DragonAlpha

Communication, imho, is the key to a successful, enjoyable teaming experience. Rightly or wrongly I view blind invites as an early indicator that the teaming experience isn't going to be that great. That's why I prefer a tell before joining a team.

I regularly start teams or take on the star when a team leader quits. I have absolutely no problem at all sending tells to people asking them if they want to join, whether they say that they accept blinds or not. If I don't, how do I know if they're interested in joining in what we're doing?

"From the studio that brought you..." - although the actual people that worked on the game were only introduced to MMO's / Computer games / Computers five minutes before they started working on this title.

"From the creative force behind..." however we couldn't get our old studio to fund this so we went independent and we're trying to build it in our Mum's spare room, in the evenings, when we get home from our jobs.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm determined to have a human on WS, but I wouldn't have said that was too crazy. Just cause neither form really appeals to me that much but purple blasts are awesome (I can see it being deleted if we ever actually get power customisation and a Dark/Dark defender being made)

[/ QUOTE ]

A little off-topic I realise but I'd highly recommend this. I feel the same about the Dark powersets all that skull-lobbing isn't really what I had in mind. But if you re-interpret the warshade powers you end up with purple blasts, regenerating yourself from corpses, making corpses explode, extracting the souls from corpses and binding them to your will etc. etc. Works really well as a dark (rather than Dark) concept toon.

Back on topic (ish). High level khelds and VEATs combined with the multiple builds option is a great source of experimentation!

I can confirm Scarlet's experience.

I have twin 9800 GTX+s. Even running in non-SLI mode (i.e. really only using one card) I can run CoH with everything on max and get a smooth 60fps even in the middle of a Rikti Raid and also have a second monitor running as well.

Up until today I would have agreed with you about the problems with drivers and Vista crashes but I've just installed the latest version of the Nvidia drivers (180.48) and so far haven't had a single gfx driver crash (*crosses all fingers, toes, split-ends etc.*).

The performance gain that I've seen by running the cards in SLI vs. non-SLI mode are negligible. I can see a small difference on something like Crysis but frankly it doesn't really justify the expense. It's a bit of an extravagance tbh.

Hope that's helpful

Drag

I use the 177.92 drivers on a 9800GTX+ with a gfx crash about once a month (or less). All other versions that I've tried have either degraded performance or crashed more often.

So the description says:
[ QUOTE ]
Naughty Aura: When this aura is selected, the player will have a circling halo of flame around their head. The colour of the flame can be tinted.

[/ QUOTE ]

and

[ QUOTE ]
Nice Aura: When this aura is selected, the player will have a circling halo of light around their head. The colour of the light can also be tinted.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tinted?

I've tried and unless I'm missing something no they can't.

in a word, no.

There's no inherent incompatibility between CoX and Vista 64. I'm running a Vista64 system with no problems whatsoever. The only advice I can give is to experiment with the Nvidia drivers. I'm still running quite an old set as the most up to date ones still don't run CoX as well (they're stable but for some reason won't run at the max framerate).

Keep on experimenting is the best advice I can offer.

Here's a few of mine.

Top, left to right: Zapbear, Snowchain, Anna Phylactic, Transparent Girl, Lethal Dose, Ms Grave

Bottom, left to right: Z-Point, Bloody Nora, Dom Diamond, Fire-Brand, Sarcasma, Dolly Macabre

Clicky

yep - union. Could have been grav/emp but I was sooooo new then that powersets were a bit of a mystery to me.

and yes Phants, she was very cool.

Not sure if this is the right thread but I'm sure i'll be helped if it isn't....

When I first started playing, nearly 3 years go now, the first person I remember regularly teaming with as I got Drag up to lvl 50 was Yellow Chick. She was always there, it felt like, encouraging me on, and complimenting me on my (probably first ever) bind.

So - does anyone know who Yellow Chick was/is? Are you her? Is she still around, albeit in a slightly altered form? If she is, then a 3 year vet would just like to shake her hand and say thanks for encouraging this new player, all those years ago.

Cheers

Drag

[ QUOTE ]
Another good tip i picked up is if you click the dot on the top of the team window, you can drag the box anywhere on screen, if you move the team window to the direct right side of your powers, its much easier to switch team members fast to heal in an emergency situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Another technique here works well for those of us who use the keyboard a lot rather than clicking.

