City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Surya

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  1. Surya
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by fallenz View Post
    I been told that alot major sellers like Frys and NewEgg are now limiting amount of HDs you can buy and their supply is about 45 days. :-() 45 days and they are dry on most of their hard drives. And the back up plants in China and Taiwan are at 100% and they are trying to open plants in other SE Asia nations but even then, it will be over six months till the market will see it.
    The amount of damage over there in Thailand is crippling, it's going to take a long time to bring them back online. The irony is that there are empty manufacturing facilities here in the states that could be brought online and into production within three months. It's just too expensive to hire on an American work force, so we're all going to suffer until they get things squared away over there.

    We're being told that as an OEM not to expect large volumes of big HDDs anytime soon and to adjust our customer offerings. OUCH.
  2. Surya
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by newchemicals View Post
    We told you so Surya

    I've been running with a 2500K since April. I'm glad I decided that AMD hiding Bulldozer benchmarks was a good hint on how bad that chip was going to be and grabbed a 2500K.

    If you want good performance with an AMD, Phenom II 955 or better. Avoid the L3 cacheless CPUs (Athlon II and Phenom II 840). Avoid Bulldozer too.

    Intel Sandy Bridge CPUs are very nice if you can afford it.
    Oh I knew this would resolve my issue. I'm just depressed that the game is asking for more than 1GB of RAM in Atlas Park but doesn't support SLI/Crossfire.

    Checked the second 6950 in the system, while it's suspect due to how easily one 6950 handles the game, it's showing less than 1% utilization and less than two MB of video memory being used while in Atlas Park. Flat out the game has no multi-GPU support, it should be load balancing but alas isn't.

    That said I noted in the beta notes from test that they're optimizing Atlas Park to try to reduce the amount of video memory it requires. Hopefully they'll be able to bring it under 512.

    I really like the new Bulldozer procs, but not for general computing. We got in some of the new Interlagos (Bulldozer) 16C AMD procs the other day, fired those bad boys up and man do they scream. 64C, 512GB RAM in one U, with 8 GPGPUs attached, the customer about messed his pants.
  3. Surya
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Father Xmas View Post
    Well if you all haven't noticed yet, my prices have gone way out of whack due to the current supply crisis with hard drives. Over the last three to four weeks OEM drive prices at NewEgg, TigerDirect and other online parts dealers have doubled to almost tripled pre-disaster prices due to the flooding in Thailand where it seems nearly all hard drives are manufactured. It's not just Western Digital and Seagate in trouble but their suppliers of drive motors and heads assemblies are also in the region.

    The bad news is that it may take up to two years for the supply chain to return to normal operations.
    The good news here is that SSD prices have been tumbling. If upgrading or building a new PC, consider using a 120-160GB SSD SATA3 as your OS and install drive and using your existing storage for things like movies, music, pictures, etc. If you are willing to wait for a deal and keep an eye out, you can find 120GB drives for as little as $110.

    The performance gain is unreal, and he's right about the problems in Thailand. Most major OEMs have long waits for large HDDs right now, and smaller drives are very quickly burning through back stock. I was buying 2TB Samsung SATA2 drives, in bulk, for $50 each in May. Now that same drive is hard to find wholesale for less than $200.

    Right now also consider an external HDD for storage, since their prices haven't jumped quite as high and 2TB models can still be had for about $120-130.
  4. Surya
    New machine is built and together.

    Flatline 60fps in all zones. No stutter min is averaging about 56fps, max is of course 60fps.

    Minimum during a Keyes Trial was 41 without lowering any detail. I did eventually turn down particle effects just due to sheer spam.

    I'm going to say that it worked. AMD has some interesting tools available to check card usage under load.

    Atlas Park 1078MB
    First Ward 709MB
    All other zones: No more than 300MB
  5. Surya
    Thanks, for the help.

    Straight up I cannot afford purples, and won't be building with them. I should have put forward that this was budgeted. I have about 50 Million Inf to play with, the expensive IOs have come from Hero Merits.

    I looked into going straight recharge all the way, but without the stupidly insane expensive purples it wasn't going to happen. This is what turned me off from doing Psychic Mastery (which I disliked for thematic reasons anyway), as I wasn't able to get Indomitable Will up without a 30+ second gap. I guess I can start saving up tokens for the purples though. However I think I may have found the happy medium.

