Adar_ICT

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Laptop Video Card or Frame Rate Issues

Some laptop video cards (ATI Mobility, Intel 91x Chipsets) are having known issues with frame rates and other visual degradations to gameplay.

This TEMPORARY addition to your COH shortcut will force the game to render in a simpler rendering path, and should clear up some of the more serious performance issues until a more permanent solution is found.

Modify your City of Heroes shortcut (by right-clicking and choosing Properties) to include "-useTexEnvCombine"] (without the quotes) at the end of the 'Target:' line, so it should look something like this:

"C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe" -useTexEnvCombine

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for this little tip, unfortunately for me it didn't help out my problem. Here is what I'm running.

Compaq nx9420
2 GB of RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 (256MB) - driver ver 8.31.100.32

I've uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers from HP's website. The AMD website doesn't have drivers for laptops.

My problem is this, everything is too bright (or conversely too dark in darker maps like the warehouse or sewers). It almost makes it impossible to play. The laptop is barely a month old. I am running Vista Business as far as the OS goes. I'm tired of pulling my hair out trying to fix this so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd be extremely grateful. Or if it's just not going to work for me then fine, I'll move on. But I'm losing my mind in the mean time. Thanks for listening and I hope that someone can point me in the right direction.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can use a program called Mobility Modder to modify the official ATI drivers so that you can install them on your laptop. I use it with my mobility x1400 with no problems. On the selection screen for the drivers, I just pick the regular Radeon x1600 or whatever, and download that. The instructions for using Mobility modder are pretty simple, here is what I wrote up for some other people.

Run the Catalyst driver installer. It will unpack all of the files to C:\ATI\SUPPORT\<version> After it unpacks the files, click Cancel. You don't want to do the install yet. Next, unzip the MobilityModder program somewhere. Doesn't matter where. It is all self contained. Run Mobilitydotnet.exe. Click Browse and go to c:\ati\Support\<version> and click OK. Then click Modify. Once it is done, close it and all other running programs.

Now all you need to do is navigate to C:\ATI\SUPPORT\<version>\DRIVER and run the setup.exe

Your card will now be supported and the install will go through properly. Reboot when asked to.

Now you need to tweak your settings. I will list what I have mine set to, but I really haven't done a lot of messing around with the settings yet, so they may not be optimum, but they work for me to never drop below 20FPS except in really big battles.

I use the advanced mode for the Catalyst Control Center. Here are the settings I use:

Expand the 3D branch and then click on All Settings.
SmoothVision: Antialiasing: Disabled
Smoothvision Anisotropic Filtering: Use Application Settings
Catalyst AI: Set all the way to the right (Advanced)
MipMap Detail Level: All the way to the left (High Performance)
Wait for Vertical Refresh: All the way to the left (Performance)
Adaptive Anti-aliasing: Disabled

Now click on More Settings.
Direct 3D Settings:
Enable Geometry Instancing : Enabled (it is on by default and grayed out for me)
Support DXT Texture Formats: Enabled

OpenGL Settings:
No check marks in either option

In-Game Video options:

Suppress Extra Player FX: Disabled
Suppress FX When Close: Disabled
Particle Physics Quality: Low
World Texture Quality: Medium
Character Texture Quality: High
World Detail: 100%
Character Detail: 100%
Max Particle Count: 100
Vertical Sync: Disabled
FSAA: Off
Shadows: Disabled
Use Geometry Buffers: Enabled
Anisotropic Filtering: Off
Shader Quality: Medium
Water Effects: None
Depth Of Field Effects: Disabled
Bloom Effects: None

You will want to play with the settings to see if you can get things running better. my card is a lower-end card, so my settings may be too low for your liking.

[ QUOTE ]
Previously my system could handle this game smoothly at almost-highest graphics settings. I have:

AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+
1.5 GB RAM
Raedon X1300 Pro

But when I upgraded to Vista Home Premium, everything went wrong. When I start the game, everything is fine until I get into the tutorial. As you can see here , I am having horrible graphics performance. It won't let me change the settings either.

Any ideas on how to fix this, or is it just Vista incompatibility combined with CoX's ATI issues?

[/ QUOTE ]

You need to reinstall your graphics drivers. When you install Vista, no matter what drivers are currently on your system, Vista replaces them with its own internal drivers. Oh, and to make things easier, you should uninstall the existing ones first. If you don't want to do that, then do NOT use the automatic option. Because the ATI installer will just say everything is peachy, and won't properly register everything. I ran into something similar when I upgraded from Vista Home Premium to Vista Ultimate. Actually, it isn't just the video drivers. You should check all of your drivers. After my upgrade, not only were my graphics messed up, but I had no audio input or output device, because Vista overwrote what I already had there.

