CFIndustries

Known issue. What happens is you see what you saw, and everyone else sees you about 6 ft. from where you think you are, hence your inability to interact with anything. Basically the client somehow gets out of sync with the servers. How on Earth than can happen just boggles the programmer in me, but there ya have it. *shrug*

Right now the only solution is to log-out and back-in.

Somewhere in another thread someone posted screenies of what they saw versus what their friends were seeing. Was wierd. I had it happen once Villain-side.

Can VSync be disabled on an LCD? I got the impression from the previous poster that this wasn't wise.

Well things are looking hopeful...

Mobo.....eVGA nForce 680i SLI
Processor.....Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (-renderthread enabled)
RAM.....2 GB (2x 1 GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 Twin2X)
Video.....2x eVGA e-GeForce 7950 GT KO (SLI, though SLI doesn't seem to be running so far)
Audio.....Creative Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Display.....ViewSonic VX922 (analog port)


PERFORMANCE:
Outdoors.....Talos, Talos Tram area, and Faultline: 64-75fps
Indoors.....Crotoa outdoor maps, cave maps: 5-person team, 54-70fps; 8-person team, 33-65fps
Server Status.....Yellow/Green


NOTES:
--What reminded me of the memory leak bug got me on exit of a Crotoa mission map. Inside mission was at least 65fps standing still, yet when I zoned to Crotoa (exit mission) I was at 37fps. Moved to Talos tram area, still 37 fps. Tried /reloadgfx, still 37 fps. Quit game and re-launched, got back my usual 75fps at Talos Tram. So that is definitely a bug. Like I said, reminds me of the "memory leaks" of the past.

--The teams I've had so far (both pre and post new system) have been low on the "splat" powers and big auras. So that will likely cut-into these fps numbers. I also haven't visited Villains, which usually is good for a 50% fps drop (y'all really need to fix that, it's far too big an fps difference between the two games).

--FPS is limited by Refresh Rate somehow. Since I re-installed the game it defaulted to 60 and initially the FPS capped at 60fps. When I reset to 75 refresh, my FPS capped at 75fps. I couldn't test higher since my monitor doesn't support refresh rates higher than 75.

--5-6 teammates seems a good sweet spot for FPS. more than that caused a bigger drop-off.


COMMENTS:
--I find it a bit distrubing that just get a respectable 30 FPS in combat that I needed a fairly robust system like this. This is NOT a system typical among my friends.

--I was swapping stories with a team earlier today and we all agree that I3, I4, and I5 were the last times this game ran on "average" hardware at good speeds. In other words, if you ran a system close to the "minimum requirements" you could still be effective and have reasonably fluid combat, 20+ FPS. We concluded quite separate from each other that I6 is when it all went downhill. We also all agreed that I8 has simply turned this into a game that a "basic" system can play into a game only self-professed "gamers" and their tweaked and upper-middle and high-end systems can enjoy fully.

--I've been playing at sub-20 FPS for so long I'd forgotten how gorgeous this game is when you can get higher FPS rates, and how much more effective I can be as a player. Wow.

I'm going to switch to my TripleHead2Go setup now, so that'll be it for the comparative tests. I will get back to you on any wierdness I see after I establish a baseline there.

BTW: How do I tell if SLI is running or not? I've seen CoH screenies with an SLI logo showing, but mine isn't doing that.

For your consideration Lighthouse:

Here's what I got tonight, the last night my old rig will be in service. Out of town for a week and then will build the new system. I did have a chance to set-up the triple-display, but only plugged-in one monitor. So this is the new VX922 rather than my previous 17" PressView, so the resolution is up from using that display (1024x872 I think I used). Oddly, didn't affect framerates much using the larger resolution.

PERFORMANCE:
Outdoors.....Talos, Talos Tram area, and Faultline: 18-21fps
Indoors.....Warehouse map and Defeat Castillo cave/base map: 5fps (peak), 1.06fps (floor) in combat with spawns on Heroic: 8 person team
Server Status.....Green

HARDWARE:
Mobo.....MSI KT6V Socket A
Processor.....AMD Athlon 3000+ (Barton Core)
RAM.....1 GB (2x 512 MB, non-matched)
Video.....MSI GeForce 6600
Audio.....Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Display.....ViewSonic VX922 (analog port)

IN-GAME SETTINGS:
Screen/UI Resolution.....1280x1024 (native display resolution)
3D Resolution Scaling.....1280x1024
Refresh Rate.....75
Advanced Settings.....Enabled

