EQ2 Official Support for Windows XP Ending in June 2016
In November 2014, the EverQuest II team spent additional time debugging the game’s graphically demanding Altar of Malice expansion to make sure the game continued to work on the end-of-life Windows XP and soon-to-follow Windows Vista. In November 2015, further effort was expended making sure the in-game Marketplace supported these obsolete systems. However it seems that time is running out on legacy Windows support.
According to an announcement on the EQ2 Forums, EverQuest II will receive some kind of update in June 2016 which will render the game unplayable on Windows XP. Vista may share the same fate at some future date. While it may be possible to institute further workarounds to get the game working, players will not receive official support from Daybreak in these attempts.
As mentioned in the Terrors of Thalumbra expansion, the minimum system requirements to run EverQuest 2 at this time is Windows 7 and we have not offered support for [previous] systems since it’s launch in 2015. While an older OS may have continued to function, after the first game update in June these may no longer be able to run the game in an optimal manner.
Please ensure you have reviewed the specifications here.
Windows XP, introduced in 2001, is fully end-of-life and stopped receiving any kind of security or stability updates on April 8, 2014. It should not be used except on internet-disabled computers for mission critical applications. Windows Vista, introduced in 2006, will reach its official end-of-life next April 11, 2017 and will no longer receive updates either. The announcement thread is locked from any customer replies, so clearly the topic has reached an “end of discussion” stage.
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Comments (27)
Xalmat
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About time. I understand some people are resistant to changing their OS, but WinXP has long since been put out to pasture (and WinVista might as well be).
This should hopefully free up dev resources to focus on more modern OSs.
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zerigo
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you might think its out to pasture, but close to 20% of computer users are still on window xp. By far, windows most popular os, even after windows quit releasing security updates.
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Xalmat
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Not just security updates, but updates of any kind. Not to mention much of the more common software (like Chrome, Firefox) and much of the newer hardware out there won’t support XP at all. Only a matter of time til websites like Facebook stop working on older versions of Chrome and Firefox…
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Hoot
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Most of those computer users are from Africa and Asia ect.
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Archangel
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“EverQuest II will receive some kind of performance update in June 2016” EQ2Wire
“EQ2 is a very CPU intensive game and mostly just uses a single core. So getting a setup with the most powerful CPU will give you the best help. We mostly just use the video card for shadows, so any current video card should be plenty good we do not take a lot of advantage of the high end GPUs… yet.” Maevianiu Developer, 2014
Hopefully something to offload more CPU graphic processes to GPUs, i.e. take “advantage of the high end GPUs”?
Tom’s Hardware – “Many next gen games seem to require really powerful CPUs for example … H1Z1 needs hyper-threading or a quad core.”
IGN – “some of the most processor-intensive games out on the market” … “Planetside 2”
DC Universe Online – “I would say this game is probably more CPU intensive”
Hmmm, Sigh, maybe not.
/*
GPU intensive:
“Doom maintained a solid 60 fps for the first minute of footage. As soon as the framerate was uncapped, though, the FPS immediately skyrocketed to 150 fps and higher, and it rarely dropped below 120 fps for the remainder of the gameplay.”
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/id-software-doom-vulkan-gtx-1080-nvidia,31756.html
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Feldon
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I’m sure it’s more a matter of memory management and system calls and things like that.
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Archangel
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Based on the number of detailed EQ2 forum posts, fixing the memory leak (“memory management”) issues would be a good thing.
” http://massivelyop.com/2015/06/12/planetside-2-discontinues-support-for-32-bit-client/ ” Feldon
“The shift to widespread use of 64-bit operating hardware and systems is a good thing” massivelyop
HINT TO MANAGEMENT. EQ2 migration to 64-bit, and multi-core processing, would be a good thing too. Short term expensive, but still a good thing IF DBG wants to keep EQ2 around a long time.
And offloading to the GPU. Because EQ2 will move toward obsolescence and unplayability, along with other DBG titles, IF DBG continues to count on the CPU to drive games.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/the-end-of-moores-law-why-the-theory-that-computer-processors-will-double-in-power-every-two-years-10394659.html
“according to Brian Krzanich, the current chief executive of Intel, the era of Moore’s Law may be coming to a natural end. In a discussion with analysts on Wednesday night, he admitted that while his firm had “disproved the death of Moore’s Law many times over”, its next generation of microprocessors would take slightly longer to produce.” … “If other ways of building faster processors cannot be found, consumers may begin to notice that their latest phone or laptop is not that much faster than their old one, experts said.” 2015
Very true in 2016.
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-2600K/3502vs621
@4.0GHz Skylake (2015)
@3.4GHz Sandy Bridge (2011)
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-2600K
“Intel Core i7 6700K vs 2600K”
“Around 20% higher clock speed”
Devs may get brand new hot off the presses computers/CPUs, but for consumers it’s easier and cheaper to upgrade a GPU than a CPU.
Although with DBG moving toward console compatible games, they may no longer care about desktop gaming.
sigh
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Eschia
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As long as I can still play under Linux through WINE as usual.
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Mysstie
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Well, looks like Windows 7 is safe until January 2020. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle
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Lucus
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No worries that gives us 4 years for someone to find a way to shut down all the phone home functionality in win10 or install a version of linux with WINE.
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Milliebii
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The most obnoxious feature (network password sharing) will disappear in July. The other ‘phone home’ functionality can be disabled. Installing something like Spybot Beacon will do the trick and monitor for any Microsoft reversion of settings.
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Noctew
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Hmm….64-bit support maybe? Windows 7 was more or less the Windows version where 64-bit installations became common. XP did have a 64 bit version but it didn’t work too well and Vista…well Vista was an unmitigated disaster anyways. And 64 bit implies SSE2 instructions which a CPU bound engine would really benefit from.
