How can I load Everquest faster?

[Huppy]

Originally Posted by strugglegenerator

From the time I click my EQ icon to the time I get in game is roughly 20 seconds. It's fast, but I'd like it to be even faster.

Faster than 20 seconds ? I would recommend to anyone, reduce their sugar intake and/or lay off the energy drinks, lol (kidding) I have a few puters, but I also have an OLD client-only box, 16GB ram, 3.5 GHz chip, 2 GB graphics card and a simple 250GB HDD drive in it. It takes roughly 20-30 seconds from icon click to in-game. That's just barely enough time to grab a coffee while it loads. But one of the more modern boxes I have, (I use for testing), 4.5 GHz chip, 32 GB ram, SSD drive, etc. I have both server and client on it and it STILL take that 20 seconds from icon to in-game. I'm not concerned about it, myself, it's fast enough for me.
My point is, hardware is the least contributor in many cases, but many things you can do on both client and server side to help. Here's one thing I did, that I read about somewhere, with the RoF2 client, I pruned it right down, getting rid of anything/files the client didn't need to log onto my own server. (zone files, etc). It made a remarkable difference in how long it took loading and getting into the game.

[strugglegenerator]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone =)

I tried removing everything that was not needed from both the client side and server side but the loading times remained the same.

Looks like the only way to get it even faster is with a faster SSD. 20 seconds isn't too long so I'll stick with what I have.

Was just curious. Thank you all for the help.

[strugglegenerator]

Thalix I took your suggestion and upgraded my 500GB 850 EVO to a 500GB 970 EVO. The 850 specs say 500/mb read/write speed and the 970 EVO says 2500 read/write speed. However, I have both installed now and the actual performance tests show the older, 850 model is faster than the newer 970 model, unless I'm completely misunderstanding the results (see below);





Can anyone shine some light on these numbers? My goal in purchasing the new hard drive was to make Everquest load faster, but I notice absolutely zero difference in speed with the new drive. In fact, transferring an 8GB file took 8 seconds on the 850 EVO and it took 25 seconds on a 970 EVO. The new drive is much, much slower.

[Thalix]

Originally Posted by strugglegenerator

My goal in purchasing the new hard drive was to make Everquest load faster, but I notice absolutely zero difference in speed with the new drive. In fact, transferring an 8GB file took 8 seconds on the 850 EVO and it took 25 seconds on a 970 EVO. The new drive is much, much slower.

Something on your system seems to be wrong. Are you sure your M2 is running in PCEe 3.0 x4 (see CrystslDiskInfo)? You can also try to disable XMP(2) in your BIOS. Check if there is an heat issu on your M2.
Oh and use a 32GB test file with CrystalDiskMark to make sure you are not only testing the cache of your operating system

https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compar.../m493995vs3477

[Maze_EQ]

You're not using x4 bud, ain't no way.

My 970s are 900% faster than my slave raid0 850s

[strugglegenerator]

Thank you for all the suggestions. I followed up with each one carefully.

My motherboard supports the following M2 slots:
2 x M.2 Socket 3 connectors (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SATA & PCIe x4/x2/x1 SSD support)

My M2 can be connected in either of these 2 M.2 slots on my motherboard:
Dual PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 Connectors with up to 32Gb/s Data Transfer (PCIe NVMe & SATA SSD support). The motherboard instructions say: The PCIEX4 slot shares bandwidth with the M2H_32G connector. The PCIEX4 slot will become unavailable when an SSD is installed in the M2H_32G connector. I tried both slots just for the hell of it, but noticed no difference.

x4 is turned on in the BIOS (x2 wasn't even an option) for the M2 slot.

I'm not sure how to test for a heat issue.

CrystalDiskMark seems to be showing accurate data, compared to Samsung Magician which appears to be wildly inaccurate:

970 EVO:


850 EVO:


Is CrystalDiskMark the trusted source here? Maybe Samsung Magician just has a bad speed performance test tool?