Invisobill

I just have to say that I absolutely love this forum. You guys have definitely shown me that base building can be something more than just slapping objects together for base functionality. I have already incorporated many of the ideas I've seen on this forum into my own bases.

I am having some trouble though with my teleporter room. I'm on red side and I only need 4 teleporter pads, so I only have the mid-sized room that is needed for just 4 and I have no idea what I'm going to do with it design wise. I was wondering if those of you out there in base construction land wouldn't mind if you posted some pictures of your best teleporter rooms for me so I can get some ideas from you?

I would appreciate this very much!

Stargazer, while I don't discount entirely the fact that there could be a grade or tier system to the Incarnate System, i.e.: Level 50 Brute Tier 2 Incarnate, I find that very unlikely given the new information released that shows that they have now attached powers to enhancements; it's right there for you to see! It seems to me from a game design/programming perspective that it would be much easier, not to mention, much cheaper, to integrate the Incarnate System into a preexisting system such as the Enhancement System. Just makes sense to me from a money and programming standpoint, but I could be wrong. Hopefully all of these delays in the release of the game are due in part because of development of an independent system for the new incarnate system.

One thing's for certain, if the new powers are integrated into the existing enhancement system, those powers had better make my pants explode when I see them rather than it be a disappointing, invisible secondary effect.

What are your thoughts on this out there everybody?

Uh oh, looks like a faulty move on Paragon Studios part. Do they not realize a huge player base of this game is college age people? September is around school time and my classes are going to be insane this fall. Good going Paragon, looks like I'm just going to not even bother picking Going Rogue up till at least December, maybe. Might as well play for one more month then allow my subscription to run out.

Did I mention, and I'm surprised no one mentioned this, that the temporary activation of a power included in the newbie enhancement can be seen as a precursor to the Incarnate System? Tell me, if the level cap is still going to be 50, how else would they go about it? Enhancement system. Looks like we're going to get a new power slot for each level and corresponding I.O.'s with a chance of incarnate power activation upon a successful strike of an attack. The release of this information pretty much confirms it in my book. Mark my words here people, logically it's the only way the Incarnate System is going to work within the confines of what the developers have already stated. Paragon Studios, stop giving us the run-around and concede to the fact that we guessed right on the Incarnate System!

I want to add that it's a cheap way to go about the system too. We're looking at a possibly corny type of secondary effect or power. I think we're going to be disappointed here unless the powers are awe inspiring in visuals and effect. You know my first inclination would be a transformation effect into a god or demon-like being a la Onimusha, if I were at the helm of the Incarnate System development team, but that's just me. At the least I expect it to rain hellfire when I hit that incarnate power.

One more afterthought. The new enhancements should sure as hell better not make current invention enhancements obsolete or have the new ones be a vast improvement over the current ones. There are going to be a lot of pissed off people if that is the case. It would just be so much time wasted on our current characters.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed here hoping that Going Rogue will deliver the goods.

Oh my freaking lord. It worked! I'm even running on higher settings than before! How did you know this was the case? Was Vista minus the service packs really that bad? I'm in Cap running around with better settings and it's waaaaaay smoother than before even Issue 17.

I even now have way more Ultra Mode settings! It is running so much smoother and at way higher detail and options than I ever was able to run it!

What's the deal? And thank you so much, Tex, for your help!'

LOL. I keep editing this every minute because it is such a dramatic improvement. I have never been able to play City Of Heroes at a decent frame rate and have it look so good. It brings a whole new light on playing the game. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

P.S. It makes so much sense though. My sister has the same exact laptop, but it more into computers, I wouldn't doubt she did everything you told me to do. I never understood how she was able to play Aion on decent settings and I couldn't play City Of Heroes on the same computer and have it look anywhere nearly as good. My computer's even running cooler with the updates. And I just landed in Grandville for the real test. Looking at the Arachnos tower would bring my system to a crawl, now I only experience a little frame catching. Wow! I even see reflections! I'm freaking out! Whooooooooooooooooooooooooo hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

These are the settings I've always run in with pretty good performance. I am now down to an extremely sluggish frame rate. This is gathered from when I was in Cap Au Diable.

