Wayfarers of Veeshan

I recently came across a post on monkly-business.com which I thought would be helpful for my Guildmates...here goes:

Ok, I hate being LD, even though it happens from Time to time to the best of us much of it CAN be prevented! Read this to find out how... even you guys who think you have everything all set up right, there is some good info in here.

Prologue: A little info on how lag works on how it effects the game:

There are basically 2 different types of lag when playing EQ- network lag and computer hardware lag.

If when you turn your character the screen is choppy and jumpy (I.E. you are getting a low number of frames per second), esp. around a bunch of people that is computer hardware lag and you can correct that by screwing with the settings as outlined above.

If you are experiencing lag inbetween when you cast a spell or attack a mob and when the spell starts casting or you start attacking, that is network lag. There's not a whole lot you can do with that, esp with 120 people in the zone.

Serverfilter will help some and tweaking your datarate.txt may a lot- but there isn't much more you can do other than get a better ISP or, more likely, buy VI a new ISP and some new server boxes.

One important thing-- Computer hardware lag can create Network lag! Esp for people on dialup who use win-modems!

The reason for that is if you are stressing your processor by running the game, your processor has less overhead to run the software which emulates a hardware modem... I know this sounds confusing, but just trust me on this- fix ALL the lag it may reduce the other kind in turn.


1. Settings in game
This is the easy stuff. Go into the game and go to the options section. Turn everything off.

Start with the chat filters, turn off all occ/shout/auc that we are not using. Turn off casting messages unless you NEED to see them.

Next go to your display properties- Turn your particle effects off, turn level of detail off, turn 3d sky off, turn PC names off, turn your clipping plane down as far as you can stand it. There that was easy wasn't it?

2. Your eqclient.ini file is your friend.
This is a segment from my client file.. I have edited out the parts that don't matter.

LoadArmor17=FALSE
LoadArmor18=FALSE
LoadArmor19=FALSE
LoadArmor20=FALSE
LoadArmor21=FALSE
LoadArmor22=FALSE
LoadArmor23=FALSE
This is how you disable all your velious graphics, this is a MUST.

ShowDynamicLights=0
ShowSpellEffects=0
0=no and 1=yes on the previous settings, Dynamic lights and spell effects make a huge hit on your system performance-- TURN THEM OFF.

ServerFilter=1
The server filter was specifically designed to help lag issues by filtering out stuff you have turned off at the server rather than at you computer (Others hits, damage shields, your misses , etc..) This absolutely MUST be on.

VideoModeBitsPerPixel=16
more bits = more work your computer has to do. This should be at 16, if this is currently set at 32 and you try it is 16 and EQ won't load switch it back-- some video cards have a problem with EQ in 16 bit mode for some reason.

UseD3DTextureCompression=TRUE
This can slow down loading to the game between the server select and character select screens, but can also improve performance-- This won't work with Voodoo video cards, it'll just make things look funky so leave it flagged as FASLE for them.

3. MOST IMPORTANT-- Datarate.txt!!!
In your EQ directory there is a file named "DataRate.txt", open this file in notepad or another text editor. There is a number in it, the default is 5.0, this is the allowable data packet size, in kilobits, your client will accept from the EQ server. Its the number on the right of the lag-o-meter on your screen in game.

If the number on the right goes over the number in your DataRate.txt file x1000k (5.0 in the file = 5000 on the lag meter), you will probably be disconnected.

The solution to this problem is to increase the number in the DataRate.txt file. The setting you should try is dependent on what type of connection you have.

For those with dialup connections most have found 7.0 to work best, drop it to 6.0 if your connection becomes unstable.

For those with adsl or cable and other "broadband" connections under 500kbs a setting of 8.0 to 9.0 work fine, but I have had people tell me that they had connection problems at 9.0 *shrug*.

For those with adsl/cable/t1/etc.. over 500kbs a setting of 9.0 doesn't seem to ever cause a problem.

I have seen reports of people setting it as high as 100.0, but Verant doesn't recommend a setting higher than 9.0.

I personally have mine set at 100 with no problems.. I Highly recommend a very high setting for big raids! you can scale it back to 7 or 9 for xp groups but a large number will drastically increase your chances of getting through an uber encounter without LDing. Some say that it makes no difference beyond a setting of 10.. well if thats the case, do 100 anyway-- it can't hurt.


Here is the flipside to datarate.txt-- the higher this is set, the more likely you are to have PL issues which in turn cause you to crash while zoning, so you may want to tweak it back down for xp/small groups.

4. Dbg.txt sucks!
If you look in your EQ folder you will see a file called dbg.txt. This a debugger log and if you have even the slightest fubar in the way EQ works with your hardware, even if you don't notice it when it happens, there is a report generated and appended to this file. Over time this file can get HUGE-- it serves no purpose other than trouble shooting and opening a 50 mb file every time EQ has a brain fart can drag your system down big time! Delete it!

5. Configuring hardware
Things to check on your computer to make sure it is in tip top gaming condition:

A: Download and install the latest drivers: Video card, sound card and motherboard/chipset companies are constantly releasing new drivers, these can make a really really big difference in your system performance-- (I.E I got about a 40% increase in my performance with the latest drivers from Nvidia) If you are using the original drivers that came with your card you need to upgrade them now! Check with your video/sound/chipset card company for the latest drivers and instructions on how to install them.

A special note on Chipset drivers and how they work:

Many people don't realize this, but Microsoft and companies that manufacture motherboards and chipsets that run motherboards often do not use or endorse the same drivers. This is especially true if you have a motherboard based on a VIA chipset (check your documentation to find out).

I HIGHLY recommend that IF you have a VIA chipset on your motherboard you install the latest version of the VIA 4-in-1 driver which can be found here:

www.viahardware.com/download/index.shtm

If you DON'T have a VIA chipset, I HIGHLY recommend that you use the windows update icon in your start menu to update your current system/chipset drivers that way.

Now changing your chipset drivers is not for hardware newbies and can result in fubaring your windows install pretty good if you don't know what you are up to. If you're in doubt find a friend who knows what they are doing or take it to a local computer shop.


B: Make you machine a network server: Right click on my computer > properties > performance > filesystem and change the setting there to network server.

C: Turn on DMA!!!. Right click my computer > properties > device manager> select you hard drive(s)> properties>settings. Enable DMA. This is probably the number 1 cause of poor computer gaming performance. If you use Win2k the process is a little different, but there is a guide in the windows help to walk you through it.

D: Check you AGP Aperture: (Only if you have an AGP video card):
Restart your computer and go into your BIOS, look around for your AGP aperture settings.. change it to twice the amount of video ram you have. I.E if you have a 32 MB video card, set it at 64.

E: Prepare your hardware: RAM is cheap-- if you don't have at least 128MBs (preferably 256) go buy some it is cheap as dirt right now. If your processor is less than 500 MHZ, you should seriously think about upgrading, a 650MhZ duron is only 28 bucks on www.pricewatch.com and a decent FIC motherboard can be had for under 60 bucks. Video cards are going down in price as well.

F: Prepare your software: Turn off all running programs when you play EQ-- this means kill ICQ, Kazaa, email programs, real player, spinner, Aim or whatever.


I know this seems like a lot, and some of it might not be explained well enough for average joe user to do on his own but it is very important that you do these things if you want to game and have fun doing it. LD = boring annoying [stuff] that slows everyone down.



BTW in case someone gets pissy, I ganked that section on datarate.txt from EQcleric board-- I was going to type it all out but that guy did a fine job of it-- I plagiarize lo~

Credit to Shtieek on monkly-business