Default chat window with chat outline removed

[Othesus]

This window is a result of this thread on the EQ2 forums:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/p...opic_id=376406

You can test the affect of having no outline on the chat window text. This window has a small button in the top right that will toggle the chat text outline on and off. By default the outline is off. If you use something like FRAPS or ATI Tray Tools you can see the difference in frame rate between having an outline and not having an outline.

Here are some screenshots.

If you use the normal black background there isn't any reason to have a black outline because the text looks exactly the same without it.


If you ever use your chat window with a transparent background the chat text would be harder to read without an outline.


A black outline makes the text more legible if it's in front of a light color. But, this outline requires 6 times as many triangles to render.



My video card is so low-end that the difference in frame rate doesn't seem to be very much, even for a window of text stretched from the bottom to the top of the screen. I'm curious to see how much difference it makes in other people's frame rates though. If the difference is significant maybe SOE could make the outline optional or have no outline by default.

[gm9]

Just looking at a wall I get a max difference of 4 fps if I turn the shadow style off (2560x1024 res, in windowed mode on a 8800 GTX, using one chat window (my own though, not yours) with a size of 700x200, filled with text).

[Othesus]

Originally Posted by gm9

Just looking at a wall I get a max difference of 4 fps if I turn the shadow style off (2560x1024 res, in windowed mode on a 8800 GTX, using one chat window (my own though, not yours) with a size of 700x200, filled with text).

Hmm, what were the actual FPS numbers? My FPS is normally in the 20s or so and the difference was something like 2 FPS, maybe less.

Kenman on the EQ2 forums saw a change from 43 to 55 FPS when hiding the chat text shadow.

[gm9]

FPS went from 60 to 64 (looking at a wall, mind you, I'm not getting that during normal play).

[gm9]

Alright, opening 4 filled chat windows, socials, guild, persona, community and inventory windows, I go from 34 to 47 fps when disabling shadows globally for the entire UI.

Btw, do you now the best performance booster? Right-clicking. Closing the additional windows I go from 79 to 150 fps looking at the floor. As soon as you touch the right mouse button your fps start to go up, without any difference in visuals.

[bneta86]

neat idea.

Will this work with other modded chat windows - or just the default.