I have a GTX 580, i7-2600k ~ 3.4ghz , 8gig ram and have a steady 60 fps when questing / dungeons / pvp , and about 40 fps in big towns (this at maximum graphics), so I'm pretty happy about it. Gonna try to tweak the graphics a bit down so i have 60 fps in big cities.
That is one huge problem with the interwebz, everyone thinks they know or can figure it out by using either wiki or other forums and wind up just passing the information along. You have 4 major affecting parts to online gaming that if one is below par causes things to bottleneck. CPU, GPU, RAM and internet speed(This includes everything related to internet speed(ie. Where the server is located in regards to your location, bandwidth, BOTH download AND upload, as well as firewalls)).
Having a very good GPU, the best bandwidth and top of the line RAM become irrelevant when running a mediocre CPU(As in the case of our OP)
My other Question is no one has asked about his PSU and Cooling....even if his old CPU is doing what it should if he is running in areas that is pushing either the CPU or GPU to the max to keep up and they arent getting the power or they are getting too hot then he will see issues with performance....
I just wish people would stop trying to update pieces of their computers...and not the whole thing.
You wouldnt try and put a Viper engine in an old car would you??? If you did you would experience problems with performance.
The Core 2 Duo first came out in 2006. You would probably get better performance out of a 3rd gen i3 then the Core 2 duo...Hell go buy a Core 2 Quad if you are that cheap.
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logisitcsMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Yeah CPU speed has increased by a whopping 17% in those five years.
You really do not understand at all do you? MHZ and GHZ are just clock speeds. Internal to the cpu, a little circuit goes 1 0 1 0 over and over as fast as it can and it schedules a lot of things like instruction fetching and execution, ram and cache hits, bus usage, and tons more -- this is the "clock".
But older pcs like yours have smaller caches --- and a missed cache hit can cause the cpu to sit idly for dozens of clock cycles while the necessary info is dredged out of the far reaches of ram or worse, disk cache/pseudoram. Bus speeds are slower, so again the cpu can sit idle for cycles at a time while things are piped around. Disk speeds are faster. Internal handling of the cores and coordination of threads are better. You cpu could run at 6 GHZ and all it would do is SIT IDLE more often while it waited on your antique motherboard to get with the program; you would be lucky to get a 5% speed increase by doubling your cpu clock speed for any process that is not a cpu bound number cruncher (so yes, generating 10 billion random numbers in a tight loop would be twice as fast nearly, but tapping the network card and graphics card and hard disk while burning the cpu in a game like this would see almost no performance gains).
As best as I can explain it, your CPU might actually BE able to handle the game, but it can't because the bus TO the cpu from the network card, graphics card, and your antique slow hard disk, and your small caches, etc are starving it. So your cpu is sitting there waiting on data to process, and it gets behind. Another thing... an idle, waiting cpu is flagged by the OS, and windows will tap the unused cpu to do some menial task like see if anyone else is on your network or maybe if you need to update adobe or perhaps your PC time of day clock is 2 seconds off etc. This menial background job will, of course, need to send data over the clogged busses to hit the cpu .... newer versions of the OS handle such things better, in general, as windows has grown to work better in a multicore world.
Believe it or not your antique hardware (not just the cpu but the entire motherboard) is the problem, for a lot of reasons like those I am trying to describe. You do not even have to believe any of us. Download one of the 10 dozen benchmark programs that test your entire system (not just the cpu's tight loop speed) and it will say the same thing we are: your computer is slow, no matter how many gigahertz it has. For a lot of reasons.
OP, you should definitely overclock your chip a little more if you can't afford to replace the CPU. The E8400 can get to 3.4Ghz comfortably but as always, watch your temps! There may be other options in your BIOS to help you steal a few extra FPS here and there but you should read up on each setting yourself before making any changes.
It might also be worth a going into the Nvidia control panel and altering your settings manually. Read the description for each entry and select all for best performance. If applicable make sure PhysX is using your GPU and not any of your limited CPU resources.