    The Hami enhancements were wishful thinking, those are already generic IOs. Should have better represented the build.

    Added the Posi proc to Fire Cages, but isn't Hot Feet better served by procs than by +slow since Fire Cages sets containment already?

    I took Smoke in my most recent respec due to issues I was having with getting held/sleep/stunned by mob alpha strikes when I moved in to pop Cinders/EM Pulse. I'm not a SuperSpeed fan as I have issues controlling my movement (thus Fly as a travel power). I fills that need perfectly, but I do see your point SS/+stealth is better. Four slotted with Dark Watcher's also gets me a Recharge bonus.

    I think I have fiddled with it enough to get it more focused on Recharge/Recovery. I have a bunch of unslotters so I'll be able to make some of my money spent back.

    Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.952
    http://www.cohplanner.com/

    Click this DataLink to open the build!

    Level 50 Natural Controller
    Primary Power Set: Fire Control
    Secondary Power Set: Radiation Emission
    Power Pool: Flight
    Power Pool: Speed
    Power Pool: Leaping
    Ancillary Pool: Psionic Mastery

    Hero Profile:
    Level 1: Char -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(3), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(3), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(5), Dmg-I(5)
    Level 1: Radiant Aura -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(7), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(7), Dct'dW-Heal(9), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(9)
    Level 2: Fire Cages -- TotHntr-Immob/Acc(A), TotHntr-Acc/EndRdx(11), TotHntr-Dam%(11), TotHntr-EndRdx/Immob(13), Posi-Dam%(13)
    Level 4: Radiation Infection -- DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(17), DarkWD-ToHitDeb(19), DarkWD-Rchg/EndRdx(19)
    Level 6: Accelerate Metabolism -- Efficacy-EndMod(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(21), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(21), Efficacy-Acc/Rchg(23), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc(23), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx(25)
    Level 8: Smoke -- DarkWD-ToHitDeb(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/Rchg(25), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(27), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(27)
    Level 10: Enervating Field -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(29)
    Level 12: Flashfire -- Stpfy-Acc/Rchg(A), Stpfy-EndRdx/Stun(29), Stpfy-Acc/EndRdx(31), Stpfy-Stun/Rng(31), Stpfy-Acc/Stun/Rchg(31), RzDz-Immob%(33)
    Level 14: Fly -- Frbd-Stlth(A)
    Level 16: Air Superiority -- Acc-I(A)
    Level 18: Cinders -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(33), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(33), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(34), EoCur-Acc/Hold/Rchg(34)
    Level 20: Lingering Radiation -- Acc-I(A), RechRdx-I(34)
    Level 22: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(36), RechRdx-I(36)
    Level 24: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Krma-ResKB(36)
    Level 26: Hot Feet -- Sciroc-Dam%(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(37), Oblit-%Dam(37), Oblit-Dmg(37), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), EndRdx-I(39)
    Level 28: Choking Cloud -- Lock-%Hold(A), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(39), Lock-Acc/Hold(40), Lock-Rchg/Hold(40), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(40), EndRdx-I(42)
    Level 30: Mutation -- RechRdx-I(A)
    Level 32: Fire Imps -- ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg(A), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg(42), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(43), BldM'dt-Dmg(43)
    Level 35: Fallout -- Dmg-I(A)
    Level 38: EM Pulse -- BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(43), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(45), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(45)
    Level 41: Indomitable Will -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(45), RechRdx-I(46), RechRdx-I(50)
    Level 44: Mind Over Body -- ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), ImpArm-ResDam/Rchg(46), ImpArm-ResDam(46), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(48)
    Level 47: Psionic Tornado -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(48), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(48), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(50), Posi-Dam%(50)
    Level 49: Afterburner -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
    Level 50: Cardiac Boost
    ------------
    Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
    Level 1: Containment
    Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
    Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
    Level 4: Ninja Run
    Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
    Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(15)
    Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
    Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-End%(15), EndMod-I(17)



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  6. Surya
    Opps, here we go.


    Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.952
    http://www.cohplanner.com/

    Click this DataLink to open the build!

