EverQuest and RADEON 8500

Dyre Straits · Nov 2, 2003, 05:29 PM

My daughter-in-law has become an avid fan of the online EverQuest game. She's been playing it now for weeks. But, her RADEON 7200 64 MB card was struggling in certain areas and she was finding it impossible to proceed.

So, with my upgrade to the 9600 Pro, I offered to let her see how the 8500 128 MB card performed.

It's MUCH faster, but there are some other problems:

1. The display of the game shows some subtle horizontal lines. It's like the entire image is broken up into about 1 inch horizontal segments. These breaks are subtle, but very noticeable on dark backgrounds.

2. A lot of textures aren't being displayed properly. She said there's a distinct difference in how certain objects are rendered between the 7200 and the 8500.

Her system isn't the best for gaming and likely just barely meets the requirements:

Windows98SE, PIII-500, 440BX mobo, 512 MB PC100. LOTS of HD space with a recently installed 120 GB drive.

I've tried checking for patches for the game and seem to be coming up empty-handed.

Does anyone have some suggestions?

EDIT: One thing specifically that she showed me was how the FIND option works. Once that's activated, there's supposed to be a 'smoking rope' that leads to whatever is being sought. Instead, there's just some smoking swirling images that look like smoke rings strung together. Image below:

EDIT 2: I've installed Omega's CAT 3.4 drivers on her system and it appears that the horizontal lines are gone. But, there's still the issue with the textures like in the scene above.

Dyre Straits · Nov 3, 2003, 01:32 AM

I've sent a trouble report to ATi. We'll see what developes.

If anyone does have a suggestion, I'd be interested.

Dimension_IV · Nov 7, 2003, 06:43 AM

Hmmm, well...it's possible that its a conflict between previous ATI drivers in the sense that it may still be trying to run Radeon 7200 features on an 8500. While the 8500 is more than capable of doing this, I would imagine it would still cause some problems.

Have you tried any driver cleaners? You try using the cat-uninstaller that ATI has on it's website? Try tracking down every trace of old ATI drivers on your system? My suggestion, uninstall the current drivers and completely clean everything.

Dyre Straits · Nov 7, 2003, 08:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dimension_IV
Hmmm, well...it's possible that its a conflict between previous ATI drivers in the sense that it may still be trying to run Radeon 7200 features on an 8500. While the 8500 is more than capable of doing this, I would imagine it would still cause some problems.

Have you tried any driver cleaners? You try using the cat-uninstaller that ATI has on it's website? Try tracking down every trace of old ATI drivers on your system? My suggestion, uninstall the current drivers and completely clean everything.

Did all that before posting the problem. Completely removed the previous drivers and even used a Registry Cleaner.

Have since tried 3 different RADEON drivers from 3.4 to 3.7.

Haven't had time to try 3.8 or 3.9.

The game is old enough that any of the previous CAT drivers.....or even before CATs....should work.

DarkFoss · Nov 9, 2003, 07:09 PM

Bad news Dyre,
I played EQ with the 8500 for over 2 years(4+ years total) and it never quite worked right. No matter what drivers were used it barely out performed my old Hercules Prophet 32 meg card. I'm talking maybe 10-15 fps difference. The GFX 500ti and up flat out killed the 8500, hell even after I upgraded to the 9700 pro any scene with over 50 people in it would drop the fps to under 10, you'd have to go into the game displays turn off clipping to even move, raids were a nightmare (same for the bazaar, some planes). No way should a 4200 outperform a 9700 in those circumstances but I had to dumb every setting down including dropping to 800x600 and sacrifice quality for speed to keep up with my guildmates running Nvidia. Despite Eq's denial the game is optimized for Nvidia.

Dyre Straits · Nov 9, 2003, 07:13 PM

Darkfoss,

Thanks for the reply. Was your 8500 a 128 MB version?

I do have some good news, though. After over a week of playing, my daughter-in-law reports that she's been very pleased with the performance. She did say that there was something she found out about that rope/smoke thing and others have told her that it's fine. This if from members she's playing with.

So, at least for the time being things are good for her. She's having a great time with the game.

DarkFoss · Nov 9, 2003, 07:31 PM

Np Dyre,

I had the 64 meg card, 1st revision although I did flash the bios to 8006(?) and gained some performance increase. Didn't mean to sound all gloom and doom in my last post. The 8500 ran all my other games very well

I'm glad to here your daughter-in-law's enjoying Eq and her new card's performance. Mayhap the extra 64 megs will serve her well for awhile. Even with it's flaws EQ's still a very entertaining game, I still miss it from time to time, more so my old guildmates.

Dyre Straits · Nov 9, 2003, 07:42 PM

Darkfoss,

I do believe that the 128 MB 8500 is a really good card. I used it for just over a year and it served me very well. It also came already using the 8006 BIOS.

She's really enjoying EQ and is really 'into it' from what I observe. She's come only recently to the game and has been playing for maybe a month or month and a half.

Thanks for the response, though. Every little bit helps.

