You hardware problems are mainly that P200MMX you are running on that 66MHz
motherboard and the 64 megs of Ram. We have determined for the most part
that internet bandwidth is not necessarily the main factor involved in EQ's
speed.
Since the EQ graphics are all stored on your local Hard Disk, another factor
is your hard drive size. You never want to have your Hard Drive completely
full, after it is about 60 or 70% full you will begin to notice performance
degradation because the disk head has to travel all over the surface of the
whole drive to access data, this slows things down significantly and you
would mainly notice it in slow zoning times.
You could sacrifice the CPU upgrade in lieu of another 60megs of RAM, this
would probably help you significantly. ALL windows OS's run terrible with
64 megs of RAM, you will be incredibly suprised at the performance increase
of your machine with 128megs of RAM.
Since EQ is purely a 3D driven game, you would do good to upgrade your video
card, if by "16" you mean it is a 16 meg card, then you should think about
moving to a 32 meg card. Problem with this is that I think most of the new
32 meg video cards these days are AGP bus cards which require a capable
motherboard that I suspect you do not have based on your explanation of your
current configuration.
So in summary, I would put this priority on your upgrade considerations:
1. 128MB RAM (primary importance)
2. Faster CPU (go as far as you can afford)
3. Faster Motherboard (100+MHz frontside bus - this choice may also affect
CPU choice above)
4. 32meg AGP video card (depends on if you upgrade the motherboard above)
5. Swap that winmodem out for a good 3COM modem with internal processing
(low priority)
You could spend probably from $100-$1000 on this depending on how far down
through the list you go.
Hope that helps!
Faras Tar'Linedhel
E'ci
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Webber, Jessica [mailto:WebberJ@...]
> Sent: Thursday, August 12, 1999 9:41 AM
> To: 'eqbards@onelist.com'
> Subject: [eqbards] Hardware question
>
>
> From: "Webber, Jessica" <WebberJ@...>
>
> Question for anyone here who can successfully stack 3 or 4
> songs in crowded
> zones:
>
> What are you using for hardware? (processor, ram, video ram, free
> DASD/virtual mem - whichever is smaller, modem, typical connect speed,
> anything else I may be forgetting) I know I could use a bit
> of a hardware
> upgrade, just wondering how little I can get away with. Also,
> what in-game
> sacrifices have you made in the options to be able to
> weave/mix/twist so
> successfully?
>
> FYI I'm using P200 MMX, 64ram, 16 video, 100 mg free all allocated to
> virtual memory, 64 winmodem that usually connects at 44. I
> forgot to write
> down my option settings, but I know I've got single layer sky & sound
> realism all the way up. The rest I'd have to check when I get home.
>
> Note: this is not to restart a debate on modems or anything
> else. Please
> think of it as a survey & don't pounce on anyone who handles the game
> differently from you.
>
> Thanks in advance to any who help.
>
> Evulia of Tunare
> Kingbird of Brell Serilis
>
>
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