    Level 50 Natural Controller
    Primary Power Set: Fire Control
    Secondary Power Set: Radiation Emission
    Power Pool: Flight
    Power Pool: Leadership
    Power Pool: Speed
    Ancillary Pool: Fire Mastery

    Hero Profile:
    Level 1: Char -- Lock-Acc/Hold(A), Lock-Acc/Rchg(3), Lock-Rchg/Hold(3), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(5), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(5)
    Level 1: Radiant Aura -- Mrcl-Heal(A), Mrcl-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(7), Mrcl-Heal/Rchg(7)
    Level 2: Fire Cages -- TotHntr-Immob/Acc(A), TotHntr-Acc/EndRdx(9), TotHntr-Dam%(9), TotHntr-EndRdx/Immob(11)
    Level 4: Radiation Infection -- DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(15), DarkWD-ToHitDeb(15), DarkWD-Slow%(17), LdyGrey-DefDeb/Rchg(17), LdyGrey-%Dam(19)
    Level 6: Accelerate Metabolism -- Efficacy-EndMod(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(19), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(21), Efficacy-Acc/Rchg(21), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc(23), Efficacy-EndMod/EndRdx(23)
    Level 8: Smoke -- DarkWD-ToHitDeb(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/Rchg(25), DarkWD-Slow%(25), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(27)
    Level 10: Enervating Field -- EndRdx-I(A), EndRdx-I(27), EndRdx-I(29)
    Level 12: Flashfire -- RzDz-Immob%(A), RzDz-Acc/Stun/Rchg(29), RzDz-Stun/Rng(31), RzDz-Acc/EndRdx(31), RzDz-EndRdx/Stun(31), RzDz-Acc/Rchg(33)
    Level 14: Fly -- Frbd-Stlth(A)
    Level 16: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
    Level 18: Cinders -- Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(A), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(33), Lock-Acc/Hold(33), Lock-Acc/Rchg(34), Lock-Rchg/Hold(34)
    Level 20: Lingering Radiation -- P'ngTtl--Rchg%(A), P'ngTtl-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow(34)
    Level 22: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(36), RechRdx-I(36)
    Level 24: Tactics -- GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(36)
    Level 26: Hot Feet -- Sciroc-Dam%(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(37), Oblit-%Dam(37), Oblit-Dmg(37), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), EndRdx-I(39)
    Level 28: Choking Cloud -- Lock-%Hold(A), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(39), Lock-Acc/Hold(40), Lock-Rchg/Hold(40), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(40), EndRdx-I(42)
    Level 30: Mutation -- RechRdx-I(A)
    Level 32: Fire Imps -- BldM'dt-Acc(A), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg(42), BldM'dt-Dmg(42), BldM'dt-Dmg/EndRdx(43), BldM'dt-Acc/EndRdx(43), BldM'dt-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43)
    Level 35: Fallout -- HO:Nucle(A)
    Level 38: EM Pulse -- Lock-Acc/Rchg(A), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(45), Lock-Rchg/Hold(45), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(45), Lock-Acc/Hold(46)
    Level 41: Fire Ball -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(46), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(46), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), Posi-Dam%(48)
    Level 44: Fire Shield -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/EndRdx(A), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(48), S'fstPrt-ResKB(50), ResDam-I(50)
    Level 47: Rise of the Phoenix -- HO:Nucle(A)
    Level 49: Consume -- Efficacy-Acc/Rchg(A), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(50)
    Level 50: Musculature Boost
    ------------
    Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
    Level 1: Containment
    Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
    Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
    Level 4: Ninja Run
    Level 2: Swift -- HO:Micro(A)
    Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(11)
    Level 2: Hurdle -- HO:Micro(A)
    Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-End%(13), EndMod-I(13)
  7. Surya
    This is where I'm almost at, a few more hero merits and I'll finish it off.

    I have some frankenslotting going on, but those seemed the best places to put things. Any suggestions would be greatly helpful.

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  8. Surya
    Depending on where you are at, some of the big box stores, like Fry's, will price match online retailers. This could be a boon if you're concerned about returning something if it doesn't fit your case or doesn't perform to spec.
  9. Surya
    FYI, you know you have Phalanx Fighting set to 1 instead of 0 right? That pushing your numbers high, I'm showing 43.5/44.7/45 which are still respectable.
  10. Surya
    He has some flexibility in the build due to already being level 26. In my build I took it at 28 which is around the corner and he can grind to 28 fairly easily. However I think at this point defense and hit points are probably worth more, so I had the build take True Grit instead.

