Will this game still require insane amount of system resources or will the game database and graphics engine be replaced with a new one that can actually take advantage of the new tech?
Can someone post official or unofficial PC Specs (Minimum and Recommended) required to play GoD at a decent framerate?
Are you serious???
no, memory requirements should be the same.
Well, I was able to launch the client with only 4Gb RAM 8)same here and also on my laptop with 512MB ram
If i were to post an unofficial minimum requirements it is this:
Unofficial Lineage II GOD Minimum System Requirements:
Intel Pentium 4 D AMD x2 3800+ or better (any early model dual core processor)
2GB of Ram
256MB ATI Radeon HD2400 or Nvidia 8400 Series Video Card
Windows XP/Vista/7 (recommend vista or 7)
15gb of free hard disk space (20gb free recommended for swap file and such)
High Speed Internet Connection
Recommended System Requirements:
Intel i3 530/2100K or AMD Dual Core Equivilent x2/x3 AM2/AM3 or better
4gb DDR2/DDR3 Ram or more
512mb or better ATI Radeon HD5xxx or Nvidia 2xx Series Video Card
Windows vista/Windows 7 x64 (64 bit)
20gb or more Free Hard Disk space (Solid state drive massively improves lineage II)
High Speed internet
GoD is natively compatible with 64-bit systems? Or does it run on a 32-bits sandbox as High Five still does?
Also, does it uses the multiple cores equally?
If i were to post an unofficial minimum requirements it is this:
Unofficial Lineage II GOD Minimum System Requirements:
Intel Pentium 4 D AMD x2 3800+ or better (any early model dual core processor)
2GB of Ram
256MB ATI Radeon HD2400 or Nvidia 8400 Series Video Card
Windows XP/Vista/7 (recommend vista or 7)
15gb of free hard disk space (20gb free recommended for swap file and such)
High Speed Internet Connection
Recommended System Requirements:
Intel i3 530/2100K or AMD Dual Core Equivilent x2/x3 AM2/AM3 or better
4gb DDR2/DDR3 Ram or more
512mb or better ATI Radeon HD5xxx or Nvidia 2xx Series Video Card
Windows vista/Windows 7 x64 (64 bit)
20gb or more Free Hard Disk space (Solid state drive massively improves lineage II)
High Speed internet
Don't forget that lot of player in korean play in a internet cafe so they haven't certainly not a so mush powerfull PC.
There is my own guess about :
minimaume:
Intel Pentium4 2.8 / AMD Sempron 2800 or superior
1GO ram
NVIDIA Geforce 660 / AD Radeon X1550
Hard drive 20 GO
Window xp ( Sp2) , vista , Window 7
Hight speed internet connection.
Recommended:
Intel Pentium Dual - Core / AMD Athlon64 X2 or superior
20GO ram
NVDIA Geforce 7600 or superior / AMD Radeon X2600 or superior
20 GO hard drive
Window xp ( Sp2) , vista , Window 7
Hight speed internet connection.
Don't forget that lot of player in korean play in a internet cafe so they haven't certainly not a so mush powerfull PC.
Didn't quite understand, most PC in Korean internet cafe are most advanced ones.. Otherwise they will run out of business. Too many competition.
Most Koreans do go to the internet cafe even though they have computers at home because,
1. you can play together with your friends in same space.
2. you will alwasy use top notch PC.
3. snacks.
At the moment any decent Dual or even better Quad Core Desktop can play L2 at decent framerates but u need to master the overclocking art a bit or else u gonna cry when playing Sieges.
Realistic speaking, 3,0-3,2Ghz of CPU speed and 4MB of L2 cache is a minimum for Sieges.
Top L2 PCs smoothly playing and frapsing(!) Sieges run from 4.0Ghz+ with 8MB or more L2 cache.
Talking about RAM we all agree that 4GB is the minimum while having 8GB u would see a free up of system resources while increasing the efficiency of each CPU core. However L2 is still not using all available cores.
Graphics wise the game right now supports ATI CrossFireX and nVidia SLI but performance is not increasing marginally no matter how good your Graphics Proccessing Units (GPU) are.
Even more important is the Hard Disk you use. Most users resort to RAID 0 configurations (using 2 identical HDDs running together) or even better an SSD drive of smaller capacity dedicated to run L2. Anything else and u can find yourself waiting 5-10 seconds longer when teleporting to new towns and hunting grounds. Sieges especially take the biggest hit here when trying to display a mass PvP of 100vs100 or more players.
I really hope that the new update can address many of the issues i mentioned above cuz for the average PC user most of what i wrote are like reading Traditional Chinese and i really tried to keep it casual!
GoD is natively compatible with 64-bit systems? Or does it run on a 32-bits sandbox as High Five still does?
Also, does it uses the multiple cores equally?
Far as i have grasped...... it's still 32bit using windows 64bit's WOW64 sandbox (32bit mode)..
However the code is available and has been available EVEN during the developement of lineage 2 for 64bit version.
Since C4 many years ago now.... the servers have been 64bit...
why they haven't made a 64bit client is beyond me...course there are new games being brought out today that are still running 32bit mode.... it's pretty **** pathetic if you ask me.. because the advantages of 64bit native support is pretty significant specially for a game like lineage II
At the moment any decent Dual or even better Quad Core Desktop can play L2 at decent framerates but u need to master the overclocking art a bit or else u gonna cry when playing Sieges.
Doing my own tests on this...... overclocking rarely gives any reasonable worthwhile results in lineage II reguardless of the cpu or system you got UNLESS you have a cpu/system that is already underpowered. Granted i pretty much agreed with the rest of it.... todays standards a Dual core is most certainly a minimum requirement for even a remote possibility of being able to play... sure you can get it running on a single core cpu like a P4 with or without hyper threading.. but trust me.. i've dabbled in it.... it's pure hell even if the cpu it overclocked to 4.5ghz.... it just can't do it well enough, even the cheaper older true DUAL core cpu's will out perform it.
Realistic speaking, 3,0-3,2Ghz of CPU speed and 4MB of L2 cache is a minimum for Sieges.
Top L2 PCs smoothly playing and frapsing(!) Sieges run from 4.0Ghz+ with 8MB or more L2 cache.