Personally I also shutdown my firewall (Zonealarm) and ensure no anti-virus programs are running as well as any other extraneous processes. I can almost hear some IT pro's crying 'noooooooo' about the firewall but I have no issues as long as I avoid questionable downloads and websites if I forget to put them back on when I stop playing.
I obviously can't guarantee you will gain as much as you want from any of the above but it's got to the stage where I want to have your system for awhile so I can tinker with it till it works! lol
Many posters have emphasized that your CPU is quite old and will always struggle, I tend to agree but I am actually very pleasantly surprised by how GOOD this game looks for the system requirements. My buddy and I have been playing since launch (Q's notwithstanding!) and his rig is as follows:-
HP Pavilion A6355 - Search that online, really, it's a piece of ****
Operating System: Windows Vista
Processor: AMD Phenom X4 9500
Memory: 3GB RAM @ 667
Hard Disk: 500GB 7200rpm
Video: 8500GT (128MB)
Now, once you've stopped laughing out there, I think you can see that this is not a modern system to say the least.
To date, Neverwinter runs smoothly on it with very few lag spikes. His resolution is at 1360 x 768. It's not perfect, but he has absolutely no complaints thus far and neither do I. (I'm on a 2.66Ghz Q6600 with 6GB ram @ 1033, 5770 with 1GB, max settings and smooth at 1440 x 900)
I do not think the difference between his CPU and your own are significant enough on alone to account for the apparently game-breaking FPS drop you are suffering. This does NOT mean I agree with you about the game being broken however.
As another poster has stated, there are thousands of configurations out there and it is not possible for devs to cater for all immediately. It is not reasonable to expect 'optimized' code during a BETA for every setup out there. It is also possible that you have other pieces of software conflicting within your system and causing issues for you and I can only suggest updating everything on your system if you haven't already done so and removing any unnecessary startup/background programs.
I think your CPU is AN issue, but not the only one. Other software settings and the BETA status of the game are likely to be involved as well but primarily you should look to increasing your CPU speed as much as you dare.
As an aside, I do have to wonder what you were thinking when you built the system. An E8400 with a 660Ti? That's a CPU from January 2008 and a GPU from August 2012 isn't it? I am no expert but this seems somewhat loco to me. (My own excuse for the Q6600 and 5770 combo is a blown 8800GTS!)
Graphically this game certainly doesn't push any envelopes, but for a (mostly) free game with pretty low requirements I think it looks rather nice. To me it's seems like a testament to what can be done at a programming level with older hardware. For example, Neverwinter Nights 2 was out in October 2006 and the requirements were:-
Operating System: Windows XP
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 or equivalent (or higher)
Memory: 1GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 5.5GB Free
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive: 4x(DVD) 8x(CD)
Video: 256MB Pixel Shader Model 2.0 (ATI X1600 or nVidia 6800 GT/GS or better) - should be compatible with DirectX version 9.0c or higher
DirectX: DirectX version 9.0c or higher (included)
Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework for toolset (included)
Change the CPU to dual core and add 1GB of RAM and you've basically got the requirements for this MMO in 2013 which looks a lot lovelier. That's pretty good work no?
I like my eye candy and can see the faults others have pointed out with graphics etc. Playability is always my first concern though and I'll take Neverwinters apparently flawed (BETA) aesthetics and fun over the sumptuous vistas and dullness of TERA any day.
This game has far exceeded my expectations already and I hope an interesting large scale PvP element is added with further content as I'm having lots of fun with this at the moment and the foundry provides potential for limitless content.
Apologies to all for such a long post. I hope the OP can get enough juice out his system to enjoy this game. I could be very wrong about his CPU and he won't get any improvements, but if my buddies 'Millennium Falcon' PC ('not' the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy lol) can cope then I think the OP's should be able to as well. (Just checked Passmark, there's about 100 points of a difference in the Phenom 9500's favor between the two. This is not a definitive measure I am sure, just an indicator.)
Again, i'm not saying it's the game that's broken. There will be issues certainly, but it seems to me that you have other factors involved as well as the CPU.
Good luck getting it going and if you've resolved it in the time it's taken me to write this post then bah!
