sake, putting one on follow etc. As most of you probably know, EQ2 doesn't really dig running more than one instance of the game on a PC, and even with my above averate system specs, I run into bothersom lag off and on, freezes when I right-click things, and the like.

So I was wondering if any of you PC gurus might have some advice on how I can make my boxing experience less aggrevating, be it thru changing my PC settings, in game settings or what have you. Here's my system specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo 6700 @ stock speed 2.67 GHz
Asus P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe
Nvidia Geforce 7950 GX2
Dual Raptors Raid 0
Onboard sound for now cuz my X-Fi has IRQ issues with my vid card, or something
Samsung SyncMaster 21" LCD Monitor

What I'd like to avoid is setting both games' performance options to Atari plastic face mode if I can - spent too much time waiting for a decent system to go back to an ugly game now.

And I have one specific question in closing, and it's regarding dual core processors. What I have heard is that a couple game updates ago, players with dual core processors took a hit in performance due to some change they made to the game. This was before I got this rig so I don't know what performance was like before, nor if there's any credence to this claim, or if there is and I'm just not suffering in performance. I mean, it can always be better right?

So my question is, since the game utilizes both CPU's for all processes on my machine, would setting the affinity of each of my instances of EQ2 to a different CPU help performance? Would it hinder it? I don't know exactly what impact affinity settings have. Any knowledge you guys can share would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[gm9]

The game only uses one core, that's all it ever did, so there was no performance hit because of that. However, as far as I know the recent patch locked it to the first core.

If it didn't, I'd recommend using one core per game. Also configure your game which is on auto-follow to minimum settings, disable sound (not just move the slider to the left, turn it off completely), and minimize the game window. Depending on how much load is on the system minimizing the window may lead to lost connections - in that case go to your windows control panel and set the system timing to be optimized for background processes.

And in closing: Nice system you got, would love to have something like that.

[roundpeg]

jut a thought but you might find some sort of vmware solution

[gm9]

Originally Posted by roundpeg

jut a thought but you might find some sort of vmware solution

What is the advantage of that instead of costing a lot of performance for the vmware itself?

[Askelon]

I noticed you did not include system ram or what Operating system yer using...I am going to assume its XP home SP2 installed...I recommend upgrading to XP Pro 64 Bit version then adding ram to get to 4 gigs...XP home and Pro 32 Bit will only handle 2 Gigs of ram 64 Bit will handle 4 gigs...or wait till after January and get Vista Home Preimum, Upgrade to an Nvidia 8800GTX (DX10 Card) And STILL add the 4 gigs of ram...then yer talking one screaming Machine.......

Myself I am waiting till AMD ships thier Monolithic Quad Core in Q3 2007 then upgrading to Vista, 4 Gigs and 2 8800GTX's in SLI mode :-)

anyrate Windows XP wants and WILL eat 512Megs of yer system Ram...EQ2 WANTS 1 Gig to run well but will run at Much lower ram (Figuring you've got 2 gigs thats 512 for Windows and about 750Megs per EQ2...up that number and it should run much better.


Askelon Darkstarr
62 Ranger/50 Provisioner
Legacy Of The Unsung
Antonia Bayle Server

[Eloora]

I have 2 gigs of Corsair, I run on Windows XP and have no intention of "upgrading" either for a while.

Going to try setting each game to its own CPU for a while and see how that works out.

[gm9]

Originally Posted by Askelon

XP home and Pro 32 Bit will only handle 2 Gigs of ram 64 Bit will handle 4 gigs...

That is not true, XP - just as any 32-bit operating system - handles up to 4GB of RAM and since EQ2 is a 32-bit app there is no reason to run it on a 64-bit OS.

[Faedilest]

You said "EQ2 doesn't really dig running more than one instance of the game on a PC"

I run EQ2 dual boxing on two of my computers. This 3rd party applications helps throttle the CPU/FPS of the background directx app

http://www.lavishsoft.com/wineq2/

Even without this 3rd party app I still can run another EQ2, I just make sure I turn the graphics basically all off on the 'dual' boxed toon.

Both my computers are AMD 64x dual core 3800+ w/ 2gig 800mhz RAM and 7600GT cards. Not all that beefy imho

Bob

[lordebon]

Originally Posted by gm9

That is not true, XP - just as any 32-bit operating system - handles up to 4GB of RAM and since EQ2 is a 32-bit app there is no reason to run it on a 64-bit OS.

It's actually halfway between you two.

32bit XP can "recognize" a full 4GB (as a 32-bit register is exactly 4GB big), but it 'reserves' about 1GB when you have 4GB, thus you get an effective 3GB (it's not exactly 3GB, but thereabouts). I know, I'm running 4GBs of RAM in 32-bit WinXP and it only recognizes less than 4GB.

I definately recommend upping your RAM. 2GB is great for 1 copy of EQ2, but 1GB is kinda 'minimum' for good running for each copy, so having 3GB (or 4GB - XP's 'reserve') would boost you to at least 1.5GB for each copy.

Oh, and EQ2 _is_ multithreaded, so a dual core processor does 'help' a bit. The problem is that most of the 'ummph' is in a single thread, so theres not a lot of offload to the second core. I'd set one copy of CPU1 and one to CPU2 and see if it helps -- you never know, and it can't really hurt... but if you can keep the 2 big threads on different processors it should help.

But I am guessing that the RAM is probably what's holding you back. You have a nice system otherwise (it's very close to mine. And yes, my X-Fi was laming out for a while too, I moved it from one PCI slot to another and that 'fixed' the problem. The IRQs weren't the same, the X-Fi had its own, but hey it worked so I'm happy).

