Upgrading hardware and OS and reinstalling EQ2

[Sorse]

I am upgrading to an Intel MB, Vista, and a NVidia 8800. I would appreciate any feedback on the following issues.

Should I go for a quadcore or dualcore Intel MB with future upgrades of EQ2 in consideration? I have to go Intel as I am associated with an Intel dealer with my consulting business.

I need to go Vista Business or Ultimate so as to continue remote support of my domain clients/servers. I have access to software/methods of reducing the bloatware so thinking business would be enough.

I will be running the 8800 on a highend 19" CRT display and was wondering if there will be issues here or do I need to get an LCD screen?

Finally any hints on reinstalling EQ2 on a new machine with the RoK DVDs besides a long update. Should I wait until after update 42?

Any other relevant info would be helpful as well.

Thanks

Sorse

[Gninja]

Well Update 42 is tomorrow (5 feb) so yeah wait till after but to reinstall it I would download Station launcher http://launcher.station.sony.com and install with your ROK disks then use that to patch it will go much faster.

I have heard alot of people claim that quadcore is not worth it so I would save the money and go Dual core.

other then that the 8800 is a great video card for EQ2

[Delph]

other then that the 8800 is a great video card for EQ2

True, I use the 8800GTS 320mb with a 6600DC and with 4gb I can run EQ2 at max settings. Now with the bang for buck 8800GT card you should be getting wicked results!

The quadcore might not be worth it for eq2 but for other applications it might, what else will you be running?

If you are going to get more than 3gb RAM you are going to need to buy the 64 bit version because 32 bit doesn't support more than 3,2(?)gb.

Overall it's a very nice setup for not too much money, but please keep 1 thing in mind, EQ2, Vista and the 8800 serie don't like each other very much...
There are alot of issues and because I tweaked some little things myself I can't tell you if SOE fixed them already, my guess would be no because they completely ignored the issue...

[Dredh]

One day I will find out what is bugging me, that day I will share it. You might have noticed that my current machine crashes a lot, like once per hour (luckily not in Death Toll). It is only EQ2 which seems to be affected, but then I do not play anything serious so that does not need to be true. After buying my machine and getting these errors I looked it up on the net learning that I nearly bought everything that could give you trouble in EQ2:

AMD 6000 Dualcore
4GB Ram
8800 GT
Soundblaster Audigy

Delph says his setup is working, which gives me hope of some day solving my issues, it really does. One thing I did not buy was Vista, which seems to bother some people out there. Here are some remarks so far:

Dualcore:
There is currently no multiprocessing support in EQ2 and it seems it is not very high on the agenda. My AMD needs driver support and boot.ini adaption to clean some timing issues which otherwise would arise, you apparently would be to fast sometimes. The place to put problems will be: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=33475 I have this problem with broken player models, which is annoying but first I will have to solve my crashes

More than 2GB Memory:
EQ2 is currently linked against libraries which limit the memory the application can use to 2GB, nevertheless more should be nice as there are always some more programs running and you will have your operating system using the rest. There are some people claiming they had issues with 4GB, I have not found their solutions valid, though. But EQ2 will probably not run any faster with more than 2 GB, and as Delph said you will only get about 3GB under 32 bit windows, the rest being masked out by hardware. If you use 64 bit windows, you enable all memory, but only for the operating system, EQ2 will run in 32 bit compatibility mode, having 2GB available. You will find lots of discussions on memory management on the net.

8800 video card:
Many people have problems with this card and EQ2, I tend to believe my problems are based on having a 8800GT, some people say its only this specific card giving you crashes and lag. Naturally I tried all the drivers I could get, giving me not the least bit of change. Better luck to you. Otherwise it is a fine card indeed, and I can use max settings as well without crashing more often than with settings to low. That, and being able to log in faster than my character LDs out of group helps me over grieving Have a look here http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=401476 for a starting point.

Audigy:
EAX sounds really nice, but always wondering if it is my soundcard is a bad thing. I will disable sound next time I play, if all my troubles are gone then I will buy a new card. Seems to be only the cheap Audigy which give you problems.

Vista:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=43375

Display:
After getting my girlfriend a nice, new 24" 16:10 TFT it took me 1 week to dump my CRT, other than that I don't think there are any issues If you buy one remember to check if it can scale in hardware, the software scaling in highend Nvidia cards is currently (for 1 year now) broken, you will strech out any game needing 3:4 aspect otherwise.

Good luck and have fun,
Dredh

[Delph]

Dredh did you try the memory solution yet? The one where you edit the Everquest.exe file by letting it handle over 3gb?