Map the keys on your numpad to select the members of your team:

/bind numpad1 "team_select 1"
/bind numpad2 "team_select 2"

etc.

Then you can map your fave single-target heals/buffs to the other keys on the numpad, eg:

/bind add "powexec_name heal other"
/bind subtract "powexec_name clear mind"

Then, as soon as you see a health bar turning a nasty shade of orange you can select the player and activate the power without having to move your mouse at all.

As I say, only works if you're happier with the keyboard than clicking but at my age I tend to lose the cursor on the screen more often than I care to admit! This way if player 6 shouts "zzz" I can instantly apply clear mind (provided I'm in range).

Cheers

Drag

Hmm - Thanks Praf. That confirms what I think I was hearing. That and a greater distinction in volume between events that are taking place close to the toon and further away...

Or maybe I'm imagining that second bit.

OK, so I've activated this option in the Graphics and Audio settings menu... and ... I'm really not sure what's actually different. Does anyone know what this option really does?

Cheers

Drag

[ QUOTE ]
which is really odd, as the performance on my older 8800GTS has actually gone up (5 -10 FPS on average)

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup - go figure!

Also, from other discussions I've seen on here drivers that are completely stable on other cards in the 8/9 series are comlpetely flaky on mine and vice versa. So, unfortunately, just going for the latest drivers isn't reliable advice - best thing to do is experiment (which is a bit tedious).

One word of advice whatever you go for: Be prepared to experiment with the drivers. I've just finished refreshing my PC and ended up with a dual 9800GTX+ setup. I run it in non-sli mode most of the time as I like to run multiple monitors.

The latest set of drivers actually ran CoH significantly slower than the previous ones. If I'd gone straight for the newest drivers then I'd probably have been very disappointed with the card but luckily I'd used an earlier version that ran everything happily at 60fps, even in the middle of a Rikti raid.

Actually the framerate drops were happening when the cards weren't running in SLI mode. I didn't bother to try CoH under SLI as it really doesn't need it. I've now rolled back the drivers and found a set that will happily run CoH at 60fps when not SLI'd and will SLI the cards when I want to run applications that need the extra boost.

And yeah, can't argue with your analysis on the cost/benefit of two cards. I was expecting a bigger boost than I actually got but hey, I think I'm way past the point of making rational decisions when purchasing toys (which is how I tend to approach PC upgrade decisions).

I've just installed the Nvidia 178.13 drivers in order to get my twin 9800GTX+'s to play together in SLI mode.

When I'm using them in non-SLI mode (as I prefer running two monitors unless I need the full-on gfx power) I'm fairly certain that I'm getting frame-rate drops in CoX. It's intermittent and although a lot of the time I'm seeing steady 60fps I'll get fairly frequent drops to 50 and 45.

However, you know what it's like. As soon as you start to concentrate on something too much you start to undermine your own confidence about whether it's actually happening or you're making it up...

Has anyone else who's had cause to update to these drivers seen any performance changes?

(the previous version that I was using was 175.19 as the later versions didn't work or weren't as stable with the 9800GTX+ under Vista 64 and I used to get rock solid 60fps even in the middle of Rikti raids).

Cheers

Drag

[ QUOTE ]

Then there's my brute who grew up in a poor background and so when she had some success she bought what her family never had: a car. Then another. And another. And another. She's now famous for her multiple vehicles and turned to crime to afford the fuel for them. Yes - it's Mother Four Cars. I've not played her much as I'm not sure if it'd get a petition... look GMs it's called humour. And it's not explicit/rude/adult in any way past a non-expletive pun...


[/ QUOTE ]

Loving this.

I had an idea for a trio of deadly sisters a while ago but I never plucked up the courage to go the whole way. The first two were called Scarey Mary and Bloody Nora, the third was going to be called Farky Nell and..well..you see my problem.

I find it really difficult to get into playing a toon unless I have a concept that interests me and the name is a huge part of that for me.

There's Sarcasma , the union between Mourning Twilight (who left the Nictus to become a poet) and Violet Jones (stroppy emo teen) to create the warshade who's convinced the whole world hates her. (The name was inspired by a throwaway quip from Mark to Amanda on Ugly Betty).

