Problems need answers. First the problems...

[Moac]

Ok, so I tried this a few years back and failed horribly. I most likely didn't give it much of a chance but I am back and looking to try this again. Ever since then I always wished I had stuck with it and worked out all the kinks to get it to work.

Well, over the last three days I have been reviewing the forums and wiki's trying to troubleshoot through the player setup and seem to be having difficulties. Let me give you the run down in hopes of narrowing down the realm of possible issues.

Ok, I went out last week and purchased the Titanium Version and installed it. I never patched it so it is a fresh install. I created an Login account with EQEMU site. I then created a shortcut using the eqgame.exe file and added patchme at the end of the target. As seen below.

"C:\Program Files\Everquest\eqgame.exe" patchme

I then moved onto the eqhost.txt file. I changed that so that it matches the guide.

[LoginServer]
Host=eqemulator.net:5998

I then attempted to start the game using the eqgame shortcut that I created and received a graphics card verification window. It stated that I was using a GE FORCE 8800 GTS card and needed to install 81.85 drivers. It gave me two options either to continue or launch the NVIDIA website. I choose continue as those drivers are very outdated. (This may be my snag) Do I need to use the drivers stated from 2004 to run EQ?? I then received an error stating that windows has experienced a problem and needs to close. I have seen other posts on these forums stating the same problem and I have tried all the suggestions associated with them. I went into the XP application log to see what sort of error the eqgame.exe was halting on and gave me that error with all the zeros that I saw in another post. I saw that there were problems running EQ on dual core machines. I noticed that all the Dual core problems were associated with AMD chips and I am using an Intel Core Duo E6600. Are Intel chips not causing the same problem?? Regardless, I tried changing the affinity to one core but it told me that the access was denied. I tried changing the security options by right clicking the shortcut and hitting the "run as" option. I was going to set it using the administrator account but this was the account I was already using. I don't know where I went wrong.

Wow, that turned out to be a rather large post. I guess I just wanted to make sure you all knew I tried to do my homework first. I hope someone will be willing to read all of this and be willing to offer some assistancne.

[Moac]

Wow, no suggestions from anyone? I couldn't have done everything right since I'm not even able to get to the server list. Looking for any clues on where to look next.

[vales]

Okay, I'll take a stab at it.

1.) What drivers are you using for your 8800?

2.) Have you installed the latest DirectX?

The driver support for the 8 series is appaling. I had to take mine back because I couldn't be assed for driver support. It was causing way too many problems in my games at the time (EQ included). I'll probably get one after some more DX10 games roll out, though - (Call of Juarez and Lost Planet don't count, heh). But waiting a good month for drivers really had me on the edge after dropping an arm and a leg for that card. I could have built another server box, lol.

You might have a better chance looking at the tech support forums on the official site. They usually have a plethora of answers there. Most of the answers that are listed are from the official site - just copy/pasted here for sanity's sake.

Speaking of sanity, I'll link the troubleshooting list from the official boards so people can find it here. This doesn't pertain to you mainly, but about 90% of the problems I see posted here are already covered in this (http://anonym.to?http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=15343) topic.

[Moac]

--Reply Didn't post correctly--

[Moac]

Vales, thank you for taking a look and getting back to me. I didn't think anyone was going to help me out there for a second. I even went back and read the forum rules again thinking I may have said something I wasn't supposed to and that's why no one answered.

1) I am presently using driver version 158.19. I was also having a real hard time with driver stability for a while. This current version seems to be the most stable when playing more current games. i.e Supreme Commander, WoW, Battlefield 2142, Total War II, and others. So, as you can see, jumping back to drivers EQ was asking me to "update to" would be crazy and really the last thing I would want to do. I was hoping this wouldn't be the issue I was having but knew deep down inisde that it certainly could be. I also beleive I have the latest Directx installed since I am usually playing more current games.

2) Hahaha. Wow, it never even crossed my mind to look at the EQ forums. Dolt! I'll have to take a look at them later since my employer is blocking that site.

Thanks for your help so far.

[vales]

No problem, man. If you haven't noticed, the admins have a lot on their minds right now with the hosting and all, and everyone else is pretty busy with what they have on their plate. I'm kind of in between things right now since I got laid off, so I thought about firing up the ol' server again and playing with a bunch of friends. So you can say I have a bit more time on my hands than the others, heh.

IIRC, those drivers are beta. The WHQL 158.22 drivers are out now for that particular gpu. I'm personally using the 160.03's right now, and they're the best drivers to date. This might be a long shot, but one of the reasons you could be having issues is because of the WHQL stamp. *shrug* I haven't fired up EQ with these drivers yet, so I can't say.

