Captain Fabulous

[ QUOTE ]
Er, *almost everyone* got a title. The devs and LH / Ex were handing out titles like crazy. I've never seen so many yellows titles.

Thing is: some of us got there early, some got there late. You can't expect them to be there forever. They have to sleep too.

it IS only test. We'll get our 3rd anniversary badges on live for real

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I understand that, and I didn't mean to imply that the devs should endeavor to manually give out bonuses to everyone. I was thinking along the lines of an automatic system that would award you something as you entered Pocket D (hence my reference to a "gift bag" or "party favors"). The devs could still give out their titles and prizes, etc., but this way you don't consistently have people that feel like they missed out cause they happened to be in the wrong instance of Pocket D or arrived too early or too late to get a "gift".

But it's just a suggestion/idea. Do with it what you will.

Y'know, not to say I didn't enjoy myself, cause I did, but I always feel a bit, I dunno, let down when it's all over.

Maybe I'm out in left field, but for future events like this I feel like we should get something like the CoX equivalent of a gift bag or party favors, so to speak. I mean, it's all on the test server so it's not like it'll have any effect on live, but it would be nice to come away with something, even if it were just a temp title.

A lot of people try hard to get there and participate, and it seems a shame that only a few get picked out at a dev's whim to get something special.

Just my 2 cents.

Actually, I think it's really a 2-part issue.

The developers of the game should release an official "guide" that gives us all the nitty-gritty -- the numbers, the qualifiers and quantifiers, etc., so we know exactly how and why things work as they do. And this guide should be updated EVERY SINGLE TIME THERE IS A PATCH. Websites are updated every day, hour by hour. There is no legitimate reason why there can't be an official Cryptic/NCSoft online database/guide of exactly how this game works that is 100% current and up-to-date. Period.

But, that being said, I don't expect Cryptic to provide me with skill guides, build guides, or any type of strategy guides. These are things I believe should be left to the players. After all, we collectively log more time in-game than the developers ever could, and often find ways of accomplishing things the devs never thought of or intended.

But we the playerbase should not be expected to provide datasets on how powers/enhancements/salvage/etc. function, that's just absurd. I mean, com'n don't u people know how your game works? Why do we need to spend our time figuring it out when you already have all the information but refuse to share it? This I will NEVER understand.

/rant off

whoopsies, my bad, you CANNOT use -project cov

you can only use -project coh or -project cohtest

sorry bout that. it must conform to the registry entries.

[ QUOTE ]
Willy -

[ QUOTE ]
Well I'm going to be rude and state the obvious -- better that it crashes when you quit then when you're in the middle of the game. All in all this is the last thing I would be worrying about.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right, it's not a show-stopper, but it is damned inconvenient. As Zloth surmised, whenever it crashes, it forces a full file scan on the next start, which means every single time I launch the game I have to sit through the file scan which takes several minutes and is tedious in the extreme!

[/ QUOTE ]

Create a shortcut to the CoX executable file (not the updater) and put -project coh in the target line (or cov if you want to start up in villain mode). This effectively bypasses the updater and will also bypass the file scan. This way, the only time you need to run the updater is when a new patch for live is released. Remember to also add any other switches you may have had in your updater shortcut such as -compatiblecursors 1 and -renderthread 1

[ QUOTE ]
What's perhaps more worrying to me is that I've not heard of anyone else having the same problem - that makes me nervous. If the fault weren't isolated to CoX I'd suspect a more general problem with my machine.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, you're not the only one who reported having this problem, so it's not just you.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The game uses Ageia physics, emulated in software if you don't have a card. Just a FYI.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I know. It's not supposed to crash every time you exit the game however; I mentioned I didn't have a PPU to pre-empt anyone asking the question.

-k

[/ QUOTE ]

Well I'm going to be rude and state the obvious -- better that it crashes when you quit then when you're in the middle of the game. All in all this is the last thing I would be worrying about.

That said, do you have the Ageia runtimes installed? Have you tried updating them? Uninstalling them? Installing them if you haven't?

Of course since it really has almost zero impact on the game you could always just ignore it and wait for a future fix. But NAH, what kind of fun would that be?

[ QUOTE ]
After reading through the replies everyday I can't stress this enough:

READ THE FIRST POSTS BEFORE YOU ASK QUESTION.

