Question for Computer Experts

[Justinious]

This is a bit far afield from the normal Paladin question, but I would appreciate any input on my soon to be made new computer purcase. My Dell Precision 390 and its Nvidia GeForce card don't like EQ and I need to upgrade for other reasons. I am probably stuck working with HP options, so any specific recommendations for an HP tower model that would work well with EQ (as opposed to fighting and crashing it), would be apprecaited.

Thanks in adavnce. This group has always had good insight and I look forward to seeing what you have to say.

Justinious

[Normy]

The game has been around for over 10 years at this point. Nothing about any modern hardware that I've ever heard of will cause any problems with everquest. I did manage to come across one computer that has one odd glitch with EQ that for the life of me I can't isolate and fix, but I figure that's a random shot in the dark.

So if anything, you should be concerned with OS, that is the only thing that would make EQ crash that wouldn't also make the rest of your computer crash. I use Windows XP pro with 0 issues. I've seen it run just fine on Vista, I've not bought a copy of Windows 7 to try it out, but aside from the random mutterings about directx 10 and how it works with EQ, I've not seen alot of problems there either.

As for specific models, i don't know off the top of my head. Anything with a dedicated graphics card, the higher-end the card the better, but that's all budget restricted. I mean, if I wanted to tell you the best computer Dell has for running EQ, it would most likely be their top-end model and the most expensive thing they make.

[Thessiuss]

Had a DELL, hated the DELL, will never buy a DELL again. Every important piece of the Dell that i bought (some precision thing 5 years ago) has failed; the hard drive, the ram, DVD player/burner, motherboard (was the BIOS), and at last the power supply. After the second crash of the comp within the 2nd year of having it (and after lots of their horrible customer service bull shit), i learned how to build a computer. It took some time to learn, but i seriously got 3x the power for about 1/3 the cost of HP and Dell (btw, i'm still using the DELL keyboard, that's all that's left :p).

While i know my experience with DELL isn't the same as everyone else, I'm pretty sure people who build their own computers (order parts from places like newegg.com, geeks.com) are a lot more satisfied with the price and performance.

If you're looking to have someone build it for you and don't care about the cost (cheaper to build yourself), then i'd suggest ibuypower.com. HP, gateway, etc tend to be more expensive for the same amount of performance as other areas (550 for a dual core vs quad core intel from others, etc). Technically you're paying extra for the 'name brand'.

http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/Gamer_Pa ... 75#PageTop ... there's one fitting for this forum /nod.

[knytul]

putting alot of the biased peanut gallery aside, its not so much about Dell, or HP, or Compaq, etc that u should be looking into. You said you have a My Dell Precision 390 and its Nvidia GeForce card. If you look here (viewtopic.php?f=35&t=7330) at someone else's previous experience and YES, ive had the SAME issue which is why i switched off of them, its individual pieces inside the computer u should be looking at, regardless of the brand name of the company that built it.

[knytul]

@Normy, i ran EQ on Win 7 and had some Minor adjustments i had to make, but overall ran like a champ.

[shiftie]

I've run eq on vista and 7 in the last year and both ran it ok boxing and what not. Outside of eq Vista was shit and lived up to all the hate people pissed on it. I like 7 quite a bit as upgrades over the older windows versions.

[Kruzar]

I just recently upgraded one of my computers to a new Toshiba Laptop, and it is running Windows 7... didn't really have any issue installing EQ once I got the power management setup correctly to allow the massive download via the patcher... It is just a really long download for a fresh copy of EQ... I did have to do a little searching the DirectX component, update maps, load UI files, etc etc.. but it wasn't that bad... I currently 2 box on the computer with little to no lag, and the OS really doesn't give me any issue when running it. One thing I do like is that is shows little windows when you alt tab, and you can kinda see which window you are pulling up in windowed mode. I also like the extended desktop, and I generally have one window on my laptop screen, and the other window on my main monitor.

Just about any hardware these days will run EQ, my suggestion is get Windows 7.. its user friendly, and seems to be stable so far. Skip Vista... Run from Vista...

[Ozgarde]

Been running Vista 64-bit since it launched. It had a rocky beginning, but it's fine now. I can understand why people dropped it like a hot rock early on, but the hate is pretty much residual at this point. I run EQ on it without issue, though you do need to make sure and run it as an administrator. New PC? I'd go with Windows 7. It's a bit nicer user experience than previous versions of Windows.

[WaringMcMarrin]

[Axeion]

My system can dual boot win xp or vista.Xp needs to be reformated an reinstalled . Vista has been rock solid for me since service patch 3.But its a non issure as its rare to even find a copy of vista now.You can xp still an win 7 of course.
Id stay from sli unless its the newest cards nvidea 400s .It can be more trouble than its worth.Runing two 260gtx max oc cards an some games i have to disable sli becaue get odd grafic oddities like the sun shining threw walls an characters.

[kerneth]

Lotsa talk about high powered computers ect. Ill tell ya. I got An hp(Model p6557c) running stock ( 2.80 g processor, 4g of ram, 64 bit windows 7, embeded video card) from sams club. and i can listen to music (pandora gadget) and 2 box with no lag. Some time its about relaxing and hunting slowly and carfully for a deal. Patience is a vertue