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---

DxDiag gathered at May 8, 2010 13:04 (-04:00)
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.080425-1930)
System Manufacturer: Acer
System Model: Aspire 5735
BIOS: Ver 1.00PARTTBL
Central Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU T3200 @ 2.00GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.0GHz
Memory: 1976MB
.Net Memory Report: 1320MB out of 1976MB available
Page File: 2166MB (2026MB currently in use)
C Drive: (WDC WD1600BEVT-22ZCT0 ATA Device) 33790MB out of 71316MB (47%) free
D Drive: (WDC WD1600BEVT-22ZCT0 ATA Device) 56330MB out of 71307MB (78%) free
E Drive: (HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GT10N ATA Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 10
DirectX Diag version: 6.00.6001.18000 (32-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family
Manufacturer / Chip: Intel Corporation / Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family
Video Memory: 795 MB
Driver Version: 7.15.0010.1527
Driver Date: 7/11/2008 2:17:00 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Driver File: RTKVHDA.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5643
Driver Date: 6/13/2008 9:10:08 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Acer
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: CathedralPeak
Motherboard Version: Rev
BIOS Manufacturer: Phoenix Technologies LTD
BIOS Name: Ver 1.00PARTTBL
BIOS Version: ACRSYS - 6040000
BIOS Release: 20080827000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1366x2147483647
3D Resolution: 1366x2147483647 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: No
Maximized: No
Screen Position: Unknown, Unknown
Refresh Rate: UnknownHz
Vertical Sync Enabled: No


Physics Quality: Unknown (2147483647)
Maximum Particles: 50000
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No


Anti-aliasing: Unknown (2147483647)
Anisotropic Filtering: Unknown (2147483647)
Texture LOD Bias: Unknown (2147483647)
Water Effects: Unknown (2147483647)
Bloom: 1.000 (turned off)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: No
Shader Detail: Unknown (2147483647)


World Texture Level: Unknown (2147483647)
Character Texture Level: Unknown (2147483647)
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 0.842
Entity Detail Level: 2.000
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Unknown (2147483647)
Shadow Map Shader: Unknown (2147483647)
Environmental Reflections: Unknonwn (2147483647)
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: Off
Occlusion Strength: Unknonwn (2147483647)
Blur: Unknonwn (2147483647)
Ambient Resolution: Unknonwn (2147483647)


Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: No
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.600

Show Advanced Graphics Options: No
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.000
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: Unknown bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1800.201003300904.15T4rf
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found

Thanks for your help, I do appreciate it.

Well, I guess I'm just shooting this out there to see if there's anything that can be done to improve the performance of City Of Heroes on my machine because otherwise, I'm going to have to quit.

Issue 17 is essentially ****** my machine now. I play off of an Acer Aspire 5735Z. Now while this was never the best for playing the game, I could always play with near "recommended" settings prior to this last issue. Now I am forced to play on minimum settings and I'm still getting horrible frame rates. It is likely that I'm going to have to quit the game.

It retrospect, I'm very glad I was waiting to buy Going Rogue when it comes out as I wanted to level up some old characters before then, and it was a blessing in disguise as I'm willing to wager with the new graphics codes and smoother polygon count in Going Rogue I will not be able to run it.

I cannot buy a new computer as I'm a student/musician and in reality, I do not have the money for a brand spanking new, kick *** machine. Gaming issues aside, I have a perfectly good laptop and there is no way I can rationalize spending a thousand dollars on a new machine. City Of Heroes is the only video game I've been playing in the past 6 or 7 years, literally. I am not a gamer otherwise, but I love this game and I've played off and on for 3 years now. I will be an 18 month veteran next month (if I can still manage to play).

So with my Acer Aspire 5735Z in mind, is there anything that I could possibly do to improve my graphics performance? I'm not opposed to upgrading the RAM or other components, and if I could, a video card, but I know I cannot upgrade the video card on my laptop and that more RAM is about the only upgrade I can make. I am computer savvy enough to know that a RAM upgrade would only make for a marginal improvement anyway. Is there anything that I'm not aware of to boost the performance or should I just finally bid farewell to this game and cash in my chips?