I'm pretty sure they haven't recoded to take advantage of multiple cores, so a dual core wouldn't actually see any real benefit. The newest 45nm quad cores from Intel are apparently OC'ing to like 4ghz per core, so those might get close. Videocard doesn't seem to be the choke point, it seems to be all processor. If Sony would put in the time and funding to revamp the game to be multithreaded, then we'd see some amazing playable graphics.
On a A64 4000+ san diego with 2 gigs of good ram and a 7800GT, I can play on "High Quality". There are 2 steps above this, Very High Quality and Extreme Quality. For this game, there are an incredible amount of options to tinker with, and given the time and willpower, I could probably match the graphics of very high quality without a noticable performance hit. Graphically though, high quality is very pretty and quite satisfying for me. Every once in a while, someone will claim to be able to crank everything to max and not have gameplay issues. They must be playing in a void with no other players or mobs though, or they must have missed some options, like environmental and offscreen shadows. Short answer - I don't honestly believe that any current system / driver configuration can crank every graphic option to max in EQ2.
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