Keep in mind, even if you have a 64bit OS, the game itself is still 32bit. There is a limit to the amount of memory the OS can allocate to a 32bit application / program even if you have a 64bit OS. Those with 4GB will be in an optimal situation while the game still runs fine with 2GB - Higher then 4GB the game will never see or use. There is a huge benifit to having more memory though. You can setup a RAM-Drive and place a few of the highly accessed files on it; of course you'll have to tell the configuration file were this files new home is. RAM is still faster then a SSD drive, so it's still worth doing. Anyway, the above is just to add information to the topic that people tend to forget about. My main point is.. If you have 2GB memory you can benifit going to 4GB, but anything higher is just wasted as far as the game itself goes. You could go from 8GB to 32GB system memory and performance will not budge a bit.

While zoning I may get a 2 or 3 second "pause" but the rest of the time my drive is thrashing away loading data... I did do one Windows Tweak some months ago.. I Disable Nagle's algorithm.. Nagle's algorithm generally "clusters" small network packets together and sends them one time over the network.. By disabling it, small packets are sent without waiting... Worth looking into -NOT- recommended for novice computer users, and always make registry backups! Disable Nagle's algorithm (half way down the page). I will say that I generally have less latency issues then my friends.... No clue if this will help that TOR zoning "pause" though. i can only report that I rarely ever see a pause of more then 2 or 3 seconds (no activity) while zoning. [edit: typos - hate this g15 keyboard. :-/ ]

That would be insanly awesome...

I do know one person that plays and his load times are around 5 minutes.. His system, if I can remember it correctly.. is: 1.8Ghz Dual Core, 2GB System memory, Intel cheap mainboard, Radeon HD 6850, and a Junk 7200RPM Drive. His CPU is clearly the problem, to the point he dosne't even play anymore. :-/

Good information - thanks for the update.

Love all the chat on "pro" gaming and "my dad can beat up your dad" talk. If you do not have an offical sponcer and/or enter regular offical tournaments and/or on a backed league of players, you are not a "pro" gamer. A list a mile long of games, even if mostly in PvP, dose not make a person "Pro". I am not a "Pro-Driver" because I use to commute 3hr+ a day to work. It just dosen't work that way. All that nonsense aside... My computer is very old (P4 Wolfdale 3.2Ghz, 2GB Memory, GF260*, and a 1TB WD Drive, XP Pro) Shadows off, Bloom off and framerate between 40 and 70 most of the time. It will drop to <10FPS under extremely heavy (20v20+) PvP but that's an engine issue. It could be an OS bottleneck.. I've heard of less people having issues using XP Pro over Vista/Win 7 or 8. Might be worth it to snag XP-Lite and do another isolated install as a test.

I use a combination of both mouse and keyboard at the same time.. while using a trackball I can out-turn anyone using a mouse straight up or those using only keyboard movement. When it comes to mice.. they have to pickup and readjust their mouse pretty often.. with a trackball I have unlimited movement..

Well knowing the hardware dose matter and quite a bit - Example: If you have a ATI card it is suggested (by the devs) to enable AA as it will acctually -increase- FPS..... stuff like that..

Announcment of a NGE for TOR - This time the removale of all c haracter levels which will be replaced with devlopment points and skill trees....

Rumor has it, Ender Scrolls MMO is going to use Hero as well. Hope that rumor is incorrect though. :-/

This is in part of how your OS is setup. You can set it up to have preference (more CPU cycles) to forground programs (default) or to background programs (if your heavily multitasking). For Windows XP: Start > Control Panel > System > Advance Tab > Performance | Settings Button > Advance Tab > Processor Scheduling | Programs or Background Services

There deffinetly is... There are a few threads on how the game consistently access the same data files over and over and steadily. It's whats causing the shuttering when even walking around the fleet station. I feel the "awareness bubble" of ones avatar is set way too small which is causing some of the constent data access issues. Bassically, this game / engine is too hard drive intensive and could use major optimizations.

Isn't Eve the only MMO with concurrent numbers that high?

Bio-Beans - I imagine the lable being that crazy japanese-advertising style - crazy loud coloring, huge bold text, exclamation points everywhere.... haha.. - that made me smile.

Next MMO I'm looking forward too is Planetside 2. This is PvP at it's best, not a handful vs handful, or even dozens vs dozens, but hundreds vs hundreds. There were some issues with Planetside 1, but all in all some ofthe most balanced, massive scaled combat around that supported ground troops, support (medic or engineering), vehicle (from land, sea and air). It's also running on a built-from-scratch engine made just for it, and EQ3. Next, still a few years out, would be EQ3. They are pormising the game is mixing both the elements of EQ1 with those of EQ2 and the game will be a bit more "hardcore" over that of EQ2 with fewer classes like EQ1 (they had far too many classes in EQ2). If they stick to thier guns with this, it should turn out pretty good. What I don't want to see is another game with a ridiged hand-holding linear path. It has to exsist to some extent, but there should always be at least some sandbox elements at play.