    I usually stick with SOs from WW until around level 35 when IOs start to outclass SOs. With all the people farming DFB, you can get SOs on most servers for super cheap. I put 31 SOs in everything for about 40k inf for a level 29 character, a lot more affordable than IOs.
  11. Surya
    I'd try to get to something like this:

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    This is going to maximize your defense and endurance savings. You're still at almost 1.2/s drain and your attacks are expensive, thus they're slotted with endurance reducers. I'd work hard to get a hold of a Steadfast Protection +resistance/+3% Defense IO asap. Also in whatever build you do, be sure to take Phalanx Fighting right away since it's a passive 3.75% defense boost. I used SOs here, which are expensive, but are better than generic IOs at this level.

    You can take Active Defense over True Grit (but be sure to get it later and six slot) if you find you're getting held too much. That usually isn't much of an issue until about level 30.
  12. Surya
    This card is a bit of a steal at this price, when you consider the Mail-in Rebate. Also Sapphire has a long history of providing outstanding custom service, but you'd have to deal with AMD drivers.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102908
  13. Surya
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Father Xmas View Post
    Looking at the reviews at techpowerUP, at 1920x1200 the 9800GT is roughly 67% the performance of an HD 5770 and the GTX 550Ti is roughly 96% the performance of an HD 5770. Yes it's an indirect comparison but it's the best I can do.

    I hardly call it only one step up. It's 3 tiers higher on Tom's Hardware's graphics card hierarchy chart.
    My mistake the 9800 GTX+ is only one gen back from the 550Ti, the 9800GT which is mentioned here several generations further back. It's just a rebranded 8800GT, good card, but very dated at this point.

    Those Techpowerup charts are very relative and are an amalgam of various benchmarks, it is probably easier to understand by just going by hierarchy. I don't think you're going to see as big of a gap in CoH between these cards as those charts would suggest, but at minimum the additional memory and higher clock speeds will be of great benefit.

    The GTX 460 is still probably the best value for CoH in the $150 dollar range. Tiny bit better performance out of the 6850, but AMD drivers don't like CoH. However, I didn't see what resolution they are playing at mentioned. If it is something low like 1024x768, they are not going to gain much by upgrading to any of those cards.
  14. Surya
    The GTX550Ti is only one step up from your 9800GT in terms of power, but does have some bonuses in DX11 support and more/faster memory.

    With a $150 budget I'd do some searching for a GTX 460 1GB card. It is more bang for the buck than either of the other two, and can be had for around that price range (+/- $10). The AMD 6850 is in the same class and is usually $5-10 cheaper, but AMD has some driver issues with CoX so be prepared to tinker some.

    A great resource here is Tomshardware which does a monthly article on bang for your buck in graphics cards. Last months article can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/3oobmzp

    If your budget is really constrained you can look for open box specials on sites like Newegg and Tiger Direct. Really great deals can be found if you are willing to trust the retailer and forgo packaging.
  15. Surya
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mercator View Post
    I actually don't find endurance to be a problem after the Cardiac even at .9 end usage.

    If you stack enough recharge like you're suggesting it makes the Broadsword optimal attack chain more of a reality so Air Superiority wouldn't be seeing any action.

    At this point, Hover is more formality, I build my builds without City Traveler or the latest updates in mind because that's how I've been doing it all along. But I don't use it often and i don't need it so I'm starting to look at other options for those slots.

    I was thinking Aid Other/Aid Self like you choose.

    You'd end up with a single target of:
    Hack -> Disembowel -> Hack -> Wait 2 seconds.
    However, this actually works rather nicely even with the redraw:
    Disembowel -> Hack -> AS/Parry -> Hack

    If the mob can be knocked down it provides superior mitigation especially against bosses in those x8 missions. Alternatively you could swap AS for Hasten, then your wait on the first chain is less than one second which is acceptable. Parry might end up being the best choice if you intend to do incarnate trials the defense boost helps.