I want to see level 35+ Rikti randomly showing up in EVERY zone, including Atlas etc. Think of the excitement.

<QR>
This may have already been discussed, but if not, there are a couple of things people should be aware of if they are upgrading their Vista from one version to another. In my case, I just upgraded from Vista Home Premium to Vista Ultimate.

First, if you have the option, DON'T. On my dual core proc with 2GB of RAM, it took 2 1/2 hours to do the upgrade. As with other Windows OS's, you are better off doing a fresh install.

Second, even if you have the most current drivers installed (video in my case, but any drivers apply), you will have to reinstall those drivers after the upgrade of Vista has completed. Vista automatically defaults to using its internal drivers when it installs, regardless of what is already installed.

It is annoying that's for sure, but I had to see how it worked.

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone know how to fix the problem of the mouse pointer not agreeing with what is onscreen? I seem to have to click roughly 1 inch below what I want to click on. Plus, the top of my screen is cut off.... It almost seems like the game wants to be a little bigger than my screen. I'm using Vista and running the game in safe mode (If I run it in normal mode, it's a small window that shows roughly 1/4 of the game).

[/ QUOTE ]

Another thing that seems to happen somewhat randomly for me, is if I leave the Windows Sidebar running when I launch the game. When that happens, and I am in any of the UI screens (Trying to move Inspirations and Enhancements are the worst) everything is shifted down and to the right. If I turn off the sidebar, everything goes back to normal. The weird thing is, sometimes it works without a problem even if I forget and leave the sidebar running.

[ QUOTE ]
Another question about CoX and Vista: I have recently begun to receive BSoDs with an 0x8e stop error. If necessary, I can write down the hex memory codes, however I have not done so yet. This happens after I've been in the game about 5 minutes or so.

My wife said it happened to her before the latest issue update. I had played for hours before and not noticed. Now it happens every time I load the game.

I am running an AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60
2 GB of RAM
Nvidia Geforce Go 7600

My laptop is from ibuypower. I have it set up for the High Performance Power Plan.

Any questions I will gladly answer, any answers I will greatly appreciate.

[/ QUOTE ]

Another thing that has caused BSoD's in Vista are resuming from Hibernate when using an external USB keyboard, and even the mouse sometimes. I have run into this problem on 3 machines. 2 desktops and one laptop. In all three cases, updating the bios fixed the problem. BIOS updates on newer machines aren't as risky as they used to be, but you should only do it if you are comfortable with it, and the BIOS update actually mentions the problem you are having. On the laptop update (it was a Toshiba), the release notes for the bios update didn't mention an error, but did say updated support for USB devices.

Just another thing you can look at. Remember to be on AC power when you flash the BIOS, and follow EVERY instruction it gives you on your support site. Like I said, it isn't as dangerous as it used to be, but you still need to be careful with it. Each manufacturer has their own ways of handling BIOS updates, which is why I said you need to read their support site and follow their instructions exactly.

[ QUOTE ]
I know you heard this before but I have no idea what to do:

I just upgraded my dell E510 to Vista. (COH worked great on XP). Had the mouse issue and used the fix. however the game is very laggy and rubberbands. I have 1 GB of ram and my graphics card is a Nvidia 7300 LE. Here are what I think my options are and please tell me what you think?:

1. buy a new good graphics card (I don't want to do this if Vista is still going to cause problems)

2. Upgrade memory (I don't really run any heavy applications on my comp aside from COH)

3. reinstall XP (I like the vista interface)

Please help me choose the best solution and if buying a new card is the solution please tell me which one is known to work with out any problems.

Thank you !

[/ QUOTE ]

I know you already got an answer, but thought I would also chime in. The memory will be the cheapest and fastest boost in performance with the game, particularly on Vista. I have to say, people have different experiences with running CoX on Vista. I have done a fresh install of XP and ran the game for a while, and then wiped the machine and did a fresh install of Vista. My performance was better on Vista than on XP. Not a HUGE amount better. A matter of between 10 and 15 FPS generally. This was on a P4 3GHz with hyperthreading, 1 GB ram and ATI 9800. The one place that XP DID beat Vista was with zoning. XP pretty consistently loaded about 5 seconds faster than Vista. I have to assume it is because of having only 1GB of RAM, since Vista uses more than XP.