DarkFoss · Nov 9, 2003, 08:47 PM

Dyre,

Here's one trick I discovered long ago... more of a work-around than a true fix against possible bad patches that may break the game for her. Believe me it happened more than I cared for

1 Open the Eq folder and look for the following: Eaxman.dll, eqgfx_dx8.dll and eqmain.dll
2 Create a folder in My Documents for example and copy&paste those three files into it.
If a "patch" happens to break the game for her then all she has to do is is start the game let the patcher run but don't click start open the Eq folder and the folder where she stored the above mentioned files and drop those into the EQ folder overwriting the newer ones then close the folders and hit play. Normally she'll only need to replace the eqgfx_dx8.dll. If she encounters an eqmain error that crashes the game then overwrite that file as well..it's sometimes(fairly rare) needed just to be applied before running the game patcher as well as after, the eaxman.dll I had to use only once.

She might want to log into the Eq test server to see if the video corruption exists there if not she might want to copy the 3 above mentioned beta files into a subfolder of the My Doc's folder and use them in the regular game, again only the eqgfx_dx8.dll should be needed.

Also if she runs into problems she can look& post here http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/e...=20&LastLogin=

Gnomepunter, Owwiefixer, TSR-Rodger to name a few are very helpful. while I can't post there since I no longer have a current Sony account, I do still read there and I'd be happy to help with troubleshooting any future problems she may encounter.

The above workaround will have no effect on problems caused by using custom ui's those break virtually every patch and have to be edited/patched before they can be used again.

Dyre Straits · Nov 9, 2003, 09:08 PM

Thanks a bunch! I'll forward this on to her.

Nov 7, 2003, 06:43 AM	#3
Dimension_IV DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Tempe, AZ, USA Posts: 36 Rep Power: 0	Hmmm, well...it's possible that its a conflict between previous ATI drivers in the sense that it may still be trying to run Radeon 7200 features on an 8500. While the 8500 is more than capable of doing this, I would imagine it would still cause some problems. Have you tried any driver cleaners? You try using the cat-uninstaller that ATI has on it's website? Try tracking down every trace of old ATI drivers on your system? My suggestion, uninstall the current drivers and completely clean everything. __________________ Antec P160 \| Shuttle AN35N 400 \| AMD Athlon XP 2500+@2.4ghz (Barton) \| Mushkin 1GB PC3200 \| ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (Sapphire) \| Hitachi Deskstar 180GXP 60GB \| Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP1

Nov 9, 2003, 07:09 PM	#5
DarkFoss HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Downers Grove IL Posts: 688 Rep Power: 0	Bad news Dyre, I played EQ with the 8500 for over 2 years(4+ years total) and it never quite worked right. No matter what drivers were used it barely out performed my old Hercules Prophet 32 meg card. I'm talking maybe 10-15 fps difference. The GFX 500ti and up flat out killed the 8500, hell even after I upgraded to the 9700 pro any scene with over 50 people in it would drop the fps to under 10, you'd have to go into the game displays turn off clipping to even move, raids were a nightmare (same for the bazaar, some planes). No way should a 4200 outperform a 9700 in those circumstances but I had to dumb every setting down including dropping to 800x600 and sacrifice quality for speed to keep up with my guildmates running Nvidia. Despite Eq's denial the game is optimized for Nvidia. __________________ Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety,deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Ben Franklin, 1755

Nov 9, 2003, 07:31 PM	#7
DarkFoss HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Downers Grove IL Posts: 688 Rep Power: 0	Np Dyre, I had the 64 meg card, 1st revision although I did flash the bios to 8006(?) and gained some performance increase. Didn't mean to sound all gloom and doom in my last post. The 8500 ran all my other games very well I'm glad to here your daughter-in-law's enjoying Eq and her new card's performance. Mayhap the extra 64 megs will serve her well for awhile. Even with it's flaws EQ's still a very entertaining game, I still miss it from time to time, more so my old guildmates. __________________ Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety,deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Ben Franklin, 1755

Nov 9, 2003, 08:47 PM	#9
DarkFoss HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Downers Grove IL Posts: 688 Rep Power: 0	Dyre, Here's one trick I discovered long ago... more of a work-around than a true fix against possible bad patches that may break the game for her. Believe me it happened more than I cared for 1 Open the Eq folder and look for the following: Eaxman.dll, eqgfx_dx8.dll and eqmain.dll 2 Create a folder in My Documents for example and copy&paste those three files into it. If a "patch" happens to break the game for her then all she has to do is is start the game let the patcher run but don't click start open the Eq folder and the folder where she stored the above mentioned files and drop those into the EQ folder overwriting the newer ones then close the folders and hit play. Normally she'll only need to replace the eqgfx_dx8.dll. If she encounters an eqmain error that crashes the game then overwrite that file as well..it's sometimes(fairly rare) needed just to be applied before running the game patcher as well as after, the eaxman.dll I had to use only once. She might want to log into the Eq test server to see if the video corruption exists there if not she might want to copy the 3 above mentioned beta files into a subfolder of the My Doc's folder and use them in the regular game, again only the eqgfx_dx8.dll should be needed. Also if she runs into problems she can look& post here http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/e...=20&LastLogin= Gnomepunter, Owwiefixer, TSR-Rodger to name a few are very helpful. while I can't post there since I no longer have a current Sony account, I do still read there and I'd be happy to help with troubleshooting any future problems she may encounter. The above workaround will have no effect on problems caused by using custom ui's those break virtually every patch and have to be edited/patched before they can be used again. __________________ Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety,deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Ben Franklin, 1755 Last edited by DarkFoss; Nov 9, 2003 at 09:04 PM.