I wouldn't consider that very accurate at all... L2 Cache doesn't really have a significant impact at all on the overall way L2 is able to play unless of course if you have barely any to begin with lol, and considering that "GHZ" speeds are relative.... it's only part of the equation and definitely doesn't require that kind high frequency to do it. Just for considerations sake, i know some 1.8ghz and 2.2ghz cpu's that are easily able to outperform some much higher 3.0/3.2/3.4/3.6 ghz equivilent multi core cpu's... just depends on how they do it and how efficient they are at it, how many processes per clock it's able to handle..... it's really hard to put in a GHZ figure.... depending on the tasks...
Talking about RAM we all agree that 4GB is the minimum while having 8GB u would see a free up of system resources while increasing the efficiency of each CPU core. However L2 is still not using all available cores.
2GB if a barely basic minimum reguardless of todays tasks today without ripping ones hair out. Yes indeed 4gb is a bare minimum, and that well made machines today use 8gb... As far as there being a ram to cpu efficiency system of sorts or relation in the way you rather vaguely described..... not not really. Today with lineage II and likely with GOD from my figures..... 4GB is still plenty.... a whole lot of plenty even with seiges. Using the current figures i've got with some of the **** programs people are running, 4gb still provides a sufficient amount of headroom and float. Considering that today it's rare for lineage II to consume much more then 1gb of ram at any given time unless a memory leak has trigger, several times i'm seeing nothing more then 500mb of consumed ram which is a nice healthy improvement to the massive consumption of 1.8-2.6gb of ram consumed (usually resulting in a crash soon after). If you happen to be running 3gb+ worth of ram consuming programs in the background..... i think you may have other issues to deal with like viruses or well general garbage cleanup. OR like i've done.. ran more then one game at a time.
For those multi boxing.... more ram is always helpful.. but then again unless your pushing more then lets say 3 or 4 clients at a time.. it's still relatively rare to push 4gb of ram on a properly maintained machine.
HOWEVER i'm not saying that those willing to make an investment NOT buy anything more then 4gb of ram... ALWAYS ALWAYS even if it's marginally more expensive.. INVEST in the largest module you can. If you can purchase 2x4gb sticks/kits... do it... it's more worthwhile then buying in the end 4x2gb... also the 2x4gb will be faster in the end due to command rate and timings/latencies efficiencies (including overclocking potential)
As for L2 using cores and such.... this is true.... the most i see lineage II doing is using 2 cores (not the HT cores thankfully)... However the last time i checked Task manager with l2 running it appeared that all 4 cores were evenly loaded even though l2 at the time wasn't consuming much more then 4-7% PER core excluding the HT cores.. (total cpu usage never exceeding 25%)
It's significantly better then the first AMD x2 days when the first ever Dual core cpu's arrived. mmmmm loven the Negative delta timer bug...
Graphics wise the game right now supports ATI CrossFireX and nVidia SLI but performance is not increasing marginally no matter how good your Graphics Proccessing Units (GPU) are.
Yes and no..... while it "works" it doesn't work..... Running SLI and Crossfire with lineage II is kinda like dropping 2 engines into the same powertrain of a car and changing nothing else but expecting better speeds.... things don't really change much. I've thoroughly tested this as well, Things kick in but it just doesn't seem to do much at all.... there isn't a reasonable increase in performance that makes it worthwhile. Actually in some situations on both crossfire and sli with l2.... enabling it can actually have a negative impact on the game in some locations... Although i've submitted some of these bugs and issues to both ncsoft and ati/nvidia.... they go relatively unanswered.. and unfortunately one of the few emails i've had between one of the executive developers for the ATI drivers stated clearly that AMD/ATI and NCSoft haven't really worked closely with each other AT all.. in some cases haven't even shared information.... AMD/ATI willing.. ncsoft developers.. not so much. Why is unclear. I could crop it up to the unreal engine and how nvidia has paid their way to make sure of certain things.. but that's another long drawn out debate and story...
Long story short when it comes to crossfire/sli.... if all your playing or mostly are playing i Lineage II... don't bother with sli/crossfire.
Even more important is the Hard Disk you use. Most users resort to RAID 0 configurations (using 2 identical HDDs running together) or even better an SSD drive of smaller capacity dedicated to run L2. Anything else and u can find yourself waiting 5-10 seconds longer when teleporting to new towns and hunting grounds. Sieges especially take the biggest hit here when trying to display a mass PvP of 100vs100 or more players.
You for the most part nailed everything here...several points i've mentioned several times on these boards... When it comes to lineage II.. the hardisk is one of the defining bottleneck due to the frequent purges, and the sheer amount of data that is unloaded and loading constantly.... Although the system is static/dynamic the loading never stops in lineage II. A Solid state drive will nearly remove all load times and lag while loading provided the computers hard-drive controller can handle it. My current machine with the SATA II isn't able to make full use of the SATA III 550MB/s Solid state drive i've got. It runs at just below half of it's potential capabilities, but it's still blazing fast. Even though it's only pushing about 250-260MB/s... it's loading and handling things much much faster than when running 6x of the WD 640GB 64mb cache SATA III Drives in raid 0 which was able to obtain a speed of around 1000MB/s (1GB/s) on sustained reads. Even though the 6 drives in raid 0 managed 4x the sustained speed reads...... the Solid state drive blows them all out of the water in everything else. Sustained read speeds are useless for anything else BUT high volume large file transfers. Write speeds are high on the raid 0 6x array which is good for FRAPS or videos... but the Solid state still does it better. I would love to be able to raid together a bunch of solid state drives to see how things fly... but unfortunately no manufacturer provide full TRIM support for SSDs in any form of raid configuration... so putting SSDs in raid is actually long term totally counter productive.
I really hope that the new update can address many of the issues i mentioned above cuz for the average PC user most of what i wrote are like reading Traditional Chinese and i really tried to keep it casual!
Unfortunately true.. but while i do usually try to make things easier to read for those that aren't familare with it all.... avoiding get it too dumbed down is an advantage as it helps other learn too.
i too hope they fix many of the issues.. but i doubt it.