Since this thread caught my attention I am sort of curious to get some proper technical opinions regarding the CPU's. By this I mean how much do you think the performance difference is between the 65nm first gen AMD quad processor and a 45nm dual core Intel CPU? The AMD chip was out 11 months earlier from what I can see.
"Don't worry young Ander, everything happens for a reason it does"
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zeroburritoMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
When you say high for battle field... you don't really mean high right? BF is know for being one of the most hardware intensive games out, and I know for a FACT your set up is not capable of that. Similarly, check your drivers for the gpu, i swapped my 7970's for 680's because their drivers are THAT bad, not that the cards were..
I have last WHQL drivers for 78xx series.I know something is wrong becouse lowered the resolutions with lowest graphic option doesn't fix my hardlocks and fps rate do not growling up.Here is a prove http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqcKM8P17QQ
About battlefield when I said high , I had in mind high really. Sometimes at bigers servers 64players i have to turn of AA to keep my smooth vision
I have last WHQL drivers for 78xx series.I know something is wrong becouse lowered the resolutions with loest graphic option doesn't fix my hardlocks and fps rate do not growling up.Here is a prove http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqcKM8P17QQ
Recommended system requirements and that means the requirements when everything runs fine and not below 20 FPS as it does for me is a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo.
LOL yah I agree with this....an i3 has more power than the Core 2 Duo
I swapped an E9660 (not sure about the model number, but a 2.8ghz quad, quite better than his C2D) for a 3.0ghz i3 and could already see a difference in gaming
I tried reading through this thread to get some fixes for a similar issue I'm having but no luck yet.
I have a q6600 core2quad which I realize is an old processor that is probably bottlenecking me pretty severely. I have a gtx 560 and 4 gb of admittedly cheaper quality RAM in a secondary machine that my girlfriend is temporarily using.
The thing that is really confusing me is that there are long play sessions happening where the game runs great. 30-40+ frames in every area. Dungeons, protectors enclave etc..
Then there are times where the game will load in and it's at basically 0 frames in a dungeon, stalling so bad the sound skips. Restarts, on demand patching, profile fixes.. lowering graphics. Nothing works.
What's causing the inconsistency is my question? Any ideas?
I tried reading through this thread to get some fixes for a similar issue I'm having but no luck yet.
I have a q6600 core2quad which I realize is an old processor that is probably bottlenecking me pretty severely. I have a gtx 560 and 4 gb of admittedly cheaper quality RAM in a secondary machine that my girlfriend is temporarily using.
The thing that is really confusing me is that there are long play sessions happening where the game runs great. 30-40+ frames in every area. Dungeons, protectors enclave etc..
Then there are times where the game will load in and it's at basically 0 frames in a dungeon, stalling so bad the sound skips. Restarts, on demand patching, profile fixes.. lowering graphics. Nothing works.
What's causing the inconsistency is my question? Any ideas?
Actually that's the exact CPU I had (not E9660, dunno where I got that from) and upgrading to an i3 meant a lot. With more bandwidth my GPU could do its job better. About your issues, it could be that the system is loading from the HDD? I use a SSD for the games. But I remember a similar problem with another game and it turned out my HDD was trashing a lot when that happened
I have the GTX 660 Ti graphics card, it's even factory overclocked on both the GPU and the graphics memory and in the area in and near the Temple of Tyr my FPS sometimes dips below the 20's.
Should I really have that low FPS with this graphics card?
Something must be wrong...
I experience a huge FPS drop in Protectorate City despite that my video card has 128-bit GDDR5 memory. On top of that the graphics quality slider in the options menu doesn't work.
I experience a huge FPS drop in Protectorate City despite that my video card has 128-bit GDDR5 memory. On top of that the graphics quality slider in the options menu doesn't work.
My card has a 192-bit GDDR5 memory... no something is definitely wrong.
I play as a control wizard and when it comes down to it... it's all about the freeze.