Supress Extra Player FX.....Enabled
Particle Physics Quality.....Low
World Texture Quality.....Medium
Character Texture Quality.....Medium
World Detail.....50%
Character Detail.....50%
Max Particle Count.....5000
Vertical Sync.....Enabled
FSAA.....4x
Shadows.....Enabled
Use Geometry Buffers.....Enabled
Anisotropic Filtering.....8x
Texture Crispness.....Smooth
Water Effects.....Low Quality
Depth of Field Effects.....Disabled
Bloom Effects.....None

Sound FX Volume.....50%
Music Volume.....0%
Sound Playback Mode.....Performance
3D Sound.....Disabled


NVIDIA DRIVER SETTINGS:
Antialiasing setting.....Application-controlled
Anisotropic filtering.....Application-controlled
Image seting.....Quality
Vertical sync.....Application-controlled
Force mipmaps.....None
Conformant texture clamp.....On
Extension limit.....Off
Hardware acceleration.....Single-display mode
Trilinear optimization.....On
Anisotropic mip filter optimization.....On
Anisotropic sample optimization.....On
Triple buffering.....On
Negative LOD bias.....Clamp

[ QUOTE ]
That should be the frame per second rate.

[/ QUOTE ]
To be more clear, there are two numbers...the first one I believe is clearly labelled "fps" while there is a second set next to it that I can't remember how it's labelled. I'm not in front of the game right now to be more specific.

/showfps 1 (turns it on)
/showfps 0 (turns it off)

What I'd like to know is when using this feature what the numbers shown in parenthesis mean.

Here's the wind-up, and the pitch!
(details a bit sketchy, working from memory)


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ISSUE 3 thru most of ISSUE 5:

CPU: AMD Socket A 1 GHz Processor
RAM: 256 MB
OS: Windows (pre-ME)
Video Card: nVidia MX440
Sound Card: some generic P.O.S.
Motherboard: another generic P.O.S.
Hard Drive: unknown slow-speed IDE
Connection: 512/1024 ADSL (SpeakEasy SysAdmin Package)
Resolution: 1152x864
UI Scaling: 75%
Character Detail: 75%
World Detail: 75%
Particle Count: 10,000
Other Graphics Settings: Mostly on "medium" settings. Nothing outrageous.

Game worked like a charm. Framerates were decent except for my Claws/DA scrapper, I'd say around 25fps. DA powers combined with SuperJump dropped frame considerably and as this character became my main I dropped the Particle Count to 5000.

Talos Station was always horrid, even when barely anyone was around, probably closer to 10fps. Lag for large teams was only problematic in the 40+ games and never bad enough to hurt functionality.

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ISSUE 5 thru most of ISSUE 6:

CPU: AMD Socket A 3000+ Processor (3.1 GHz Bartin Core)
RAM: 512 MB
OS: Windows ME
Video Card: nVidia MX440
Sound Card: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Motherboard: MSI KT6V
Hard Drive: 2x 80 GB Seagate 7500 RPM SATA (RAID 0 via Mobo)
Connection: 768/1.5 ADSL (SpeakEasy SysAdmin Package)
Resolution: 1152x864
UI Scaling: 75%
Character Detail: 75%
World Detail: 75%
Particle Count: 5,000
Other Graphics Settings: Mostly on "medium" settings. Nothing outrageous.

Original CPU self-destructed. Decided to rebuild the PC a bit. Extra RAM and sound card didn't make alot of difference.

Issue 6 caused a noticeable drop in framerates, probably about -5fps. Lag is more common in the 30+ game, but nothing earth-shattering yet. But it is getting a bit annoying.

Villains has always had horrid framerates, but I was so pissed about "ED" I ignored it. But I'd say easily half of Heroes framerates, even outdoors, which means about 10-15 fps.

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Late ISSUE 6:

CPU: AMD Socket A 3000+ Processor (3.1 GHz Barton Core)
RAM: 1 GB
OS: Windows XP Pro
Video Card: nVidia NX6600 (MSI)
Sound Card: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Motherboard: MSI KT6V
Hard Drive: 2x 80 GB Seagate 7500 RPM SATA (RAID 0 via Mobo)
Connection: 768/1.5 ADSL (SpeakEasy SysAdmin Package)
Resolution: 1152x864
UI Scaling: 75%
Character Detail: 75%
World Detail: 75%
Particle Count: 25,000
Other Graphics Settings: Mostly on "high" settings.