Anna Phylactic crazed scientist who was pushed so far working for an unethical drugs company she ended up experimenting on herself and becoming a rad/kin corruptor stalking the isles looking for experimental subjects.

Drummond Bass pasty-faced white boy who dreamed of being a gangsta rapper. When experimenting with the occult gets tricked into servitude to a demon who imbues him with a dreadful voice (sonic corruptor) and sends him off to commit crimes and evil deeds.

Dolly Macabre , flagship toy of the Screaming Mad Nutcase Toy Company of Cap au Diable. A Victorian porcelain doll that, like all porcelain dolls looks like a very sickly child. In fact, a little too much like a very sickly child.... Attracts dead things, gives off a deathly chill and roams the Rogue Isles looking for children, or anyone, to play with (Necro/Storm MM).

Rachel Stereotype mild-mannered kindergarten teacher who, after her no-good brother gets done for posession just one more time steals his magical stash and decides to teach the youth of Paragon City that there's a better way to make it out of the ghetto (plant/therm controller).

and more...and more...

I stand to be corrected on this but I'm fairly certain that poor connectivity will result in lag-related symptoms:
- rubberbanding
- lag between clicking a power and it activating
- mobs/other players appearing to jump around randomly

(and believe me, I see all of these!).

I don't believe it would result in a reduction in framerate.

But as I say, I stand to be corrected.

Veeeeery jealous of the speaker setup. I've had my eye on those for ages and decided that they probably need to go on the Christmas list (i.e. link e-mailed to other-half, other half forg-marched to computer, mouse moved to click on link on other-half's behalf, card extracted from other'half's wallet....etc. etc.).

Please let us know if they're as fab as all the reviews say!

Cheers

Drag

Deepest, darkest rural Suffolk in the UK. Unfortunately practically at the limits of ADSL coverage.....

Ok, I know I should be working but frankly the damned spreadsheets can wait a few more minutes

I couldn't quickly find any data on GTX260 power requirements but a review of the 9800GTX+ says that it will draw up to 200W under load. If you're looking for a truly future-proof build then you may want to up the PSU a bit (but we're beginning to push the envelope on my physics-fu here!).

Right, must must MUST do some work now....

Just a couple of comments.

I went with a Q9550 in an Antec900 case. The stock cooling on the CPU has been absolutely fine as the Antec case is fan-central. I can only imagine that the bigger case will be even better so you may want to defer investing in custom cooling.

I've got a 9800GTX+ on a 780i mobo (all the scare stories about the stability of the 790's frankly frightened me off...). Be prepared to fiddle around with Nvidia drivers as the latest ones still won't run CoX for me and I had to roll back to the last WHQL ones before the current set.

DDR3 - I'll bow to your research-fu but all my research when I built my rig suggested that there wasn't much upside to DDR3 at the moment... (yeah, yeah, this coming from the guy who bought a quad-core).

Vista 64: The only insoluble problem I've had with it is that it resolutely refused to talk to my D-Link wireless router. Re-instating the BT HomeHub made that problem go away but it was the only solution I could find that worked.

PSU: I've got no ideas about the power demands of the GTX 260's but it may be worth double checking how much you'll need if you ever get to 3xSLI'd. The Novatech forums had a very chastened post from a guy who'd underestimated his power consumption requirements and from my dim (and ageing) memory he had a fairly meaty PSU on there.

Other than that it looks like a lovely build to me. The Antec 900 case was an absolute dream to install everything in on mine and runs practically silently (and beautifully blue-y).

Agreed, very strange and very annoying. Given that we have almost identical systems and yet see very different performance I guess it's time to look for what the differences *might* be?

What's your disk capacity and fragmentation like?

Given that you only see this drop in performance on CoV and, frankly, a machine with this spec should be able to run CoX on max everything at max framerate I can only guess that there's something special about this particular game's config. Maybe a complete clean re-install of CoX might do something.

Of-course at this stage it's probably sensible to abandon all logic completely and start rearranging the pot plants in the house, turn off the fridge when playing, move your chair 2 cm to the left etc. etc....