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logisitcsMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
Can I get a CM to message me or something? Nothing I do seems to fix this problem
Actually that's the exact CPU I had (not E9660, dunno where I got that from) and upgrading to an i3 meant a lot. With more bandwidth my GPU could do its job better. About your issues, it could be that the system is loading from the HDD? I use a SSD for the games. But I remember a similar problem with another game and it turned out my HDD was trashing a lot when that happened
Thanks for this. I'll look into the HDD a little bit to see if maybe it's failing and causing that inconsistency. I just want to be able to get a month or two out of this until we upgrade it in the summer, and having to tweak it and troubleshoot every time we load to get play out of it is awful.
You could hear an audible thrashing if you listened for it when it was stalling that badly?
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losse1Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.0GHz. is old, just turn down graphics setting or get a new processor.
"The sum of the whole is this: walk and be happy; walk and be healthy. The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose." -Charles Dickens
This thread is LOL. I also have a 660ti and I don't dip below 30fps in town. Which by the way, taking a hit in a town area is common for literally every single MMO out there. But I also have a i7 920 @ 4.0 GHZ and 6GB of DDR3. Which make a real difference. Its not about raw GHZ on a CPU anymore. As others have stated, cache size and speed are king. How well it handles orders and how well it syncs with your motherboard. Its not just about raw memory size, its about getting low timings combined with fast speed.
And SSD'S are GREAT for gaming. Not because it increases your framerate, but because it lowers your loading time. And given how often Neverwinter has to load areas, an SSD makes the whole process smooth and fast.
Depresses me to see people trying to chase top end numbers with a medium range rig. Core 2 duo and DDR2 wasn't top end in 2009, as that's when the i7 line came out, which is also when I built my rig.
I am quite sure many ppl agree that SSD ARE great for gaming - but some of these ppl hate to admit it as they can't afford one. And then they feed us with the false facts that SSDs would be only meant for video editing lol. I can show two screenshots which I took where are speed comparison between OCX vertex 3 vs WD velociraptor - the difference is HUGE. Granted the price between the two is factor by 2 (my WD is only 320 GB and my OCX verted is 128 GB).
And 2600k is 2011.
Whopping 17% my ***. You have no idea what you are talking about, and continue to prove that with every post you make. People tried to help but you refuse to listen, so I can only hope Moderator comes around and locks this thread.
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djynniMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 17Arc User
edited May 2013
I am having trouble with the graphics and I'm sure my computer is at fault. While all of you "experts" are in one place : what factors do you look for in a CPU that makes it good for MMOs? I don't want specific CPU recommendations as I don't know what my budget will be or when exactly I'll be able to buy new hardware. I'm asking what kind of features in processing, architecture, memory support, sockets, etc. make for the best CPU for MMO gaming. I really don't do much other computer gaming. Thanks!
I am quite sure many ppl agree that SSD ARE great for gaming - but some of these ppl hate to admit it as they can't afford one. And then they feed us with the false facts that SSDs would be only meant for video editing lol. I can show two screenshots which I took where are speed comparison between OCX vertex 3 vs WD velociraptor - the difference is HUGE. Granted the price between the two is factor by 2 (my WD is only 320 GB and my OCX verted is 128 GB).
Just saying
Some people hate to admit that SSDs are still just a hard drives. SSDs for gaming can impact performance in games like Skyrim or Fallout where you proceduraly load the world into the RAM from your hard drive. Other than that, SSDs wont do a thing for you except decreasing loading times considerably, at least not while gaming.
Having SSD won't magically make your games run better FPS wise, that's not what hard drives do in a computer.
OP I am using the same video card as you (stock settings) and an older CPU (intel i7 920 oc'ed from 2.67 to 4.0) and I am steady 60fps at all times regardless if I'm in town or in a dungeon. I am not sure why you are having problems, but I can almost guarantee it's not the game's side. Start by checking your precision/nvidia control panel to make sure the card isn't over-riding the game settings and causing frame rate drops. Also, if the frame rate drops are intermittent and your vid card isn't overheating, make sure your CPU isn't temporarily overheating.
I went from getting between 20-35 fps on my old core2quad 8400
to getting 50-60 fps steady (capped with vsync) on my new i7 3770k.
