Father Xmas

This is a player help player section BTW austindish.

Do you know how to edit a shortcut's target line?

1. Right Click on the game shortcut on your desktop.
2. Left Click on Properties.
3. The "Target" line in the Properties dialog should be highlighted.
4. Click past the end of that line, likely after the closing quote.
5. Add to the end of that line -port 13094, with a space before the -.

Your "Target" line should be similar to this

"C:\Games\City Of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe" -port 13094

Click OK in the Properties dialog.

Now try the shortcut. The default download port is normally 6994 which is also a default for bittorrent. There is a possibility that somewhere between you and the download servers traffic on that port is "shaped".

Now this is for the live servers. If you are trying to get on the test server you can pretty much forget about it. It took me nearly 24 hours to patch for the test server during closed beta on a broadband connection plus it takes a day or two before the test server sees a new or reactivated account.

Back_Blast, they lifted the virtualization hardware requirement just recently.

Tyrrano, it's not available in home or starter editions. Also it doesn't support 3D graphics libraries so it's not good for 3D legacy gaming. It's really meant for so small business that is still reliant on software written 15 years ago, by someone who doesn't work there anymore, and it won't run in Windows 7.

Here's an idea that'll go over like a ton of bricks.

Introduce all the vet costume pieces as recipe drops. This way newer players have a chance to unlock a particular costume piece for a single character while us vets have them unlocked for all present and future character. Adjust the recipe drop rate so it's not so ultra rare that we get the instant hyperinflation we had when costume piece recipes first came out (insect wings are HOW MUCH) but not so low that WW is flooded so any brand new player can simply buy the pieces they want for 10 inf.

Of course the character database isn't probably set up to handle tagging vet rewards on a per character basis.

First system has arguably a faster CPU, the second system definitely has a faster video card.

because everyone leveled up and finished the game too quickly leaving you behind

bwahahahahahaha

all your friends are laughing at you now while playing something else as you struggle to finish the game

bwahahahahahaha

Those weren't links, I tend to bold and/or color links.

No, your original MB pick, the P7P55 LX only had one SATA cable. The P7P55D-E LX comes with two.

Looks good.

BTW, that MB is legacy free. No PS/2 ports for older keyboards and mice. No external serial or parallel ports or internal headers for them. No floppy or IDE headers. Just a whole mess of USB 2.0 connectors outside and SATA 3.0Gb inside. Surprised it still has two old school PCI slots.

So not old hardware friendly.

I'm assuming the difference is between a noname PSU and a higher quality efficient one. The key is the number of watts at 12 volts. Inexpensive PSUs may be able to deliver more watts overall but the question is whether or not the wattage is available at the right voltage. Wattage at 12 volts is the key since that's what the CPU and video card desires. It does no good to be able to deliver the rest of the wattage at 3.3 and 5 volts if today's modern system will rarely use as much as 50 watts between those two voltages, closer to 30 watts.

The Seasonic in my parts list can deliver 360 watts at 12 volts. A lot of inexpensive PSUs in the 450-550 range can barely deliver 200-250 watts at 12 volts.

TL;DR Version

Current MB choice needs an extra SATA cable (about $3).

For $20 more you can get a MB that comes with 2 SATA cables and has latest and greatest USB, SATA as well as an external SATA connector. I personally only see the latest and greatest USB port as something people will generally use with newest crop of external hard drives.

Long Version on the $20 more

What I'm saying is that while those features are nice, someday down the road, I think USB 3.0 is the only feature that most people will ever appreciate when combined with a USB 3 external hard drive.

External hard drives are one of the easiest ways to add storage for people to afraid to crack open a case. Before USB 3.0 there was three different ways to connect them to your PC.

• USB 2.0 - Everyone has it but it caps the speed at around 30-35MB/s.
• IEEE 1394 aka Firewire aka i.Link - First high speed external serial port. About the same speed as USB 2.0 in practice (1394a) but fewer motherboards have it. More important back before USB 2.0 came out. Use to be big on Macs. Often used to transfer digital video from some brands of digital camcorders.
• eSATA - An external SATA 3Gb/s connector. Fairly new, not a lot of motherboards have it. 6x faster than USB 2.0.
• USB 3.0 - Brand new. About 10x faster than USB 2.0, faster than 3Gb eSATA.

So someday in the future you get an external HD that's USB 3.0 (and they all will be going that way very soon), you would be able to use it at full speed, most likely as fast as the actual hard drive is. Otherwise you will be stuck at 30-35MB/s if plugged into a USB 2.0 port.

College finals?

Sounds more and more like a heat problem.

Seems OK. I take it the 5770 is a stop gap considering the uberish CPU and PSU.

As long as you have a case that can take a full size ATX motherboard and PSU then fine. Otherwise ...

One of the problems with your iBuyPowerPC build is your choice of a Socket 1156 configurator. There simply isn't an inexpensive Socket 1156 CPU on the market.

Now I went with the Phenom II DDR3 configurator (Gamer Mage D235) and tried to get something close to my $750 build.