For the last two weeks of I6, I enjoyed graphical bliss. I turned-on many of the cool effects, and realized how much of the graphical wonderland I had been missing. Even with all the features enabled, I could keep-up a reasonable 20-30fps in Heroes, and a tolerable 14-20 in Villains.

I should note that Arachnos maps from the get-go always ate another half of the framerate on a good day, which means 5-7 fps in this state.

That was not to last however...

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ISSUE 7:

CPU: AMD Socket A 3000+ Processor (3.1 GHz Barton Core)
RAM: 1 GB
OS: Windows XP Pro
Video Card: nVidia NX6600 (MSI)
Sound Card: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Motherboard: MSI KT6V
Hard Drive: 2x 80 GB Seagate 7500 RPM SATA (RAID 0 via Mobo)
Connection: 768/1.5 ADSL (SpeakEasy SysAdmin Package)
Resolution: 1152x864
UI Scaling: 75%
Character Detail: 50%
World Detail: 50%
Particle Count: 5,000
Other Graphics Settings: Mostly on "medium" settings.

When I7 came out framerates just tanked. I had to stop playing villains because outdoors was 8fps and indoors was more like 4-5fps. Arachnos maps and Grandville I could barely get past 5fps, and often dropped to less than 1fps with a full team. Heroes on the other hand was still a respectable 18-20 fps.

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ISSUE 8:

CPU: AMD Socket A 3000+ Processor (3.1 GHz Barton Core)
RAM: 1 GB
OS: Windows XP Pro
Video Card: nVidia NX6600 (MSI)
Sound Card: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Motherboard: MSI KT6V
Hard Drive: 2x 80 GB Seagate 7500 RPM SATA (RAID 0 via Mobo)
Connection: 768/1.5 ADSL (SpeakEasy SysAdmin Package)
Resolution: 1152x864
UI Scaling: 75%
Character Detail: 50%
World Detail: 50%
Particle Count: 5,000
Other Graphics Settings: Mostly on "medium" settings.

Villains is currently about 10fps outdoors, Heroes is about 18fps, standing still. While moving, it will vary, but about 8fps for villains, about 14fps for Heroes. Hero-side took a small speed hit with I8. With a full team, I8 really shows it's stripes, taking heroes down to less than 5 fps if enough AoE-heavy people are on the team.

Also, whereas Hero lag pre-I8 was more like a general slowdown, Villains was always stuttery, with nasty "spikes" where framerate would STOP for a few seconds. Now with I8, than same stutter is on the Hero side. I much preferred the old Hero lag which had a very consistant slow-down, not the up-n-down lag I get now.

-----
NEW SYSTEM COMING:
In a last-ditch attempt to overcome the lag, I have parts on order and I should have this built by end of the year:

CPU: Intel Core Duo 2 2.4 GHz Socket 775
RAM: 2 GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400
OS: Windows XP Pro
Video Card: 2x (SLi) eVGA 7950GT
Sound Card: Creative Labs SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Motherboard: eVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR NF680i 775
Hard Drive: 2x 80 GB Seagate 7500 RPM SATA (RAID 0 via Mobo?)
Connection: 768/1.5 ADSL (SpeakEasy SysAdmin Package)
Resolution: 3840x1024 (3x 19" ViewSonic 2ms VX922 with TripleHead2Go...decided to spoil myself...)
UI Scaling: unknown
Character Detail: 75-100%
World Detail: 75-100%
Particle Count: 20,000+
Other Graphics Settings: Mostly on "high" settings.

I expect good things from this setup. It may not be top-of-the-line but it's definitely above-par and above-average near as I can tell, and would be to drool over for most of the people I know.

If this doesn't seem to work, well I guess I give-up. Every issues brings a framerate penalty and unless I see some serious FPS improvements (given the specs on my current setup versus the new components, I expect 30+ fps outdoors), I can get things like NWN2 and other games I've been drooling at but had no time for, since this system is above-n-beyond the needs of most games out at the moment. I want my darned eye candy! ;P

If you need any more details Lighthouse, let me know. I will certainly get back one or the other before New Years with how the new gear is running. *crosses fingers*

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention my biggest pet peeves:

--You may have noticed I've never left "medium" settings despite the FPS hits. It's because starting with I6 the sliders stopped making any difference. I doubt I gain more than 1-2 fps going from "low" settings to "medium." Even turning things OFF made so little difference that I opted to keep some of the eye candy on.

