je_saist

Nvidia's 64bit support sucks harder than an Electrolux Vacumn store.

Several players of City of Heroes have Nvidia SLI and AMD Crossfire configurations. At this time City of Heroes does not leverage either multiple GPU technology for additional performance.

That being said, there is an unofficial and completely unsupported method of getting SLI working on some configurations. That method might be known as:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe" -slifbos 2 -test

This is one of the reasons why I'm able to drive much higher quality values in my GTS 250 shots than I mentioned in the threads opening. Under combat situations using the in-testing SLI method, my A64 6000 / 2gb / GTS 250 triple SLI system can manage 15-20fps @ 1680*1050 with Shadows, Environmental Reflections, and Water Effects on Ultra Quality.

At this time no similar shortcut has been made available for Crossfire users. Basically, if you have a multi-gpu setup, don't worry too much. Official support could be arriving later this year... and I suspect that will allow my HD 5770's to run full-tilt in all game areas.

****

Okay, I received a PM asking two questions. First, was SLI working on the Live Server, and second, which settings would be required for a certain configuration to push 1920*1200. The user in question has dual 9800 GT's... which... well. Even with SLI... are probably going to struggle to push Medium details in 1920*1200.

I've got Geforce GTS 250's in Triple SLI, and with Television's SLI test mode, I can push all Ultra Mode Settings maxed and get an average 20-25 fps at 1680*1050 in most City of Villains zones... As I've mentioned in other threads, CoV is really the performance benchmark to pay attention to as it's system geometry forces massive overdraw and has some really bad architectural choices. If your rig can handle 20-25fps stable across CoV zones, in theory, your rig should be able to handle the worst Praetoria can generate.

Anyways, okay, fine, the users 9800 GT isn't actually as powerful as a GTS 250, and I've got one additional card... but SLI support is still very much a work in progress... and one of the developers (Television) has indicated that there's more performance headroom in Multigpu setups. Whether or not that's enough to drive another resolution stepping, I don't know. What I do know is that both AMD's and Nvidia's OpenGL 3.x and 4.x drivers aren't exactly optimized for Video Games, and City of Heroes is I think the first commercially released game title to leverage the API.

So there probably is the headroom on some multi-gpu setups to turn an average 20-25fps into a 25-30fps average.

***

Anyways, getting back to the problem though... Well, first, as I said, SLI isn't supported on the Live server. Click on the pictures for larger versions.

Here, I'm on the test server in Nerva. With my camera taking in the water front, I'm pushing 26fps, and I've got all settings maxed. Ambient Occulusion is on high quality. The fps count is in the upper right hand corner of the picture.



When I go to the same spot on the Live Server started with the SLI command, although I'm running a lower level of ambient occlusion, I'm only pushing 23fps:



Now, what you can't see is the /graphfps 1 command, which isn't captured by the in-game engine. So here's an example from another Computer.



Now, while running on the test server with the SLI command, Nerva is mostly a yellow response. While running on the Live server with the same command line setting, and lower-in-game settings, Nerva mostly responds as red.

So, what settings should you use?

Well, at 1920*1200... you probably are going to have to settle for low Ultra Mode settings... and even when SLI support is merged to the main branch, I doubt you'll be able to push medium settings.

There's also another problem with Nvidia cards right now... at least with this driver... which I'll demonstrate:

Here's the settings that a single Geforce GTS 250 is most comfortable at across most of the game in 1680*1050. Shadows and Reflections set to Low, Water Set to High, and balanced Ambient Occlusion:



As I bring the camera up though... the frame rate plummets:



As I turn to head towards the AE building, the frame continues to plummet:



Sure, 12-16fps is technically playable... it just isn't pretty.

***

Now, as of right now, a single RadeonHD 5770 can drive Ultra Mode at 25-30fps in 1920*1200 in combat situations with all details maxed out, so if you are buying on a budget, that's your best choice for a new graphics card. Presuming Television and AMD get Crossfire support worked out, I suspect Dual-5770's will be able to handle anything Praetoria can generate.

Okay, as you probably know by now, Transgaming handles programming their Cider engine for the Macintosh Client... and used CoH as one of the standout examples of OpenGL during the GDC OpenGL 4.0 keynote: http://www.khronos.org/developers/li..._GDC-Mar10.pdf

Currently Ultra Mode works across both ATi and Nvidia graphics cards under Cider on OSX.

Currently Ultra Mode only works across ATi cards under Cedega on Linux. Ultra Mode is also only exposed under the in-testing Cedega 8 engines. As of the latest Nvidia driver and latest Cedega 8 testing engine, Ultra Mode is still not exposed to end users.

No, I do not have a date on when Cedega 8 will ship, nor whether or not there will be a public Cedega engine preview release for all those not in the Cedega testing program.

Update: As of now there is a public beta of the Maudite Engine. Ultra Mode works on ATi cards with Catalyst Driver 10.4

***

A new testing engine for Cedega hit today. Unfortunately, it still does not bring support for Ultra Mode on Nvidia cards.