In any case, try the ram out, and then you can decide if you can live with it. My personal opinion is, I wouldn't switch back to XP for anything. Too many things work better for me in Vista. I was a bit on the fence gaming-wise, because I was only running with 1GB or ram. Although I prefered most of the Vista stuff, CoX is the only game I really play, and I wanted it to run as well as I could. I finally upgraded to 2 GB of RAM and it is a whole new game. (Keep in mind, I am also playing on a laptop with a crappy ATI X1400 video card) Now that the game runs with no problems, I can't see any reason to switch back to XP. All of my work applications work (and most run substantially better on vista than XP), and my favorite game runs great.

It really comes down to your preference though.

[ QUOTE ]
I have vista and I am not experiencing any of these problems others are. I know I downloaded the game from the website instead of my old disc. Maybe that has something to do with it but I dont know. My pointer is there and when it does disappear I right click and it is back. btw I have a new computer with a butt load of memory which helps I guess

[/ QUOTE ]

The disappearing cursor that you are describing is different from the one that needs the -compatiblecursors entry. I have the same thing that you describe. it is annoying, especially during combat, but it comes back if you just move your mouse around quickly, or right-click. Actually, even just clicking normally will make it come back usually.

If I remember right though, the disappearing cursors issue that needs the switch, is related to video drivers, not the OS itself.

[ QUOTE ]

What are these fixes and what do they do?

Do I have to download and run all of them, if not how do I tell which ones are necessary?

[/ QUOTE ]

That is the hard part. NO, you should not download and install all of them. Some of these are only for people having a specific issue. the hard part is figuring out which ones you need. The site is geared more towards advanced users. Basically, all of the files there are based on the Microsoft Knowledgebase articles related to a problem. In order to know what to download, you first have to find out on the Microsoft site what the knowledgebase article is for whatever problem you have. Once you find that, and see that it says to Contact Microsoft for the Hotfix, you can write down the KB article number, and go to the earlier site and find the file associated with that KB article.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My scroller on my mouse (desktop) stopped working under Vista too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you using software from the manufacturer of the mouse? Just curious. My zoom works in Vista for both my mouse and my touchpad. The touchpad, I did install software for(Synaptics controller software), but the mouse is a Logitech V220 wireless mouse, and I didn't install anything for it, other than what Vista autoinstalled for it.

Does your zoom/scroll work outside of the game? I know, stupid question, but I just want to make sure we are looking into the correct problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

The scroller on the mouse works fine in all programs, except CoX. It is a microsoft mouse, with the most updated Microsoft drivers for Vista. Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very odd. I don't have any ideas on that one yet. I only have 2 vista machines right now with the game on them, and they are identical machines, so I can't duplicate the problem. I have more machines I can test out tomorrow though, and will see if I can figure something out. Is your mouse just a regular 3 button with scrollwheel Microsoft mouse, or is it a fancy one with multiple buttons? Just trying to make sure I have the right info to try and duplicate this.

[ QUOTE ]
Here is a link to Vista Hotfixes that are not publicly available to all people via windows update. There are quite a few hot fixes that are specifically for home premium or ultimate vista systems so you guys may want to check these out. A couple of these fixes are driver related. What I would do is go to microsofts support site and type in the kb number of the file and search for that. Like for instance vista has issues with copying files over the network and kb931770 fixes this issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK, you are now my hero. You have no idea how often I KNOW what hotfix I need, but having to go through the hassle of calling Microsoft to get it is ridiculous. This site is fantastic.

[ QUOTE ]
My scroller on my mouse (desktop) stopped working under Vista too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you using software from the manufacturer of the mouse? Just curious. My zoom works in Vista for both my mouse and my touchpad. The touchpad, I did install software for(Synaptics controller software), but the mouse is a Logitech V220 wireless mouse, and I didn't install anything for it, other than what Vista autoinstalled for it.

Does your zoom/scroll work outside of the game? I know, stupid question, but I just want to make sure we are looking into the correct problem.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

To be honest, I'm not sure. Blame me as the newbie I'd wager that they will likely be in the style of free ones given out in the past. Take that for what you will

[/ QUOTE ]

Lighthouse,
You seem like a man genuinely interested in your position as well as the game and community in general.

So please, don't give a lame excuse as being a newbie (which you aren't).
You have direct access to the Dev team, find out which is the case about the tokens. Don't give us 'it may or may not be' kind of answer on something simplistic as this please.
We , the game community, and you the manager of the community boards deserve to have complete and accurate answers.

Thanks Lighthouse, didn't mean to harp on you, but this seems too simplistic for us to be given an "I don't know" answer.