--I tried the trick where you set game resolution less than screen resolution, but I can't stand what it does. I guess because my full-time job is graphics and I am sensitive to pixelation from being a Photoshop jockey, I can see every visual discrepancy from the game resolution vs. video resolution mismatch and find it both disorienting and distracting. Had to switch it back to matching.

[ QUOTE ]
Happy holidays!

[/ QUOTE ]
Gledileg Jol!

(tried to type with Scandanavian characters but the forums mauled it...)

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So . . . do we lose the access to Epics if the level 50 is deleted (which would be stupid, but given some of the choices of Cryptic over the years, thought I should ask).

[/ QUOTE ]
Once you have a 50, you can delete it and still make Kheldians. I deleted my only two 50s when ED hit because they became worthless, and I knew I'd never play them again. I was still able to created Kheldians.

Not sure if it's in this long thread:

Colors on Justice Armor look different indoors than outdoors. I verified with teammates than indoors my medium blue costume looks like it should, but outdoors it is a much paler almost sky blue.

Long cape, no pattern, male, Justice from Tights top. Cape "floats" off my back. Looks like it might be in the right place for the Armor version of Justice, but on tights it's hovering disconnected from the shoulder/mantle part of the cape.

[ QUOTE ]
at least you CAN buy it.


friggin mastercard

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah it must be retaliation for all my bank cards switching to MasterCard. *grrr*

So I had to plunk for a $50 VISA Gift Card just to get my costume goodies. ;P

I picked-up on "toon" from other people, and still use it because:

--"alt" and "main" are good until I cap an old main and some other alt becaomes my new main. Confused yet? Yeah so would folks in chat, even my friends. It always continues with "is this your new 'main'"?

--"Character" is the best word...and too long to type fast, when most "conversation" is in combat or has to happen fast for various reasons. Can't use "Char" since that's a power name, and outside of geek circles I'm surprised how many people don't know what it abbreviates.

--"Hero" and "Villain" are likely the second best, dunno why I don't use those except while "hero" is easy to type fast, my brain gets muddled with "villain" when typing in a hurry. That and most people at this stage use "alt"

In the end, everyone seems to understand instantly when I use "toon" so I just used it out of courtesy and clarity of understanding. Same reason I chat (and to some extent type in forums like thes) using "chatspeak" but write formal correspondence in proper English.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just posted info on the UK Site:

http://uk.cityofheroes.com/game-guid...teran_rewards/

WINGS Video!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, so I hadn't gotten all frothy and breathless with anticipation about wings... till now.

GIMME!

[/ QUOTE ]

[Siphon Speed]
OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG...

[drool]

[has heart attack]

[passes out]

Is there a way to buy the code if you don't have a VISA, that's my question. All I have is MasterCards. :/

Darc,

I think your method is the one I want but I'm new to batch files. So my question is:

I have an RP-heavy hero who speak no English, but instead broadcasts thoughts and uses body language. I also have a number of battle emotes. Right now I use a series of more than a dozen keys bound to phrases, and use regular, alt+, shift+, and ctrl+ to add variations (so that's 4x12+ binds). This all resides in a single bind file (I use external files to edit then load them, with a keybind to reload the file if I edit it).

What I'd like to do is ditch the ctrl/alt/shift method and just randomize (or even serial-select, just anything to keep from using modifier keys) the phrases.

The way I'm reading the methods so far is I'd either have to have dozens of sleep.exe managed batch files, which just seems complicated; or it'd have to re-write the entire binds file (a loooong file) every time, which seems overkill.

Am I just asking too much, misinterpreting the methods available, or...something else?

I can post my current binds file if it helps.

Thanks!

[ QUOTE ]
I've seen a few people mention that they've bound keys to equp and upgrade their bots. Could someone please post how they did so? I'd like to be able to just push one key and have the bot selected and equipped/upgraded. I'm having trouble getting both to happen.

[/ QUOTE ]
I do mine three step:

--Select Bot from Pet List
--Press the key bound to Equip
--Press the key bound to Upgrade (which queues it up)

Then I select the next bot, wait for Upgrade to start on the previous bot, then start the cycle again on the new bot.

I've got quite a rythm going for it. My little symphony of destruction...

