The EverQuest II graphics engine was specifically designed to take advantage of the capabilities that will be offered by future graphics processing units (GPU). However, it also happens to be very successful at taxing today's most powerful GPUs. The graphics engine was built from scratch and in-game display settings are configurable via a graphical user interface (GUI).

EverQuest II requires a DirectX 9 compatible graphics card with pixel shader and vertex shader support. Although 64 MB of graphics memory is required, 128 MB is recommended. The graphics engine is capable of producing per-pixel lighting and special effects that include bump mapping and environment mapping.