Case
NZXT Alpha Gaming Tower Case Black
Processor
AMD Athlon™ II X2 245 Dual-Core CPU
Processor Cooling
Certified CPU Fan and Heatsink
Memory
4 GB [2 GB X2] DDR3-1333 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand
Video Card
ATI Radeon HD 5770 - 1GB - Single Card
Video Card Brand
Major Brand Powered by ATI or NVIDIA
Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P -- AMD 770 Chipset w/8-ch HD Audio, Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, 1 PCI-E MB
Power Supply
700 Watt -- Power Supply SLI Ready (because it's the same price as the 550 Watt and they won't let you get a smaller one with the HD 5770)
Primary Hard Drive
500 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 3.0Gb/s - Single Drive
Optical Drive
24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black
Sound Card
3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard
Network Card
Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + [Free 60-Day !!!] Microsoft Office 2007(Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access ....) - 64-Bit
Keyboard
iBUYPOWER USB Keyboard - Black (not deletable)
Mouse
iBUYPOWER Internet Mouse - Black (not deletable)
Warranty
Standard Warranty Service - Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty + Lifetime Technical Support
Rush Service
Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days

$762

Funny thing is if you start with their basic configurator it'll end up costing you more.

Well I've been in angry PUGs because my Ill/Kin didn't have speed boost or inertial reduction. Sorry it didn't fit my concept of how her powers work. Anyways I prefer to use my character in ways other than simply be a team's buff bot (hey I have a whole primary powerset to work with).

What MOO describes is more of a difference between solo and team tactics with squishier characters. I know if I solo for a while then team some of my "default" tactics is highly frowned upon by PUGs whose only tactic is to bum rush the next mob once the current mob is down to one or two damaged minions.

My gameplay isn't about grinding to the next level or getting or drops it's the mission and supporting the team. Nothing is worse than the blaster that pulls boss aggro and then runs away from the rest of the team where if he stayed close the tank or scrapper can cover him. I like to imagine the battles as how I would like to see them portrayed in a movie. Stick together, cover each other, retreat in mass if needed.

Knockback is just another form of damage mitigation, like any other mez in game. If they are falling on their backsides or flung across the room that's X seconds of them not trying to hit you. It's a good thing. But often times enough the impatient player believes damage dealing is the best damage mitigation. A defeated critter isn't going to hit you anymore so the faster you defeat them, the less damage you receive. Of course this is usually offset by a suicidal tendency to rush the next mob before the rest of the team is ready or cranking the difficulty up so in the long run you still are damaged by the same amount, it's just spread over more critters.

Well I would say a 7600GS and ultra mode aren't really made for each other, not to mention an original Athlon CPU.

2GB of memory shouldn't be a problem unless you have a ton of stuff running in the background. Perhaps a HijackThis report might help us some.

A defrag utility like Defraggler can defrag a single folder (like your CoHTest directory) after a patch, like today's.

Dev's have said that level load times are client dependent. If we have a better idea what else is running as well as making sure the pigg files aren't in a million little pieces it'll give us a place to start.

OK, there isn't a lot of fat to trim off what you have, you pretty much picked the cheapest part in each category.

First you could downgrade the video card to a HD 5770 and save $84.

Second is there some reason you need a powered internal 8 port USB hub for $19? You have 6 ports out the back and headers for 6 more on the mother board (like 6 of the ones on the hub). Do you have a wireless mouse or bluetooth dongle you wish to hide (inside a metal box, not the best place for wireless signals)? I'm having a little trouble understanding this choice, for anybody.

So that's $103. I don't see any thing else that you can trim off that build, that they will let you, hence keeping the 700 watt (but costs the same as the 550 watt) PSU since it won't let me choose a smaller PSU.

Well Optiplex is generally considered Dell's business and school line of PCs in the US, don't know about the rest of the world. My local library has a slew of identical Dell Optiplex PCs.

That doesn't mean you don't find them in homes. Heck my parents still use the Dell Optiplex they got with a new SUV back in 90s (Pentium II 450MHz running Win 98 SE, they may finally upgrade that antique sometime this year).

Back in 2003/4 when Intel was pushing BTX it sort of made sense to arrange the motherboard so the things that generated the most heat could be placed in the path of one centralized stream of air from the front of the case. And it wasn't just Dell that bought into it, so did HP/Compaq and Gateway.

For your reading pleasure.

Personally I think only the USB 3.0 will be of any use with the next generation of external hard drives. It sort of replaces eSATA for an external hard drive high performance interface. Now with USB 2.0, external drives are capped at around 30-35MB/s. USB 3.0 kicks that up to performance levels indistinguishable from internal drives.

As for SATA 6, maybe once they start making self contained RAID 0 SSDs that could take advantage of the extra bandwidth that SATA 6 will amount to something. As for conventional mechanical hard drives, it doesn't buy you anything with the current generation of drives, even the new Raptors.

Well for the infamous "only $20 more" you could get the P7P55D-E LX and gain a pair of SATA 6 ports, a pair of USB 3.0 ports and one eSATA port for use in the future.

I also think the P7P55 LX only comes with one SATA cable.

Or you could go with the DDR3-1600 memory in my $1375 rig (now with OS) for $5 more. I believe the i7-8xx can handle it without any OCing of the base clock. You should get a percent or two better performance.