Same video card.
I didnt want to believe it, not when my core2quad was running things like BF3 and skyrim just fine. Seems to be something with how the new games are being programmed, that are making them peform poorly on older CPUs, without necessarily giving a huge boost in visual quality (sorry, but skyrim looks a lot better visually than Neverwinter, even though I do enjoy neverwinter graphics - except for the horrible shadow LoD distance.)
Core2 users... its time to face the fact that many new games are going to be optomized for newer cpus, even if the visual end result doesnt necessarily seem to be a huge jump from games your CPU handles fine. Call it a marketing scheme, call it tech progression, call it a total PITA. It is what it is. If you want better performance, the only option is to upgrade.
Some people hate to admit that SSDs are still just a hard drives. SSDs for gaming can impact performance in games like Skyrim or Fallout where you proceduraly load the world into the RAM from your hard drive. Other than that, SSDs wont do a thing for you except decreasing loading times considerably, at least not while gaming.
Having SSD won't magically make your games run better FPS wise, that's not what hard drives do in a computer.
Depends. Relies on the fact does the game load all the stuff to the memory or not. Does the game on ad'hoc basis load say textures for incoming player/mob - if it does load those then SSD is better again, due the much faster access times. There are many factors to consider but all in all I'd still suggest to have seperate SSD for games you like to play as the SSD prices have dropped much what they used to be years back. So they are _not_ that expensive these days.
I am having trouble with the graphics and I'm sure my computer is at fault. While all of you "experts" are in one place : what factors do you look for in a CPU that makes it good for MMOs? I don't want specific CPU recommendations as I don't know what my budget will be or when exactly I'll be able to buy new hardware. I'm asking what kind of features in processing, architecture, memory support, sockets, etc. make for the best CPU for MMO gaming. I really don't do much other computer gaming. Thanks!
I suggest you research this yourself. It is quite easy to do. I recommend tomshardware forum for some help on it.
Number one thing I suggest is to build your own completely. Do not buy a prebuilt. They give you the bottom line of everything to cut their costs. If you are not in a hurry, use things like black friday. You can save a TON of money by using black friday. If you have never used buy.com (or whatever its new name is now) they used to give a good discount on your first order over $50. I'm sure they still do. This helps a ton. Newegg will always be your best bet. Subscribe and wait for deals.
The current rig I am using now was a budget build that I did for fun for under $600. It's currently running the cities with 28-30 fps.
Don't skimp on your processor, as it is more important than GPU these days.
If you need more info on anything, feel free to PM me.
Depends. Relies on the fact does the game load all the stuff to the memory or not. Does the game on ad'hoc basis load say textures for incoming player/mob - if it does load those then SSD is better again, due the much faster access times. There are many factors to consider but all in all I'd still suggest to have seperate SSD for games you like to play as the SSD prices have dropped much what they used to be years back. So they are _not_ that expensive these days.
Unless there would be hundreds of NPCs all having different models and textures appearing at the same time, I just don't see how loading a textures for a character would make a normal HDD stretch enough to make your FPS drop. And my uneducated guess would be that it would sooner bottleneck the CPU than make your HDD stutter to cause an FPS loss.
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My other Question is no one has asked about his PSU and Cooling....even if his old CPU is doing what it should if he is running in areas that is pushing either the CPU or GPU to the max to keep up and they arent getting the power or they are getting too hot then he will see issues with performance....
I just wish people would stop trying to update pieces of their computers...and not the whole thing.
You wouldnt try and put a Viper engine in an old car would you??? If you did you would experience problems with performance.
The Core 2 Duo first came out in 2006. You would probably get better performance out of a 3rd gen i3 then the Core 2 duo...Hell go buy a Core 2 Quad if you are that cheap.
----
You really do not understand at all do you? MHZ and GHZ are just clock speeds. Internal to the cpu, a little circuit goes 1 0 1 0 over and over as fast as it can and it schedules a lot of things like instruction fetching and execution, ram and cache hits, bus usage, and tons more -- this is the "clock".
