Light Quality:
This setting doesn’t make a noticeable difference. You will see more pixels on a lower
setting. Leave this setting on average.
Max Lights:
This is the maximum amount of lights you can have on screen at once. Leave this on
default
Specular Lighting:
This is the setting that will make the biggest difference in performance, and of course
lighting detail. You should leave this setting off until later to see if your system can keep
up the performance when raising the bar.
Additional Specular While Raining:
Having this and specular lighting on, results in terrain lookinh shinny when it’s raining.
Without this and specular lighting, you may not see any rain.
Max Spec Lights:
This is fine the way it currently is set.
Minimum Ambient Light:
This will determine how much natural light is shown in zones. I suggest you turn this all
the way up as some dungeons are very dark.
Max Bumpy Point Distance:
This works the same as “Complex shader distance” only with lighting effects. Set it to the
same values as your complex shader distance.
Max Spell Results per Character:
This setting changes how many particles are rendered in total for each character on the
screen. This one can affect performance drastically in large groups or raids and should
be set to off in those situations. If you’re soloing, you can crank all particle effects to
maximum or the highest setting.
Show Particles in Reflections:
This is just a neat little effect you probably won’t notice much, unless you’re fighting near
shinny paladins or water. This basically reflects particles off water and off reflective
surfaces.
Particle Level of Detail Bias – Maximum Particle Size – Spell Particles Close
to Me:
These three settings affect spell effects. The higher this is set, the better particle effects
will look. They will look more dense and thick. This can affect your performance pretty
drastically in large groups/raids.
Underwater Distortion (Requires Distortion):
This is a really cool effect you should turn on. This effect, when enabled, will make
objects above water look smeary and blurry. This barely affects game play and is highly
recommended to be set to on.
Water Interaction:
This setting controls how the water reacts to your character moving through it. You can
leave this turned off if you like. There seems to be no difference in the 3 settings so I
would just leave it on Foam+Reflect+Refract.
Splash Particles:
This effect causes particles to splash up when you run/jump in water. It doesn’t do it very
much so you could leave this off and hardly notice.
Animate Procedural Textures:
This effect animates sea foam. You will notice the white on the top of some oceans such
as in the Commonlands and in Antonica. Turn this one on and water will look better.
Ocean:
This is the single coolest effect in EverQuest 2. No other game provides you with rolling
seas. Since boat encounters are so rare I would recommend you turn this on maximum.
If you’re lagging really bad during important boat encounters, you should turn this all the
way down.
Environment Cube Map Updates:
This has to do with the quality of reflections, such as how many pixels are drawn in
reflections. Higher settings eat more fps and you will hardly notice a difference. Turn this
one as low as it goes unless you’re taking seascape screenshots.
Reflections:
Another reflection setting, Yah ho. Water will look clearer with Cube map on and will look
more realistic with Mirror + Cube Map on. If your computer can handle it, water will look
a lot better.
Enable Bloom Effect:
This checkbox will enable a glow effect. For example if someone with a bright torch
stands behind another person the first person in front should appear to glow around the
edges. This leads to a moderate performance increase if turned off.
Atmospheric Bloom:
This is the same as above, only it applies it to everything. This gives everything in the
game a light glowing shimmer effect. Most people won’t like this on as even the trees
look like glowing, holy paladins. It however does look cool if you’re wearing full plate
silver armor for example. Good for screenshots in those situations, not much else.
Distortion (Heat Shimmer):
This is a really cool effect in EverQuest 2. If you examine torches and camp fires, you
will notice there is actually a distortion in the air above them. This effect also does water
distortions. I highly recommend you turn this one on as it will barley affect game play and
adds a great coolness factor.
Texture Resolution:
This is the second biggest performance reducer. Maximizing this (in combination with a
few other settings) will make the graphics like walls, the ground, pretty much everything
but characters look gorgeous. Go by the ram settings when you move your mouse over
the drop down box. Most systems will run this at medium or high.
Character Texture Resolution:
Exactly the same as above, only it applies to just your characters, it also applies to
mounts such as horses. This is the third biggest performance hog. You should also go
by the recommended tips in the drop down tab.
Character LOD Texture Resolution:
When a character or NPC is a long distance away from you, or if there are a lot of
characters on your screen, the game will draw low detail models of them. This setting
controls the texture resolution of these low detail characters. You should leave this at
about medium since you won’t be able to make out the armor designs of someone 300
feet away.
Performance Profile:
This pull down menu contains some preset configurations. However, these profiles do
not adjust all display settings.
Full Screen:
This checkbox will allow you to select between running EQ2 in a window on your
desktop, or running it full screen. You can also switch between windowed and full screen
mode by pressing ALT-Enter at any time. The frame rate is the same regardless of
windowed or full screen.