[/ QUOTE ]

Whaaa? You got some kinda problem with n00bs asking the same stupid questions over and over and over and over and over again? Ones that have been answered over and over and over and over again ad nauseum? Are you trying to say they are all lazy [censored] who can't be bothered to read before they write?

CAUSE THEY ARE.

Carry on...

[ QUOTE ]
I'm getting it to work now. I noticed that the Gadget sidebar was always there. When I disabled it the resolution box and cursor alignment problems went away so I can play now! The cursor itself is still a little off, but I can live with that since I can play and the main graphics are fine.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very good to know. You're not the first person to have this resolution problem, and at least now we know it can be attributed to the sidebar.

[ QUOTE ]
omg so many problems here...!
my specs-
Processor : AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+
RAM : 1GB
Video Card : Nvidia MSI 7900gt
Drivers : 158.18_forceware
OS : 32bits vista ultimate
when I open the game I got some errors like your card does not support GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array , GL_ARB_multitexture , GL_ARB_texture_compression..

[/ QUOTE ]

You need to uninstall and reinstall the video drivers. For whatever reason the OpenGL components are missing or corrupt.

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I just got a new laptop with Vista and can almost get CoH to run, but not quite. It looks like it trys to reset the resolution of the display but gets stuck. I am left with the game running inside of box in the center of the screen. Note that this is not a Windows box. Around the box I can see my regular background. My mouse is also offset. The cursor is there and I can see it if I am in the box, but where it is and what buttons it is highlighting in CoH are out of sync. As a result I cannot hit Back, Next, etc. I can only get out of the game by ctrl-alt-del and close it in Task Manager.

Video card is NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX
Driver is version 7.15.10.9759

I've tried to get another driver from nVidia but they don't even list this card or show Vista for the 7000 series.

Help!

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right that it's a resolution issue. The game is trying to run in a resolution that your laptop doesn't like. You could try entering the game in safe mode so you can set a more appropriate resolution, manually edit resolution in the registry, or use a utility like TweakCoH.

And you're also right that nVidia is not offering up any Vista drivers for the Go 7-series. Your only option at the moment is to continue to use the drivers that shipped with your laptop or to find beta drivers that have been inf-modded to include your card.

[ QUOTE ]
I am also getting a crash when I quit out of CoH. It was not doing this originally, but started doing it shortly after I got my video settings tweaked etc.

I have to ctrl alt delete to get to the error message and thus close down the game.

It says its an error with a third party dll file "PhysXLoader" Or was it PhysXcore either way its that dll.

I just installed the latest nvidia drivers for vista x64. It was doing this prior to that update as well.

Other specs:
AMD athlon 3000+
3G Ram
Asus A8N-SLI Dekuxe
EVGA gforce 8800 GTX

[/ QUOTE ]

Someone else had this issue which I don't believe was ever solved.

I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the I9 pre-download. The pre-download would fire up just as you left the game, right before you hit the desktop, and this seems to be where this crashing happens.

This might be something you want to discuss with support.

[ QUOTE ]
I have a issue with vista, but am not sure what to try next i've read all the threads and only found one that is similar to my problem and tried the fixes for that. And it doesn't work. K...heres the issue, Go to load CoH it brings up the updater, get through the updates (this is after a fresh install) and the screen goes black....once in awhile the city of heroes screen will flash breifly but then goes black again. Can't get to the login screen.....eventually have to hit the Cntrl+Alt+Del keys and it says that its not responding. Wondering if anyone know how to fix this. I've updated my Nvidia drivers to the latest.
My video card is nvidia geforce 5200 with these most current (at least on nvidia's site) of 9.6.8.5
Running Windows Vista 32bit
With 2 Gigs of RAM
Hope someone can shed some light on to this very frustrating problem

[/ QUOTE ]

You need to use the nVidia beta drivers. There are many.

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, first I'm going to list my system specs and hopefully this will help that we can diagnose my problem:

Windows Vista Business
AMD Athlon64 3700+ San Diego Core
MSI nForce 4 M/B
2GB CAS 2 DDR RAM in dual-channel
nVidia/XFX 7900GT Xtreme Edition (using 158.18 drivers)

My problem lies in really low framerates, running around 25fps in outdoor zones. My XP drive (I'm dual booting until Vista stabilizes) runs CoX at around 35-60fps outdoors. My resolution for both desktop and game on both OS's is 1280x1024.

