Mandu

Whatshisname may not necessarily be dead. they never actually showed him dying either the first or second time. And in the kino recording the aliens show up right as he is begging for help.

Just watched episode 8. AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGH! Very minor spoilage follows.

Not that it was bad overall, not at all. But I absolutely hate that somebody can pick off an object the size of a baseball twice in rapid succession but can't hit a person at the same range just because they are a major character.

Just a new take on the Guardian Angels. Instead of wearing goofy looking red berets they wear goofy looking costumes.

And before somebody goes off on me. As part of a military uniform the red beret looks good. Worn by somebody in civilian clothes it looks goofy. It's like wandering around wearing an army helmet.

Either way I don't send snarky tells to somebody who blind invites me to a super group. I just put them on ignore instantly. Past experience has taught me that they will likely invite me again sometime in the next hour or next day because if they are blind inviting then they have usually forgotten who they have already sent tells to within that period of time.

Here is the way I look at it. I'm at a basketball court and just hanging out. Somebody comes up and says "We're getting together a pick up game. Want in?"

That is an invite to a team and I'm likely to say yes since I'm just looking for a game or two and I don't really care if they suck or not since it is just a game or two.

Scenario two. I'm at a basketball court and somebody walks up and says "Want to join my basketball team? We're in a league and even have jerseys made up."

This is like the blind invite to a supergroup only instead of saying league and jerseys they usually say bins and teleporters. And my response is the same which is "Why the hell would you ask me that when I've never even met you before this moment? You musts really suck to blindly invite somebody to join you for an indefinite period of time not even knowing if he knows how to dribble a ball without tripping over his own feet." Now I won't actually say that unless they press the issue but that's my instant emotional response.

Asking somebody to team is asking them to join you for a short time. Asking them to a super group is asking them to make a commitment for a long period of time to a person they have never met. Now if somebody asks me to join their sg after we've done a few missions together that's fine. I've gotten to know them enough to figure out if they are worth grouping with or are just looking for a prestige boost because nobody else wants to be in a group with them.

If you could run these two programs and post the results here we'll have a better idea of your system's capabilities and what might be interfering.

CoHHelper and Hijackthis

I'm about to sprint out the door to work but I'll leave this here for you folks to check into and other techs here to comment on.

There are known problems with both the RivaTuner and EVGA Precision tool. If they are running and you try to open a contact window, a tailor window,
an auction house window or many other items then these programs cause the game to freeze.

Here is a quick workaround. Since your friend has converted you I assume you can get a copy of the program from them. Have them copy all the files from their CoH directory (although they don't have to copy screenshots and logs I guess) and then you copy them to your CoH directory that has already been created by trying to install the program. Next move the cohupdater.exe file to your desktop and run it from there pointing it at the game directory if necessary. That should have you up and running in a couple minutes.

There is a program to monitor ping rate over time but I can't recall it off the top of my head. Somebody else here probably can though. Also I see that you have steam. If you are running the game through steam then try running it stand alone through cohupdater instead while disabling steam.

Also there are other people experiencing the same problem with rubberbanding lately so it's likely that there is a bad connection somewhere along the line.

Lastly go into the game and type /netgraph 1

At the bottom of your screen you'll start seeing green lines moving right to left. Short green is good ping time and no packet loss. Tall green lines is bad ping time no loss. Red lines is packet loss. I'm guessing you already know this since you've been on the forums forever but it's good to double check just in case.

Have you made any other changes to your system in that general time period? Any added programs, toolbars, program updates etc?

The reason I ask is because your current setup looks just fine and you shouldn't be having those problems. When such is the case then odds are it's some program in the background interfering. You can run Hijackthis and post the results so we can see if there are any familiar culprits in there.

Also open your case and check to see that everything is clear of dust and that all fans are operating. Then monitor your system temperatures while playing to see if any of those are overly high. This because there is also a good chance that some piece of hardware is choosing to fail coincidentally at the same time as your driver upgrade.

Here is what we need

CoHHelper and Hijackthis

Rubberbanding is virtually always a network issue. If you are wireless then connect directly to the router via cable. If you still experience rubberbanding then disconnect the router and connect directly to the modem itself.

If switching from wireless to wired with the router still in the circuit fixes the problem then you aren't getting a strong enough wireless signal. There are booster antennas that can handle that.

