Zloth

Indexing on Vista is MIGHTY nice. The filename searches are pretty much instant and text-within-file searches can complete in about a second! Indexing is on a very low priority so it shouldn't bother you while you're trying to do something else. It does cause your hard drive to do things when you don't expect it, but it doesn't take long to get over that. Plus Vista does it for a lot of things, like pre-fetching and background defrag. (Though it would be nice to have a little utility that would tell me just what is running at any particular moment.)

I'm still having a heck of a time teaching myself to use it, though. I spent 10 minutes last night looking for a certain screenshot and never did find it. I just searched for it with the search bar and found it in a second. It's hard to break out of the old habits!

Hmmm, interesting theory... it might just be so.

I wonder how big of a deal it would be for Paragon Studios to switch the ports for the game? Are the port numbers just a few constants sitting in a file somewhere that they could change in 5 minutes, or do they have deals with their ISP that would have to be re-negotiated if they switched ports? It might be interesting to, say, put one test server on one set of ports and another test server on another set then have people try both out.

Another thing I've been curious about is zone specific lag. It's getting pretty rare these days but, when the game first came out, it was common to find one zone horribly laggy while another zone worked great. What's the story with that?

Actually, that original post is kinda handy for beta testing. Make sure the color you set for your power is right both when it travels to your target and the effect that plays when the target is hit. Examine your power carefully to make sure textures within the power (like bubbles in the force fields) are working right, too. Power effects that hit are a global thing, there's no need to try your power out on every critter in the game....

No debate there. If your main game is City of Heroes then nVidia is your only real choice. Otherwise you have to pick between fancy detail and anti-aliasing. Ugh. (Of course, if you only play a bit of CoH and mostly play other games, then the debate can get hot. )

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Does 64bit vista still have that issue where it only shows/uses a maximum of 3GB RAM even when it has 4GB?

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CoH is a 32-bit program so it shouldn't use more than 2 gig (or maybe 3 gig if you get tricky). It hardly matters, though, as I don't think this game uses even two gig.

I'm not sure what you are talking about wrt showing more than 3 gig of ram. That sounds more like a 32-bit OS problem.

Wait, what?? If you get the mapserver message then it sends you to the log-in screen, there's no prompt to ask you what to do. I'm not following?

I'm kinda impressed that my CoH Helper can run on that computer, nevermind the game.

It looks like computer builders are already offering free upgrades to Windows 7. It would be nice if you could hold out until Windows 7 could come installed in the first place but that's going to be a few months, I think. With the economy like it is, now is a pretty good time to buy.

You are going to need to get yourself smart on just what is good and bad out there for City of Heroes but it's well worth it. Imagine getting into missions in just 10 seconds. Imagine everything with detail like this and physics like you see in this (rather low-rez) video. And, did you know that fateweavers are shiny?

Path names!?? This is Vista, we have no need of such old paradigms!

Go to your Start search and search for screenshot_. Assuming you didn't go and turn off indexing, your shots should pop right up.

It could have been something about the situation, too. For instance, the sound may not come out right if somebody also has <some power> going at the same time. Or maybe a certain map doesn't do it right. Or maybe it happens anytime after some other sound has played. So many possibilities....

You can try going forward to the latest drivers that came out just a few days ago. I have heard a few times that people's framerates get slammed hard on the graphics options tab, though, over the past year plus. I kinda doubt that changing drivers is going to do anything for you.

What you might try doing is starting in Safe mode. This will floor all your graphics settings. That *should* at least make it so the graphics option tab is usable. Then just increase settings one by one. If something kills your framerate bad, set it back to the low setting.

Another option would be to go into a mission alone and face a wall or the floor. That should send your framerate up a ton so even dividing it by 40 will still be usable.

Hey, if it's good enough for Dr. Default, it's good enough for me!

If you are having an awful time getting the game to run at all, banning is hardly a credible threat. If they ban you for bumping, you won't be able to get on the boards for awhile. If you can't get the game running, you won't have any reason to come to the boards ever again.

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Face it. Nothing's original any more.

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Depends on how different something has to be to be original. There are stories where the hero wins, stories where the hero loses, and stories where it's debatable whether the hero lost or won. All those kinds of stories were told long before writing was invented and I don't think anyone has found a new kind - thus all stories ever written that have a hero are not original?

