Everquest: Shadows of Luclin

The release of the highly anticipated expansion set to the popular Everquest series caused quite a buzz within the online gaming community. This online behemoth boasts a subscriber database of nearly 400,000 users, all eager to explore vast landscapes in a total of 24 zones occupied by familiar and newly introduced races with their own individual lifestyle and culture. The graphical improvements during social and combat scenes are truly overwhelming, illustrated by higher polygon counts, enhanced texture depth and elaborate life-like facial animations, rivaling movie scenes in Hollywood.

The following pictures are courtesy of Sony Online: http://everquest.station.sony.com/

Sony Online and Verant Software really pushed the envelope on technology utilizing 32-bit color support, extensive use of hardware transform and lighting and full DirectX 8.1 support. The game developers introduced an extraordinary new technology called UMBRA, which increases frame rates within the game despite all the upgraded visual bliss that would otherwise slowdown game playability. In order to experience this cutting edge technology, hardware system requirements had to be bumped up, including a correct installation of DirectX 8.1.

Some users may have encountered an error message after the initial game installation regarding a 3D graphic accelerator not being properly detected. This may appear if DirectX 8.0 is currently installed in the system and must be upgraded to DirectX 8.1. The Everquest Support team has provided a comprehensive guide on upgrading to the latest DirectX version that will resolve the error message. It calls for installing DirectX 8.1 by following the onscreen prompts in its setup program. The video driver must then be set to the Standard Display Adapter (VGA) followed by installations of the latest video AND sound card drivers. Full details are available in this installation guide that can be accessed on Everquest's support page.