Everquest 2: The Humbling of Hardware - Page 2

Duhulk · 08-09-2004, 05:30 AM

Just FYI, I went to a local computer shop and bought a custom PC, ASTUS motherboard, 2.8 GHZ Pentium 4 Prescott, 1ghz of DDR400 RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro with 256 MB of memory, 19" monitor, keyboard, mouse, network card etc.. etc...

for around $1500. The bitch should run EQ2

Quote:

Short of the graphic card you don't need any cutting-edge hardware, unless you consider a 2ghz (1ghz min requirement) processor 'high-end', and 1gb ram (512min) is pretty much standard for other new games too.

What other new games? Doom 3, that's about it and Half-Life 2 when it comes out. This is the high-end of PC gaming right now. It's not "standard".

Staberinde · 08-09-2004, 05:33 AM

I was really dissapointed at EQ2 on low settings. I dont know if anyones tried it, but try having the settings at anything below medium and the game just looks hideous in char creation. Even then the FPS werent too hot on my athlon 3200, 768mb and GF3 (yeah not having a 128mb GFX card really is the kicker for EQ2). At that abysmal quality id expect the game to run smooth as you like considering it looks much worse than many games that run smooth on my system.

I can play Doom 3 acceptably on the lowest settings yet it still looks good, i can say the same for many other games also. EQ2 graphic quality drops though the floor on anything below medium, i dont just mean things are less crisp but everything actually looks ugly as hell and i still dont get a justfiable performance boost.

In short if you dont have a 128MB gfx card i wouldnt bother with EQ2 unless you plan to upgrade for it. It doesnt seem scale down acceptably whatsoever.

Fluffya · 08-09-2004, 05:50 AM

athlon 3200 and a 64mb GF3 ? That's a weird config you have there.

Vekruul Shuth · 08-09-2004, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Staberinde
I was really dissapointed at EQ2 on low settings. I dont know if anyones tried it, but try having the settings at anything below medium and the game just looks hideous in char creation. Even then the FPS werent too hot on my athlon 3200, 768mb and GF3 (yeah not having a 128mb GFX card really is the kicker for EQ2). At that abysmal quality id expect the game to run smooth as you like considering it looks much worse than many games that run smooth on my system.

I can play Doom 3 acceptably on the lowest settings yet it still looks good, i can say the same for many other games also. EQ2 graphic quality drops though the floor on anything below medium, i dont just mean things are less crisp but everything actually looks ugly as hell and i still dont get a justfiable performance boost.

In short if you dont have a 128MB gfx card i wouldnt bother with EQ2 unless you plan to upgrade for it. It doesnt seem scale down acceptably whatsoever.

If you can get Doom3 to run...It looks good on any any of the 3 settings.Even low.From what I can tell the highest and medium add AA and AF levels.The textures and IQ look the same.Nature of the engine...Comparing it to EQ2 isn't really fair for the most part.

FPS's are going to run better than an MMORPG overall.

Also...I would hope that a gamer would have at least a 128 meg card now.

I initially DL'ed the EQ2 character creation off BT.Ran like crap.

Got the preorder...Character creation ran smooth at 1600x1200 2x AA and AF

9800 pro.

2.5 P4

Gig of some slow ass 2700 ram.

My PC if built today...would cost what?800 TOPS.Thats not a huge investment.

I am one of those that will be upgrading when EQ2 is released.

Top of the line system can be made for 1800 easily.You spending 3k on a machine...Your wasting cash.

Quote:

That doesn't make sense at all. How does not having shadows turned on 'seriously hinder gameplay'?

Play any game with shadows on.Then turn em off.Your talking HUGE gains bro in FPS.This also allows other eye candy to be turned on.

Plain and simple..I'm betting a machine like mine which is midrange will play EQ2 just fine.With some settings lowered.So there is no huge investment needed by most gamers I'd bet.

But until we get all get into beta...The original poster and my opinion mean jack shit.

Clowns · 08-09-2004, 06:03 AM

More humdrum 'anti-EQ2' hype to feed the WoW frenzied mobs. Bascially if your computer is over 2 years old and you want to play PC games you should just give up and buy a console. Hell, if you bought a new, cutting edge, PC today it would be second best by the end of the week. Games like FC, D3, HL2, and soon EQ2 are what pushes the envelope of PC power. If you or your computer can't handle that then don't try to play these type of games.

And that's ok. There is a huge crowd of PC fans that fit that last line. That's the players that WoW is trying to market their game to. Don't be pissed that your PC that can play WoW flawlessly won't be able to to play EQ2 all that well. After all, they are not in the same strata.

Sampo · 08-09-2004, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Angrier
What kind of a computer would you build with 2500? That's not including the monitor...

well, your 64 bit processor is 700$

mobo -120
ram 590
4 HD's -480
Dual GF 6800 -830

goes over 2500 by a bit, np tho .

Lenardo · 08-09-2004, 06:39 AM

Who would buy the 700 dollar processor i'd get the athlon 64 3200 iwth a meg cache for 220 bucks.