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8.15.0011.8618

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These video drivers often cause this issue. Going back to older drivers should fix it. Getting the latest drivers might fix it but they are very new so I'm not sure how they do with this issue.

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Problem is, if it's not on the front page, chances drop drastically that anyone will even look at it.

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Are you sure? I know when I run through this forum, I normally run all the way through all the new topics. I pay particular attention to threads that have no response, too, and threads that have clear titles.

That doesn't mean I respond, of course. If your thread gets a dozen reads and no response, that can be interpreted as "Dunno - go ask official support."

I'm thinking we should wait for the new forums to pop up before going and making new rules. We could have new tools there, if we're lucky. (Like maybe a "my question was answered" flag? :drool

P.S. Speaking of official support - wouldn't support have the issue well in hand after three days most of the time?

Hot diggity, the boards are finally moving up! I've still got the text for this guide sitting on my desktop, waiting to post to the new boards if need be. (Hopefully I won't need to do that.)

Edit: No need! I just had to do some edits and all was well!

The reviews on Guru3D are pretty mixed. One thing that does sound good is not including the Stereoscopic 3D driver. It's actually listed as a program you can uninstall. If you are having issues, you might try uninstalling that. Or at least disabling the Windows Service it puts in.

LucoEnergy, you better do a disk check on that computer, it may have bad sectors on the hard drive.

MainFrame, bad memory is very likely. If you've got Vista, just search your computer for 'memory' and the Memory Diagnostice program should pop right up. Bad hard drive sectors are also possible so, if the memory test doesn't work, do a disk check. (The 'common solutions' topic explains it all.)

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I am thinking it is 1) video driver, or maybe 2) Direct X corruption.

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Or 3) his computer is dying.

Try playing the game in safe mode. Does that work?

Logan_Hawke, for pity's sake, get Service Pack 2 ASAP. Not having it means you have some serious security holes in your system.

Nerdstrom, you've got your in-game resolution set to 1280x1024. Is that your normal desktop resolution? I'm guessing not. You should try setting the game to your desktop resolution. Don't worry about screen position, it's ignored when you play full screen.

What the...? There are that many people on Champion? <grinning, ducking, running ;>

Great vid and VERY good song - I haven't heard that in way, way too long.

Could be you have dust build up that's now making your PC a bit too hot. It's really hard to tell because you just assume it's the game's fault and don't give us any details.

Sounds like you have some bad video drivers. Could you give us a CoH Helper output, please? (See the 'common solutions' sticky thread for instructions on how to get that. Or just follow the link in my sig.)

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This, emphasis mine. This will sound bitter, but can VR stop already? For many people, there are only so many years they can spend in a game, also for different reasons other than growing tired of it.

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I suspect this sounds bitter because you're bitter.

In order to work at my current company for 50 years, I would have to stay there until I'm in my 90's. I can never and will never get that recognition. Therefore, that recognition should be abolished??

The mouse-over info works for enhancements in your tray but it doesn't work in the stores. Yeah, definitely a sad thing. (Except for Mutant origin.)

Edit: Ah ha - there's a patch note saying that tooltips have been fixed for auction houses.

I've actually had this happen (VERY rarely - like twice a year) without overheating or anything. When I see it, I apologize and/or cuss, quit out of the game, reboot, and all is well for another six months.

If it happens twice in a single night, you're in serious trouble. Clean things out inside your PC and try again. If it happens again, quit out of the game and use the remaining few hours your card has left to shop for a new video card.

They could catch up - just $35 per vet reward badge, and you must get them in order. That would be pretty fair. Maybe even offer a special - just $2000 and they will bring you up to 60. That's a heck of a lot less than I paid! (And yes, I'm being silly to put things in perspective.)

I'm with Houtex on the 63 month reward. Maybe even more so. It's kinda fun to go back to Atlas with a character that's got 1500 hours of play and see there's still a few corners that you've never visited. I can think of one use for the power, though. Sometimes there will be a small door/tunnel that isn't obvious on the map. If I watch the map just as the power goes off, it's going to be real easy to see where the new areas are. If I'm on another level, though, I'll probably miss it.

P.S. There are no real levels in this game. When you go up or down an elevator, what you really do is teleport sideways a long way. The minimap is set so you can't zoom out far enough to see the other "levels" but they are there. This gets real obvious when you see somebody's aura trail zip by when they use an elevator.