Game switching between realtime and bullettime (its weird)

Fosug

Dalayan Beginner
I am utterly new to SoD. I was dropped into the world as an Iksar Monk into the dreamworld and I appeared to be running very slowly compared to the normal runspeed in old Everquest. Because it was a dreamworld I wrote it off as a neat effect (albeit annoying), and wandered around until I found The Last and was teleported to Grobb. There I had the exact same problem. I altered my in-game graphics settings (turned them to max), and for some reason that fixed the problem half of the time. Now I have spurts of normal run speed and spurts of bullettime. During bullettime my framerate appears unchanged (I have 1gig of ram, x600, and a 2.4 64bit processor running 32bit win xp), my mouse move normally, other creatures also move at bullettime speed but them lag to the location they would be at were they moving at a normal rate. Also, when I camp my 30 second timer runs very slowly (about 2x longer than 30 seconds). My computer runs other more memory intensive games normally, although I have not tried EQ live to check for consistency. For this reason I believe that the problem is unique to either SoD or Everquest. It may also be important (although I hope it isnt) that I am using a laptop. Lastly, I have lag problems similar to the in-game bullettime in both the login and server select screens (the mouse is really jumpy and the scroll bar for system messages at the top of the server screen moves VERY slowly). Thanks for any help or advice you can provide.
 
I've experienced something like this as well. My problem was that I'm running on a laptop, and if the charger isn't plugged in, I'll get the 'bullet time' effect that you mentioned. From you computer specs, I'm guessing you aren't using a laptop, so I don't know what it could be in your case.
 
Bah, my bad. It was like 3am for me when I read his post. That's a nice laptop (or mine's pretty crappy) and now my post may actually be helpful.
 
There is a powerplay setting that minimizes graphics use while the power cord is unplugged. When I unplug my computer while EQ is running it slows down a great deal more than its standard running speed, then it returns to normal bullet time when I plug it back in. Disabling this feature has no effect.

It seems now that the only conceivable reason for this problem is my laptop. Is there some support newer games offer for laptops that EQ didn't? New games (EQ2, WoW, Guild Wars, AOE3) run fine, its just everquest that suffers. Its memory and cpu usage are minimal (I checked the task manager). I have tried both the ATI drivers and a hacked version (which have worked far better), and nothing changes.

It is as if it has nothing to do with my graphics. Like I said before, my framerate is unchanged during bullet time, but things happen more slowly. Any thoughts?
 
I had this problem using an XP3500+ with speedstep(whatever) and using EQPlaynice. Still, sounds like it could be related to cpu scaling of some kind (as exists on most / all modern laptops). If you use EQPN try not using it. You can also try turning off the laptop cpu scaling.
 
Download this hotfix (for mobile and smp machines)
http://exphose.com/upfiles/1/Window...-v3-x86-ENU.exe
Edit the registry thus:
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=896256
Code:
1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Right-click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager, point to New, and then click Key.
3. Type Throttle for the new key name.
4. Right-click Throttle, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
5. Type PerfEnablePackageIdle for the value name.
6. Right-click PerfEnablePackageIdle, and then click Modify.
7. In the Value data box, type 0. Make sure that Hexadecimal is selected in the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, and then click OK.
Note You can type 1 in the Value data box to enable the new performance state policy behavior.
8. Quit Registry Editor.

Use the DWORD in that value at 0 to turn off this hotfix, 1 to turn it on.

Hope this helps.
 
I posted a solution in the FAQ, but in case you didn't find it, try these things:

1) Go to your desktop->right click->properties->screen saver->power->power schemes

Change it to home/office desk.
This fixed it for me. Go figure.

2) Go to your desktop->right click->properties->settings->advanced

Find something that references 'power saving' while the cord is unplugged. This will be different (and possibly not present) for different video cards. Disable it.

3) Copy your eqclient.ini folder to the desktop (to create a backup), delete the old one, and patch to live. Apparently it breaks easily. This was a solution I found on the EQ boards, but it did not help me.




Hope this helps!
 
i play on a dell 610 laptop, the only "bullet time" is when i am on the char select screen.
Machine has 1gig of ram.. and plays EQ fine.
 
Think I found the issue ... it's with the Intel Speedstep, if you disable this via the software install it should fix it, or turn it off in the Bios, or switch your laptop to Home/Office via power management in the display options. This means your laptop will always run at whatever your processor speed is, so if you run on battery it will get sucked up a lot faster, keep that in mind.

For myself, I just disabled it in the bios since I don't run my laptop off battery too often. This way my power management settings stay the same if I leave my machine idle. :)

Cheers.

Xardon
 
Probably something to do with the speedstep thing on laptops. I installed EQ on my GF's PC , an ACER with 1.73ghz P4M, X700 ATI, 1Gb ram. But I thought the speedstep setting would only work when the PC is using the battery...and this one I plug all the time.
Anyway she's not gonna play SoD, just wanted to see how it looks in 1440*900 (doh looks so nice) and anyway I got this disconnection problem all the time under 1minute playing...too bad.
 
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