Zalbard

Why would it look better?
If they don't rewrite any code for special effects, it will do as much effect as using a new version of compiler for their source code instead of the older one.
SM3.0 generally doesn't bring performance boost either.
Oh, and grats on adopting the tech of 2004...

ZaiTh

The reason why the games performance is where it is now is because they put everything onto the processor not the video card/gpu. Also they did not anticipate multi-core cpu's which kind of also went away from what they wanted to achieve of having a game that could not be played at max setting for a couple of years due to technology.

I can play the game on max settings with shadows turned off. I do get lag at times but sometimes changing settings does not seem to have any effect. I am pretty surprised that some people say that EQ2 graphics are bad. You obviously have a shitty pc or are not sure on how to tweek your settings. What other MMORPG has better graphics that does not suck?

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What Dude?

Diknak

I can't read that article linked in the OP due to work firewall

So the graphics engine is getting updated again for new shaders? Does it indicate a time frame or how much of a performance boost we will see?

Sulan

Most likely September. I don't recall anything about performance, but he swears up and down it'll make the game look alot better.

Diknak

The game doesn't look bad as it is; it is simply inefficient. I would be perfectly happy if they spent time moving more stuff from the CPU to the GPU instead of updating the very little that is already on the GPU.

Aerofae

Bah next gu in September only

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Diknak

figured as much. They aren't going to push it in a hotfix and the next GU will be in September. I hope that it is releoased with less bugs than the GPU shadows. And maybe this will address some of the GPU shadw bugs that currently exist.

Morara

It's going to look better because we'll be able to finally run the game maxed out on hardware that can technically run 12 copies of games with that detail level and a decent engine.

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firamas

Yep.

The game always looked pretty damn great with all detail turned on. Yeah, you couldn't really do that back in 2004 at release without a $5k PC, but for that era and considering the fact that this is an MMO (which traditionally values tight netcode and playability over flashy graphics and physics that will tend to slow things down as you introduce 30 or more high-polygon models into a scene) it was definitely towards the higher end of the visual scale. Not the best of the best, but still impressive.

But SoE made a mistake. When they were developing the engine back in '02-'03, they didn't predict tech trends very well. Multi-core CPU's and rapidly scaling GPU performance-per-dollar weren't the historical trend (at least not to the degree they've scaled since).

Introducing multi-core support and offloading processing intensive parts of the engine to the GPU is starting to show real dividends. It takes significant time to recode a graphics engine like this. I'm just happy that they're addressing sloppy coding choices, I don't want/need it rushed or prioritized over actual content.

Better graphics will be most useful at attracting new players, not keeping current ones. (also, btw, have you seen the occasional random EQ2 ads popping up around the internetz? seems SoE has reversed their "we aren't even going to try to advertise against the Blizzard behemoth" policies! TV ads next?)

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Oh, no!

Diknak

The last EQ2 add that I saw was with the living legacy promotion. Since EQ2 has an expansion coming out this year and WoW doesn't, now would be the perfect time to snatch up all of those bored players.