    If you aren't attached to Hover and Afterburner, then most certainly move to Combat Jumping and SJ. It will save you some endurance, and free up the level 49 power for whatever. However it would slow your single target chain down a bit, inserting Parry there would probably be best.

    As I've leveled up the character I've become more and more attached to Aid Self, really speeds things up since the regen is anemic until you have everything slotted.
  16. Surya
    This is what I came up with. I've been tinkering with this on a brute, and found that as much as Tough/Weave rock I couldn't justify taking three powers and another two toggles was just too tough on endurance drain with the high cost of the BS attacks. I've been trying to eliminate it, and this is as close as I've come.

    You're within .3 of capping melee/ranged and capped on AOE. Endurance drain is a very manageable .86/s with a 3.41s recovery. I don't like Hover here, due to cone positioning, but it allows you to flesh out the single target attack chain with Air Superiority. If redraw bothers you, take Parry there, damage is comparable even if the secondary effect isn't as good in the late game. That would allow you to switch over to Combat Jump and Super Jump, but you lose the -Recharge IO in Afterburner.

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  17. Surya
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
    Actually yeah. I do. Between myself and several friends (who actually work for nVidia), we're fairly well mapped out what SLI will and will not bring to CoH.

    What you're not going to see in CoH with your SLI setup. Higher framerates.
    What you will see in CoH with your SLI setup. Higher "minimum" framerates. Hence less variance between minimum and maximum framerate. That's my definition of stable framerate.

    Again, not in CoH. Not in your particular setup.

    Done testing up through SLI'ed 580's. Oddly, framerate isn't an issue until you start pushing into "crazy" resolution territory. And the framerate differential between SLI and non-SLI at everything up to 1920x1080 is within 5 FPS.

    As I said, the game is compatible with SLI. It just isn't built in a way that actually gains much from it. But at least the game doesn't crash or fail to load with SLI on.
    The second card isn't being used at all, I'm not surprised that you're not seeing any microstutter. That said, microstutter should always be present in some way shape or form with SLI/Crossfire until you reach CPU limited performance levels. Depending upon the engine being used it may or may not be noticeable, but it will be there. I unfortunately have to deal with it every day due to bugs in the current CUDA toolkit, and it makes multiple GPGPU setups problematic for real time rendering.

    Load on the second 8800 is minimal during game play, to be non-existent. Whatever support there is, is not making use of the GPU or the memory on the second card. I don't care if it makes use of the GPU, but access to the memory would be a real improvement for people running at higher resolutions.

    I'll go ahead and pick your brain on this, is the SLI support in CoX doing SFR or AFR? My testing shows neither since the second card isn't being used at all. If I'm missing something, a setting or switch to enable support let me know. As of right now there appears to be no support at all for multi-GPU setups, apart from the game not crashing.

    Quote:
    Also, your hardware is NOT "modern". It's four generations and five years old. Face it.

    8-series
    9-series
    200-series
    400-series
    500-series
    Let's be clear here, the 8800 GTS 512MB (G92) launched in January 2008, and the 9-series were re-branded G92 chips. So lets shave more than a year, as well as a generation off of your estimates.

    Either way it's hardly ancient, dual G92 cards should be able to go toe to toe muscle wise with the GTX295, 460, or 550 Ti. The primary disadvantages would be slower memory (GDDR3 vs GDDR5) and a lack of DX11 support. Smaller memory sizes should be offset by the use of multiple cards. The G92 card was exceptional in many ways and is one the best and longest lived chips nVidia ever released. Heck you can still have 9600s and 9800s floating around in stores today.

    Quote:
    This is basically "should boot the game without crashing" or missing any basic effects. "Runs like ****"
    This is where we disagree. Minimum means in my eyes, functional and usable at the lowest possible graphical settings.

    Quote:
    This is basically "Can actually be said to "run" as opposed to slide-show. Teaming viable now due to ability to handle mutliple effects.
    Game is completely functional and shouldn't have any performance issues when set to recommended settings.

    Quote:
    This is basically "won't crash with barest Ultra Mode settings turned on".
    Crank it up, and have fun.

    Quote:
    Congrats. You have the bare minimum for basic ultra mode in some of the less graphically intense sections of the game that aren't designed to showcase Ultra Mode.

