Captain Fabulous

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My one wish for CoX is one, just one full issue, with nothing but bug fixes. Please?

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Issue 16: Extermination!

Dual Nerf bats FTW!!!

Sorry to keep resurrecting this thread, but I'm wondering if anyone has had experience getting Crossfire to work with CoX? Is it possible or just a pipe dream?

Well the 4770 arrived today and so far so good. I did some quick testing in Vantage and here is what I got (Forceware 185.85 for Nvidia, CCC 9.5 for ATI in Vista64)

1280 x 1024 (default setting)

8800GS 384MB = 3753
8800GTS 320 MB = 5072
HD4770 512 MB = 6705

That's 32% faster than the 8800GTS and 79% faster than the 8800GS


1920 x 1080

8800GS = 2460
8800GTS = 3363
HD4770 = 4478

And that's 33% faster than the GTS and 82% faster than the GS

Yeah, it's just a single benchmark, but it does give you some idea of the performance difference.

OK, I bit the bullet:

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec_...iteria=3005196

Everyone keep their fingers crossed

Well I think I've changed my mind again.

Toms Hardware just did a comparison between the 4770, the GTX260 and 280, the 4890, and two 4770s in Crossfire.

The Crossfired 4770s spanked every single card except the 280, and was only about 10% slower than that despite being at least $100 cheaper.

And I was able to see that the GTX260 (the card I've been itching to buy but is more than I want to spend) is only about 33% faster than a single 4770, but 80% more expensive. Doesn't sound like a very good bargain to me. And since the price of the 260s have already dropped since the introduction of the 275s I don't expect the price to come down anytime soon.

So now my next question: what brands of Radeon should I avoid? I've seen Sapphire, Powercolor, HIS, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, and XFX. I'm assuming any of the last 4 would be fine, but I have no knowledge of the first 3.

I for one really don't like nVidia's practice of rebadging old parts as new models. I got all excited when they announced the GTX 250 and then got really pissed when I found out they were not 200-series GPUs. I think it's a blatantly deceptive marketing strategy that borders on fraud.

I also think nVidia is going to get caught with their pants down in the upcoming year. They are so concerned with the high end market they have severely neglected the midrange market. Their "midrange" products are basically repackaged chips from the last 2 years. The problem is that I think for most people today's midrange is "good enough", especially when money is tight. But who wants to spend good money on old technology?

ATI hasn't had much luck at the high end, and has focused a lot on the midrange, so I think they are in a much better position, and are definitely going to put some heat on nVidia to compete in that area.

The GTX250 is a rebadged 9800GTX. It's a G9x part, not a GTX200 part.

I have an original 8800GTS 320. The 9800GT is faster, and the 9800GTX is faster than that. The Radeon 4770 is somewhere between the 9800GT and the GTX.

But I think I've decided to put off buying anything until I can go for a 260, sometime in the fall. Who knows, by then something new might be out.

Well it's not really that simple, is it? If it were I wouldn't need to ask. Nvidia has no acceptable offerings at the $100 price point, and that's what I'm looking to spend. And while I could, in theory, bite the bullet and expand my budget by $20-$30, that will only get me a nearly two year old product, the 9800 GTX that Nvidia is sneakily now calling the GTX 250 (even tho it's NOT a 200-class processor). The next option would be $185 for a GTX 260 -- much more than I can afford.

So I must ask myself, how much is "high water" worth?

Are there any threads in the forum *without* bickering these days??

So ATI is fine as long as one is ok with AA/AF or high water, but not both. What about Crossfire? Can I assume that since SLI doesn't work that Crossfire doesn't either?

I did read the last page of the ATI Recommended Settings sticky and there were quite a few posts saying how the latest drivers were wonky and crash prone. I'm wondering, is this still the case with 9.4?

I've been a long time Nvidia user and now find myself considering buying the new Radeon 4770 to replace my aging 8800GTS 320.

I know that ATI cards have long had problems in CoX and I'm wondering if going this route is going to cause me more headaches than it's worth.