(not directed at anyone in particular)

Just a note for those of you who like to combine emotes with their commands. I discovered that since I7 that if you issue "Stay" along with an emote, as soon as you move away the henches will Follow (not Stay). Something about issuing the emote breaks the Stay.

I haven't tried it with other commands like Goto.

Was driving me nuts when I came back to my 40 Bots/FF when I7 went live. I have "Stay" also do "em atease" to give a visual indication they are set to "stand still." Had to ditch the emote to actually get them to stay. :/

Aaaaaw! *pout*

You've been one of the coolest and straightforward rednames. Cricket has some tough shoes to fill.

Jeebus, what next, _Castle_ going to leave too? O.o

Does nayone know if there is command-line access to all the video controls shown using the Advanced button under Options?

With excessive lag in specific areas (Grandville, Arachnos Base maps) and less in other areas, I'd love to be able to quickly move between customized video settings. Ideally three:

--CoH: Alot less lag here so make the graphics pretty!
--CoV: Mediocre frame rates, so bring he graphics down a big notch
--Grandville/Arachnos Bases: Set the game for as low as I can tolerate asthetically

I know there are generic Low-Medium-High settings without the Advanced options, but I want to be able to fine-tune a bit more than that.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Cool you guys found one of em. Keep looking though, the biggest Grandville easter egg has yet to be found

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not the coneheads referance in Khur'rehk's text, is it?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, no, that's not it. Somewheree in the zone is a big button that will switch off the lag in Grandville...

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[ QUOTE ]

You tell me how it's fair or balanced for villains to HAVE to go to a PvP zone in order to get a power equivalent to that which a hero can get from PvE alone.


[/ QUOTE ]

Villains can farm that mission in Diable that's nothing BUT Shivans for the badge. And they can do that as early as level 15 if they wanted to.

Compared to heroes having to farm 1000 monkeys to get their Vanguard.

Uh, I think I'll stick with Megalomaniac. I got it at level 40, compared to the waaaay past level 50 I was able to get Vanguard on my hero.

[/ QUOTE ]
And for those of us who don't believe in farming, since we know darn well it goes against dev intent? I do missions for the mission bonus and content, farming is a waste of time and only fun once or twice tops.

And not everyone gets that mission. On 6+ alts that have been through that level range, only one of them stumbled on that mission.

Granted, I don't give a hoot about badges, but for those that do and have some sense of ethics...

[ QUOTE ]
Why is there Debt in PvP zones at all?

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't PvP but the Dev Digest entry for this thread caught my eye. I was under the impression that PvP zones were debt-free for some reason. In my mind it made sense. Of course it didn't occur to me to have NPCs running around causing trouble either. I simply avoided PvP for a host of other reasons that I won't sidetrack this thread with.

But knowing I'd get debt from NPCs, and it sounds like other players in the new RV zone, well, that's just another reason to stay out.

No offense to the "badge " (knowing full well that'll get censored...but it's a common phrase in the game) who think I should want a debt badge, but I consider part of the challenge is to avoid debt. I don't street sweep except to accelerate getting through the lower levels (the "hunt on the way to misions" thing). I play for the missions, the teams, the content. The street mobs are just random hazard that does occassionally kill me, but my outdoor debt is fairly rare.

But why would I want to mix random NPC debt with the debt from PCs, or just debt from PCs from them chasing me or placing me into NPCs to do their dirty work?

I really think PvP fosters the wrong mindset in players and developers, truly. This is supposed to be an escape from reality, not a reality mimicking reality, or in some case, being worse than reality.

2¢ bounces off the table...

Heheh....I mis-remembered "reloadgfx" as "unloadgfx"...but "unloadgfx" does work. Does it do the same thing?

[ QUOTE ]
nono.. the second part had nothing to do with math (to my knowlege atleast) Ill try to be a bit simpler.

Here is what i want to happen when i press the following button
Numpad DIVIDE: Cycle between my drones
Numpad MULTIPLY: Cycle between protector bots
Numpad SUBTRACT: Target assault bot

hope that was clearer

[/ QUOTE ]
Just to clarify further, the "DIVIDE, MULTIPLY, SUBTRACT" are the numeric keypad explicit names for those keys, to differentiate them from the -, /, and * keys on the primary keyboard. Same way NUMPAD1 is different from 1 on the main keyboard.

FWIW it took me a while to figure that out too. Made more sense when I bought an XKeys pad for handling my MM and had to program macros for it. ;-)