Human_Being

Is it any particular power or circumstance that accompanies the crash?

I'd actually do the RAM last. 2 GB is enough to run the system and use the hard drive as virtual memory. That will mean memory access will be as slow as your hard drive and load times will be longer than if you had 4 GB, but it's not going to have as much influence on what you see on your screen as a new graphics card. Regardless of how powerful the rest of the machine is, if you don't have the graphics processing power, visuals are going to suck. So the first things are a new graphics card and power supply to run it.

For Ultra Mode graphics card, I'd agree with Hyperstrike above: a 5770 from XFX for $160. As much as it pains me not to grab the irony of suggesting this to someone with your forum name, I can't justify the $10 difference inside your budget.

For power supply, I'd recommend the above-linked Corsair 400 Watt for $55. It's your cheapest option straight up, has free shipping, and fits the required spec with good build quality and solid reputation.

That's $215 out of your budget of $300. At that point I'd stop and see what you think of performance in the game. Is it good enough for what you want? If yes, then stop. If loading times and stutters from disk-access are bothering you, then upgrade the RAM. If game performance and static frames-per-second are still a bit low for you, look at a CPU upgrade: the above configuration is kind of Fiddler Crab-ed in that you have a fairly powerful graphics card with a very weak CPU. CoX doesn't take that much in the way of CPU, but you can end up with a situation where the CPU simply can't send frames to the graphics card as fast as the graphics card can draw them. I have suspicions that will be the case here, but you would be the only one to know it and your opinion is the only one that counts.

If you decide to upgrade the processor, I'd recommend either a E5300 2.6 GHz dual-core for $67 or a E6500 2.93 GHz dual-core for $80. The E6500 is both a little faster itself and uses a slightly higher system bus speed than the E5300. Your system's nForce 620i chipset should be able to support either one.

If you decide to upgrade the RAM, well then you need to first actually pop the side off of that case and look inside. I can't tell from the online specs if your system has just two RAM slots or four. If it's just two, then you will need to buy 4 GB of new RAM for about $100. If there are four slots and you can figure out what speed of DDR2 you are using/able to use, then you can just buy 2 GB for about $50 and put it in the two open slots.


The only finicky part about replacing a CPU is getting the Thermal Interface Material (TIM; the grease that makes an even contact between the top of the CPU and the bottom of the heatsink) on evenly. However, if you're using the stock cooler from the CPU box, the TIM should be pre-applied to that for you. You just push the cooler on with four push pins. You can find lots and lots of youtube links of people showing how to do that before you try.


Edit: fixed typo.

It may or may not be more cost-effective to get a new machine rather than upgrading the existing one. Most, if not all, pre-built dealers use the graphics card as something to skimp on to save price; they presume that anyone who is interested in high-quality gaming will be willing to shell out $1200+ or so.

The people in this section could give you more advice on what your options are if you could give a budget you're comfortable with.

Okay:

Right click on the shortcut you are using for CoX and select "Properties".

In the field labeled "Target:", go to the end of the text in that field and then type " -compatiblecursors" (without the quotes, but with the space before the dash).

So it should look something like:

"C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe" -compatiblecursors

(Note, you can have more than one flag at the end there, just put a space before each one.)

Then click OK.

That will activate /compatiblecursors when the game loads and should fix your problem until such time as they track down that bug (again).

Normally I'd be out in front of you arguing against anything with an 80mm fan, but the Antec Earthwatts 430 is actually the cheapest power supply that fits the power requirement among Silent PC Review's list of recommended power supplies. (At least ones that are still in production.)

*sigh*

Corsair 400 W

Antec Earthwatts 430 W

Corsair 550 W

That's helpful; thank you.

I'd recommend these as well.

Corsair is a quality brand at affordable prices and the specific model of Antec power supply there gets rave reviews. The Antec is somewhat higher build quality than the 400 Watt Corsair, is slightly more efficient (less of the electricity you pay for is lost as heat), and very quiet. Either one would support a 5770 card. The 550 Watt Corsair would support a 5830 or 5850.

The link didn't work. Is this what you were pointing to?

What are the capabilities of the various onboard chipsets? I know that Realtek ALC888/9 chipsets show up on some of the mid-to-high-end boards, but how does it differ from an ALC662? Or the VIA or ADI chipsets?

There's supposed to be an option for it as well in the Menu. To open the menu without a mouse pointer, press the \ key. Don't type it, just press \. That will open the menu, then hit "o" for options.

