I have been a tank/healer in every MMO I have played. From what I understand, those against Dual Spec would prefer that all of us tanks/healers that want to dual spec in order to pvp/pve with something different, just roll DPS. I'm sure that will be extremely helpful when everyone is having six hour waits because there isn't more than one or two tanks in the game. I should not be punished because I am one of the FEW people that wants to play a very necessary roll. This is a Trinity MMO, tank, healer and DPS. DPS will ALWAYS be more numerous than healers, which are generally more numerous than tanks. Why would you want to discourage more people from tanking, and we're not just talking about bad/casual tanks. I LOVE to tank, but I also want to be able to experience the game in the same fun way that all the sheep that chose DPS get to experience it, not be stuck leveling in the slowest possible way. Yes, I can group up with people and make sure that I never walk anywhere unless I have called three of my friends and gotten them to drop what they are doing and log in to help me, but that is a gimped leveling experience that you can compensate for. I guarantee that most of the DPS telling tanks/healers to just group up aren't spending EVERY moment of the game grouped. They are out killing things quickly and having a fun time leveling, and that is all we want.

So I used the windows 7 speed up tips, and it was still chugging after I quit the game. I used your idea, the going to server select and THEN quitting, and it was almost instant. Thank you so much! That solves all of my problems with the game so far

As I said in my first post, the game runs great. I get about 30-40Fps on the fleet, and anywhere from 60-100fps out questing, at 1680x1050 resolution and everything turned up on high. It stutters sometimes in cantinas, and that is the shadows, but it's never very bad. My problem is not the performance of the game, but of the performance of my computer either during alt-tab or, and especially, after I close the game. Also, while an i7 may be excellent for gaming, an i5 is perfectly fine for most people. I don't need my games to run at 100fps at all times, and so far it has been an excellent CPU and will continue to be a workable gaming CPU for several years.

By lazer show do you mean IN GAME, and if so, is it green lazers? Because if so both me and my wife get that and I can only assume it is a game problem.

Haha I meant Core i5 3.30GHz ;p also, as I said, I do have 64bit windows. I sadly can't have 4 ram sticks as one slot is blocked by my heatsink, but I have tried the streamlining windows 7 settings and I'm going to see if that helps. Still, I'm surprised quitting the program doesn't free up the memory. I thought that was the point of quitting a program and not just alt-tabbing and leaving it there. Also do you mean log out from the character select screen, or server select screen? If that works, is it a memory leak that happens when you are on the character select screen and quit? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the tip, but shouldn't shutting down the game free up that memory again? Because it apparently is not doing that.

I have a Core i5 23.3GHz processor, 4GB DDR3 ram, win 7 64bit, GeForce 550 Ti. All in all it's not the absolute best computer, but it's not bad. The game runs fine for the most part, though I would like to upgrade my GPU at some point to get rid of lag in major hubs. I am having the same problem as the OP. If I alt tab, or even when I close the game, I HAVE to restart my computer. I have timed it, with nothing else running, after I shut down SWTOR, it takes 4 minutes and 30-ish seconds for Firefox to load, and over 3 minutes for windows explorer to load a folder. I've kept the computer on for several hours to see if it would eventually go away, and it did not. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be happy to hear them.

No, WE will actually have to work for it. Anyone level 50 right now will have been farming lowbies while acquiring the highest level pvp gear. Once the 50's only bracket goes live, everyone else will get to 50 and have to compete against mostly already much better geared 50's, making it a LOT more frustrating to get on the same play field as those who got their sooner.

My scoundrel is only level 22 right now and I don't feel my DPS OR healing are lacking. If I am not being focused I can keep most people alive through 1 or 2 dps attacking them. Anymore and I simply should NOT be able to keep them alive. When I finally do get attacked, if I have one other dps with me I'm probably going to survive through a combination of CC, healing and dps. If I am alone and it's one guy beating on me, I can outdps him unless he is good, or a level 50, and lets be honest, most people are not good. You would be surprised how far a simple interrupt can get you. People don't see it coming for whatever reason, so you just wait until they try and channel something, interrupt, shotgun to the back of the head, keep up the dps with the basic shots, keep hots on, if you get real low all of a sudden CC and heal up, then get back to killing. Now if a good dps/ok level 50 attacks me, I'm probably going to die unless I can CC and get away. Just got my vanish though, so I'm eager to give that a shot.

First of all I need to know what class/level you are. That makes a HUGE impact. Also, are you specced specificially for healing? I went Scoundrel with my Smuggler and originally picked the hybrid healing/damage tree. I found I couldn't keep up at all, but when I reached closer to 20 and I respecced to the full healing tree I can do just fine. If one guy is focusing me, I can't heal through his damage at all, three or four hits and I die, but if no one is focusing me and I am healing other players I can do much better, especially the higher level they are and the more damage mitigation abilities they have for themselves.

Really? You'd rather they spent more time on graphics and less time on content? Yeah, I hope no one follows that.