-Cos

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a bit harsh actually. Lighthouse was posting an honest answer in a timely fashion. I would say it is better to be given an honest answer, even if it doesn't give everything, than it is to not give an answer at all. Lighthouse may have needed time to get his question answered from a dev. Just being in his position does not mean instant access to any and all information.

And he was just making a lighthearted comment about him being a newbie. He said he wasn't sure. That doesn't mean he won't get an official clarification. Just that he didn't have one at that moment.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
you know your old when you reference the old superfreinds cartoons ( remember the wonder the twins )


[/ QUOTE ]

Puh-lease. I have yet to see this thread refer to the original Superfriends sidekicks: Wendy, Marvin and Wonderdog!

Feel old? About a year ago. Hollows. Frostfire mish. The guy who's mish it was played pretty competently, but didn't say much. about 1/2-3/4 of the way through he says "Hurry please." Five minutes later we pause for end break and he again says "Hurry please." I send him a tell asking what's wrong and he replies, "My mom keeps telling me me to brush my teeth and go to bed and I've been trying to finish this mission for soooo long."

I told him to go brush his teeth and that I would tp him along with the group until we got to the final battle and make sure the team waited for him. I also sent a tell to him (to his mom) asking her to give him 10 more minutes and explaining how "important" this mission was.

[/ QUOTE ]

A big kudos to you for being so nice. So often we see stories like this, that are just complaining about the youngster having to quit. "Why start a mission when you know you are going to have to leave" and other assorted stuff. That kid probably appreciated the heck out of it.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Anybody remember The Thunderbirds as a first run show? Or any of the other Gerry Anderson puppet shows, like Captain Scarlet?

[/ QUOTE ]

My first post and I'm gonna talk about how old I am. >.<
I loved Captain Scarlet - member of Spectrum ("It's easy to be brave when you are invulnerable - loosely quoted from Lt. Green I believe). How about Kimba the White Lion, or Marine Boy with the oxygen gum. And my all time favorite the Go Go Gophers back when it was ok to be politically incorrect.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahhhh Go Go Gophers... I loved that show. "Whoopy Doopy!"

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You are thoroughly familiar with Telix, and the SALT scripting language.

Your phone book in Telix had 10 or more BBS phone numbers, and you used each of them every day to play your turns for Trade Wars, Global Destruction, and Legend of the Red Dragon.

[/ QUOTE ]

[cough, cough...] Perhaps I am showing off my ignorance, here, but are you referring to "Telex"? As in Telex/TWX?

I programmed a Telex, using punched holes in paper tape as the input medium. As a matter of fact, I even made paper tapes to control the forms spacing for our company's computer printer. How many people can say that? (It worked a bit like a piano roll...)

I worked on a computer with a big, red "Stop" button on the front of the console. If a program got into a loop, you hit the button, which stopped the entire CPU, and then you queried individual memory locations, and typed the corrected code in directly from the console's keyboard, and hit the "Run" button to have the program continue at the point at which it stopped. :-) Sure made it easy to debug programs.....

[/ QUOTE ]

Ack. That's even further back than I was referring to. I was talking about the Telix terminal emulation software for dialing into BBS's. I'm an old-timer, but even Telex is older than me.

You remember getting 78RPM thin plastic (barely thicker than saran wrap) records of the Monkee's songs on the back of your cereal box.

You had to get a second phone line so that you could download entire games (100K or more in size sometimes!) from your favorite BBS, because it would take all night to finish downloading.

You are thoroughly familiar with Telix, and the SALT scripting language.

Your phone book in Telix had 10 or more BBS phone numbers, and you used each of them every day to play your turns for Trade Wars, Global Destruction, and Legend of the Red Dragon.

You remember playing on the big multi-line MajorBBS systems, and knew that Earth Warrior and Air Mage were the easiest classes to get to level 30.

[ QUOTE ]
Hey Adar! I know the people at the Safehouse are still thinking about him.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's good to know. I still pop in to the Safehouse forums every now and then.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Which has nothing to do with CoH as a production unit. Cryptic doesn't promote or feature known talent-actors doing any voice-over work in that game, nor was that Player ever a known actor in the business. Hence the confusion as to why he's even listed there in the first place. Is he now to be given production-credit because his Forum Avatar and Board-name were suddenly lifted and modeled over an NPC, posthumously?

But as stated earlier, Viewers can influence actual entries made into that particular Database, so things like this, well-intentioned as it was... can slip by.

[/ QUOTE ]

He isn't given a production credit -- he's just named in a blurb in the "Trivia" section. The only credits given are NCSoft and Cryptic.