Here is what I've tried so far:

-compatiblecursors 1 - Check!
Compatibility mode in XP SP2 and 'Disable desktop composition' - Check!
FSAAx4 through nVidia control panel and disabled FSAA in game - Check!
Disabled Bloom and DoF effects - Check!

I am concerned as to whether or not this is normal performance running through Vista as opposed to XP. I see a lot of people excited using the new OS once using the tweaks, so far I'm not seeing anything better than what I get with XP though. Should my framerates be this low with the new OS? Not sure what to do here, any recommendations would be greatly appreciated however.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately, yes, this is normal for your rig. Upgrading to a dual-core processor would help immensely.

[ QUOTE ]
Hello everyone.

I am using a laptop running Vista home premium. I am experiencing brighter than usual colors when I log in and texture flashing problems as well. The textures will flash at times and appear to be missing at other times. I was wondering if anyone has experienced this before.

Everything else works well in cox, but the graphics issues are annoying.

My current system specifications:
Core 2 Duo 2.16 ghz
mobility radeon x1900
2 GB ram
1920x1200 resolution
100 GB hard drive
Driver Packaging Version 8.332-070108a1-039663E-FIC

Thanks for any help

[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty sure this is an ATI driver problem. Dunno if there is a driver you can use to fix this problem considering you have a laptop. Perhaps one of the ATI gurus can chime in?

[ QUOTE ]
This machine has 512 MB RAM

[/ QUOTE ]

DING!

Vista barely fits into 512 MB of RAM, forget about a game that optimally wants 1 GB of RAM all for itself. Adding another 512 MB of RAM will help a good deal, but honestly, despite what Microsoft and Cryptic tell you, you really need 2 GB of RAM, especially with Vista.

Unfortunately there are no workarounds or tweaks that are going to help. You must add more RAM.

[ QUOTE ]
Hi. I've done most of the things said here and they all work. Everything seems to go smoothly until the game randomly drops. It freezes the screen with these vertical LINES, and than crashes my computer. It happens randomly and often, now another problem has started on top of that one. The game freezes momentarily than my screen goes black, than I recieve a message saying that my drivers had stopped working but are now up; yet the game doesnt respond. It just stays black. Can I get some help with these, pretty please?

Here are me specs:

Vista Home Premium
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ 2.20 GHz
2047 MB (2.00 GB RAM)
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS
32-bit Operating System

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're using the latest beta drivers and did a clean driver install, I'd say you're having an overheating issue.

If you're overclocking, put everything back to stock speeds and try again. Open up your case and clean out all the dust bunnies, paying close attention to the CPU fan/heatsink, the power supply fans, and the video card fan/heatsink. You should also check to make sure all your fans are still working; it's not uncommon for a clogged fan to die, especially the small cheap ones they put on video cards.

You could also try leaving the side of the case off and blowing a small fan into the machine. If everything works fine while doing this, it's another indicator that you're having a heat issue.

[ QUOTE ]
I wonder - is City of Heroes trying to play at a different resolution than your desktop? I get the feeling that it isn't the video card drivers, it's the monitor drivers. It sounds like the timings for sending your monitor information are totally off whack.

Let's see.... ah yes, Circ's TweakCoH should be able to fix your resolution up for you. Set it to be the same as your desktop resolution. Same refresh rate, too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmm... but he also said it does this whenever he goes into Safe Mode. But perhaps you're onto something. Maybe it's a resolution/frequency issue with his monitor -- it's having a hard time displaying whatever resolution/frequency the OS/game is sending. I guess you'd have to figure out what that resolution is and then play around in the control panel trying to figure out why it's going all haywire. If he's using a CRT perhaps the picture isn't adjusted right and he needs to play around with the centering controls on the monitor?

[ QUOTE ]
That's what I'm saying ... I don't have the taskbar up there ... when the game starts ... the "Loading..." is in the right place on the screen, but, whatever is causing this is displacing the screen "upwards" (no, I don't and have never had another monitor on this system) ...