If the new GOD does indeed include some massive engine updates i'll be quite happy.
Weeeell, atm im using Intel i5 3.2, 12GB 1600mhz ddr3, and some old HD Ati Radeon, with ssd-drive for the client. And it runs perfectly with full detail. (siege is another thing)
I would assume, that GoD will run with that no problem.
Far as i have grasped...... it's still 32bit using windows 64bit's WOW64 sandbox (32bit mode)..
However the code is available and has been available EVEN during the developement of lineage 2 for 64bit version.
Since C4 many years ago now.... the servers have been 64bit...
why they haven't made a 64bit client is beyond me...course there are new games being brought out today that are still running 32bit mode.... it's pretty **** pathetic if you ask me.. because the advantages of 64bit native support is pretty significant specially for a game like lineage II
Thanks very much, Judas! :)
Anyone knows if GoD uses multiple cores with parallel processing?
Anyone knows if GoD uses multiple cores with parallel processing?
doubt it
L2 still uses a outdated unreal2 engine, which even with updates will need a major over-haul to utilise multicore... better to use a new engine... which usually means making a new game :P
doubt it
L2 still uses a outdated unreal2 engine, which even with updates will need a major over-haul to utilise multicore... better to use a new engine... which usually means making a new game :P
That's some bad new :(. But thanks for your answer :)
Anyone knows if GoD uses multiple cores with parallel processing?
best answer thus far i can give is already stated... quoted for ease of finding it..
As for L2 using cores and such.... this is true.... the most i see lineage II doing is using 2 cores (not the HT cores thankfully)... However the last time i checked Task manager with l2 running it appeared that all 4 cores were evenly loaded even though l2 at the time wasn't consuming much more then 4-7% PER core excluding the HT cores.. (total cpu usage never exceeding 25%)
It's significantly better then the first AMD x2 days when the first ever Dual core cpu's arrived. mmmmm loven the Negative delta timer bug...
Has someone done some benchmark with Lineage 2 on Intel iSeries processors? Like a i7 740QM or something like that?
i've played around with the intel i3/i5/i7's ranging from the earlier 1156 sockets and the most recent intel 1155's today..
Even on the various laptops.. the most recent one was a intel i3 2310M and an intel i5 2310M as well...
using the built in graphics on any of these produces actually useable playable results...
the intel iX series of Inte's HD graphics gpu's are actually pretty **** impressive little buggers. Playing lineage II on even high settings gives a good experience.. mind you, your not going to be experiencing what lets say a ATI radeon 5770 or better or nvidia comparible 240/260 or better graphics card to muster... but it's very playable and fast loading.
the biggest kicker is that you have to have a surplus of physical ram as the intel GPU's require a portion of it.... by default most manufacturers set them up to use only about 128mb of ram... which is imo not good enough.... i build my machines with the maximum amount possible... max typically is 256mb however max auto allows it up to 1gb i beleive.
FFS Crysis 2 DX11 polygon count is off the charts :X When there is water in crysis 2 ... it covers the whole level ! Even underneath the roadways. That's massive polygon processing ... and when you look at L2 ... nowadays a low poly game ... it lags as hell ... just LOL
My pc that is able to run crysis 2 on ultra setting i lagging upon entering of Schuttgart O.o wtf ?
Umm no it's not, what Laby said is that Crysis 2 and L2 don't use the same engine, that's why they perform differently .. and that's pretty accurate. You can't compare a cutting edge current 3d title with a 7 year old game built on a 10 year old engine
You see, L2 uses Unreal 2 as base in both High Five and GoD. But they heavily modified Unreal 2 on GoD that it is way different than before, almost a custom engine.
Still the same weakness but, technically, different engines from the very same base.
Still the base of GoD is more up-to-date than High Five's.
If it can use 8GB of memory, its not the old Unreal Engine which is made in 1998 (yes you heared it good, 1998!!!). I really hope they switch over L2 to Unreal 3 engine. There so manny memory leaks/probs with this old engine.
If it can use 8GB of memory, its not the old Unreal Engine which is made in 1998 (yes you heared it good, 1998!!!). I really hope they switch over L2 to Unreal 3 engine. There so manny memory leaks/probs with this old engine.
4GB = 32BIT
4GB+ - 32GB+ = 64BIT
Lineage 2 runs on the Unreal Engine 2 (from 2002) not the original Unreal Engine. Well to be technically accurate it's a version between 2.0 and 2.5, with various little customizations NCSoft has added, not all of them successful
Since the developers lack the ability to work this graphics engine, why don't they let the gaming community help them in the same way they have done for games like Gothic 3, Morrowind/Oblivion, Fallout 3 etc literally converting these games into much more playable versions with the mods they implemented?
There are people that can design awesome textures, fix memory leaks and add new graphic features with no real profit other than enjoying it themselves and share.
Even with multiplayer games i've seen it happen (e.g Arma II) so it is possible.
Because the problem isn't textures, or graphic features, it's the core of the game that's outdated. If you want a real world analogy, you can't build a formula 1 car with a zastava engine, it's not a matter of skill or talent, it just doesn't have the power .. same applies to l2. The game engine is old, it was built for pentium 4s and DX9 cards, the world has moved on from there. So either they rebuild the game with a new engine (which a) can't be community driven cause there are obvious licensing issues and b) makes 0 financial sense for NCSOFT - it's effectively a new game, they might as well actually launch a new game and make some money) or they keep tweaking what they have trying to squeeze a year or two of life out of it.
I kind of feel like everyone is talking about the graphical capabilities of the engine, when the common complaints are not about graphics, but about the game not running efficiently, taking advantage of more powerful hardware, etc. That has nothing to do with any Unreal engine. There's are tons of Unreal engine-powered games, and this is the only one I've played that performs so poorly. It just needs to be optimized, and I don't think that's something NCSoft's development team has been keeping up with.
WoW utilizes hardware pretty well. I believe it's developer inability to code it out. WoW is too ... a 7-8 year old game.
PS: Mods ... stop deleting my posts lol... censorship much ?
Last time i checked i have constitutional rights to speak my mind ;)
Bloody corporations ... this is why RU retail is running better
Same game ... same engine ... proper marketing strategy not developed for consumer market = epic WIN !
