PC Drivers & Software

[GCS24]

I just submitted this as a trouble ticket but thought I might also pose the problem here...

I recently upgraded my computer, key changes as follows:

Old:
AMD 5700G with Integrated graphics

New:
AMD 5900x CPU with Radeon RX 7600XT

All other components are the same (and I have a 850 watt power supply).

Everything I play runs and looks much improved except my favorite game (Everquest) went from about 60fps to in some cases less then 5fps, making it unplayable.

I did all the usual stuff, did a clean install (Windows, Game, Drivers, Etc). Nothing seemed to help. The new system is *much faster* on most benchmarks but for Everquest it’s a huge downgrade.

To duplicate the problem, go to the “Twilight Sea” in Everquest and look south to the horizon. The frame rate will drop to about 3fps with the 7600XT+5900X CPU but gives well over 60fps with the 5700g.

I have read online this is a problem with the AMD Adrenalin drivers for cards newer then the 6000 series (not supporting some legacy game tech). However the 3rd party “wrap” solutions out there don’t work because Everquest now runs 64bit and uses it’s own Directx 11.

Any help is appreciated...
Thank you.

[GCS24]

I've tried setting the core affinity to both a single core and to "all cores".   No change either way. Windows task manager shows around 6% utilization which makes since  with a 12 core 24 thread processor.  Also noting I get similar results with the CPU part on the 5700g, which comes in at about 8% on an 8 core 16 thread processor. The problem appears to be the AMD drivers for  the newer7000 series cards since the older 5700g integrated graphics (and I assume other AMD products from that era) work just fine.

I further confirmed this with the Windows task manager performance window open while running the game. The 7600xt GPU utilization was a mere 0 to 1 % with a frame rate of 4fps or below when viewing the horizon in Everquest's zone "The Twilight Sea". I tried the same on the 5700g and got around 90fps with GPU utilization of ~50%. So, clearly the GPU hardware acceleration on the 7600xt is not engaging properly.

The solution is for AMD to address this problem and make the drivers of the new hardware compatible with what worked on my 5700g Integrated processor.  Noting the 5700g is new enough to where only Windows 10 and up will run on it.  This is not DOS and 16 bit games we are talking about here.  Everquest has been adapted by it's current developers to be 64bit & Directx 11 compatible.    I think AMD needs to step up on this one.

Any further suggestions would be appreciated

[Denmer]

Been in the same boat since Mischief hit Kunark. Was able to fix all the issues using DXVK until a bit before the Dx11 swap.

One thing that I did a month or so ago that improved performance a bit(less hitching/better FPS at player piles, not a true fix for the issue), I moved my eqclient.ini out of the EQ game folder and started EQ up to generate a new one. Pasted in all the customized settings below [TextColors] from the old .ini and then disabled UseLitBatches as one of the devs recommended on the EQ forums. I should mention that UseLitBatches was already disabled before refreshing the .ini though. After I did that, no more hitching, besides that 1-2 sec freeze after being logged in for a few mins but I think that's something else. Recommended to a few guildies and they claimed they also no longer had hitching. I think there's some lines in there not in use or that their usage was swapped but not updated. *shrug*

You will have to fix resolution and all that afterwards as well as some options settings. That is if you haven't already tried this.

Though that all seems to have gone out the window when I updated to the preview driver, FPS dropping all over the place in raid. I guess I could roll back, but meh, raid logging.

This is on a 5600x CPU/6800XT GPU, Windows 11 and the game capped at 60 FPS, frame drops hoooo.