I did discover this as well ... when I reboot in Safe Mode, the same screen displacement occurs (everything "up" so that only the bottom edge of the "projected screen" is visible on the "display screen").

Why did I ever install VISTA ... geez.

[/ QUOTE ]

Alrighty, go into the nVidia control panel and make sure you're in single monitor mode. Open the CP, click on Display and then look under Multiple Displays for "change display configuration". It should say "Only use one display (Single)", and the display monitor is your main monitor.

Sometimes, and I have no idea why, the driver thinks there are 2 monitors attached and automatically configures itself for a multi-monitor setup. This often happens if the card has an active TV out connector even when nothing is attached.

Again, I have no clue if this is your problem, but it's the only thing I can think of that would displace your screen like that. Hey, you got nothing to lose, right?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Did you have any issues at all with getting the drivers installed? I've seen problems trying to upgrade to beta video drivers from the default-installed Microsoft WDM video drivers. Typically you might get an error during installation, or the installation goes much more quickly than you would expect, or you didn't get the "are you sure you want to install these non-Microsoft drivers" warning, etc.; not necessarily something obtuse, but perhaps just, well, odd.

I would try this: uninstall the nVidia drivers, reboot into safe mode and run driver cleaner, go back into Vista without letting it install the default WDM drivers, and reinstall the nVidia betas. That's what I had to do to get my spare machine running right after an upgrade installation.

BTW, I didn't have this problem with a fresh install, just an upgrade.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, accomplished all this, old driver deleted, driver cleaner run, new driver installed, same problem.

It's like the game is running "above" the sceren ... so that I can only see the task bar at the top of the screen.

Any further ideas will be greatly appreciated... I miss COV!

[/ QUOTE ]

The only other thing I can suggest would be to turn off desktop composition. Right click the updater shortcut, click the compatibility tab, and disable desktop composition. Honestly, I don't know if it'll work, but can't hurt to try.

Any chance you have a second monitor attached (or the machine thinks you do) and is sending the game screen there? Cause that's the closest thing that comes to my mind based upon your description.

And why do you have a taskbar at the top of the screen?? Put it back at the bottom where it belongs!

[ QUOTE ]
Hello all i was wondering if any one can help me out with my problem i am having. I just resently got a new dell inspiron laptop with vista on it and brought it to my college dorm. I do have the option for wireless internet connections but i am not picking up any signals from the connections here in my dorm so i had to connect to the internet through the campus resnet ethernet connection. So my problem is after i installed the game and clicked on the icon to start up the login this so it is updated and then take me to the login screen it does not connect to the login thing at all. So i was wondering if any one can help me out with getting around using campus resnet ethernet connection so i could get back into the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Were you able to connect to the game before on your old system/laptop using this connection? Cause it sounds to me like the school might be blocking gaming ports to keep kids from rotting their brains out playing games instead of doing their homework

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, sorry for asking for omniscience from you all:

I'm running a Gateway AMD Athelon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600 2.4 GHz
2046 MB Ram

Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT 256 MB

Driver is 101.41

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you have any issues at all with getting the drivers installed? I've seen problems trying to upgrade to beta video drivers from the default-installed Microsoft WDM video drivers. Typically you might get an error during installation, or the installation goes much more quickly than you would expect, or you didn't get the "are you sure you want to install these non-Microsoft drivers" warning, etc.; not necessarily something obtuse, but perhaps just, well, odd.

I would try this: uninstall the nVidia drivers, reboot into safe mode and run driver cleaner, go back into Vista without letting it install the default WDM drivers, and reinstall the nVidia betas. That's what I had to do to get my spare machine running right after an upgrade installation.

BTW, I didn't have this problem with a fresh install, just an upgrade.

[ QUOTE ]
I've updated my NVidia drivers to the latest available.

[/ QUOTE ]

Define "latest"...

The latest official drivers as of right now are 100.65. The latest beta from nVidia is 101.41 and can be found HERE. The most recent beta known to mankind (well, at least to me) is 101.70 and can be found HERE

[ QUOTE ]
And all 8800's with all drivers have the "black fuzzies" texture corruption in Arachnos bases and bank heist missions.

Plus, you may or may not be able to fix the invisible cursor problem using "compatiblecursors." I still have to play in windowed mode to avoid that.