WoW utilizes hardware pretty well. I believe it's developer inability to code it out. WoW is too ... a 7-8 year old game.
It seems to do it very well, but don't we forget that WoW Engine is way lightier than Unreal 2.0 and designed with smooth animations from the scratch (something that only Unreal "2.5" (I mean GoD Unreal) and further might have).
Also, Blizzard is way older than NC Soft, they know better how to take care of their games.
It seems to do it very well, but don't we forget that WoW Engine is way lightier than Unreal 2.0 and designed with smooth animations from the scratch (something that only Unreal "2.5" (I mean GoD Unreal) and further might have).
Also, Blizzard is way older than NC Soft, they know better how to take care of their games.
~Lux
last time i checked you said you are stopping to post.
Anyway ... being older doesn't neccesarily makes you better ! But in the current situation you are right. But still it's NCSoft fault.
Facebook needed smart ***** - they *bought* some of google's key personnel ! Facebook is 5 year old ... google is more than a decade ! And look how fast it got to it. You can always get better programmers. Stop requiring bachelor degrees in IT & computer science but instead test the people that apply to work for you. Bachelor degree means nothing ... yet you make it a requirement. Sad :S
So when L2's population was spiking at C4 when they had enough money to hire even John Carmack himself ... they didn't do it. No need to comment it out anymore.
last time i checked you said you are stopping to post.
If you are talking about that thread in which I was insulted for apparently no reason, I was saying that I wouldn't not post any further... into that thread.
I ought fix that ambiguous line but that would be posting there... kinda. And I don't like going back on my words. :)
Don't feel too eager, you people aren't getting rid of me on forums too early... ;)
Btw i just gave full tought of your earlier post...especially this
but don't we forget that WoW Engine is way lightier than Unreal 2.0 and designed with smooth animations from the scratch
Can you name at least one commercial game graphics engine that is not done this way ? Designed for smooth animations ? Because personally i can't :/
Last time i checked every engine out there is made to juice out every bit possible of a hardware ? Sure it's not like in consoles where you don't need high bandwith because there is large variety of cards and standarts (thank you AMD nVidia and Intel >.< ) but still ... every developer is trying to do just that ... smooth animations ... an engine that for minimum footprint can reach up to 60 fps
I'm having top-end gaming maching and it's lagging in L2 and i feel like playing with my old PC and it's really frustrating
Oh and btw if they really are switching to UE 2.5 ... expect many crashes in the beginning :D
Btw i just gave full tought of your earlier post...especially this
Can you name at least one commercial game graphics engine that is not done this way ? Designed for smooth animations ? Because personally i can't :/
Last time i checked every engine out there is made to juice out every bit possible of a hardware ? Sure it's not like in consoles where you don't need high bandwith because there is large variety of cards and standarts (thank you AMD nVidia and Intel >.< ) but still ... every developer is trying to do just that ... smooth animations ... an engine that for minimum footprint can reach up to 60 fps
I'm having top-end gaming maching and it's lagging in L2 and i feel like playing with my old PC and it's really frustrating
Unreal 2.0 wasn't... I recall playing Unreal Tornament that time and, if they tried to do that with smooth animations, they failed... hard...
Also, WoW's engine was designed with the MMO part in mind... Unreal 2.0 didn't expected THAT MUCH of player models... That's why FI during GM buffs freezes everyone's computer at least a little bit, no matter how powerful is your hardware...
It lags in empty Schuttgart too Q_Q first 10 seconds are horrible
Yepp, I guess the graphics of Schuttgard and Goddard are a little bit harsh to this engine... Both cities take a while longer to load than the others and walking in them isn't that smooth...
Of course, with a powerfull hardware one might not feel it that much but with a lower hardware it's pretty notiable (or annoying).
That makes me a little concerned about Talking Isle, once we hit GoD. The new looks are just enourmous and full of colors and shapes... I really hope this engine update fixes it.
I remember my 2 yr mediocre PC out performing brand new PCs that's 2x the price in games like CS
sometimes you're just not using your PC's potential, sometimes you just got screwed by awesome sounding but bad quality hardware, or sometimes your PC's hardware isn't completely compatible with each other...
The main performance bottleneck in L2 is hard drive, it needs to load so much stuff, 1 way to ease that is to have more RAM but you'd still need to 'pre-load' information into your memory before it uses that RAM to load stuff.
So getting a SSD drive helps *alot*. Keeping your PC clean of malware and the likes are also a big help.
I have sandy bridge under the hood man ... and amd crossfireX in x16 and x8.
True i use HDD but it's with 64mb cache and is SATA 3 interface which have some speed up technologies like NCQ. The ram is the exact same that Intel recommends for the CPU. Hardware is not yet overclocked because it's a beast and i don't need any extra power (except for L2 ofc but i don't play only L2). As i mentioned before. Crysis 2 on 1080p ultra setting - very much playable =)
just cause 2 - 100+ fps ... the lowest is 80 fps
I have clean install of Windows 7 x64 i know how to operate a computer since before windows 7 my winXP was reinstalled once in 3-4 years. And the reinstall was because i had new hardware which required me to do so :( My current installation of windows boots for 25-30 seconds after i press the power on button. So i don't think i have much crapware =)
Overall i load towns really fast ! It's something like 3 max 4 seconds of black screen. Especially if i visit it for second or more times. It loads in 1-2 seconds
The lag comes after :X
Question: What is the black screen loading since it appears that it is not loading player/npc textures and most of the town/area is not loaded either O.o
Btw if i ever buy a SSD i will never use it for gaming :D
You know they have limited number of reads/writes right ? Sure it's not 100 or 1000 but they do tend to have short lifespan if used a lot.
With current prices and limited lifetime of SSD i see usage only for OS and OS services. Sure there are dedicated servers with SSDs but the corporations running them have enough money and income to replace them by the dozen. The performance really is gigantic compared to HDDs but for me there are too many drawbacks as of now. And game developers still write their code with the idea of people being with HDD ... which might chance soon but as of now game algorithms are HDD optimized. Looking for the technology beyond SSDs
I have sandy bridge under the hood man ... and amd crossfireX in x16 and x8.