    Then your expectations of this game are flawed.
    Since it happens with everything turned off, I somehow do not feel my expectations are flawed. I exceed the recommended settings without ultra mode enabled, but even at the lowest possible settings it is still swapping to the point of freezing in Atlas Park and First Ward. Interestingly enough I can crank it up in just about any zone other than AP and FW, even the CoV zones do not generate a significant performance issue. There is an optimization issue in those two zones.

    Quote:
    It will. If it doesn't, there's something seriously wrong with your system.

    I'm playing on a C2Q Q8300 with 8GB of RAM and a GTX 560 Ti. I have zero problems. If you have 2GB of memory on the beast, you shouldn't experience any texture memory issues whatsoever. Do be warned (however) that ATI cards do occasionally suffer from flaky drivers in this game. Many people reported serious, show-stopping issues with just about everything between 11.4 and 11.9
    I've read about the AMD driver issues between 11.4 and 11.9. My intention will be to use 11.9, unless the new 11.10 drivers check out.

    I'm not paying for the cards, I have them left over from AMD GPGPU testing. We had a 1x8 HIC/GPGPU with the 6950s in a Dell C410x chassis. Trying to balance IO/density/cost, however there were some serious problems with the AMD toolkit, so the customer went with Tesla M2050s. Customer had already paid for the cards, didn't want them back, so yay me! I considered going with a single 580, but with only 1.5GB of memory I was concerned about next years games, and the 3GB versions were not worth the price premium.

    I love to play games period and while CoX is my current MMO de jour, Skyrim, SWTOR, BF3 are all on the horizon. Not to mention this copy of the Witcher 2, which has been taunting me for the past four months. So this problem if anything just pushed me to upgrade sooner.
  18. Surya
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by newchemicals View Post
    If you want the bells and whistles you have to get better CPU and GFX hardware.

    If you want a better CPU now, don't wait for Ivy Bridge just get the best available now. Otherwise, you'll end up with the Bulldozer people who waited an extra 6 months only to find that AMD released a K9. Me? I'm glad I decided to not bother waiting and have been enjoying the 2500K all this time.

    Intel isn't under any pressure to release Ivy Bridge since Bulldozer turned out to be a "dud". Oh, they will relase it, when its good and ready. (Probably when Piledriver and Trinity ES start getting passed around)
    I'm not even asking for the bells and whistles, it does this at the lowest possible graphics setting.

    As for Ivorybridge, gaming and consumer businesses do not drive Intel anymore, but the server and HPC market do. Bulldozer may have been a dud for the consumer market, but the HPC guys are salivating to get a hold of those Interlagos processors. The 22nm die of Ivorybridge will allow Intel to pack more cores with less power, which they do need to compete in the server market. I expect to see Ivorybridge by Q1 next year, maybe sooner.

    The smaller die with fully implemented PCI 3.0 will finally give the CPU a little breathing room in terms of being the bottleneck for performance. Dual 16x cards will allow multi-card setups to go the way of the dodo (yay) and be replaced with cheaper and lower power GPGPUs. Alas I'm getting ahead of myself, that's probably at least a year away.

    That being said, I'm building something that looks like this. I'll finally be able to play Witcher 2, yay!

    i5 2500k
    8GB 1333mhz DDR3
    2x 120GB SSD RAID 0
    1TB local drive (14TB network attached storage)
    2x AMD 6950 2GB
    800wt PSU

    If that doesn't do it, nothing will.
  19. Surya
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
    The way CoH game is set up, the performance boost from SLI is negligible. Support is there, but the way the game handles, you don't see performance boosts like you do in other games. SLI will help stabilize framerates and not much more. If your framerates are low, they're going to STAY low. They just won't dive precipitously lower like they would with a single-card solution.

    Until a couple issues ago, the game didn't even support SLI in any flavor.

    As to it being "criminal". The game existed before nVidia SLI was common or particularly beneficial. And adding support for it to an existing graphics engine is non-trivial at BEST.
    Hmm I'm not sure SLI works the way you think it does, SLI can improve max framerates but rarely stabilizes them. Microstutter is an ongoing and annoying issue and has been since day one with SLI. However at high resolutions, SLI gives a great benefit due to adding texture memory, which is exactly why I have two cards instead of one.

