Need Help (Graphic related)Follow

I'm confused and somewhat angry at this point in time. I had purchased a new Dell XPS 720 computer, equipped with an Nvidia GTX graphic card. In short, the system was plagued with blue screens and after two weeks of tired troubleshooting with Dell, I was finally sent a replacement computer.

I received a significant upgrade. My new replacement has come equipped with a faster cpu (2.66 ghz quad core), same amount of ram (4GB), and 2 Nvidia GTX graphic cards in SLI! I was very pleased when I found out my replacement was an upgrade.

Now, I thought with this new system I would be able to play Everquest 2 and Lord of the Rings maxed out smoothly. Well, on both games I can play at max settings, however, it's not what I would call 'smooth'. The game hicups and stutters every so often when Im running around... In EQ2, it even looks as if the screen is frozen for 2 or 3 seconds, then it 'catches up'... This cannot be normal, can it (I hope not)? (EQ2 settings high-extreme quality) (LOTRO Ultra high, very high settings)

At this point Im frustrated, as I thought I had my dream system that could play all my games nicely, as well as run my graphic design programs. If anyone has experienced similar issues or has any idea what could be the problem, I would appreciate any help I can get!!!

Thank you!

Remember that both of these games are very demanding and that everything is relative. So while you may have no (or very little) trouble most of the time, You will inevitably run into situations where no computer will run flat out and without issue.

These situations can be unique and based on variables like the number of other player characters nearby at that moment (increasing the number of complex unique graphic mobile objects your hardware needs to draw and maintain)

Or they can reflect known issues like the traditional memory leak in Qeynos Harbor or the infamous "Bree Lag".

The bottom line is that even today, almost no computer can comfortably run these games flat out. The best you can usually do is a step below max with a bump up to max when you want to take pictures or when you know the variables are in your favor.

The upside is that you are still one of the few people seeing the world in as high a resolution as you do. Most folks I've spoken with are still running EQ2 in a mode that is less than balanced (one of the performance modes) while most LOTRO players are running at medium or below.

So throttle back a step or two and consider yourself fortunate. I know I do!

BTW - for EQ2, get yourself one of the UI mods that let you load various basic custom sets or graphic options and change them out with a single mouse click. That way you can switch out at the first hint of trouble or even be proactive and change modes before you zone into a problem area.

And for LOTRO, try and set up using the system auto evaluation feature and then tweak up from there.

edit for content error

Edited, Apr 20th 2008 8:07pm by OldBlueDragon