Lag/lockup while zoning

[BadOlaf]

So I'm new here and don't kill me if this has already been covered please.

I'm having issues while zoning (death, going from server list to character select, and normal zoning). My client is locking up for at least 20-45 seconds whenever I zone and then it'll cut to the loading screen and almost instantly load and zone me in. This is really rather annoying when I'm using a rig that should blow this game out of the water.

Is there anything I can do to stop this from happening? Is it my rig or the server/game/emu? I've been told that multi core processors have issues with eq and I've tried setting eqgame.exe's affinity to one core while running and it doesn't make a difference. I'd really like to fix this so if you could throw me some ideas/fixes it'd be much appreciated.

Rig specs:

intel i7 @ 3.6 (quad core)
6gigz ddr3
nvidia 9800 Gtx+
vista 64 ultimate

if you need any other info let me know and I'll do my best to provide it.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Shin Noir]

What server are you trying this on?
What client are you running? Titanium? SoF?

Load time isn't just about how awesome your computer is. It's also about the server giving you the data to allow you to see things.

One of the bigger parts of load time is your hard drive I/O speed. ;) Processor and GFX card are for on the fly rendering of preloaded data, but for what you're talking about it's really a question of how fast data gets off your hard drive and into RAM. If this process is slow, no matter how fast your processor and gfx card or ram may be, your bottle neck is going to be your hard drive.

In the last 10 years most rigs are still using about the same hard drives they were speed wise. I've been using a 7200 RPM hard drive for a long time.. Sure they have made improvements to give better speed in 10 years, but really the focus has more been on the size of your drive. Size != Speed on hard drives, typically it's the opposite unless you have a bottomless pocket of cash (15k rpm hard drive that's like a terabyte . not sure it even exists and if it does it'll be rediculously priced, while 1 terabyte 7200 rpm drive is cheap). The changes in drives is not significant like your video card or CPU in comparison of 10 years. ;)

If you have a 10krpm or 15k rpm drive or some rediculously priced solid state high performance drive then you may have a bottle neck some where else, like the server neglecting you data to load.

Another option is preloading all of EQ into RAM. But that'd take the entire directory's worth of RAM (~4 gigs?) and not too familiar how to do it on a Windows machine. Your instance of EQ as it loads would take up a seperate chunk of ram (and since this game for minimal loading is taking about a gig, thta's already 5 gigs used, each time you zone you may hit virtual memory and resort to HDD I/O again and almost screws the load time.. not to mention your O/S and other running apps are using ram too), but it'd give the illusion of very fast load times if you got the RAM, at the cost of going for coffee while the entire game is loaded in RAM at the start. XD

[BadOlaf]

Well, the issue is that it locks up before it even starts to load (task not responding and whatnot) before I even see the loading screen. Not that the actual loading screen is slow, if that makes sense...

[trevius]

You didn't say which client you are using yet (SoF or Titanium) and you also didn't say which server you are trying to play on that you are having this issue on. Have you tried any other servers like PEQ or Storm Haven to see if loading times are better? Loading times can definitely be affected by the server you are running on. If their connection is slow or under heavy load, it can take quite a while to zone. For my server, people generally see pretty quick load times, so if you try it and still have really slow load times, you know it is a problem on your end somehow. If you are seeing slow load times only on a particular server and others seem just fine, then you know it is that one server, not you in particular.

[BadOlaf]

Sorry, I totally forgot to mention that last night.


I'm running Titanium atm, and I'm playing on Project 1999. Everyone else on my server seems to be zoning just fine and i just tried it on a different server (PEQ) and it was still locking up (a good 30 secondish) before I got to the load screen which took 2 seconds if even to load (the load screen)