Another thing you can do is manually go into your EQ directory and see if you can bypass all of the crap they feed you when you start the client. Try changing the options (I think there was a separate .exe for that) and set your client up that way first. The setup I'm talking about is the one that allows you to change the textures to Luclin ones, set the resolution, etc. If you can manage to find that, there should be a newly modifed file in the EQ directory that has those changes listed after you make them - maybe it was EQClient.ini? If you look in that file, you can change the options for skipping the EULA, logged in once, etc.

I'm trying the best I can from memory since I don't have the game installed at the moment. So bear with me. :p

[mattmeck]

I had issues even running live just like yours,

First i had to sort out the dual core issue, easiest way is to right click the EQ shortcut and run as, admin.... this stops the fighting of the processors over which one is going to run EQ and causing crashes.

Second is video card, the drivers EQ wanted me to use were over a year old and not compatible with any of the other games i played because they all wanted the newest. I had to decide EQ or newer games, If EQ is giving you a driver error with a recommended driver, you need to use those drivers.

Now all of this is EQ issues and not EQEmu issues, so we really cant help.

[techguy84]

I have not had this problems but I can answer a couple questions.

Intel Dual Cores do not suffer from the same issue as AMD's, or not on my part they havent. I have tested both a P4 D and a C2D with neither show issues of game corpution. AMD of course has admited it to being faulty drivers in WINXP that cause these issues and since released a patch along with a MS hotfix to allivate the problems.

To the Graphic card driver issue. I have not experiemented with this, but Windows has a hardware profile option that I believe will allow you to boot up a specific type of hardware, disabling othere while leaving some going. You could possible have a profile with the old drivers, and a profile with the new drivers.

Like I said, I have never ever played with this, and therefore you can take everything with a grain of salt. Im a ATI guy, and have been ever since my dreaded bout with the FX series. I had bought a 5200 for DX9 support, it sucked so I upgraded to a 5900 and went through two of them as they were DOA out of the box. I have since been with ATI and had zero complaints, other than it was harder than hell to make it work under Linux, but thats a different story all together.

[Moac]

Vales - Yeah, I did see that post in the news section about the site losing its hosting. I am guessing this is still an issue??

I also hear yah on the boredom that follows being laid off. Heck, I've been there. It almost seems like its the way of it anymore. I heard a stat once that stated people would change their careers 4 or 5 times through out their life. Though, these were usually by their own initiative. Now it seems like its no longer a personal choice in changing careers but that your doing so either by force or attempting to stayed employed all together.

Well, I guess if we are both working with the same hardware and you decide to get back into EQ then we may end up troubleshooting these problems together. Keep me updated on what you found out. I will take a look at the EQ forums and see what I can dig up. I still can't believe I didn't think of that too. Ha. I will also see if I can find this file that you were talking about. Thanks.

Mattmeck - I understand that these are EQ problems and not particularly EQEMU problems but I was hoping that others would have had the same issues I'm having and were able work through them. This way I could learn from their experience to get up and running quicker. Honestly, I haven't even gotten to the point of downloading the emulator yet. I figure, if I can't even connect to the login server then setting up my own sever isn't even a possibility.

techguy84 - Ok. I was curious if the Intel chips were also causing the same problems or not. This is good new as I am unable to change the affinity to using only one core. I tried to do it per previous posts and mattmeck's suggestion but it wouldn't allow me to do it. Windows on my PC is setup with only one login account. This account is the one I normally use and is the computer admin. which is setup to log me in automatically. When I attempt to change the affinity under EQ it asks me for a password after I select to run as admin. I don't think there is a password for this profile and if there is I have no idea what it may be. I also thought you other suggestion may be a possibility. I did a search after reading your post and did find a way to do hardware specific profiles in windows. This is actually a huge plus for me because I probably wouldn't be willing to give up my good drivers and newer games just to play EQ. The major reason for me doing this is really for the learning experience and the chance to mess around with my own server, the emulator, MySQL Databases, and etc. I am looking forward to editing my own world and then being able to play in it.

I hear yah. I used to be an ATI guy as well. My last card 9800 was ok. I had some small problems with it here and there. Most of my friends use NVIDIA cards with little to no problems so I decided to switch. Well, I went with the 8800 card that only lasted a month out of the box. Ha. I had to send it back and a replacement sent out. The good news is that I have been running strong ever since. <knocks on wood>

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I am going to give these all a shot and see where it leads me. I was getting worried there for a bit with the possibility of failing with this again.