True i use HDD but it's with 64mb cache and is SATA 3 interface which have some speed up technologies like NCQ. The ram is the exact same that Intel recommends for the CPU. Hardware is not yet overclocked because it's a beast and i don't need any extra power (except for L2 ofc but i don't play only L2). As i mentioned before. Crysis 2 on 1080p ultra setting - very much playable =)
just cause 2 - 100+ fps ... the lowest is 80 fps
I have clean install of Windows 7 x64 i know how to operate a computer since before windows 7 my winXP was reinstalled once in 3-4 years. And the reinstall was because i had new hardware which required me to do so :( My current installation of windows boots for 25-30 seconds after i press the power on button. So i don't think i have much crapware =)
Overall i load towns really fast ! It's something like 3 max 4 seconds of black screen. Especially if i visit it for second or more times. It loads in 1-2 seconds
The lag comes after :X
Question: What is the black screen loading since it appears that it is not loading player/npc textures and most of the town/area is not loaded either O.o
Btw if i ever buy a SSD i will never use it for gaming :D
You know they have limited number of reads/writes right ? Sure it's not 100 or 1000 but they do tend to have short lifespan if used a lot.
With current prices and limited lifetime of SSD i see usage only for OS and OS services. Sure there are dedicated servers with SSDs but the corporations running them have enough money and income to replace them by the dozen. The performance really is gigantic compared to HDDs but for me there are too many drawbacks as of now. And game developers still write their code with the idea of people being with HDD ... which might chance soon but as of now game algorithms are HDD optimized. Looking for the technology beyond SSDs
SSD have a limited number of writes, reads are unlimited.
I actually put my virtual memory on my SSD as well making it act like extra 'memory' :P
My SSD manufacturer (Intel) claims that the drive will run for 5 years under a server load situation, so I'm completely care-free when it comes to the lifespan of the drive ^^ Even if it only lasts 3 or so years I'm fine with it as normal HDDs last about that long anyway, in 3 years time SSD price will drop or maybe even some new technology will come out diving prices down.
Basically when it comes to buying hardware, i just need to buy the stuff right below cutting-edge and I'll be both up-to-date and cost efficient.
Being always cutting edge is expensive, cost-cutting every time you buy stuff means you have to upgrade more often (so you actually end up spending more overall), buying something that you know will last a few years even if it's more expensive than budget prices is IMO the best way...
My comp is 3 years old, I only upgraded it's gfx card (again top of mid-range), got the SSD and someone gave me 2Gb of extra RAM XD, I can still 4 box, I even left the clients running over night cos I passed out (was 3 boxing at the time) :P... lag is to be expected, but it's actually less hardware related than people think, I had smooth sieges when I lived in North America, moving to Asia caused huge lags not just in ping but also FPS-wise... so sometimes it's related to your internet connection.
The black screen is for loading engine, terrain models and basic textures...
If there weren't a black screen, you would see your toon floating up in nothing until the terrain model is loaded up (now your toon would be floating a grey surface) and then the ground texture (finally standing on something that looks like the tilled floor of Aden)...
concern about SSDs is a little strange in terms of lifespan considering the facts involved about traditional hardrives and their own lifespan and appart issues.
Limited number of writes sounds like a major issue, but isn't... period..... the number of years it would take to write that many times to the drive will indeed take many years..
which would be equivilent to that of the typical lifespan on a standard drive anyways... it's all dependant on usuage..
the nice thing about a SSD... is that they can take a hell of a lot more abuse, they are multiple times faster at everything than a standard drive.
As far as hardware is concerned and how lineage II loads.. i've stated this repeatedly in various places on the boards...
Lineage II is using a semi dynamic loading scheme system.... while typically before unreal 2 based games used a more static approach.... l2 invokes some of the features we see used quite often in the unreal 3 based engine games.
it loads what it needs as fast as it can, using zones... and then lets you see things, and then dynamically loads the surrounding zones and players/monsters.
I can tell you for a fact, that while using a very good traditional hardrive or hardrives in raid 0 arrays.... and getting essentially ZERO black screens.... (or very very short ones) while teleporting or moving.... or experiencing the purge thing for only a few seconds vs some people that wait sometimes minutes.. (usually getting disconnected).... the solidstate drive basically removes the black screens permanently... and loads zones/players/etc MUCH MUCH MUCH faster and smoothly..
the lag experienced that many people have when they "think" it's mostly done loading... is mostly connected to the hardrives.... interestingly with solidstate this seems to remove the "lag"
concern about SSDs is a little strange in terms of lifespan considering the facts involved about traditional hardrives and their own lifespan and appart issues.
Limited number of writes sounds like a major issue, but isn't... period..... the number of years it would take to write that many times to the drive will indeed take many years..
which would be equivilent to that of the typical lifespan on a standard drive anyways... it's all dependant on usuage..
the nice thing about a SSD... is that they can take a hell of a lot more abuse, they are multiple times faster at everything than a standard drive.
As far as hardware is concerned and how lineage II loads.. i've stated this repeatedly in various places on the boards...
Lineage II is using a semi dynamic loading scheme system.... while typically before unreal 2 based games used a more static approach.... l2 invokes some of the features we see used quite often in the unreal 3 based engine games.
it loads what it needs as fast as it can, using zones... and then lets you see things, and then dynamically loads the surrounding zones and players/monsters.
I can tell you for a fact, that while using a very good traditional hardrive or hardrives in raid 0 arrays.... and getting essentially ZERO black screens.... (or very very short ones) while teleporting or moving.... or experiencing the purge thing for only a few seconds vs some people that wait sometimes minutes.. (usually getting disconnected).... the solidstate drive basically removes the black screens permanently... and loads zones/players/etc MUCH MUCH MUCH faster and smoothly..
the lag experienced that many people have when they "think" it's mostly done loading... is mostly connected to the hardrives.... interestingly with solidstate this seems to remove the "lag"
Since you seem to be in the knowhow on this. How do you explain the lag on sieges?
I mean once the characters are loaded from the HD it should go smoothly... is it the animations?