But yeah... RAM is "cheap". That GX2 had to set you back a good bit (I know mine set me back a lot!) so whats another little bit for some more tasty RAM?

[Eloora]

Originally Posted by Faedilest

You said "EQ2 doesn't really dig running more than one instance of the game on a PC"

I run EQ2 dual boxing on two of my computers. This 3rd party applications helps throttle the CPU/FPS of the background directx app

http://www.lavishsoft.com/wineq2/

Even without this 3rd party app I still can run another EQ2, I just make sure I turn the graphics basically all off on the 'dual' boxed toon.

Both my computers are AMD 64x dual core 3800+ w/ 2gig 800mhz RAM and 7600GT cards. Not all that beefy imho

Bob

Since you linked it and use it and all I decided to give this software another try. I used it before with mixed results. It does seem to keep both games running smoother on average and takes care of the affinity setting for me, which is handy. I just have a couple gripes:

-Lighting seemed really funky when running EQ2 with WinEQ. Everything gets a washed out appearence when lights are shining on things. Lighting does usually make colors appear lighter, but this is just....bad. See attachment for an example. I've determined that using specular lighting causes this issue, and unchecking that box in options fixes it. I suppose I can live without pretty lights on shiny objects for the sake of convenience, but I don't like it!

-When I switch another window to the foreground then switch back to a game, or when switching between 2 games, sometimes my mouse kind of gets "stuck" as if I'm holding down the left mouse button. After clicking on the screen again it lets go, but it's getting annoying. I don't know if this is a property of the software or my mouse. Maybe getting used to the hotkey commands for switching windows instead of clicking on the taskbar with my mouse would help this...I'll play with it a bit.

P.S. Faedilest, I don't suppose you are using the paid for version of this software are you?

[gridvector]

-Lighting seemed really funky when running EQ2 with WinEQ.

This is an issue with wineq2, the problem is specular lighting. If you turn off specular lighting and slide the Max Bumpy Point Distance to -1, it will fix the washing out issue (though I do miss my shiny textures). This doesn't seem to happen on all video cards, I have a 7900 GT and I have the issue, my friend that runs an 8800GTX doesn't have any problems.

-When I switch another window to the foreground then switch back to a game, or when switching between 2 games, sometimes my mouse kind of gets "stuck" as if I'm holding down the left mouse button.

This has to do with the way EQ2 grabs the mouse input. Yes if you click on a background EQ2 window with the mouse or click on the window via the task bar the mouse is grabbed in it current state (left mouse button down) and you get stuck in mouse look. If you use hot keys or the good ol' alt-tab you don't run into the problem.

My 2 cents on how to 2 box best...use 2 computers with 2 monitors and run synergy on them.


Anyway hope some of this helps out.

[gridvector]

Well there I go making a liar out of myself. So after posting the last reply I decided to go back and do more trouble shooting with my video card. After a few tweaks it seems to be working running under WinEQ2 now. These are the settings I changed:

I set the default image settings for 3D to Quality (originally set to application controlled)

then under manage 3d setting:



the 2 options you can't see are:

Triple Buffering: Off
Vertical Sync: Use the 3D application setting

then I checked the program settings for eq2 and made sure they were all set for "Use global setting"

and the viola, specular lighting works again under WinEQ2.

Hope this helps you fix your issue.

[Eloora]

I set every setting you listed as you suggested, and it didn't fix my issue. Could you post a screenshot of your character under a light source with the specular lights working under WinEQ2?

[gridvector]

Sure here is a screen shot, let me do a little more testing and I will see if I can narrow down the exact tweak that fixed my issue.

[Zonx]

Synergy ROCKS! Though I do seam to have a prob using mouse look on the remote machine. Usually forces the camera to look straight up.

[gridvector]

Synergy ROCKS!

Heh yes it does, Can you give me a little more detail on the mouse look problem on the remote machine.

-------------------------------

As for the texture issue, if I set the Nvidia 3D setting to Quality (if you did the 3D setting with image preview after you changed the individual settings it will override what you changed.) I should have said use the "Use the Advanced 3D Image Settings" options under the "Adjust Image Setting with Preview" page.

the default settings under high quality are:



the 2 options you can't see are:

Triple Buffering: Off
Vertical Sync: Use the 3D application setting

and the result using WinEQ2 is:



...nasty washed out colors and textures.

After changing back the setting one at a time the culprit on my machine was the hard coding of the Anisotropic filtering and Antialiasing settings. after setting these back to "Application-controlled" my colors and textures went back to normal.

Give the "Use the Advanced 3D Image Settings" and reverify the setting and give it another try.

Good luck.

[Eloora]

Thanks for the replies. I did all the settings in the correct order, and checked and rechecked them again and again. Nothing seems to change or fix the spec lights issue. I do have some settings that you don't seem to have, which may or may not contribute the bug somehow, so here they are, with their respective possible setting choices:

Threaded Optimization - Auto, On, Off

Multi-GPU performance mode - NVIDIA recommended (default value), Force split-frame rendering, Force alternate frame rendering 1, Force alternate frame rendering 2, Single-GPU

I will test these with different settings when I have time today to see if one of these fixes the issue.

[gridvector]

Yeah since the 7950 GX2 has 2 GPU cores on it it is a SLI solution which I cannot test. I hope one of the setting fixes your problems, I will see if I can get one of my buddies with an SLI rig to test it out as well.

Good Luck.