[Dredh]

No, saw a mention of it on the net but did not follow it, editing binaries is fun but sure gives me the creeps whenever i do, furthermore it could break the license agreement. I put in the /3BG switch in the boot.ini, but as you will know this will only change the user/system split of windows. I will try anything including voodoo to get my machine back to normal and if this change of memory usage solves my problem Sony should be made aware of it. I appreciate any help you, Delph, or anybody else might give.

Dredh

[Sorse]

they have given me pause for thought ... I will be spending the next few days reassessing what I am going to purchase.

Sorse

[Delph]

No, saw a mention of it on the net but did not follow it, editing binaries is fun but sure gives me the creeps whenever i do, furthermore it could break the license agreement. I put in the /3BG switch in the boot.ini, but as you will know this will only change the user/system split of windows. I will try anything including voodoo to get my machine back to normal and if this change of memory usage solves my problem Sony should be made aware of it. I appreciate any help you, Delph, or anybody else might give.

Dredh

Just use this Dredh:


Possible fix found. Found another game that is also having this issue and there is a simple fix that appears to be working for me. It involves adjusting the file header of the game executable (EverQuest2.exe) to use greater than 2GB addressest. THAT'S IT.

Download CFF Explorer: http://ntcore.com/Files/ExplorerSuite.exe

Don't worry, no adware spyware etc.

Once CFF Explorer is installed, launch it and go to your EverQuest2.exe in your game folder.

On the left pane, go to Nt Headers then to File Header under that.

On the characteristics line in the right pane, click the pink "click here".

Checkmark "App can handle > 2GB Addressest"

Save the file and tell it to overwrite the current EverQuest2.exe

You're done.



Now, if you launch the EQ2.exe which is the main game shortcut, the patcher will download a new EverQuest2.exe and you would have accomplished nothing as it will have been overwritten. The patcher thinks there is something awry with the file as the size is a little bit different. You MUST lunch the EverQuest2.exe that had the file header changed to get the memory fix to work. The game won't go through the patcher and you will log into the game directly. Be aware that if the game has a patch, you have to use the patcher and then once done, redo the memory fix above. It's a pretty simple process that I hope you can understand.

I run EQ2 with a pretty powerful machine (4GB memory on Vista x64) and run the game at max graphics settings on EVERYTHING. When I would go into Neriak it would always crash out with this memory error within a minute. EverQuest2.exe would always be showing around 1,340,000 KB when the crash happened (about 1.3GB). Testing this fix, I ran around the whole of Neriak to include the Queens Dark Tower in the back with not so much as a hiccup. The EverQuest2.exe got over 2,100,000 KB! (Just under 2GB). No more memory error.

Please some more people test this. Sony Tech support / Devs, this is a simple fix. Make the change to your executable on the patcher so it fixes everyone's and people don't manually have to make the change. Having someone make a small adjustment to the EverQuest2.exe in order to fix a game stopping memory problem is NOT hacking/cheating and all of that nonsense. I came right out and said there's a good possibility this is a fix and don't say I will get banned etc etc for messing with the executable.

Awaiting peoples tests to confirm the fix..

[Flobdeth]

Take out the Audigy for a bit if you have onboard sound, I had major problems with that and EQ2. BSOD all over the shop with it, Deb had a good vid of my cliff jumping abilities due to soundblaster cards and EQ2. Worked perfect in every other game/app I used. Theres plenty other cards out there if that is the cause.



And Delph, whatever it is you're gonna call me NO!! unless it's slacker of course

[Dredh]

I searched a bit on this topic and found a standard Microsoft utility imagecfg.exe which you will find on the "Windows 2000 Server Supplement One Resource Kit". Some kind guy put it on the net somewhere, in one act of remarkable brightness I did not write down where while fetching it (you will get it the moment I find it again). You will need the version which understands the -l (small L) switch, you just call it on the executable you want to enable to use more than 2 GB.

I did not crash in 2 hours, I will need some more time to secure this solution. I will keep you informed.

[Sorse]

With the negative reviews for Vista SP1 I am going with XPP, Dual Core, 3G RAM and Nvidia 8800 on my new box. Will put Vista on a spare laptop for work related stuff. Tks for all the input.

Sorse

[Debillus]

I dont get the hype ... I simply LOVE my Vista, going back to XP feels like going back to the 90's .. well close enough.

XP is stable as hell yeah, and stuff runs a little faster on XP, sure ... I wouldn't trade my vista away if it would double the speed of my pc, as I rarely use more than 50% of it's juice anyways.

But hey, personal preferences are, yeah personal and subjective.

/Deb