Nar · 08-09-2004, 06:47 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Sampo
well, your 64 bit processor is 700$

mobo -120
ram 590
4 HD's -480
Dual GF 6800 -830

goes over 2500 by a bit, np tho .

WTF do you need 4 hard drives for? Delete some porn, or burn some shit to DVD.

Eomer · 08-09-2004, 06:48 AM

Is EVERY SINGLE PERSON HERE forgetting that the original EQ was one of the very first games to be released that absolutely required a 3D card? My old Everquest box even has a big honking label right on the front laying that out. Prior to EQ and a few other games, most computers didn't have 3D accelerators. I am sure people were screaming about it back then too.

Seriously, if you are running a computer purchased more than two years ago, no, you shouldn't expect to play the latest and greatest games at anything but the shittiest quality settings at really poor resolutions and frame rates. Sorry, that's the nature of PC gaming, it's been this way for over a decade. I remember when I wanted to play Sim City 2000 I had to buy a new VGA card, cd-rom, and upgrade from 4mb of ram to 8mb on my 386DX (33mhz of raw power). Cost nearly a thousand bucks back then. Not to mention that I had to scrounge every spare megabyte off my 100mb HD to even install the thing. This shit is nothing new.

Jitx · 08-09-2004, 06:51 AM

The creatures "popping up in front of you", could be a problem on part of the engine. If i remember correctly EQ2 uses a heavily modified version of the SWG engine. Hopefully, it doesnt use the same netcode as SWG, because things like whats mentioned above is a serious problem with it.

And its not ususally like one place, one ENTIRE planet for instance, is terrible. With a decent ammount of people of the planet, its usually almost unplayable during primetime. And on any planet, riding your speeder bike, or mount, or sometimes even just running, mobs wont pop up until your on top of them, or most of the time, until they are already behind you.

Eomer · 08-09-2004, 06:57 AM

Quote:

From what I can tell the highest and medium add AA and AF levels.The textures and IQ look the same.

This is actually backwards. The quality settings in Doom mostly affect whether or not different textures are compressed or not. AA and AF is set manually, and has no bearing on the "low/med/high" settings. Ultra quality, for example, can use upwards of 500mb's of memory for textures on certain levels, and so the game can start to really chug as they are loaded from ram into the video card, since no one makes a 512 card yet. High uses around 256, and medium 128. I assume that there are other differences as well that affect performance, but a post from a developer from id laid out that info on what's compressed and what isn't. I don't pretend to understand what normal maps are, and all that shit.

Quote:

Top of the line system can be made for 1800 easily.You spending 3k on a machine...Your wasting cash.

Even 1800 is getting pretty expensive, IMO. I build my systems for about 1500CDN most of the time, not including monitor. If you are spending much more than 600-800US for memory/cpu/mobo, you're throwing money away. Go for the mid range stuff, that's where the value is at. After those three, what else is there? V/C, HD, sound card, cd/DVD drive (which they give away in boxes of cereal). I can't imagine how anyone could spend over 2 grand on a system, unless they are buying top of the line everything.

Nar · 08-09-2004, 07:26 AM

Thinking about it, people still bitch about games that want to be put out on DvD exclusively. Sure, having to make 5 or 6 CD's worth of stuff in addition to DvD's for the masses pushes up the production cost, but at least the users don't have to make that 30 dollar investment on a DvD drive!

DorianBrytestar · 08-09-2004, 07:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Sampo
well, your 64 bit processor is 700$

mobo -120
ram 590
4 HD's -480
Dual GF 6800 -830

goes over 2500 by a bit, np tho .

Someone is seriously raping you on prices or you are intentionally picking the most expensive pieces of equipment in the world to try and make a point.

Decent PCs have cost about 1000-1500 for about 5-7 years now. What you get has steadily moved up in power, but the prices magically seem to hover around that.

Bottom of the barrel pcs go for around $500 and top of the line ones are about $2k unless you get stupid. Especially with hard drives and raid setups (your dual video cards aside.)

Nevergone · 08-09-2004, 07:49 AM

All of you people that are actually complaining amaze me. To the original poster; please stop being such a stupid cunt. The game has barely entered beta and you're going on about the fact that it's not optimized yet. "Monsters appearing out of nowhere" has nothing to do with system specs, it's due to the fact that there aren't models for lesser detail models yet; this comes from my friend of a friend of a friend. Seriously, shut the fuck up and let them make their game.

Judge it at release.

diGriz · 08-09-2004, 08:08 AM

Bloody hell people, are you going to run out and get the latest alienware rig or something when EQ2 comes out, cause unless you do that how directly the fuck are you going to drop 2500+ on a computer. Instal the stuff yourself and you'll save a shitton of money. I mean you can get a P4 3.0+ GHz processor and MB for 3-500, or an athlon 3.0 GHz for around the same. you're looking at maybe 200-250 for a gig of real good RAM, not the generic shit. then 2-500 on a video card. and this shit is state of the fucking art. It's not like you need a new case, hard drive, CD/DVD drive, power supply, sound card or monitor. you could easily get a very nice computer for under a grand.

