Everquest 2 Shader 3.0 Slideshow, Part 1

MrEddieLomax Says:

Dec 3, 2009 - Ok, just looking at the WoW human model cast a spell, its awful and looks like an action man its so ropey, in contrast EQ2 has motion captured animations.That's a key difference with WoW, it looks and feels cartoony/like a computer game, that's an advantage in some areas but isn't as believable.And unlike WoW EQ2 when it comes to undead skeletons really looks different, in contrast WoW's are all scaled humans, I always found it odd that all the bones in the world were human.

phaedruslive Says:

Dec 4, 2009 - @MrEddieLomax the truth is wow isn't a rpg in the purest sense. certainly not in the same way as ultima and eq. you can tell that they put a lot of effort into making the world of norrath believable wheras blizzard just wanted theirs to be entertaining

archchunk Says:

Dec 6, 2009 - They decided not to add it into GU52 so we gotta wait a bit more...darn..lol

valkour22 Says:

Dec 6, 2009 - aion's new graphic update makes this look like pure crap lolol,sry eq2

kelaEQ2 Says:

Dec 6, 2009 - @valkour22 You are aware that this video was taken from a projected image, in a lite room, with a still camra, at 320x240 right? That said I played in the Aion beta right befor launch and unless they had a graphics update in the 3months or so sence thier US launch, only the Landscape looked better, the player models where accually worst IMO, atleast at the highest settings, that is pritty sad for a 2y/o game, when compaired to a game built on 10y/o tech. Oh and that is not including this addtion

jstrang01 Says:

Dec 6, 2009 - does anyone know if this shader 3.0 upgrade is going to change the system requirements when it comes to graphics card, if so and my graphics card wont handle it is the feature going to be optional?

jcodbf2 Says:

Dec 8, 2009 - On some of them I can tell a difference .. In others it looks like the player torch is all that is different.

kelaEQ2 Says:

Dec 9, 2009 - @jstrang01 they way it looks right now, my understanding is that they will have the normal Shader 1.0 option wich will not change any requirments. To use Shader 3.0 you do need atleast a DX9.0 card, and there is a performance drop-off for "lesser" video cards that support SM3.0. So basically it will expand somewhat the benifit you get for having highend cards, and for the rest it will be the same.

kelaEQ2 Says:

Dec 9, 2009 - @jcodbf2 The issue is the method of recording the video, with my little point and shoot still camera that at best takes video at 640x480, though for this I think it was half that, in a convention room at a projection. In person the differances where far more noticable. Also if you goto the EQ2 Forum, and Dev Track Imago-Quem you will find post he made that show the differances far better. He is the one working on this change.

jcodbf2 Says:

Dec 10, 2009 - Thats cool.. Just saying that I have seen ( I am sure most of us have ) similar comparisons and it very rarely turns out to be as good as the demo shots.

kelaEQ2 Says:

Dec 10, 2009 - @jcodbf2 True screen shots are taken with top of the line machines and highest settings, as FPS is not an issue.

Bonerot666 Says:

Dec 10, 2009 - So when's this shader 3.0 out?

kelaEQ2 Says:

Dec 11, 2009 - Latest guess by the Devs is the same Live Update that brings the expainsion in Feb. Though it was supposed to be in the next update for the last 2 updates as well. Though we where informed well ahead of time if when the delays happened.

Bonerot666 Says:

Dec 13, 2009 - Alright, thanks bro!

MephistophelesMyLord Says:

Dec 28, 2009 - I'm wondering how high I can have the display on my laptop,if anyone knows about this stuff can you PM me so I can give you my specs?

abowlofsoda Says:

Jan 7, 2010 - It looks like they all they are doing is clicking on GPU shadows and Flora in some of these screenshots

jcodbf2 Says:

Mar 9, 2010 - It seems they are still having trouble getting S3.0 to work properly. The last thing I read was that its still only on the test server and it has issues.This was a month or so ago I guess so I dont know if they ironed anything out yet or not.

kelaEQ2 Says:

Mar 10, 2010 - that is my understanding too, if you follow the dev Imago-Quem on the EQ2 boards he regularly gives updates on where they are at.

jcodbf2 Says:

Mar 14, 2010 - This is what happens when you jump the gun and code the game CPU heavy. Would have been an easy addition but I guess they have to recode a ton of things.

kelaEQ2 Says:

Mar 14, 2010 - It wasn't really jumping the gun, so much as Building for the Future, right before a sea change in how PCs get more powerful, one that at the time of development, no one was predicting.

jcodbf2 Says:

Mar 14, 2010 - But they werent building for the future.. CPUs at the time were ahead of GPUs and so they panicked and coded the game for that time period.It was a shortsighted decision and it has held the game hostage as far as performance goes.

kelaEQ2 Says:

Mar 14, 2010 - Actually they where, remember the game is nearing is 6 year of release, and it was in development for almost 5 years prior to that, So we are talking 1998 time frame, back then it was all about ever faster CPU Core speeds, and DX 6 had just come out. GPUs where still called Graphics ACCELERATORS as most of the processing was still done on the CPU, and they also wanted to build in SOME backward capability. Looking back now it was obviously wrong, but at the time it looked like the safe bet.

jcodbf2 Says:

Mar 19, 2010 - EQ2 was not being developed in 1998.. EQ1 had just released or was about to.SOE just isnt a very smart company.

kelaEQ2 Says:

Mar 19, 2010 - your right my mistake on the math, the dev that is speaking in this footage has stated he is working on Ten Year old code, that would put it around 2000, but would still be developing for DX6(as DX7 was ME exclusive), and they wanted it to be as backward compatible as possible, and even back then remember you needed a very high end computer to run it well.

xenoclix Says:

Apr 18, 2010 - OOwoWOOWO owooooo wooooo OO OO OO O all you hear from the crowd ahaha i laughed. But seriously awesome stuff!, might give it a go again :D!