Morgan Reed

This is the likely culprit.

ATI drivers higher than 11.4 (you have 11.7, it seems), and sometimes lower versions, aren't playing nice with CoH.

Also, there appears to be an issue with 64 bit Windows, or at least it makes the problem worse.

The best suggestion currently, is to try rolling back your drivers.

On the other hand, if you want to try the preview driver that Paragon and AMD worked on you can find out about it here.

Verified on all counts.

Sorry, but my report stands.

This driver doesn't work any better than the 11.8 driver for me.

Still get the semi regular client freeze at around the 2 hour mark of play - give or take half an hour.

For reference: ATI Radeon HD 5750, 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate.

And, if that wasn't enough, it performs a little worse in general for me. Textures and edges in game are really fuzzy, and frame rate gets cut in half when moving in an outdoor map (regular zone). Normally just under 60 fps, drops to 22-30 fps when moving. I mark this up to being a rough preview though, and would have put up with it if the crashing stopped.

And what if neither of those are available?

I'm not.

Due to K.I.S.S., I have to ask:

Are you sure your internet connection is up? Can you surf the web, see all the pretty lights on your modem lit up as they should be, etc.?

If I had to guess, and I am just guessing here, based on little to no facts and by gut reaction alone...

I would say it is an issue with CoH and 64 bit Windows.

ATI users can hammer out the bugs, and a game patch can (and has) messed things up again.

But the reality is, without a significant money investment - not to mention time - there is no realistic way to narrow down just where the problem lies.

I'm not about to purchase a 32 bit Windows license just run tests on the same machine running both to verify performance differences. And I certainly do not expect any other player to do the same.

Hmmm... 64 bit Windows 7 (might not actually be influencing things), ATI card, and I see from your CoHHelper output that it looks like the 11.4 drivers.

You seem to have fallen into "the triangle."

In short, CoH and Catalyst drivers do not play very well together right now. (Current theories - mostly just mine - suspect 64 bit Windows plays a part in that.)

You could try updating your drivers, but that isn't likely to work well.

Best suggestion is to unload your current drivers completely (might need Driver Sweeper) and trying an earlier version of the drivers, like 11.3 or 11.2.

In the end, it really is a crap shoot, and testing which drivers work best for you.

Oh, I am certain of that.

I was certain of that before this thread was started.

But thanks to this thread, we now know that there are several/a few longstanding (years long) bugs that have been deemed unfixable. Not because the technology doesn't exist. Not because the current team doesn't know how. But because fixing them would involve other parts of the game. Either in breaking them and/or rewriting them. And the team will not have the man-hours to do it.

(Not related to this thread)
There are reoccurring bugs that get fixed from time to time that come back.

That two geometrically identical zones (Ouroboros) can not be merged because it would require rewriting other systems of the game (I am thinking contact content, and zoning).

All of this doesn't paint a picture of a solid game with occasional strips of duct tape holding it together, but instead an amalgamation of different disparate parts (worthy of a skit on the Red Green Show) held together with chewing gum and twine.

All the while we are getting promos for Freedom with all it's new shinies and new mechanics getting bolted on to this monstrosity of underlying code. It is easy to imagine Freedom is an episode of Home Improvement with the part of Tim Taylor being played by Paragon Studios.

So, what you are saying is that the basic underlying code for CoH is so utterly frakked up that it is unreasonable to expect basic maintenance bug fixes?

That doesn't instill a lot of confidence for the major changes and additions of Freedom...

Goliath Bird Eater reported using 32 bit Windows.

That, combined with your report, and my experience (after a day or two running 11.8, it starting locking up the client again [I'm running 64 bit Windows 7]) helps support my musings.

Which stinks. If it is an issue with 64 bit Windows (or at lest made worse by 63 bit Windows) it may take forever to track it down. :-(

For your questions, waiting for i21 or not will not affect you either way.

What you are really asking is the difference between maintaining a subscription or not.

As Justice Blues stated, all Incarnate level stuff is VIP (subscription) only.
Unless your new account gets 13 Paragon Reward tokens, you will need to purchase the use of Masterminds if you aren't subscribing if you wait or buy CoH now.

And there is more that will change depending on if you are actively subscribing or not on a new account.

Good luck! :-)

The following one leads me to an error page.

"Not available

This answer is no longer available"

Really? Four days later, and you are trying to stir up PANCAKEPANCAKEPANCAKEPANCAKE again?

Did that make you feel important? Did you sleep better that night after posting this?

I do not use Steam. So what I am about to say is pure speculation.

From what I have read (specifically this post) it seams there were two versions of CoH on Steam, and one was removed (Architect Edition) and the other was updated (Going Rogue Edition).

So, I would guess - and it is just that, a guess - if you didn't have the Going Rogue Edition, your game wasn't updated properly.

Now, still speculating here, since the game you purchase is really only important on the NCSoft Master Account page, and it appears the Steam doesn't really care what version of the game you are running, I would think you could download a new copy from the CoH page, and point steam to it like in the post that Kazz linked to.

You know what? The iPhone is a good example.

I never bought an iPhone, so I am not sure how the things were handle at point of sale. But I am certain that every single mention of the iPhone included the mention of "being locked in," or requiring a contract with AT&T to use. If memory serves, it was a two year contract, but that ultimately doesn't matter here.

I'm willing to give Apple and Apple employees the benefit of the doubt, and say they probably made that requirement quite clear at purchase. But I might be giving them too much credit. I don't know.

To the point: If during that initial contract period, Apple said "We changed our minds. We no longer require you to have an AT&T contract." There would be some customers, if memory serves a lot of customers because no one seemed to like AT&Ts service, that would jump on the chance to change carriers.

Now if Apple said "sure, you can change carriers. But you have to pay us for that phone first." There would be consumer backlash over it. This isn't saying that it would be right. Or that Apple should not have charged for the phone. But customers would revert to their programmed belief that purchase = ownership. And that they believed they bought the phone free and clear, and just took the tacked on contract along with it.
They would feel insulted ("slapped in the face") for having to pay for the phone twice.

I bet some of you are saying "CoH does the same thing! The package states you REQUIRE a subscription!:"

Hold on. CoH:Freedom changes that though. The easiest way to interpret (from a common consumer perspective) what Paragon is saying is "we no longer require you to have a subscription to play." I realize this isn't 100% accurate. I'm not talking about the accuracy of the interpretation.

Positrons' quote of "you keep what you purchase" plays to that nicely. I am NOT saying it was intentionally misleading. Just pointing out that it plays to the programmed belief that purchase = ownership.

So there will be some customers that will fall back to their programmed belief that purchase = ownership, and come into Freedom believing they have everything they bought.
They will be insulted ("slapped in the face") for having to "pay twice for content they already bought" when having to pay (even if it is in Paragon Points they were given before Freedom launched) for access to some ATs, and even some Powersets, that they believe they already bought.

We have even seen this crop up on the forums a few times already.

It won't go away until a month (or more) after Freedom launches.

And how people handle these customers (if they are as numerous as I predict) that feel insulted will determine how Freedom is received. And it could be a big "shot in the foot" to the game.

Or not. Maybe I am wrong about the number of people that feel that way about the game.