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Xalmat
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A disturbingly high number of people still use 32-bit Windows, even Windows 10.
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Feldon
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It’s appalling that Windows 10 even has a 32 bit version.
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Xalmat
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No kidding Feldon. But I can think of a few technical and business reasons, namely being able to upgrade directly from 7 to 10 (32-bit Win7 can only directly upgrade to 32-bit Win10, same with 64-bit, unless you want to wipe your hard drive).
Unfortunately the need for Daybreak to support EQ2 on 32-bit versions of Windows will persist for the foreseeable future whether we like it or not. Maybe future games released by Daybreak can target 64-bit only, though.
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Feldon
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http://massivelyop.com/2015/06/12/planetside-2-discontinues-support-for-32-bit-client/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/237752/how_to_force_x64_client_to_run_now_that_its/
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Lucus
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In gaming you ether keep up with the requirements or you end up in the dust.
There’s nothing that could stop someone from having a 32 and 64 bit operating systems side-by-side on the same machine for legacy programs.
PS2 is 64bit only now and i imagine it makes the devs jobs easier reducing the work they have to do to make sure it works with the operating system.
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Moose
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I love XP and honestly hated moving to Win 7&8&8.1 but I now love them. As far as10 goes it can honestly **** off.
I will be the 8.1 guy until I see something better than current version of 10.
I am surprised that eq2 didn’t end XP support at end of 2014-2015 window.
Well maybe with 7-10 as the main focuses we can see better gameplay on them with more instructions pushed to the graphic card/cards.
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Hoot
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If someone happens to complain about this then they should be aware XP is a 15 year old OS and is no longer supported by MS therefore they’re at a very risk of having their computer breached. I’m aware a move to a new OS can be hard, but you ultimately have to. It’s the equivalent of someone using Windows 2 from 1990 when EQ2 was released in 2004.
I love Windows 7 btw. Best OS ever.
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Seni
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Wow DBG, thanks for the notice.
June 2016 is a week away, and according to Feldon here, they are planning on actively disabling login by XP machines, not just no longer supporting it. This does not give anyone time to upgrade, especially people who have to buy an entirely new machine.
The reason many people are still using XP is because of lack of funds to buy a newer machine that will support Windows 7 or 8. These are students, retirees, and everyone in between. I know many people in this predicament, but the one person I’m worried about is a retiree and this game is pretty much all he plays.. he’s on for over 10 hours a day and loves it. He does not have the money for a new computer, and this move will completely cut him off from his favorite game. And he can’t be the only one. He doesn’t do anything else on the computer, even browse the internet very much. Just EQ2.
While the move to not supporting XP probably needs to be done by the company (I get that), it seems like they actively looked for the worst way to do it. I’m not complaining that it’s happening – I’m complaining about how they’re doing it.
They could have gone about this a lot better. Giving a deadline 2-3 months out would have gone a long way to helping their customers out of the jam this will create for many. A newer computer is a large-ticket item to many people, and that would have given them the time to save up for one.
After having supported XP for so long, this sudden “not supporting it in a week, sucks to be you!” move is pretty screwed up.
However.. the forum post says:
and Feldon says:
“In an optimal manner” is very different from “you can’t play at all,” so which is it? My friend could limp along for a couple months while saving for a new machine, but the prospect of no EQ2 for 2 months while saving is likely to piss him off so badly he may not bother. This is just one customer; I don’t know how others feel about it, but I do know him.
On another note, I hope they sent emails about it out to members and are not relying on one forum post to get the word out.
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Noctew
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Are you really sure that his computer will not run Win 7? The minimum requirements are 1 GHz / 1 GByte / 16 GB HDD / DirectX 9 card. It’s really hard to imagine anyone playing EQ2 on a computer which does not meet that…
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Seni
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Yes, sure. I’m not in his immediate vicinity, but he had someone knowledgeable look at his machine with the intent of upgrading and installing 7, and the outcome was that the existing hardware would not support it, plus any possible upgrades would be minimal and not worth the money. He actually did upgrade his video card recently because he was having a lot of trouble logging in without video memory, but that’s been it.
Just saw a batch of laptops come out of a business that went under, that won’t support the upgrade to 7. So yeah, there are a lot out there.
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Katz
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There are probably people who get rid of computers that would work for this man and others in similar situations. Too bad there isn’t some way to easily match people with functional used computers.
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Feldon
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Sometimes I get more information than what is in the official post. This is one of those cases.
Unless your friend’s computer is over 10 years old, it will likely run Windows 7. Windows XP is a *15 year old* operating system. Trying to keep EQ2 compatible with XP is preventing the rest of us from getting performance improvements.
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Seni
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I figured as much, that’s why I specifically asked.
Seriously, that’s BS for people in this situation. Why actively disable certain machines with only a week’s notice?
See my reply to the above comment for upgrade-ability.
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Seni
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Oh, and I understand the reasons behind the move.. said that in the post. It’s the week’s notice I’m pissed about.
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Hoot
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I don’t believe one second that people ‘lack the funds’ unless you’re super poor. I graduated high school in 2007 and over the years in college I never encountered many people using Windows XP after 2009. XP is no longer supported as an OS by MS. The people who are using XP that you mentioned are in great danger and should have stopped using it ASAP after Microsoft no longer gave out security patches. There was plenty of time for users to jump ship and upgrade. Seriously, in this day and age a low tier PC is probably 5-10x more powerful then the PC built or bought when you installed Windows XP.
Come to think of it, I wonder if they’re are people in this day and age that would complain about how there are no CD disks anymore that their ancient toasters can only use. I remember ten years ago when KoS came out and SoE released 9 CD in the box since the crybabies refused to buy a $50 dvd drive.
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