But older pcs like yours have smaller caches --- and a missed cache hit can cause the cpu to sit idly for dozens of clock cycles while the necessary info is dredged out of the far reaches of ram or worse, disk cache/pseudoram. Bus speeds are slower, so again the cpu can sit idle for cycles at a time while things are piped around. Disk speeds are faster. Internal handling of the cores and coordination of threads are better. You cpu could run at 6 GHZ and all it would do is SIT IDLE more often while it waited on your antique motherboard to get with the program; you would be lucky to get a 5% speed increase by doubling your cpu clock speed for any process that is not a cpu bound number cruncher (so yes, generating 10 billion random numbers in a tight loop would be twice as fast nearly, but tapping the network card and graphics card and hard disk while burning the cpu in a game like this would see almost no performance gains).
As best as I can explain it, your CPU might actually BE able to handle the game, but it can't because the bus TO the cpu from the network card, graphics card, and your antique slow hard disk, and your small caches, etc are starving it. So your cpu is sitting there waiting on data to process, and it gets behind. Another thing... an idle, waiting cpu is flagged by the OS, and windows will tap the unused cpu to do some menial task like see if anyone else is on your network or maybe if you need to update adobe or perhaps your PC time of day clock is 2 seconds off etc. This menial background job will, of course, need to send data over the clogged busses to hit the cpu .... newer versions of the OS handle such things better, in general, as windows has grown to work better in a multicore world.
Believe it or not your antique hardware (not just the cpu but the entire motherboard) is the problem, for a lot of reasons like those I am trying to describe. You do not even have to believe any of us. Download one of the 10 dozen benchmark programs that test your entire system (not just the cpu's tight loop speed) and it will say the same thing we are: your computer is slow, no matter how many gigahertz it has. For a lot of reasons.
Had to post after reading all 19 pages......
OP, you should definitely overclock your chip a little more if you can't afford to replace the CPU. The E8400 can get to 3.4Ghz comfortably but as always, watch your temps! There may be other options in your BIOS to help you steal a few extra FPS here and there but you should read up on each setting yourself before making any changes.
It might also be worth a going into the Nvidia control panel and altering your settings manually. Read the description for each entry and select all for best performance. If applicable make sure PhysX is using your GPU and not any of your limited CPU resources.
Personally I also shutdown my firewall (Zonealarm) and ensure no anti-virus programs are running as well as any other extraneous processes. I can almost hear some IT pro's crying 'noooooooo' about the firewall but I have no issues as long as I avoid questionable downloads and websites if I forget to put them back on when I stop playing.
I obviously can't guarantee you will gain as much as you want from any of the above but it's got to the stage where I want to have your system for awhile so I can tinker with it till it works! lol
Many posters have emphasized that your CPU is quite old and will always struggle, I tend to agree but I am actually very pleasantly surprised by how GOOD this game looks for the system requirements. My buddy and I have been playing since launch (Q's notwithstanding!) and his rig is as follows:-
HP Pavilion A6355 - Search that online, really, it's a piece of ****
Operating System: Windows Vista
Processor: AMD Phenom X4 9500
Memory: 3GB RAM @ 667
Hard Disk: 500GB 7200rpm
Video: 8500GT (128MB)
Now, once you've stopped laughing out there, I think you can see that this is not a modern system to say the least.
To date, Neverwinter runs smoothly on it with very few lag spikes. His resolution is at 1360 x 768. It's not perfect, but he has absolutely no complaints thus far and neither do I. (I'm on a 2.66Ghz Q6600 with 6GB ram @ 1033, 5770 with 1GB, max settings and smooth at 1440 x 900)
I do not think the difference between his CPU and your own are significant enough on alone to account for the apparently game-breaking FPS drop you are suffering. This does NOT mean I agree with you about the game being broken however.
As another poster has stated, there are thousands of configurations out there and it is not possible for devs to cater for all immediately. It is not reasonable to expect 'optimized' code during a BETA for every setup out there. It is also possible that you have other pieces of software conflicting within your system and causing issues for you and I can only suggest updating everything on your system if you haven't already done so and removing any unnecessary startup/background programs.