Would it be inappropriate to ask how Matthew Bragg died? I'm just curious as to who the man behind Coyote was.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am Matthew's brother. The man behind Coyote was one of the most kind and helpful people I have ever known. He spent his life working to make things better for others, whether it was on the forums, in the game, as part of the SCA, or just with friends and co-workers. He was a funny, crazy, guy that never failed to give people a laugh when they needed it most. He made quite an impression on people in the forums and in the game.

One of the reasons that I got into this game and continue to pay for 3 subscriptions, is the fact that they care enough about the community that they put my brother in the game that he loved so much.

I hope maybe that gives you some idea of who he is, although I apologize if I am threadjacking, or getting too sappy/maudlin. There should still be posts in the forums about him. I know I have read them all.

[ QUOTE ]
No, the comment about 3 was not a joke. You earn less and less prestige as you gain lvls. By lvl 37 even, im only getting between 3 and 20 per mob unless it's a boss several levels higher than me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm. That seems a bit silly. The amount you get should stay the same as you level, as long as you are fighting bad guys that are conning the same to you. I really haven't done much with Prestige yet. I knew that you stop getting inf at 35, and only get Prestige, but that seems like an even bigger reason that you should be gaining the same prestige, if not MORE, at the higher levels. You are getting Prestige because of your deeds as a super hero. At the higher levels, you are stopping much bigger bad guys, so you should get more Prestige. To give less Prestige as you level, PLUS not being able to earn Influence while in SG mode sounds a bit harsh.

[ QUOTE ]

Ok with that being said... When are the building prices going to drop???!!! The price for rooms kill what prestige is available.

"Sorry team, we got lots or rooms, but we have to wait 6 months to place anything cool in them! Keep working on getting that 3 prestige for a defeat! If we push hard enough, we could afford a generator is about 2 months!"

Sorry, but I don't want to have to say that to my SG.... I have been running this group for over a year now, we have 30-45 members, and we only get prestige for 15 of those??? Gimme a break.


[/ QUOTE ]

I am not trying to nitpick, but I hope the 3 Prestige comment was meant as an exageration. On my 23 Kat/Reg, I was getting 11 for all the whites I was fighting, and a minimum of 50 for yellow lietenants, and 250 for an orange boss. I don't know how much I actually gained yesterday, but it was several thousand doing just 2 missions solo on the lowest reputation setting. Plus 4 pieces of salvage.

[ QUOTE ]
I wonder if we might expect amusing cards such as "Foe Stuck in War Wall, Cannot Animate" (no cards may assist that character/minion card, and that card may not be used in any play, but it may be attacked by characters with sufficient high altitude travel or long range attack powers), and "Map Server Disconnection" (a player must remove all active cards in missions and place them as if ready, the missions are restored to beginning state, and then that player loses two turns while reconnecting).

Obviously harmful cards you don't want to recieve are

"Ruinous Team Mate" (a team mate decides it's really funny to see others accumulate debt): add this team mate's attack bonus to all attacking foes attack scores.

"Subtle Griefer": A character decides they want to spoil the mission without seeming obvious about it, and makes every possible effort to cause damage to the team. A single character card in the target player's hand must be chosen by the player who activates Subtle Griefer: until that character card is ejected from play by a different player, it cannot take any action to help any other character on its team, and will add its defensive bonus to any attack made on its team.

"Devolutive Nerfs": Nerfs draw the gameplay ease backwards: every card costs are doubled until a "Moment of Design Sanity" card is played.

"Zombie Bitten GM": Roll a six sided die. on a one, a map server disconnection is caused to all players who do not have "Temporary GM Favor" card in play. On a two, all players with "Temporary GM Favor" card in play have one character card raised to highest level (but can no longer evoke the Contented with Content unless this rule is contended in later rule content) On a three, the GM stumbles around its city, eating people with no effect to players who are safe inside their homes. On a four, the GM eats the brain of a designer during a convention: no noticable effect. On a five, the GM ramps up the Secret Normal Function Mode on the MMORPG and every player takes two turns in a row in place of one starting with the card player and ending before her next double turn would be. On a six, the GM infects a single player with zombism (the card player chooses which one), and the player is effected as per the l33t m0R3on'z card (the player's hand is played by each other player in turn. Once every player but they have had a chance to play their hand, they may again take a turn).

[/ QUOTE ]

Fantastic! You made me guffaw at work, followed by a little maniacal chortling! I particularly liked the Map Server Disconnect and Ruinous Team Mate cards.

I think it is cool for people to play whatever gender they feel like playing. however, the other night I saw a duo that really made me giggle. it was a male and female. The male character's name was "I Am Not A Guy" and the female character was "I Am Not A Girl". I just thought that was really amusing.