[/ QUOTE ]

The fuzzies aren't just a Vista issue. I get them with XP as well. And I didn't have any problem getting a cursor with the -compatiblecursors 1 switch. But then again, I don't have SLI, so perhaps that's making it not work for you.

[ QUOTE ]
Hey all. I've gone on record for my disdain of Vista . . . but I am building a new PC, and the neophile in me is just dying to try it out - if only for a little bit. But before I waste my time, does anyone know how well (or not) the NVidia 8800GTS plays with Vista? Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've just played around with Vista a bit, but haven't noticed any specific issues with the 8800.

[ QUOTE ]
Giving applications administrative rights which they do not require is not really an acceptable solution to me I'm afraid. I guess my question really should have been - is this request for admin privileges and the ensuing UAC prompt a result of an incorrect request for rights by CoX (in which case I will have to live with it until Cryptic patch it out) or do I have some kind of misconfiguration on my system? I would guess the former but I was hoping for the latter.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I read somewhere that if you reinstall the game from the original discs under Vista it eliminates the UAC prompt. I haven't tried it myself, so I can't say if it does indeed work.

[ QUOTE ]
I had UAC turned off for a while too because it was so damned annoying; however as I have learned more about it, I have come to believe that in it is adds a massive layer of additional security to a system - far more than my anti-virus software, for example, and I wouldn't be without that - so I have switched it back on and am just training myself to get used to it's foibles. IT security is actually what I do for a living, fwiw, so believe me I've had the "opportunity" to do more than my fair share of research on the subject

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I really don't want to get into the pros and cons of UAC, especially not in this thread, but as an IT pro myself I've always believed knowledge and training to be a much better weapon against malware than any software. Teach your staff not to surf to places they shouldn't (like porn sites, illegal movie and music download sites, torrent sites, etc.), not to open ANY email attachments from ANYONE without verbal confirmation even if they know the sender, and to never, ever transfer files from the secure office network to an insecure location (such as a laptop or home computer) without explicit permission and/or without following a strict, controlled security regimen for such transfers.

The problem with UAC is that it just blindly asks for confirmation to continue, and once the retardedness of the system sets in it's all too easy for ignorant and/or untrained users to simply click OK or blindly enter an administrator password without thinking twice about what they're doing. And once that's happened, it's over.

[ QUOTE ]
Crashing: I don't believe it's x64 - one of the guys I play with is also an x64 user, has a 7900GT (I have a 7950) and is running the 101.41's, and he doesn't get the crash on exit. That one really puzzles me.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are many ways your systems can be different that could be cause of the crash. It might not be related to your video cards. Check to see if there is a crash log available and/or the event viewer to see if it tells you in what module the crash occured. His 7950 might love the 101.41s and your 7900GT might not. It might also be the way you have the driver configured (e.g. texture compress on=crash; off=no crash). The variables involved are nearly endless.

And right now when you quit the game it fires up the I9 pre-download. Perhaps this is what's causing the crash.

[ QUOTE ]
I do have good reasons for running x64, believe it or not I also hold out hope that within a few years, the reasons for running x64 will become much more compelling and we'll have a new standard for these things - in the mean time, consider me an "early adopter"

[/ QUOTE ]

There are 2 reasons why 64-bit OSs are not the norm, and probably won't be for at least 3-5 years, if not longer:

1.) The vast majority of PCs in use today don't have 64-bit processors. And the advantages of having one for the casual user are virtually nil. With no compelling reason to upgrade, these machines are going to stick around as long as they continue to perform adequately the tasks required of them. 64-bit will get its shot as soon as those old workhorses become the minority. Unfortunately that probably won't be any time soon.

2.) There is painfully little native 64-bit software. And it's very much a catch-22. Software and hardware developers aren't going to devote many resources to 64-bit projects as the installed base is very small. And the installed base won't grow without new and "better" products to entice users to switch to a 64-bit platform.

If you're in a business where you can truly take advantage of what 64-bit offers in terms of larger memory spaces and faster data crunching, and have no wayward 32-bit code stuck in there to muck things up (64-bit machines, OS, applications, and drivers) then you SHOULD take full advantage of it. But for most of us this isn't the case, and running 32-bit software in a 64-bit environment actually hinders performance as well as negate nearly all potential benefits.