With the Ultra Mode Features, Anti-Aliasing, and Anistropic Filtering out of the way, lets work through the rest of the available graphic options.

Here's a nifty function of the graphics. As your camera closes in, the graphical effects applied to your costume can be turned off.

World Texture Quality deals with the general quality of the textures that the game uses to render the world around you.



On low modes, textures are generally blurry, washed out, and lack detail.



As you'd expect, increasing the texture quality makes everything look better.

Medium




High



Very High

Now, there often is some confusion as to exactly what World Detail Level is. The best way to explain World Detail Level is this: World Detail Level determines how far out from your character details in the world are drawn.



Here, in Ouroborus, we can see the dim outline of something in the distance. As the detail is cranked up, we can see what that object is:



While the detail of objects away from the camera has increased, the detail of objects near the camera have not changed. As we crank the settings even further...



We can see more and more details in the distance. According to Paragonwiki, if you turn the visual distance scale all the way up, virtually all world objects will be drawn and rendered into the screen, whether or not those objects are actually visible.

This does mean at some point there is a trade-off in terms of what is rendered, and what can be seen. At some point, the World Detail Level will be drawing and applying textures to objects that are hidden by the camera; hidden by the resolution; or naturally obscured by other technologies such as Anti-Aliasing, Ambient Occlusion, and Anisotropic Filtering. This is one of the reasons why detail levels behind render scale 2.0 are not exposed in the UI. The 2.0 scaling is just about the breakpoint for 1024*768 - 1680*1050 resolutions. As resolutions climb higher, the un-filtered detail level change can be more readily recognized... but the viewing advantage goes away as filters are applied and the image is cleaned up.

Character texture quality determines the actual quality of the textures applied to your avatar in game.



Here, on Low, we can see that the Avatar's image is blocky, and there's not much detail on the Enforcer arms, and the legs have some faint striations.



As we move detail up, we can better see the details on the Enforcer arms, and it becomes clearer that the Avatar is wearing the fishnet bottoms:



High



Very High



One of the factors to keep in mind about Character Texture Quality is that colors can change. It's more noticeable on the enforcer arms and legs, and since I had Ultra Mode Reflections set, not as noticeable as it could have been on the wings, but as more details are added, costume parts can change perceived color. The rivets and bumps on the enforcer parts can make the costume parts appear to be darker at higher detail levels.

Much like World Detail, Character Detail is often confused for what it does. Like World Detail, it handles how far away objects are rendering from the player.

While World Detail handles static objects, Character Detail handles interactive objects, such as contacts, NPC's, enemy critters, and other players.

Here in Cimerora, we have two fishermen on the docks. With a low detail distance, they seem to be missing costume components.



As we get closer, we find out that the engine just was not drawing those components because of the Character Detail.



Increasing the Character Detail increases the distance at which details are drawn from the camera:



Because of this effect, some players are convinced that Character Detail changes the amount of detail applied to an object. As we just saw, Character Detail was affected by distance, so lets see it again.



As we move the detail up, the soldiers closer to the camera gain some shadow detail while the soldiers on the platform appear to gain their armor.



Much like World Detail, Character Detail is dependent on just what can be seen on screen. So, if you crank filtering effects, long-distance character detail can be impacted as well.

Geometry Buffers is a performance enhancement option that... well. Either you have it... or you don't.

If you are running with an Ultra Mode setting, Shader Quality is automatically set to high. If you have an older graphics chip or an integrated graphics chip, you might need to set a lower Shader Quality setting.



Here, in Nerva at night, the colors on my stalker's armor pop, and stand in stark contrast to the night-time scene.



As the shader quality goes up to Medium, more effects are applied to the scene. There's more general detail in the surrounding plants, and the armor is now darkened to match the night time scene.



At this resolution, and with no other details enabled, there's not much difference between Medium and High Shader settings.



So here's the same scene in daylight.

Lowest:



Medium:



High:

Depth of Field is a graphical effect that is supposed to enhance the feeling of looking at objects at a great distance. Games like Star Fox Adventure, Zelda, and Borderlands use Depth of Field effects when focused onto an enemy or object to help enhance the feel that one is looking straight at the object.

In CoH though... it's more like somebody smearing Vaseline all over your monitor...



(insert Jeremy Clarkson walking by, announcing he's going to do a J-Turn's in Ouroboros... and...)



Oh yeah. Really. Depth of Field effects need a make-over.

While the Depth of Field effect is obnoxious and easy to screencap, Bloom isn't as easy to explain. It's a method of working the lighting system for more realistic lighting effects. I tried to force an example in Cimerora.



While the entire scene gets brighter, look at the clouds up top.



They've now gotten overly bright due to the Maximized bloom. Bloom really can help the game world feel more immersive, but it's also easy to over-do the extra lighting effects.

Desaturation affects don't occur very often in the game. Mostly, you'll see these effects while running Ouroborus missions, such as at the start of a mission:



The effect wears off quickly enough...



Although you'll get it again when the mission ends:



If you don't like the effect, you can turn it off.