In case it matters I use Vista64 with 4 GBs RAM, an E8400 Core2Duo @3.6GHz, and run at 1920 x 1080.

One of the things that appeals to me is being able to buy a second of these cards down the road and using Crossfire (my mobo doesn't support SLI). Does Crossfire work with CoX? In general does Crossfire work well in games that support it or is it too more of a pain than its worth?

Thanks.

Everyone can add CoX to Steam as a "non-Steam game". This allows you to integrate Steam's chat functions and overlay on top of CoX, as well as let friends know you're playing a game.

Go to the My Games tab, click Games on the menu, and then select "Add a non-Steam game to My Games list". Once you finish installing it into Steam it shows up as a game in My Games.

If you run CoX thru Steam you'll get the overlay. If you run it from outside Steam you don't get the overlay. So you have a choice.

You will be missed

And the part that bugs me the most isn't so much the crash and having to wait for it to verify on the next load, but when it crashes it screws up my desktop gamma. And the only way I've found to fix it is to reboot.

So it's getting harder and harder justifying 5.1 sound if it means I have to reboot after every play session.

EDIT: forgot to mention it also borks the X-Fi. It gets stuck in game mode, Audio Console won't run, and I get endless popping and clicking until I reboot.

I still crash with the latest version of ALchemy. And I too am using the latest X-Fi drivers.

I found a quick and dirty way to get the I14 pre-download without having to disable ALchemy -- just start the game in safe mode (check the safe mode box in the updater). When you get to the log in screen click exit. The game won't crash (cause it's not using DirectSound or ALchemy) and the download will start.

And I like how the ALchemy auto update says there are no new updates even though there was one in the beginning of March.

I swear I will NEVER buy another Creative product as long as I live. The hardware is good, but the drivers, software, and support is absolutely abysmal.

I just upgraded to Vista 64, installed ALchemy to get back 3D sound and now every time I exit the game it crashes. I found a post back in *2007* saying this was a known problem.

So here we are 1.5 years later and *SURPIRSE!!!* another turd from Creative that still doesn't work.

Has anyone found a workaround for this crash? Or do I just have to deal with it?

TIA.

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Double Rewards:
During Double XP Weekend players obtain double rewards in the following categories: XP, Prestige, & Influence/Infamy. Double rewards do not apply to salvage, inspirations, day jobs, or merits.

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Don't be snarky. I read this as "you will not get double rewards towards day jobs", not *from* day jobs. Because the line right before it says XP is doubled.

To expand on this further, what about the day jobs that give bonuses for inf and prestige, which are also noted as being doubled?

Yes, it sounds like we won't, but it's unclear, and I would appreciate a clarification.

What about the XP bonus from the Arachnos Pilot day job (and the hero side equivalent)? Will those bonuses get doubled?

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I just updated my nVidia driver for my 9600 GT to 180.48, and I get crashes now on a regular basis. My system is Vista Ultimate 64-bit, 4GB RAM, 1.5TB HDD, Quad Core 2.4GHz, P5ND ASUS motherboard. I don't see why I should be crashing so often. Is there some setting to alter to get the game to stop crashing? I lost 2 badges already because of this.

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http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....v=#Post12851444

READ

Probably too late for this now, but any chance that we can have the freespec limit raised to 2 instead of one? Now that we have alt builds one respec isn't going to be enough if we have to adjust 2 builds.

Just a thought.

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This thread tells us how to achieve the best Quality (for those systems that can handle it), not performance.

Obviously, if your system "has to be set to the lowest graphics quality.... to run at normal speed", then raising the quality is going to slow you down. You answered your own question.

You have a 7150M.. you better stick to the lowest settings. You wont get any better quality without interfering with your performance.

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Well that was part of my question, are my computer's specs too weak to handle the game with hi settings or was it possible I was doing something wrong or missed something. I am not an expert on computers but I am running a brand new computer on a 4 year old game. I'd expect it to be able to handle it. Is the quality of the video card the problem? What video card would I need to upgrade to to be able to handle the higher settings?

