Graphics issues?

[Orthanos]

Not sure where to put this topic so figured under general would be best. Since the last patch on 5/12/10 I have been having issues running multiple accounts. When I go to switch screens (having all in windowed mode and clicking task bar at bottom to bring up different screens) I have one that will pop up Everquest(Not Responding) and will take a few minutes or so to go from a white screen to the way it should be. Now I looked it up on EQ's knowledge base and it says that it is a known issue (known as far back as 2008 and updated 2009). Thats all the information given....problem is I didnt have this issue until AFTER this last patch. Any clues? I have made sure all my drivers are updated and ran a spyware search and used disk cleanup and defrag (which is on a schedule but figure I might as well try it)....I am at a loss now. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Orthanos

[knytul]

my first question would be how many instances of Everquest are you running? I dont know what happened in the 5/12 patch but something may have been upgraded in EQ requesting a little more system resources to run the game. If you are running say 5x instances, you would be now using that little bit more x5, which might now be too much for your system, thus your system needing that extra time to stop, check the instance, catch it up, and move on.

To Test this, instead of running say 5 instances of EQ, try running 4 and see if u run smoothly, if 4 doesnt work try 3, then 2.....(im just using 5 as a starting point, try whatever u usually run -1). See now how many max instances of Everquest you can run without having the white screen issue...

[Orthanos]

I am running 3 instances of EQ. I cut it back to two and it still does it. I have upgraded my dsl package to the next stage (doubles whatever the incoming/outgoing kbps) so will see if that helps...it was only an extra 5 bucks a month. I dont want to wipe EQ off my system because that is too much of a pita but I may have to do that if something got farked up on the download on the patch the other day /shrug. Thanks for the tip though Knytul.

[Chakkorisi]

I've experienced something similar recently on the comp that I 2 box on. I cannot say for certain whether it started as of the last patch, but now that you mention it, it seems to correspond to that time frame.

In any event . . . I am a computer geek but day, so I keep my home computer pretty lean (i.e. if it isn't broke, I don't dump hundreds of M$ patches on it every month simply because M$ says so).

My issues have been occasionally when I am boxing and switch characters, one or both characters will momentarily experience graphical issues. When I tab back and forth, one character my have a white screen for a moment, as if the clipping plane was right in my face. Other times, my target ring will be all "washed out," but still present.

I have been contemplating checking for new video drivers, but honestly, after reading this post, it sounds like the last EQ patch may be the culprit. Like I said . . . I don't update my computer unless necessary, so my video drivers have been the same for the last 6+ months or so.

Chakk

[Lenol]

Do you use WinEQ? I use it and i am not having problems with 2 instances.

[Chakkorisi]

[Khael]

Probably something with SOE's version of EQPlayNice that got screwed up with the particular setup/OS you're using. I would try WinEQ, if only to get their (better) version of EQPlayNice.

[Orthanos]

I replaced the video card and ran new updates and dont have the issue anymore. SoE said they dont really support Nvidea cards and that Nvidea doesnt update drivers for EQ or some such crap....so I bought a ATI Radeon card and it seems to have fixed the issue although the game runs a little more choppy than it did before.