1. Make sure you have the newest drivers for the video card incase you are having issues with the graphics you are seeing now.
2. Check for spyware.. small programs in computer that can slow down computer and give out your personal information to websites.
Spybot good spyware remover program that will also block about 9700 of the sites that put spyware junk in your computer. Free
Ad-Aware another spyware remover that is free.
3. If you know how to set a permanent pagefile/swapfile size it can help. You can also set a static pagefile/swapfile on a flash drive since a flash drive is much faster then slow ide/scsi/sata drives.
4. You will also want to defragment your hardrive.. in windows you can do this by clicking start\programs\accessories\systemtools\disk defragmenter.
A better program for this is at Diskeeper its a trial and then you have to pay for it if you like it. Defragmenting can decrease your loading times in between zones.
5. If you get headaches from being in front of the screen to long you may want to goto your control panel then then to the monitor settings and set the refresh rate from 60hz to 75hz on newer monitors.. I do not know the correct setting for lcds yet.
6. A small fps boost can be from going into options while in EQ and under the display options click on tripple buffering. This basically helps keep some data in a buffer for faster access. Also, if you notice the screen seems to flicker when turning or running and seems weird, you might want to turn on vsync also with the tripple buffer setting.
7. Very small tweak not even for EQ but I know it bothers a lot of people when they right click on the desktop and it takes a while to load the small menu. Intel Desktop properties fix
8. Another way to save on system resources is to type msconfig in the run box from the start menu. When it brings up the menu you will click on startup, from here you can choose what programs start when windows starts. You will only want to do this if you know what programs you don't need to start. You can usually stop the realsched one and the quicktime one listed in there. You won't need these 2 programs for Everquest.
9. You can also look into programs usually called modem tweakers or broadband tweakers. It lets you change settings that you use when connecting to the internet and can either make your load times faster or slower. You must use these with caution.
10. One other option is kinda costly. You could get a Sound Blaster sound card if you are currently using a onboard sound card. This will help keep your cpu from doing almost all of the sound processing. The current card that gives the biggest fps boost in intense combat scenes so far is the Sound Blaster X-fi. Nice bonus is that it plays can play 128 sounds all at once and sounds well on 5 or 7 speaker systems. Sound Blaster updates for the updates available for your Sound Blaster card. Might wanna let it scan on its own for updates in your system to make it easier.
11. Lol forgot to mention. Try to make sure your drivers are all current for any hardware installed on the computer. If you are using any kind of firewall, you might wanna tell it to let EQ have complete access cause so far this is the only way I can play. I have it set to monitor EQ and so far I have never had any people messing with my EQ account.
12. Windows Update is also good for small fixes that could somehow affect EQ. You might wanna run through Windows Update and download all the critcal updates.
13. You can always over clock your video card or computer if you wanna risk it. I just won't tell you how lol cause then I would be blamed for a fried computer.
14. Chipset drivers are another part of the computer that everybody usually over look. There are usually drivers for every kind of motherboard so you will want to check with the motherboards website to see if there are any updates. If you need to find out what motherboard you have you can download System Analyzer this program can pretty much tell you every single thing you wanna know about your computer.
15. Under the user inferface options, you can disable smooth screen fonts. This will give a decent fps boost on most systems. The only bad part is the text looks different and some people won't like it. This is from a previous post on here and is not my own. I will put the link to it as soon as I can find it.
16. You can also speed up load times by adding a setting to the registry. Every time Windows Xp accesses a file it takes time to put a time stamp on that file showing when you last accessed the file. You can read out to add it from this link Disable Last Ntfs Access stamp