I think your CPU is AN issue, but not the only one. Other software settings and the BETA status of the game are likely to be involved as well but primarily you should look to increasing your CPU speed as much as you dare.
As an aside, I do have to wonder what you were thinking when you built the system. An E8400 with a 660Ti? That's a CPU from January 2008 and a GPU from August 2012 isn't it? I am no expert but this seems somewhat loco to me. (My own excuse for the Q6600 and 5770 combo is a blown 8800GTS!)
Graphically this game certainly doesn't push any envelopes, but for a (mostly) free game with pretty low requirements I think it looks rather nice. To me it's seems like a testament to what can be done at a programming level with older hardware. For example, Neverwinter Nights 2 was out in October 2006 and the requirements were:-
Operating System: Windows XP
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 or equivalent (or higher)
Memory: 1GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 5.5GB Free
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive: 4x(DVD) 8x(CD)
Video: 256MB Pixel Shader Model 2.0 (ATI X1600 or nVidia 6800 GT/GS or better) - should be compatible with DirectX version 9.0c or higher
DirectX: DirectX version 9.0c or higher (included)
Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework for toolset (included)
Change the CPU to dual core and add 1GB of RAM and you've basically got the requirements for this MMO in 2013 which looks a lot lovelier. That's pretty good work no?
I like my eye candy and can see the faults others have pointed out with graphics etc. Playability is always my first concern though and I'll take Neverwinters apparently flawed (BETA) aesthetics and fun over the sumptuous vistas and dullness of TERA any day.
This game has far exceeded my expectations already and I hope an interesting large scale PvP element is added with further content as I'm having lots of fun with this at the moment and the foundry provides potential for limitless content.
Apologies to all for such a long post. I hope the OP can get enough juice out his system to enjoy this game. I could be very wrong about his CPU and he won't get any improvements, but if my buddies 'Millennium Falcon' PC ('not' the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy lol) can cope then I think the OP's should be able to as well. (Just checked Passmark, there's about 100 points of a difference in the Phenom 9500's favor between the two. This is not a definitive measure I am sure, just an indicator.)
Again, i'm not saying it's the game that's broken. There will be issues certainly, but it seems to me that you have other factors involved as well as the CPU.
Good luck getting it going and if you've resolved it in the time it's taken me to write this post then bah!
Since this thread caught my attention I am sort of curious to get some proper technical opinions regarding the CPU's. By this I mean how much do you think the performance difference is between the 65nm first gen AMD quad processor and a 45nm dual core Intel CPU? The AMD chip was out 11 months earlier from what I can see.
"Don't worry young Ander, everything happens for a reason it does"
you know nothing about computers. look at some benchmarks if you must.
LOL yah I agree with this....an i3 has more power than the Core 2 Duo
I have last WHQL drivers for 78xx series.I know something is wrong becouse lowered the resolutions with lowest graphic option doesn't fix my hardlocks and fps rate do not growling up.Here is a prove http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqcKM8P17QQ
About battlefield when I said high , I had in mind high really. Sometimes at bigers servers 64players i have to turn of AA to keep my smooth vision
Recommended system requirements and that means the requirements when everything runs fine and not below 20 FPS as it does for me is a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo.
You can look it up yourselves if you don't believe me. http://nw.perfectworld.com/about/faq
That doesnt mean you can run the game on Max Settings and not experience any issues....
I swapped an E9660 (not sure about the model number, but a 2.8ghz quad, quite better than his C2D) for a 3.0ghz i3 and could already see a difference in gaming
I have a q6600 core2quad which I realize is an old processor that is probably bottlenecking me pretty severely. I have a gtx 560 and 4 gb of admittedly cheaper quality RAM in a secondary machine that my girlfriend is temporarily using.
The thing that is really confusing me is that there are long play sessions happening where the game runs great. 30-40+ frames in every area. Dungeons, protectors enclave etc..
Then there are times where the game will load in and it's at basically 0 frames in a dungeon, stalling so bad the sound skips. Restarts, on demand patching, profile fixes.. lowering graphics. Nothing works.