Another thing that is INSAANLY hoggin gon the fps is turning on shadows (with Gforce cards i have had this problem since c1, had ati cards once and it seemed much better but still with problems).
Just courious ;) - couse im on the market for a SSD
Yepp, I guess the graphics of Schuttgard and Goddard are a little bit harsh to this engine... Both cities take a while longer to load than the others and walking in them isn't that smooth...
Of course, with a powerfull hardware one might not feel it that much but with a lower hardware it's pretty notiable (or annoying).
That makes me a little concerned about Talking Isle, once we hit GoD. The new looks are just enourmous and full of colors and shapes... I really hope this engine update fixes it.
~Lux
These cities are nothing in comparison with Plains any any new Freya locations. :)
Yes TI will be really smooth. /sarcasm
Since you seem to be in the knowhow on this. How do you explain the lag on sieges?
I mean once the characters are loaded from the HD it should go smoothly... is it the animations?
Good point ...
Maybe lack of HSR?
And never turn Shadows on. UE2.5 uses very not-efficient system how to create shadows.
the lag experienced that many people have when they "think" it's mostly done loading... is mostly connected to the hardrives.... interestingly with solidstate this seems to remove the "lag"
I have question ... when i (my PC) is done with loading enviroment ... i have sometimes lags even after that... because my CPU usage is randomly droping (while it loads i think characters on the square which i don´t see)
Why is it going that?
sometimes it's not CPU lag, but network lag that affects the FPS
For programmers:
the network I/O is blocking so it results in lowered FPS
For non-programmers:
The engine was not designed to load thousands of different models and show them at the same time.... Even if it can display all of them at the same time, it's not getting the information from the server fast enough so you get lag. It's a design flaw, but one that no one could've foreseen back in the day... Unlike WoW (not praising it here... I dislike the game but it has newer technology in some aspects) where you display whatever the server tells you whenever it wants to tell you, L2 is much more tightly synced with the server.
As for the shadows, all engines have problems with shadows... Shadows aren't finished models that you just need to load to the GPU and apply a texture (like anything else is), Shadows are calculated.
The Engine grabs the Light position and direction, as well as the objects position to the ground. Sends them to GPU with the algorithm and the results are rendered by the GPU...
So while processing the models, textures and light exposure, the GPU must calculate Shadows and render them under the objects, which might take GPU clock to do so...
Engines may optimize the Shadows algorithm... Also applying Anti-Aliasing to the Shadows imply into more calculations, which may be harsh to non-SLI or non-CrossFire Setups...
I have yet to see at least 1 of my cores to go to more than 40% X:
CPU isn't the bottleneck... my Intel dual-core (earlier 2008) handle L2 process quite great... I would say that even a P4HT would handle it (with only L2 open, that's it).
As mentioned, the main bottleneck is I/O, which means Hard Disk speeds for reading... L2 don't require about any write operations, it only loads the models / textures from HD... The only time it writes to the folder is when updating...
Virtual Memory (Page File) may be used but with 4GB+ and running only L2 I hardly guess you will need Page File...
Which might relate CPU problem being the bottleneck is when you play using an integrated GPU (My case, I play with Intel GMA 945, sucks balls).
I have question ... when i (my PC) is done with loading enviroment ... i have sometimes lags even after that... because my CPU usage is randomly droping (while it loads i think characters on the square which i don´t see)
Why is it going that?
Might be Network or even HD... Environment is easy (Aden always have the same model and texture to load up) but, after environment is done, it's time to load players and they aren't always the same (one model for Female Orc Mystic, another for Male Human Fighter, Different models and textures for *each* piece of armor + weapon and so on), requiring a helluva HD Output operations...
Since you seem to be in the knowhow on this. How do you explain the lag on sieges?
I mean once the characters are loaded from the HD it should go smoothly... is it the animations?
Another thing that is INSAANLY hoggin gon the fps is turning on shadows (with Gforce cards i have had this problem since c1, had ati cards once and it seemed much better but still with problems).
Just courious ;) - couse im on the market for a SSD
Seiges run into the engine limitation.. while setting your game options to Lowest quality mode... WILL indeed improve performance on SOME machines (mostly high end ones which may sound bizarre but in the end makes sense)...
depending on the situation... a lot of the lag has to do with repeatedly loading and purgeing information constantly.. while a SSD make a huge difference in seiges.. it's not at all perfect.... the engines lack of being able to multitask is fairly poor.. however one thing that make a huge difference in seiges is keeping your graphics quality high, but reducing the npc range from narrow/average down to VERY NARROW... (anything above average is a waste)
thing is the l2 loves to update and process tons of information that frankly you can't see at all and will never see. While npc range being very narrow has some major drawbacks... it has advantages in the zone..
It's really all you can do is play around with the settings and see what improves. But as i stated, There is a LOT of engine limitations occuring..
remember the engine was orginally designed with 32-64 players on the same area at a time, and area that is spread out to a certain extent, l2 loves taking 32-200 people and packing them into tight corridors.... the engine doesn't much care for it.
Top it off with the fact that the engines netcode freaks a bit and tries to keep a reasonable amount of up/down data under control so it doesn't balloon into a near megabyte of data trying to be send/received per second....
Network is fine ... is no exeption that i can pick players to target which i don´t see.
All what i meant to say is that when my character is not moving and all is loaded, CPU usage is at 100% and i have stable FPS ... Then when i move to city square for example, CPU will start droping randomly between 70 ~100 CPU usage ... and stable FPS are gone. I think that L2 client is first in my history of games where CPU is droping while loading things (in other games is the opposite)
Network is fine ... is no exeption that i can pick players to target which i don´t see.
All what i meant to say is that when my character is not moving and all is loaded, CPU usage is at 100% and i have stable FPS ... Then when i move to city square for example, CPU will start droping randomly between 70 ~100 CPU usage ... and stable FPS are gone. I think that L2 client is first in my history of games where CPU is droping while loading things (in other games is the opposite)
Well as mentioned L2 reads *a lot* of data... so since the main bottleneck of the game is the hard disk, CPU will not need to run at full since it's waiting for data from harddrive....