    As an added note SLI has been around since the late 90s when it was pioneered by 3DFX, and later purchased by nVidia. OpenGL and DirectX support were there in 2002-2003 when the game engine was being developed.

    Quote:
    Looks like the the devs finally decided to take advantage of 1 and 2 generation old hardware.
    Wait what? Is this a seven year old game that doesn't support multi-card setups, or an updated engine designed to run on modern hardware that has a gaping hole in its hardware support?

    Quote:
    Correction, the game isn't optimized for your particular hardware setup.

    The fact is, the original "recommended" platform was "recommended" over 4 years ago now. As with any games which have graphical refreshes, the requirements have grown beyond that.
    Here are the system requirements as posted earlier:

    Minimum PC System Requirements:

    * OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP/Vista/7
    * Processor: Intel® Pentium® III 1 GHz or AMD Athlon™ 1 GHz MHz
    * RAM: 512 MB RAM or more
    * Video: NVIDIA® GeForce 2 Series, ATI™ Radeon® 8500 or Intel® i810G Series Video Card
    * Hard Drive Space: 4 GB Available HDD Space
    * Internet: Broadband Internet Connection
    * Input: Keyboard and Mouse

    Recommended PC System Requirements:

    * OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP/Vista/7
    * Processor: Intel® or AMD Dual Core processor
    * RAM: 2 GB RAM or more
    * Video: NVIDIA® GeForce FX 5600 Series (or higher), ATI™ Radeon® 9600 (or higher)
    * Hard Drive Space: 6 GB Available HDD Space
    * Internet: Broadband
    * Input: Keyboard and Mouse

    Recommended PC "Ultra Mode" System Requirements:

    * OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP/Vista/7
    * Processor: Intel® or AMD Dual Core processor or higher
    * RAM: 4 GB RAM or more
    * Video: NVIDIA® GeForce 8 Series (or higher), ATI™ Radeon® HD 2000 Series (or higher)
    * Hard Drive Space: 6 GB Available HDD Space
    * Internet: Broadband
    * Input: Keyboard and Mouse

    Yeah I got those beat. I'm not expecting smooth frame rates, but I am expecting it not to asking for more than 512MB of GPU memory if it isn't going to support a multi-card setup.

    Quote:
    An SSD isn't going to help you. It's still slower than direct access to video memory.

    Looks like it's time for a new card.
    On the plus side, current-generation mid-range cards like the GTX 550 will give you a nice performance boost on top of having sufficient video memory for the task at hand and in addition to being fairly inexpensive.
    Ironically the SSD did help since the game was insistent on swapping, but it was still pretty bad and hardly playable. It is all moot, I was in the process of building a new PC but was waiting on Ivorybridge. I'll let you know in two weeks if it performs any better with a 6950 2GB card, if it doesn't then I think this needs to be addressed by the powers that be since the game isn't playable on a recommended configuration.
  20. Surya
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome View Post
    I had a run last month on a full team of 8; we got 8 clones of the team leader and none of the rest of the party. Unfortunately the team lead was Ill/Time so things got interesting with 8 sets of Phantom Army and all the slows and holds flying. I can't remember offhand if they summoned Phantasms or not but it was a real challenge since most of the team were in Posi level range of 11-16. As I recall we loaded up on insps and worked on single pulling them to clear the thing.
    Had this happen to us the other day, unfortunately the team leader was a bubbler. 8x Dispersion Fields and no psychics on our side. It was quite impossible our first try, came back with everyone stacking yellows and they went down eventually.
  21. Surya
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gaia View Post
    Also like many other games SLI has little or a negative effect on graphics performance. As things stand there is so little software which takes full advantage of it that it is of little benefit.
    Having said that I was until recently running a Q6600 CPU and a 8800GTS 512 GPU at 1800x1600 and that was giving me about 20 ish fps blueside and about 18fps in GV or on Arachnos Maps.
    With the earlier beta stages of GR I could get about 20 fps in Nova but the graphics update in the later stages of the beta required a reduction in resolution and AA with AO disabled.