What's causing the inconsistency is my question? Any ideas?
I run it on the lowest setting and still get below 20 FPS in crowded areas.
Actually that's the exact CPU I had (not E9660, dunno where I got that from) and upgrading to an i3 meant a lot. With more bandwidth my GPU could do its job better. About your issues, it could be that the system is loading from the HDD? I use a SSD for the games. But I remember a similar problem with another game and it turned out my HDD was trashing a lot when that happened
Not exacly. Optimal means game should works fine not recommended
My card has a 192-bit GDDR5 memory... no something is definitely wrong.
Thanks for this. I'll look into the HDD a little bit to see if maybe it's failing and causing that inconsistency. I just want to be able to get a month or two out of this until we upgrade it in the summer, and having to tweak it and troubleshoot every time we load to get play out of it is awful.
You could hear an audible thrashing if you listened for it when it was stalling that badly?
I am quite sure many ppl agree that SSD ARE great for gaming - but some of these ppl hate to admit it as they can't afford one. And then they feed us with the false facts that SSDs would be only meant for video editing lol. I can show two screenshots which I took where are speed comparison between OCX vertex 3 vs WD velociraptor - the difference is HUGE. Granted the price between the two is factor by 2 (my WD is only 320 GB and my OCX verted is 128 GB).
Just saying
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/582/Intel_Core_2_Duo_E8400_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-2600K.html
And 2600k is 2011.
Whopping 17% my ***. You have no idea what you are talking about, and continue to prove that with every post you make. People tried to help but you refuse to listen, so I can only hope Moderator comes around and locks this thread.
Some people hate to admit that SSDs are still just a hard drives. SSDs for gaming can impact performance in games like Skyrim or Fallout where you proceduraly load the world into the RAM from your hard drive. Other than that, SSDs wont do a thing for you except decreasing loading times considerably, at least not while gaming.
Having SSD won't magically make your games run better FPS wise, that's not what hard drives do in a computer.
to getting 50-60 fps steady (capped with vsync) on my new i7 3770k.
Same video card.
I didnt want to believe it, not when my core2quad was running things like BF3 and skyrim just fine. Seems to be something with how the new games are being programmed, that are making them peform poorly on older CPUs, without necessarily giving a huge boost in visual quality (sorry, but skyrim looks a lot better visually than Neverwinter, even though I do enjoy neverwinter graphics - except for the horrible shadow LoD distance.)
Core2 users... its time to face the fact that many new games are going to be optomized for newer cpus, even if the visual end result doesnt necessarily seem to be a huge jump from games your CPU handles fine. Call it a marketing scheme, call it tech progression, call it a total PITA. It is what it is. If you want better performance, the only option is to upgrade.
Depends. Relies on the fact does the game load all the stuff to the memory or not. Does the game on ad'hoc basis load say textures for incoming player/mob - if it does load those then SSD is better again, due the much faster access times. There are many factors to consider but all in all I'd still suggest to have seperate SSD for games you like to play as the SSD prices have dropped much what they used to be years back. So they are _not_ that expensive these days.
I suggest you research this yourself. It is quite easy to do. I recommend tomshardware forum for some help on it.
Number one thing I suggest is to build your own completely. Do not buy a prebuilt. They give you the bottom line of everything to cut their costs. If you are not in a hurry, use things like black friday. You can save a TON of money by using black friday. If you have never used buy.com (or whatever its new name is now) they used to give a good discount on your first order over $50. I'm sure they still do. This helps a ton. Newegg will always be your best bet. Subscribe and wait for deals.
The current rig I am using now was a budget build that I did for fun for under $600. It's currently running the cities with 28-30 fps.
Don't skimp on your processor, as it is more important than GPU these days.
If you need more info on anything, feel free to PM me.
Unless there would be hundreds of NPCs all having different models and textures appearing at the same time, I just don't see how loading a textures for a character would make a normal HDD stretch enough to make your FPS drop. And my uneducated guess would be that it would sooner bottleneck the CPU than make your HDD stutter to cause an FPS loss.