Full Screen UI Resolution:
This is where you select your resolution for the game when it is running in full screen
mode. If you are using windowed mode, the game will automatically use whatever
resolution you stretch the window to, so this option is grayed out and can not be
changed if you are in windowed mode
The resolution is currently set to 1024×768 60 Hz. That is how many times per second
that a normal CRT (glass) monitor will redraw the picture on the screen. Anything less
then 75 Hz is bad for your eyes, and it can make your eyes sore and strained. Also the
higher the resolution the more it requires from your system and as such your
performance will suffer.
Full Screen: Synchronize Refresh (V-sync):
In other games, this is normally called "V-Sync". If you have it turned off, the picture may
notice horizontal "tears" in the picture. If you don’t know what V-Sync does, go ahead
and turn it on, it won’t affect your performance much.
Graphics Resolution:
What this setting does, is allow you to run the 3D graphics part of the game at a lower
resolution then what you are actually running the game at. Make sure the slider is all the
way to the far right.
Lighting Resolution:
This should also be set to the maximum. If you think you need to turn this down, it will
draw black ugly lines around characters. It hardly affects your performance and I
strongly recommend you put the bar all the way to the right.
Rendering Distance:
This is how far into the distance your computer will draw things such as monsters,
players and certain other objects. Stand in a wide open spot such as the Commonlands
and adjust it back and forth to notice what it does to your performance. I would suggest
you turn this as high as your computer can handle. (Set it halfway for now and come
back later to max it if your system can handle it)
Complex Shader Distance:
This setting is the primary thing that makes EverQuest 2 look so good. This setting is
what causes the flat polygon surfaces to have a realistic "bumpy" appearance. This is
probably the biggest performance reducer. If you set it to as low as it goes (-1) you won’t
be able to see lighting effects such as torches no matter how you change around your
lighting settings. You shouldn’t need to set this any higher then 30 unless your system is
very powerful.
Letter Box Boarder Size:
Turning this all the way to the left will completely turn off letterbox (looks much better)
and turning it all the way to the right will put it on full and it will cover half the screen. The
more letterboxing you have,the better your fps (frames per second, your performance)
will be. I suggest to turn them all the way off and sacrifice a few other options instead.
Show Letter Box Frame:
This checkbox will turn the golden line that separates the graphics and the letterbox on
and off.
5.1.1. Optimizations, making EverQuest 2 run at its best
This section should help you out when it comes to making the game run at its absolute
best. Now there is no way every issue on every system can be covered, but you should
at least find the solution for the most common problems in this section. This guide will
also tell you what to turn down first, and what will affect your performance the most.
Open your options window and select the display options. Pull down the drop-down tab
and select extreme performance. Yes this now looks terrible, but it’s better to start from
the bottom and work your way up.
Goblin Chieftan
He spawns in the top of the tree house with 2 guards. You can solo him at level 6. He
drops an earring – often a useful addition to your equipment set at this time.
A Gruttooth Warmonger
This goblin spawns randomly in the main goblin camp (look at your map, it’s the one in
the center of all the others, the biggest one). This goblin can drop a 6 slot bag, a must
for any starting adventurer. He also drops “Goblin Attack Plans” – another quest item
(see the quest section for “Stop the Saboteurs”).
Bladefin
There is a rare shark (Bladefin) that spawns near the ruins in the waters around the
tavern. He is on a 20 minutes respawn timer. If you’re lucky enough to kill him, he drops
an envelope that gives a quest to kill more underwater inhabitants (Aquatic Research –
see the quest section).
Captain Rockbelly
Spawns from the “X marks the spot quest” (see the quest section for more information).
Among other loot he drops the rusty cutlass for the cutlass cleaning quest. The only
class that can solo him is a well equipped level 6 cleric with upgraded heals (apprentice
3). Since the artisan books required to make apprentice 3 spells no longer drop on the
island, you shouldn’t see too many players who can pull this off nowadays anymore In
order to be on the safe side I recommend 3 players, preferably one tank, one healer and
one dps.
Leveling on the Isle of Refuge isn’t really a challenge – thus I am keeping things brief.
Due to the experience bonus it’s recommended to stay on the Island till your experience
caps out (that’s at level 6 and 220%).
Solo
80% of the island can be soloed (make that 100% if you are playing a cleric). You should
hunt mostly goblins for the best experience unless a quest directs you otherwise. There
is a large supply of them in the main goblin camp, which you can solo by level 4. Stuff in
the forest area is also decent experience.
Grouped
The best place to group and get experience is the skeleton graveyard and the main
goblin camp. Unless it’s heavily camped I would suggest the skeleton camp – at least till
you completed the “X marks the spot” and “Xaliea’s report” quests.