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The 7150M is integrated graphics. It performs just fine for watching video and running Aero in Vista but is not designed for any kind of serious gaming. This is why the game doesn't play well.

Unfortunately there isn't anything you can do about it. Unlike desktops there is no way to upgrade or replace the video adapter on 98% of all laptops.

To get the best performance make sure the control panel is set to High Performance, with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering both off. Also make sure that these are turned off in the game's options as well as bloom, depth of field, water, desaturation, and particle physics (all should be off/none). I would also reduce world details to the minimum amount and reduce particle count to around 4000.

You can experiment with different settings for shader quality, world/character textures and character details to see which will give you the best visuals without severely impacting performance. You could also try setting antialiasing to 2x in the Nvidia control panel just to see what happens. The increase in visual quality might be worth it if the loss of performance is small.

Integrated video usually doesn't have its own VRAM but instead uses a portion of system RAM. If this is the case with your machine you should go into the BIOS and ensure the maximum amount of RAM possible is allocated to video.

If all else fails consider running the game at a lower resolution.

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There is an interesting rumor going around. I've heard it mentioned by several others at least 7 times last night. I might've seen it happen. I'm not too sure. I'll check it tonight when I'm back from work.

Supposedly the doors, when Trick or Treating, will swing open 2 or 3 times allowing more monsters come out.

Out of curiosity, I follow one group (but I didn't join) to a door near the hospital and watch. 4 of the heroes were standing pretty far from the door so the "hand" wouldn't be in range of the door. Then one hero opened the door and out came out 3 vampires, 2 witches and 2 werewolves.

Eventually the fight spilled out to the street and it was cool as hell to watch. It was like a horror version of the street fight in Big Trouble in Little China. Anyway, I saw the doors swing one more time and a slew of zombies & ghosts poured out.

Eventually the fight ended and the next hero opened the door. More zombies and 2 werewolves come flying out. 5 minutes later, the fight ends. This time the doors do not open again

Could this be a glitch or is programmed to randomly happen?

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It seems for some reason that ToT spawns are getting stuck behind doors that don't open. I noticed this when ToTing at the motel in PI. What then seems to happen is that when a door does eventually open all the previously stuck critters come out in waves, so you get a lot more than expected.

I noticed this when Controller pets were acting really wonky -- they could "see" the spawns that were stuck behind the doors. When I went to investigate with my Inv/SS tank I saw my Invincibility buff go thru the roof when I got near the door in question, clearly indicating the critters were there, stuck behind a door that won't open.

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Adding to this thread

I just got off of Freedom where I've been for the last 4-5 hours, and in that time not one single Apocalypse generated anywhere on the server. Is this "working as intended"? What exactly is the time between spawns? It seems a bit ridiculous that I have to log in and park myself someplace for hours and hours waiting for an Apocalypse to spawn.

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See ANNOUNCEMENTS section regarding the glitch they just fixed. Zombies should be spawning as intended now.

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I did. Lighthouse posted at 3:43 PM PST that the error in spawning was fixed on Monday (yesterday). Well I played from about 8 PM-1 AM PST last night and there were no zombie spawns at all on Freedom. So either the timer is very long and the zones are all synched together or it's still borked.

Adding to this thread

I just got off of Freedom where I've been for the last 4-5 hours, and in that time not one single Apocalypse generated anywhere on the server. Is this "working as intended"? What exactly is the time between spawns? It seems a bit ridiculous that I have to log in and park myself someplace for hours and hours waiting for an Apocalypse to spawn.

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QUESTION!!! (what? i have a question...)

Do these revised rules mean that there won't be any more of those posts where someone just quotes someone else's quotes and adds (ONLY) the word "this"?

Isn't it like bumping? or like saying "/signed"? isn't it unconstructive?

I feel that this should be made a little clearer... Are we allowed to do it?

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When in doubt, don't. If you think doing so is nothing more than saying "/signed" or "/QFT", then don't do it. Again, common sense.

If it's something you really want to post but are unsure, send a PM to one of the reps or mods and ask before you post.