If connecting directly to the router doesn't fix the problem but connecting directly to the modem does then either your router is defective or has some sort of settings problem.

I wanted to slap you upside the head.

Not to say that it wouldn't be entertaining to others but damn that annoyed me which your normal reviews don't do.

Don't judge it by my opinion though. I'm an old fart and some stuff on youtube that other people find hilarious makes me want to reach through the screen and strangle the creator. I didn't want to strangle you though, just slap you. I think it was the repetitions that did it. The bird part being one.

Sorry, I tend to think in terms of current technology and I was running a duo core 3.0 ghz two years ago which wasn't the best available even then. Generally what was bleeding edge two years ago is mid to high range now. And as ego centric as it may be I tend to consider anything I replace as outmoded because I don't replace anything until I tend to start seeing a performance drop.

Though I admit that my subconscious was thinking in terms of ultra mode which it shouldn't have been since in this situation just getting the game running is the goal. It's still a very good cpu, just not a great one and is surprisingly powerful for such an inexpensive computer.

Higher resolution means more stress on the video card and processor. My guess is your CPU is overheating and powering down the computer. It might also be that your computer shuts down when your video card is overheating as well.

Open the case, make sure all the fans are running and dust free. Then monitor the temperatures as you play. I don't know of any temp monitoring program that will actually stay on top of the game video so you will have to tab out to it. But with the higher resolution causing a power down it's almost guaranteed to be overheating.

I'm not saying this to be derogatory but rather because it's true. Your computer really isn't even close to being able to play this game well. You have enough ram. Your processor is really slow though so it won't be able to handle the game effectively except at the lowest settings.

But now we come to the biggest hurdle. You don't have a video card in your system. Instead you have an integrated video chip that was not intended for even the most simplistic games. The computer you bought was not intended for gaming at all. This is a very basic system meant for browsing the web and watching YouTube videos at the best. The cost of your entire system is less than double what a good video card for this game runs.

You can try running the game in safe mode and see if that works. I see that you've been around here for a while and you were having various problems on your old system. Unfortunately it looks like you "upgraded" to an even lower quality computer. Your best zero cost bet would be to swap the video card out of your old system into the new one.

Actually your very best zero to low cost bet would be to see if you can get a refund on this computer and then use the money to buy a decent motherboard, processor, and video card and put them in your old case. It's not a crazy proposition either. I just recently did the same thing myself. I looked around for deals and bought a new motherboard with a Phenom II processor and 4 gigs ddr3 memory for under $400. Then a couple months later I bought a new video card.

I'm now going to look through your old posts and see if I can find the specs on your old system (or you can put them here) and see if there is any other possibility that can be cobbled together between the two.

edit: Well, looking through the old posts it seems like your old video won't be much of an improvement. It will be better, almost anything would but it won't be good. Honestly your biggest problems through all 3 versions of computer you have played the game on has been ram and video. With this new system you have solved the ram problem but you still have the lack of video power. You get what you pay for and really you have only two choices if you want to play the game well. Either as time goes by upgrade your system piece by piece with "GOOD" replacement parts or else save up your money until you can buy a complete high end system.

Looks for posts by Father Xmas. He has links to two decent computer systems in his sig and also a guide to computer parts. Also go Here when contemplating a new video card and it will give you an idea of how relatively good the card is.

Post the results of these two programs please. It will let us see what your system setup and game settings are like and what other programs might be in conflict.

CoHHelper and Hijackthis

Like Carnifax said except don't make a shortcut on your desktop. Place the actual cohupdater on your desktop. After the game is installed you can delete the updater from the desktop because there will be a new one in the game folder.

Run Citadel. The council bases are all the same and a string of several missions will edit out fluke responses to one mission. Or if you prefer just start and abandon it several times. The second mission is a kill all.

But honestly herding or pulling are the slowest ways to complete missions unless you have a team that doesn't know how to play their characters. So long as everybody knows what they can and can't do then any mission can be steamrolled.

Je Saist is right. You really aren't going to see significant improvement for under $100 and with that low a budget you would be better off getting more ram.

If you pick up the 5670 that was recommended then you will be able to use a few of the ultra mode features but not any of the settings that really make an impressive difference. No advanced shadows or occlusion or reflections without seeing frame rates drop really low.

So to sum up. Spend the money on increasing your ram and then save up for a new system.