I have a fairly old computer (P4 3.2Ghz Wolfdale, 2GB Ram, GF260, 1TB WD Black Drive) and the game, while it dose take a few moments to load some plants, It has never taken 10, or even 5 minutes to load an area. Pre- Patch 1.2 - I went into the game folder and found the loading screen jpeg and renamed it so it would no longer load. This had two effects. 1) it stopped the loading screen from randomally popping up durring game play (bug). and 2) When changing charcters I could select another character and hit "play" and load the game in under 10 seconds - yeah seconds. I was selecting and loading a character faster then the engine could unload all the game data from memory - so it didn't have to load it twice. It only had to load "new area" data, which isn't much. Post-Patch 1.2 - #1 still holds true. With #2 though, all data is removed from memory and reloaded from scratch while zoning now. period. No way around it. The trick I did above no longer lefts load times. The game went from "pretty snappy" zoning to "complete slug" zoning. There is no reason to unload and reload all data each time while zoning - it's completely inefficient and is forced upon us. Yeah we need to change zone data but we do not need to reload the special effects data, ect, ect, ect... each time. :-/ Anyway, just my observation.

+1 for knowing what farscape is.

No ones made a parody "hitler" clip yet?

I feel bad for the layoffs... On the other hand they should be getting an unprecedented two (or was it now three?) years of unemployment.. it's not perfect but it's better then the six months I got when "let go" from the industry. I wish them the best of luck.. It's a rough field out there at the moment, especially in the Art, 3d, devlopment / testing scene. :-/

There should of been three factions from the start - Empire, Republic and Neutral (or Hutt). I think the issue was thier class selection/structure - only really smuggler fit into neutral/hutt. :-/ Edit: and Bountyhunter...

I had a few dealings with GMs in EQ1 and always had a positive experiance with them. A few lost bodies, a few glitches where all my gear dissapeared off the character i was playing, while playing... good times and always corrected. A lot of poeple treat GMs like jerks, so why should they help someone thats treating them that way? :-/ And for the Content comment..... Sonys model is to release a expantion once a year.. they tried it a few times every six months but went back to about once a year... Far better then WoWs once every few years... heh.. EQ1: The Ruins of Kunark (April 2000) The Scars of Velious (December 2000) The Shadows of Luclin (December 2001) The Planes of Power (October 2002) The Legacy of Ykesha (February 2003) Lost Dungeons of Norrath (September 2003) Gates of Discord (February 2004) Omens of War (September 2004) Dragons of Norrath (February 2005) Depths of Darkhollow (September 2005) Prophecy of Ro (February 2006) The Serpent's Spine (September 2006) The Buried Sea (February 2007) Secrets of Faydwer (November 2007) Seeds of Destruction (October 2008) Underfoot (December 2009) House of Thule (October 2010) Veil of Alaris (November 2011) WoW: The Burning Crusade (first expansion) Wrath of the Lich King (second expansion) Cataclysm (third expansion) Mists of Pandaria (fourth expansion) EQ2: The Bloodline Chronicles - March 2005 (Adventure Pack) The Splitpaw Saga - June 2005 (Adventure Pack) Desert of Flames - September 2005 Kingdom of Sky - February 2006 The Fallen Dynasty - June 2006 (Adventure Pack) Echoes of Faydwer - November 2006 Rise of Kunark - November 2007 The Shadow Odyssey - November 2008 Sentinel's Fate - February 2010 Destiny of Velious - February 2011 Age of Discovery - December 2011 Blizzard Slacks... hehe.. [edit: added Eq2 to have a direct compare for WoW since they came out at the same time]

Did they change it back? About a year ago they added the F2P model across all their servers.. There is still an option to pay but that just unlocks some features, ok a lot of features. I can jump on my old server right now and play without paying a dime and use all my old characters I've had since launch... Ok, not exactly.. Since there is a restiction on Gear and Races i'd have to pay $10 for both unlocks, then nothing else and enjoy my old characters. Or I could pay the $15 a month and have both unlocked with that subscription fee... Really though, it's wiser to just pay the unlock fees and not the monthly fee.. $20 up front or $15 recurring.. :-/ Point taken though - since yeah - the game still technically has both models overlapping one another on all servers now.

16 Crunchy Tacos ~48 Cans of Coke

On the subject of Planetside2.... I'd imagine their devlopment costs are lower since there is very little in the way of story and voiceover work.. And gear should be a lot simpler to develop compared to an RPG styled game. But they did create a Game-engine from scratch -- that cost is divided since that same engine is being used for Everquest3. That's what's nice about some sandbox elements.. it lowers devlopment costs and players make their own entertainment.. Though, realistically, it's difficult to compare a RPG with a FPS at the devlopment cost level since they are different beasts.. I am looking forward to PS2.. PS1 was some of the best PVP ever to exsist.. Current FPS (and RPGs) that limit battles to just a dozen or more per team in an "arena".. that's just embarassing.. heh. Could TOR work with a free-to-play model? I would. Will it go that road? only time will tell. heck even EQ2 went F2P a year or so ago..

Here is the part -you- edited out.. If your going to quote someone quote the whole thought, not just a few sentances to make a point... If anything you got me on not adding "Ect... ect.. ect..." But the point was still clearly made that the listed amount did not include all expenses... I could add a dozen more things to your list, but see how I'm not?