TargetOne

Open windows explorer (or right-click on Computer and choose Explore). Locate your City of Heroes installation folder. Locate and right-click on "cityofheroes.exe", and choose "Properties". Switch to the "Compatability" tab. Check the box next to "Run this program in compatability mode for", then select "Windows XP (Service Pack 3)" from the drop-down list. Then click "OK".

If you decide the 3D sound isn't worth it, just repeat and uncheck the box mentioned above.

My... brain!

My new PC sports a Phenom II X4 955BE (overclocked to 3.6GHz), Gigabyte motherboard, GeForce GTX 460 1GB video (also overclocked), onboard audio (Realtek), three SATA hard drives (total of 2TB), ASUS DVD-RW, Corsair 750W modular power supply, and assorted odds-and-ends in a Cooler Master Elite mid-tower case. Added a Microsoft Comfort Curve keyboard and Razer Deathadder gaming mouse just recently. Still using my old 19-inch Viewsonic CRT for a monitor, hopefully upgrading to a 24-inch LED panel this year.

And if I had to do it THIS year instead, I'd probably have gone for one of the new Sandy Bridge Intel CPUs, albiet not a high-end model, and a GTX 560Ti videocard.

Ahh, technology... the perfect moving target, huh?

I agree, a PC can give many years of useable life, as long as you maintain it and apply upgrades as necessary (and possible). That, and have reasonable expectations of what you can use it for.

My old PC was built (by me) around 2003, and despite its lowly Athlon XP processor, it served my purposes until fairly recently. In the seven years it served as my primary system, I've upgraded the CPU (from 1900+ to 2600+), sound card (onboard to Audigy 2), DVD burner (several times), memory (several times), video card (several times), and hard drives (multiple times). By the time I was finished with it, it had 2GB of memory, 1TB of disk space (across three drives), and GeForce 7600GT video.

Granted, by today's standards it was hardly a powerhouse. But it was more than adequate for most of what I used it for, including video editing and moderate gaming. About the only thing I wished it did better was games; no way it was going to run the likes of Crysis, for example. But it was great for City of Heroes, pre-Ultra-Mode, anyway.

It wasn't until mid-2010 that I finally broke down and built a new system... and even then, I held on to the old one, running them side-by-side through a KVM switch. I really was in no hurry to transfer everything over to the new PC, since the old one was still useable for most daily tasks. In fact, I only sold the old PC just last week... and considering the shape it was in, it could well run another eight years.

So, yes, a decent PC can be made to last a good, long time.

I just tried it, and yes, you can. Still have to make sure the command-line for the shortcut contains " -project coh" or " -project cov", as before, or you'll get an error.

Apparently not. The NCSoft Launcher installer replaces the old updater with a "stub" that just starts the new Launcher.

(Oddly, my installation folder still contains a "CoVUpdater.exe"... which starts "CoHUpdater.exe"... which starts the NCSoft Launcher. Around and around we go...)

I have to do this as well. The only real drawback is that I have to answer a UAC prompt every time I start the game, but that's only a minor annoyance to me. I hear some people have game performance issues running in Compatibility Mode, but I've not noticed any real difference.

I still think it would be nice if they would just fix CoH to work properly with Windows 7, but I imagine it would require ripping the guts out of the game's sound system and replacing it wholesale, and I doubt the devs care to spend that much effort on it. *sigh*

In a pig's eye!

Also disagree. Magazine readership may be down, but it is never going to go away. There are plenty of occasions when you just can't go online, or don't WANT to go online, to get information and/or entertainment. For example, I am prevented from using the Internet at work (yes, it happens!), so no Websurfing for me. And when on vacation at my mother's, there is no Internet access (not even WiFi). I'm not about to pay through the nose for 3G/4G wireless access on my laptop.

So what else am I going to do during slow moments? READ. As in, physical books and magazines. I subscribe to three magazines, purchase half a dozen others fairly often, and consume several lines of science-fiction novels as quickly as they are published. I have a Barnes and Noble membership card, and I'm not afraid to use it!!!

Sure, I could get an e-reader, but I have yet to see an e-reader that is full-color, offers enough contrast, is truly readable under most lighting conditions, is comfortable to hold for long periods of time, needs NO batteries, and can survive rain, dirt, dunking in the pool/lake, food/drink spills, twisting, bending, crushing, folding, spindling, and mutiliating... and still be readable.

(Side note: I am digressing here, but I wish computer game publishers would include full printed manuals with all their games. ESPECIALLY the more complex games, like flight/space simulators. PDF files just don't cut it! I hate having to Alt-Tab between a fullscreen game and Acrobat Reader [even when the game works gracefully with Alt-Tab], when it would be far easier to simply glance at a printed manual on my desktop. /vent)