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08-09-2004, 05:33 AM	#17 (permalink)
Staberinde Registered User Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 77 +0 Internets	I was really dissapointed at EQ2 on low settings. I dont know if anyones tried it, but try having the settings at anything below medium and the game just looks hideous in char creation. Even then the FPS werent too hot on my athlon 3200, 768mb and GF3 (yeah not having a 128mb GFX card really is the kicker for EQ2). At that abysmal quality id expect the game to run smooth as you like considering it looks much worse than many games that run smooth on my system. I can play Doom 3 acceptably on the lowest settings yet it still looks good, i can say the same for many other games also. EQ2 graphic quality drops though the floor on anything below medium, i dont just mean things are less crisp but everything actually looks ugly as hell and i still dont get a justfiable performance boost. In short if you dont have a 128MB gfx card i wouldnt bother with EQ2 unless you plan to upgrade for it. It doesnt seem scale down acceptably whatsoever.

08-09-2004, 05:50 AM	#18 (permalink)
Fluffya Verified 4th best poster of these boards. Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Paradise City where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. Posts: 661 -1 Internets	athlon 3200 and a 64mb GF3 ? That's a weird config you have there.

08-09-2004, 06:03 AM	#20 (permalink)
Clowns Registered User Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 447 -2 Internets	More humdrum 'anti-EQ2' hype to feed the WoW frenzied mobs. Bascially if your computer is over 2 years old and you want to play PC games you should just give up and buy a console. Hell, if you bought a new, cutting edge, PC today it would be second best by the end of the week. Games like FC, D3, HL2, and soon EQ2 are what pushes the envelope of PC power. If you or your computer can't handle that then don't try to play these type of games. And that's ok. There is a huge crowd of PC fans that fit that last line. That's the players that WoW is trying to market their game to. Don't be pissed that your PC that can play WoW flawlessly won't be able to to play EQ2 all that well. After all, they are not in the same strata.

08-09-2004, 06:39 AM	#22 (permalink)
Lenardo Registered User Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 2,324 -11 Internets	Who would buy the 700 dollar processor i'd get the athlon 64 3200 iwth a meg cache for 220 bucks.

08-09-2004, 06:48 AM	#24 (permalink)
Eomer You mean I can change this? Neat! Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 10,193 +38 Internets	Is EVERY SINGLE PERSON HERE forgetting that the original EQ was one of the very first games to be released that absolutely required a 3D card? My old Everquest box even has a big honking label right on the front laying that out. Prior to EQ and a few other games, most computers didn't have 3D accelerators. I am sure people were screaming about it back then too. Seriously, if you are running a computer purchased more than two years ago, no, you shouldn't expect to play the latest and greatest games at anything but the shittiest quality settings at really poor resolutions and frame rates. Sorry, that's the nature of PC gaming, it's been this way for over a decade. I remember when I wanted to play Sim City 2000 I had to buy a new VGA card, cd-rom, and upgrade from 4mb of ram to 8mb on my 386DX (33mhz of raw power). Cost nearly a thousand bucks back then. Not to mention that I had to scrounge every spare megabyte off my 100mb HD to even install the thing. This shit is nothing new.

08-09-2004, 06:51 AM	#25 (permalink)
Jitx Copy Ninja Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: ohio Posts: 213 +0 Internets	The creatures "popping up in front of you", could be a problem on part of the engine. If i remember correctly EQ2 uses a heavily modified version of the SWG engine. Hopefully, it doesnt use the same netcode as SWG, because things like whats mentioned above is a serious problem with it. And its not ususally like one place, one ENTIRE planet for instance, is terrible. With a decent ammount of people of the planet, its usually almost unplayable during primetime. And on any planet, riding your speeder bike, or mount, or sometimes even just running, mobs wont pop up until your on top of them, or most of the time, until they are already behind you.

08-09-2004, 07:49 AM	#29 (permalink)
Nevergone Is Not A Happy Bunny Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 566 +0 Internets	All of you people that are actually complaining amaze me. To the original poster; please stop being such a stupid cunt. The game has barely entered beta and you're going on about the fact that it's not optimized yet. "Monsters appearing out of nowhere" has nothing to do with system specs, it's due to the fact that there aren't models for lesser detail models yet; this comes from my friend of a friend of a friend. Seriously, shut the fuck up and let them make their game. Judge it at release.

08-09-2004, 08:08 AM	#30 (permalink)
diGriz Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 126 -1 Internets	Bloody hell people, are you going to run out and get the latest alienware rig or something when EQ2 comes out, cause unless you do that how directly the fuck are you going to drop 2500+ on a computer. Instal the stuff yourself and you'll save a shitton of money. I mean you can get a P4 3.0+ GHz processor and MB for 3-500, or an athlon 3.0 GHz for around the same. you're looking at maybe 200-250 for a gig of real good RAM, not the generic shit. then 2-500 on a video card. and this shit is state of the fucking art. It's not like you need a new case, hard drive, CD/DVD drive, power supply, sound card or monitor. you could easily get a very nice computer for under a grand.