Grey Pilgrim

Well, after far too many hours of uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, then actually adjusting my registry a bit, the verdict is that the card is dying. Nice that I was thinking about upgrading anyway, but still. Thanks for the help.

So... I installed the latest Nvidia drivers on my gaming rig yesterday (3.96 or something like that... I can look it up if needed) and today it is not happy. The desktop is generally okay, but on starting City of Heroes, things get glitchy when you go into character select and things start getting animated. I'll get flickering bars on the screen and sometimes the game will crash there (after blocky or disfigured images on the screen), or it will crash the game once I've loaded in on a character. I've also had two blue screens of doom when I was just on the desktop.

I assumed this was a driver issue and rolled them back. No change. I had installed the drivers via Windows and did it from Nvidia this time. I uninstalled the drivers, restarted, installed the new drivers, restarted, and had the same issues in CoH and another game I tried. Some forums out there had people talking about dust and heat issues for my symptoms, so I cleaned out my computer (it was due anyway), pulled out my card and blew it out/vacuumed it well.

I was thinking that did it for a bit when I turned it back on. The desktop was fine and City of Heroes was too, but then after a few minutes in game, the flickering and bars were back and the game crashed.

Any ideas on what I can do further? Should I install older drivers? This Tom's Hardware page suggests Nvidia drivers can have issue with 64bit systems and to try drivers from guru3d.com. Is that worth a go? Any ideas would be nice. I am thinking of getting a new card as it is, but it's be nice to have my computer working until then and I'm not sure if this is a problem with the card or something else anyway.

Just an FYI, I've had this happen to me in game, but usually closing the store window and reopening it fixes things.

Hoping I can get some help on this from more knowledgeable types. I was never able to get around to buying a new video card last year when I made this thread (provided for system specs, etc). It was suggested that I pick up a new graphics card rather than more memory for my system, and Father Xmas suggested a GeForce GTX 460.

I found something comparable to that here, but then I found a GTX 550 for mega sale on Newegg right now. The 550 seems to have a similar setup and be just a little more powerful, not to mention cheaper. Am I reading that correctly, or am I way off? I'm also wanting to make sure my power system can handle it (I can find it for the 550 but not the 460 to make sure they compare there). Is there a big difference between the two? None of the numbers I can find in Newegg's stuff seems to reference that, unless I don't know what to look for there.

Any help would be much, much appreciated!

Dude... go play that Water Blaster. It is a GREAT Blast set. One of my favorites, and I say this as someone that has tried almost all of them. And yeah... I'll help you with Hybrid as well. My Peacebringer is still working on his, and he was my second 50, he deserves that before he can't get out and around anymore.

You still playing ToR? I hope so. I've been doing the "free to 15" stuff a bit while waiting for it to go F2P, and now this NCSoft debacle makes it easier for me to check it out (can't afford/justify more than one sub). It has some decent legs for alts, more incentive than I've seen in a few other games, anyway, even if it isn't as open and freefrom as CoH is. Seriously... you can make any concept fly in CoH, and do homages to any variety of genres.

In WoW or LOTRO, you're... in that world.

Put my guess in. Didn't notice there were so many boy guesses or I would have put in girl just to be different.

Many wishes for a safe and as uneventful a labor as, well, labor can be.

We wouldn't have to make it to 50 on beta, just play on there for awhile. I like the idea as well... should be able to roll a Nature Affinity character... or maybe Bio Armor. Not sure which I'd do.

Evenings Eastern/Central time are always the best for me, even on weekends (that's sleepy time on the weekends!). I'd do my best to make most days, though Fridays would be bad for me, that's date night. But I could make a picture time any other night for a few minutes.

War Witch, besides the player community, the dev community is a close runner up in why I played this game so much (amongst other, myriad things clamoring for attention). I started playing right at the start and then had to quit after a year due to some real life issues. When I came back, I actually started checking the forums and paying attention to what the developers were doing and... you all stuck out in how you were dedicated and passionate about the game. BAB and Castle were posting and joking at all hours, showing that they knew and cared what we thought.

And it was early on in there that I remember a post from you, saying your co-workers were teasing you (or laughing with you, can't recall) because you would start giggling at what lines you were giving to random NPCs in zones. That made me think you all would be a great crowd to work with, and I know it made your game a lot more fun to play. Those NPC lines are... gold. I feel like I'm in the city and I matter when a passing citizen shouts even something simple, like "We love you, Swedish Fury!" Just made my day.

Now, it's a little weird when a Cimeroran citizen seems to know I stopped Maelstrom in a TPN Campus trial in a different time and dimension, but it's still nice. Games like The Old Republic get close when they have contacts from old missions mail you, thanking you for freeing them from some Hutt gangster or whatever, but it's not as fun, or impromptu. I felt like a superhero in Paragon. I'd still stop Hellions from mugging a lady in Atlas, and not just because it was fun to knock them back 100 yards or something crazy like that.

Thanks for making this game different, and wonderful, and for having such an attention to detail. It showed.

Good one, MG! Made me chuckle.

Though we all knew you'd cave someday...

Statesman Mo run on Grey Pilgrim. I think that's the last of the old Mo TFs he needs. Never run a Doctor Q and I still don't have time for it. Unlike most content in the game, I don't think I'm missing anything by not doing it. Fought plenty of Rularuu.

And yes, checking out most of the TFs, etc., and more Hamis. Hopefully we can get plenty more in over three months.

Carp. I wanted to see how the new SSA ends up. Hopefully Posi can fill us in on that.

I remember when Burn gave mez protection.

I remember when Burn was nerfed to the point of pointlessness by a dev team that was so angry at it for some players farming with it that they forgot it should be balanced.

I remember when Castle finally, finally made it useful again without it being overpowered... which allowed me to pick it and slot it again. Glorious. I'm not even bitter that he made the change after some Scrapper thread, even though I had been pointing out its issues for YEARS, mostly on the Tanker forums.

I remember when I came back to CoH after a year or two of not playing, and finding the Victory community (before, it was all SG, broadcast, and LFG based for me). We had some long debate about something I don't even remember, and londerwost said I was just arguing to say I had the last word (which I wasn't). So I posted a reply, saying "word." It was impossible to pass up. It's all been gravy since then, with meeting more odd and cool people and mostly fun times on the forums, channels, and in game.

I remember when CoH got a graphical upgrade and I upgraded my computer, and I was wowed by the simple beauty of objects refracting in Orobouros's pool. Wowed by seeing my shadow fall away and shrink and grow, all in time with my character Super Jumping around... something that still is only equaled by flying around Paragon as the sun sets over the sea, or makes the war walls turn to gold. Those war walls that people see as an old holdover from early MMO design, but I love because they just scream Paragon and City of Heroes.

Oh, and I still can't believe iToc was BABs. Talked and argued with him in the Tank forums more than once, and was mesmerized by his avatar (still my favorite of all the avatars on the forums, and there are some good ones!).

Glad to see Castle around as well. Still my two favorite devs, just from talking to them a bit and appreciating their humor. Not that Hawk and Posi and Synapse and the few others in whose threads I participated weren't awesome.

Synapse and Hawk, I was most keen to check out Martial Arts for Blasters. I've been wanting it for years. The video preview of it looked amazing. I'll try to check it out on beta if they still have that going, since there's no point in waiting to enjoy it on Live.

Hopefully we'll get Posi's "Answers" thread next week to learn some things, though you know it would have been more fun in the context of a TF or whatever.

And as for "it had to happen sometime," sure, I guess. But Everquest is still going. Cryptic has their "meh" MMOs going that they made after CoH. CoH should have kept going well past those.