Is it correct that you are using Vista? If yes then it's probably the old bug again. If not, something new may be going on. Regardless, file a bug report using the /bug command.

That works. If you have any questions on specs for the new machine, feel free to come back here.

All I could find about the Power Supply for that model was that it was "300 Watts". A graphics card upgrade may or may not require a power supply upgrade too.

That's...pretty awesome.

It likely will run the game weakly. The game prefers to have at least two processing cores and the Celeron 450 is a single core. The ATI 4500 graphics is likewise very weak. If you were running it on a small monitor resolution, you might be able to play to your satisfaction, but it would definitely be at low resolution.

Now, you could upgrade both the processor and the graphics capability (assuming the motherboard has a PCIe x16 slot), but it would cost roughly half of your $260 purchase price or more.

I'd say try it and see if it "just runs" the game to your satisfaction. If not, you can come back here and we can try to fit something into your available budget.

I love how they pointed out all of Nvidia's proprietary software tools while trying to find something good to say about the cards .

Thank you for specifically mentioning this, it had completely slipped my mind to do so.


A 9800 GX2 is two 9800 GT-class chips in the same package. Essentially it is its own SLI in a single slot. Whether Ultra Mode will support multi-GPU configurations like SLI (Nvidia) and CrossfireX (ATI) is, I think, still unconfirmed.

I presume you're using Vista. On the Live servers, you would fix this problem by typing /compatiblecursors 1.

Refer to this image and this image (hopefully the links directly to the images work).

The two labels are for 750 Watt and 730 Watt power supplies respectively. Look at the first chart; see the "+3.3, +5, +12, etc" across the top? Those are the various voltages that different components in your computer require to run. The row beneath that lists the amperage (amount of current) that the power supply can output at the given voltages. The value we're concerned with here is the "+12" volt rating.

Now, little math: Wattage = Amperage x Voltage. In the case of the first label-image, we have 60 Amps at 12 Volts - a total of 720 Watts output.

Now look at the second label-image. In this one, there are four listings for "+12 Volts". This is because the power supply has been built with several weaker "rails" for 12 Volt output that work together. A few years ago, most power supplies started moving to this kind of design for 12 Volt output. This gave some advantages in construction, but also added new complications like trying to balance the load across all the weaker components evenly. More recently, manufacturers have been moving back to robust, single-rail designs. In a multi-rail configuration like this, you have to rely on the manufacturer's listing for Combined Wattage across all the 12 Volt rails - in this case 672 Watts. Note that 16 Amps x 4 rails x 12 Volts is 768 Watts, not 672; the difference is the physical limitation of multiple rails trying to work together rather than a single one able to work at its max.


That output at 12 Volts is really all you need to see to figure out if a power supply will support your CPU + graphics card configuration. Depending on what your CPU is, it could have a power draw anywhere from 45 Watts to 130 Watts. The 5830 graphics card will have a draw of around 100 Watts. I would note however that it's a really good idea to have some head room of output above what you precisely "need". Firstly, the efficiency of the power supply (how much of the electricity you are paying for is lost as heat) presents itself as a curve across the potential output. The best efficiency is likely going to be somewhere around the 3/4 max-output mark (varying with model) and drop off as you approach 100% output. Furthermore, power supplies will degrade in performance with age and use. So a "pad" of potential output will give you a longer service life at a given load.


If you're shopping for power supplies, Corsair is a very good brand. They'll give solid performance and reliable build quality at a fair price. Some people like Antec offerings as well, but I can't speak to those. Depending on the model, Enermax can be excellent while still not breaking the bank. My personal favorite is Seasonic, but while they tend to offer superior quality and performance to everyone else, it comes at a premium in price as well.


Unless you have specific reasons for wanting a 5830 at a given price point, I'd recommend that you read some online reviews of the card. The general consensus on the 5830 is that it's a good card, but is a priced a bit high for its capabilities. The lower 5770 and higher 5850 seem to be better values for their cost.

Jeez! Just last week it was $470; up from the $420 it debuted at.

Neat, you fell through the map. Been a while since I've heard of that happening.

Remedies: type "/stuck" (without the quotes of course). If that doesn't work, team with a friend who has Recall Friend and have them port you to them. If that doesn't work and you have one available, use a self-teleport such as the Pocket-D porter, Mission Door porter, Market transporter, or Ouroboros Portal.

I've never even heard of such an animal. Does the exhaust vent on that model go all the way across?