I actually don't understand why they have to pack textures into such large archives... it just means the client has to find the right texture within this 2Gb (or so) file everytime it needs a texture that isn't in memory... obviously it's not indexed either or we wouldn't be waiting for things to load that much and even SSD drives don't go that fast (mid to low range SSD has slower contiguous reading speed than many disk drives, it's just got 0 seek time)
Network is fine ... is no exeption that i can pick players to target which i don´t see.
All what i meant to say is that when my character is not moving and all is loaded, CPU usage is at 100% and i have stable FPS ... Then when i move to city square for example, CPU will start droping randomly between 70 ~100 CPU usage ... and stable FPS are gone. I think that L2 client is first in my history of games where CPU is droping while loading things (in other games is the opposite)
Let's get a little Technical here, so things could be clear:
If you meant to say Loading as in when you computer is actually *processing* something, I might say that, when your CPU drops, you computer isn't loading anything... it just holds processing, because it needs data from the HD to be found...
Also, CPU aren't playing major role here, GPU is and you can't monitor GPU usage on Task Manager. So CPU is just directing data from HD to GPU and processing "small" calculations in between, like which texture should be retrieved, how many MP do you have, how your stats are affected by your buffs and stuff...
@populus ... WoW is too a 7 year old game. Stating that they knew they would have millions of players online is ambiguous. Even Mike Morhaime said it himself that the game was intended to have 500 - 2000 max online. They reached that in the first week >.> Game kept to work uber awesome
Some clarification: The release dates between lineage and world of warcraft is just a few months. In few months you can't change a **** when you have ready product and a deadline
@populus ... WoW is too a 7 year old game. Stating that they knew they would have millions of players online is ambiguous. Even Mike Morhaime said it himself that the game was intended to have 500 - 2000 max online. They reached that in the first week >.> Game kept to work uber awesome
Some clarification: The release dates between lineage and world of warcraft is just a few months. In few months you can't change a **** when you have ready product and a deadline
The final conclusion: Do not use a engine made for MMOFPS with up to 64 players to make a MMORPG with a map this big... :D
Well this did not teach NCSoft a lesson. They are still using Unreal Engine 3 for their upcoming games. Yes it might be OK for now ... but L2 preluda was OK too in the beginning =)
Also they are using CryEngine for Aion ... LoL
Stop playing FPSers and see what people are actually making dammit >.<
Well this did not teach NCSoft a lesson. They are still using Unreal Engine 3 for their upcoming games. Yes it might be OK for now ... but L2 preluda was OK too in the beginning =)
Also they are using CryEngine for Aion ... LoL
Stop playing FPSers and see what people are actually making dammit >.<
DO u even know the potential of cryengine?
and if some game brands use the engine for fps games,
dasnt mean that they are not for mmorpg games loooal
ps: some specs of the engine
real-time lighting, long view distances & detailed vistas, high quality close ranges, photo-real vegetation and high fidelity physics and AI.
ps: some specs of the engine
real-time lighting, long view distances & detailed vistas, high quality close ranges, photo-real vegetation and high fidelity physics and AI.
What does that have to do with loading a bazillion different charactyers in a siege?
DO u even know the potential of cryengine?
and if some game brands use the engine for fps games,
dasnt mean that they are not for mmorpg games loooal
ps: some specs of the engine
real-time lighting, long view distances & detailed vistas, high quality close ranges, photo-real vegetation and high fidelity physics and AI.
I for one know that when there is even 1 px of water the whole area has water underneath and it's rendered all the time and that's some excessive polygons. Sure it does not bother my PC but when i bought my new PC i didn't made any compromises (except getting very fast HDD instead of SDD) but few people can say that. Hell .. some people are playing with integrated graphics O.o
Will next NCSoft game use Id Tech 5 engine lol ? :D
Let's get a little Technical here, so things could be clear:
If you meant to say Loading as in when you computer is actually *processing* something, I might say that, when your CPU drops, you computer isn't loading anything... it just holds processing, because it needs data from the HD to be found...
Also, CPU aren't playing major role here, GPU is and you can't monitor GPU usage on Task Manager. So CPU is just directing data from HD to GPU and processing "small" calculations in between, like which texture should be retrieved, how many MP do you have, how your stats are affected by your buffs and stuff...
~Lux
Actually wait states occur reguardless .. even the gpu tends to not run at full tilt nor does it's memory.. there are apps like task manager to keep an eye on the gpu status and it's memory usage too.
Actually for those with ati graphics cards.. just fire up catalyst control center and hit the OVERDRIVE tab to see temperatures and gpu usage/etc.
or download other apps to do it.
General Order of processing is dependant on the hardrive and internet connection...
You can have the fastest in the world.. but the lineage 2 client still retains a limiter/throttling for the internet.
The engine employs a netspeed/tickrate/bandwidth system in which it tries not to drop below or go above set values, and even tries to "predict"... from what i've seen the lineage II client doesn't tend to try and predict so that system is either nearly non-excistant or is set to a very very low value.
It does have prediction for packetloss senarios though, i'm sure everyone has experienced the teleporting effect at some point or another when things seem to just stop, freeze for a moment, and then you reappear at the location you had last clicked... some of it's quered some of it it's not..
tickrates and such can be both hard on your connection as well as cpu for being able to update the information on what your doing, skill used, commands initiated and numerous other y/x/z axis points.
All that information in the end has to be crammed into a specific size of bytes and sent to the server and back again several times a second (yet again depending on tickrate/update rates).
From my most recent measurement, the tickrate isn't exactly high nor is the amount of bandwidth allocated to internet bandwidth/traffic.
This is why people with a very slow or poor connection can experience the same speeds as those with the extreme end of the internet.
if you have a reliable 10KB/s down and 10KB/s up internet connection (essentially 128kbps up and down would be the advertised speeds) you won't see any advantage to anything faster aside from latency improvements IF there is any at the faster internet speeds.
Now as i stated above ..
wait states
The computer waits for the netcode/data from the server, cpu/gpu/etc remain relatively idle during those times.
if a new bit of data from the server initiates a new player or area..... then the cpu/gpu wait for the hardrive to located and find/start loading it.... cpu doesn't really work at all much loading data from the hardrive into the ram..... however ram to gpu or working off the stuff in the ram will allow it to actually do something. .but it's still quite fast.