    In other words if you wish to take advantage of the UM settings fully you *WILL* need to upgrade your hardware or reduce your settings. The graphics engine has been upgraded to the levels you could expect on a current grahics intensive game and 3 year old hardware will struggle on maxed out settings.
    This isn't a case of increasing the GPU memory quantity required - thats down to your resolution. The bandwidth of data on your graphics bus otoh has increased greatly with much higher graphics settings - reflections, shadows PhysX etc. And the maps have been updated with considerably higher detail - those changes require more processing power from the GPU not more memory - more recent GPUs will handle much more processing on the card itself but on an older GPU more of this is handed off to the CPU which increased the amount of data traversing the bus.
    I'm not sure you understand what I'm asking for with a multi-gpu setup. I'm constrained to 512MB of RAM instead of 1GB, which limits my ability to play the game at 1920x1200 which is the native resolution of my monitor. The second card is there to allow me to play at higher resolutions, not as a general performance boost. Almost all modern game engines allow for basic dual card setups for this exact reason. Updating their graphics engine without adding multi-card setup support is almost criminal. So my question is this, why does a game which has had two engine updates, and is now on par with more high end games, not support higher end configurations.

    I set the graphics to "Recommended" when I pulled the CoH Helper, but I tested with the lowest possible settings and it didn't matter. Even when everything turned off, the game was still requesting more than 512MB of graphics memory in Atlas Park.

    Look at this point it's just fanboy bickering. I now know what the problem is and I thank you all for the help. The game is poorly optimized to run on it's recommended configuration at even minimal settings in a handful of zones. I'm OK with this, gives me an excuse to upgrade my computer.

    As a side note installed the OS on an SSD last night with CoH. Still swapped like crazy but it only hung for about 10-15 seconds and frame rates sustained at about 20-25 in AP when moving in a straight line, dipping to 15-20 when turning for a few seconds.
  22. Surya
    I ended up taking the game all the way down to 800x600 and I still freeze up and swap like crazy in Atlas Park. I got weird artifacting in First Ward at anything lower than 1024x768. Had issues with the driver update with SLI enabled, so backed off those for now. I may test it again with a single GPU, but that cripples performance in other applications.

    I have a SATA3 SSD available that I'm going to load up tonight and test. Interestingly enough, my laptop does not have the same issues and it's running an Nvidia 5400M, but it shares up to 1GB of memory so I think GPU memory is my bottleneck.

    Here is the deal, this IS a seven year old game. No manner of graphical update or excuse can change that. If a seven year old game cannot run properly on three year old hardware then we have an issue. Any upgrade or optimization should have included support for multiple GPU setups, especially if they're going to greatly increase the amount of required GPU memory.
  23. Surya
    I think I've tracked the problem down. I dumped my swap file during one of these episodes, and it looks like the client is indeed caching something from the GPU into my swap file. I don't know what but I do know how much, something along the lines of almost 700mb of data and it is rewriting the information fairly quickly causing more slow down.

    I have almost a GB of memory available so I'm not sure why it's demanding swap space. Lack of memory on the GPU seems to be the issue, but I don't have the tools to measure memory usage on the GPU.

    So it looks like I have some options. I could build a new PC to play a seven year old game, or purchase an SSD and hope it helps some. I could find me a 2GB card that won't bottleneck my processor or force me to OC (at its age, I'm not going to take chances).

    However my preference would be for them to optimize their game to run properly with dual card setups and to stop asking for more than a GB of graphics memory in the starting zone.
  24. Surya
    I'm not offended, but it leads me to believe that the game is poorly optimized for its age. Perhaps they should move out of the dark ages and actually support multiple card configurations.

    I'll test with newer drivers, but I'll have to check the date. Last update caused massive BSOD issues when SLI was enabled.
  25. Surya
    First Ward improved at 1280x1024, even though it wasn't worth playing at that resolution on these monitors. It still spent a significant amount of time swapping upon first entering the map, but cleared up fairly well if I didn't turn and ran in a straight line. Went from 5-10 fps, to about 15-20fps. If I turned it'd stutter down to about 10fps for a few seconds then pick back up.

    Atlas Park, no dice at all. No change, still ran like crap. I can take it down to 1024x768, but I don't think it's going to matter as it'd be unplayable at that resolution on a screen this size (24in).

    As a side note, I played CoH at launch up until ED, never once had an issue graphically.