An SSD is incredibly faster then a HHD.... anyone saying otherwise when dealing with lineage 2 is not really grasping the differences, the textures alone and animation data are all data sizes that match the SSDs potential advantages for loading..... so it's actually quite perfect, that's why those with SSDs see less of the lag (cpu not waiting as long or often)
Bottom line is simple, Lineage 2 ceased being CPU/GPU limited back in 2007. Literally. You can still play with a C2D and an 8800GT and difference from that to a Sandybridge i7 and a GTX 580 and actual game performance will be pretty minimal (ie under 3% of difference)
The big difference since 2007 has been hard drive speeds. First we used to RAID0 simple SATA drives, now we can RAID0 SSDs, that's where ALL your performance will come from. My girlfriend often plays on a $400 system I build for her with a joke phenom x2 and a 6870 I had laying around, no difference in performance from my top of the range build BUT I raided a couple of Intel SSDs for her (ie my previous drives before I upgraded to my Vertex 3s). If I take the SSDs out of my pc and try and run lineage 2 off a decently quick (Seagate single platter) SATA3 Drive my PC is visibly slower than hers, even though otherwise it costs 5x more.
lmao ZUFF... "joke phenom x2" is one of best cpu for games... high clock + big cache l3 works great in games - especially in old games as L2 (90% games stil works on ONE core)... Seems intel marketing wash many brains.... :(
It's a joke cause it's a 5 year old design (K10) that cost me $119.99 for the cpu, an asus motherboard and 4gigs of XMS3 ram.
It's not "one of the best cpu for games", it throttles most modern games, but it's great for lineage 2 and other old games. And that's pretty much what I said. If the question was about playing Crysis 2 in eyefinity then I wouldn't be talking about it. But in essence it's a cheap Core2Duo class cpu that's still available today. Which is all you need to play this game, not all games.
lmao ZUFF... "joke phenom x2" is one of best cpu for games... high clock + big cache l3 works great in games - especially in old games as L2 (90% games stil works on ONE core)... Seems intel marketing wash many brains.... :(
Nop ... brand new games load 2 up to 3 cores. No game atm uses 4 cores simultaneously. Thus making the Core i5-2500K the gamer's choice for this year :)
true but I wonder if we're willing to go back to hardcore grind mode once the lvl cap is back open.. time will tell imo as even with casual xping it will go fast imo :)
true but I wonder if we're willing to go back to hardcore grind mode once the lvl cap is back open.. time will tell imo as even with casual xping it will go fast imo :)
Quests will help it too ^^... At least I think they will now...
I wanna upgrade my poor Athlon x2 240 to Sandy B. I3 2120 (solid 2 cores 3,3ghz) but i need advice about ram ... as l2 is 32 bit can win7 let them utilize ram up to 16gb (when it use sandboxes)... i wanna try 4 box in GoD (2 shops + 2 active play acc) and GoD client use more ram also after 24h in giran l2 is so big :)
2 x 4gb is little cheaper tha 4 x 4gb but u think 16gb will be used for 4 x GoD l2??? or it is poor waste (i am from poor country so even 50 bucks for extra quad-4gb need be verifed)
I wanna upgrade my poor Athlon x2 240 to Sandy B. I3 2120 (solid 2 cores 3,3ghz) but i need advice about ram ... as l2 is 32 bit can win7 let them utilize ram up to 16gb (when it use sandboxes)... i wanna try 4 box in GoD (2 shops + 2 active play acc) and GoD client use more ram also after 24h in giran l2 is so big :)
2 x 4gb is little cheaper tha 4 x 4gb but u think 16gb will be used for 4 x GoD l2??? or it is poor waste (i am from poor country so even 50 bucks for extra quad-4gb need be verifed)
halp!
sorry for a late responce.. I've been using at work and .... well.... playing other games...
While using windows x64..... each individual 32bit program has access to it's maximum allowable limits.. so 2gb (4gb if the LAA flag is set which l2 isn't. but it can be using the LAA program on the l2.bin file if you rename it to exe and run only that file itself... BTW using the LAA program gives lineage II a pretty massive boost in load/performance in many cases.... really recommend it)
Personally... 8gb should be plenty for 4x L2.... however there is never anything wrong with going with more ram when you can....
Nop ... brand new games load 2 up to 3 cores. No game atm uses 4 cores simultaneously. Thus making the Core i5-2500K the gamer's choice for this year :)
try playing fsx in 1080p in full details..and dynamic weather:rolleyes:
actually there are numerous games that fully load 4 hardware cores very well.... it's the 6 core or more cpu's that aren't entirely fully utilized yet.
While using windows x64..... each individual 32bit program has access to it's maximum allowable limits.. so 2gb (4gb if the LAA flag is set which l2 isn't. but it can be using the LAA program on the l2.bin file if you rename it to exe and run only that file itself... BTW using the LAA program gives lineage II a pretty massive boost in load/performance in many cases.... really recommend it)
so, if i rename l2.bin to l2.exe and start .exe, it will "unlock" 2gb limit?
no.. simply renaming it only allows you to bypass the auto updater...... and running the game directly.... great for those having issues with trying to multi box...
To enable the Large Address Aware fuction for lineage II requires a 3rd party tool. By default almost all 32bit Programs/games have the LAA function disabled or unflagged. This is for "capability reasons".... Such in the case that if you don't have 4gb of ram or MORE, preferably more... then enabling this fuction could potentially break the game for you.. which isn't a big deal because if you experience problems.. just disable the LAA fuction.. or just delete the exe file and full check.. (it's always best to copy and paste the l2.bin file and rename the copy to l2.exe and use that one directly instead)
If you want to play with it.. do it at your own risk... neither i or ncsoft is responcible..
Just download, run the program, navigate to the lineage II/System folder and IF you have created a copy of the l2.bin file and renamed it to l2.exe, select that exe file ... then check the Large Address Aware box and click save....
Done.. now run the file directly and don't use the updater at all... otherwise it'll replace/delete the flagged file..... download the unchanged version and you'll have to repeat the LAA procedure again.