je_saist

First: Microsoft Windows Update does not have up to date drivers for your graphics hardware!

Do not run Windows Update and presume that your computer is actually up to date.

Second: Your OEM Vendor, the guys who put your hardware together, most likely are not going to have up to date driver for your graphics hardware either!

Do not go to your computer vendors site, see that your driver is up to date there, and presume that your driver is actually up to date. Go to your Graphics Vendors site as listed below.

Third: Online Services that promise to tell you whether or not your drivers are up to date... DO NOT WORK.

Don't go to a website and run a scan to see whether or not your drivers are up to date.

If you do not know what hardware you have in your computer, here are some tools that will help you determine what you have under Microsoft Windows Operating Systems:

CpuZ: http://cpuid.com/cpuz.php

CpuZ will identify your processor, graphics hardware, motherboard, memory, and system vitals.

GPU-Z: http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

GPU-Z is targeted towards displaying more in-depth information about your graphics card. GPU-Z also contains a camera utility to quickly take a snap-shot of what it reads and upload that snapshot to a free-hosting. If you aren't sure what driver you are using, this is the quickest way for us to identify what you have.

ATi Sample:



Nvidia Sample:




If you are running a Linux Operating system and you don't know what graphics card you are using... well. It's not as easy. The package lshw will tell us everything about your hardware... but you have to run it as root and it only outputs in a long format text... and tells us a lot of stuff we didn't really need to know.

There is an lshw-gtk package... but it... doesn't really display everything lshw does in text:



If you are running a KDE based distribution, the OpenGL segment of Kinfocenter will often display pertinent information:

ATi Sample:



Nvidia Sample:

As of right now there are 3 main graphics card vendors supported by the CoH Game:

• ATi
• Nvidia
• Intel

If your graphics card did not come from one of these vendors, chances are it will not run the City of Heroes game.

If you are running AMD RadeonHD graphics cards with Windows NT5 or NT6 (that's Xp, Vista, Win7), you can get updated AMD Drivers from: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx

If you are running ATi Radeon 8500 - x1900 series graphics cards with Windows NT5 or NT6, you can get Legacy AMD Drivers from: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

If you are running a RadeonHD mobile 2000 series or newer graphics card, and have Windows NT6 (Vista or 7) AMD Catalyst is available in a mobile edition:

• 32Bit: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...b_win7-32.aspx
• 64bit: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...b_win7-64.aspx

If you are running a Linux with Cedega for CoH compatibilty, you can get updated AMD Fglrx drivers from: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx
If your operating system supports SMXI / SGFXI : http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php/Smxi :: updated drivers can be downloaded and installed that way as well.

If you are running any Nvidia card with any version of Windows or Linux, you can find drivers through the driver matrix here: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index5.aspx?lang=en-us

If your operating system supports SMXI / SGFXI : http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php/Smxi :: updated Nvidia-GLX drivers can be downloaded and installed that way as well.

If your are running an Intel Graphics Accelerator with any Version of Windows, you can find Intel drivers through this page: http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/detect.htm or this page: http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-022355.htm

If you are running an Intel Graphics Accelerator with any version of Linux... well... actually. you need to go read this: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=ODIwMQ Trust me on this, if you have an Intel GA and you want to play CoH... play it on Windows. And yes. I am sober. And no, I have not been in the catnip.

Intel

There is a known issue with Intel Graphics Chips at this time. The developers have not gotten around to re-kludging the game engine to work with / against Intel chips. Yes, it is known that the graphics are stuck on the lowest possible shader settings.

The Developer GPU has indicated that patches to Intel chips are due at a future date: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...49#post2819749

Quote:

Some users with integrated intel chipsets currently experience a degrade in the shader quality settings allowed. This should be resolved in a future patch.

From Luminous Martini: Here's a fix to shove the game into it's lowest shader mode.

Quote:

1. right click on CoH shortcut 2. click on properties 3.click on shortcut tab at top 4. go to target window "C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe" 5. after the last " press space once 6. enter the following code exactly -useTexEnvCombine 7. click on apply then ok 8. right click on CoH then click run as admin.

***

ATi

As of right now on the 10.4 drivers against RadeonHD 5770, Ambient Occlusion and Full Screen Anti-Aliasing are not playing together well.

Also, if you are using a DirectX 9 Class ATi Radeon Card, these cards were retired in March 2009. The last driver to support these cards under Windows Xp was the Catalyst 9-3 release. The DirectX 9 class of ATi Radeon Cards covers all Radeon 9500-9800 series cards, all Radeon x300-x800 series cards, and all x1x00 series cards.

These cards are not officially supported on Windows 7. There is a Windows Vista build of the 9-3 driver that can install on Windows 7, but this driver is known to have conflicts with the NT6 DirectX 11 platform updates. So basically, it will crash and lock up... and if you update Vista to be in sync with Windows 7 (by running Windows update), you'll probably also run into crashes that way too.

Basically then, if you have one of the Radeon DX9 cards and you are running Vista, don't keep your computer software up to date.

Now, AMD does repackage the 9-3 driver in a quarterly update. The last update, the 10.2 Legacy Release, HAS MAJOR ISSUES WITH CITY OF HEROES.

Just stick to the 9-3 release and you should be fine atop WinXp / NT6 DX10.

You can file bug reports for AMD cards on Linux here: http://ati.cchtml.com/. And Yes... ATi does get them. Thanks Bridgman.

Bug reports for AMD cards on Windows can be filed here: http://www.amd.com/us/CatalystCrewSurvey

You can also file a post on the AMD community forums here: http://forums.amd.com/game/

You can email AMD using this form here: http://emailcustomercare.amd.com/

ATi engineers also browse through the forums at places like Phoronix and Rage3D.

Now, Nvidia's a tougher nut to crack. The only way that I'm aware of to directly contact the company about driver support is through here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/driverq...assurance.html

There's also a Survey page that can be found through Google.

And the Nzone forums.

If you've got an Intel Graphics Chip, you can drop by Intel's contact portal for Windows.

On Linux, you can file bugs directly at Freedesktop.org... although in all Fairness the Freedesktop bug reporting site is a bit obtuse... and you might need to read the manual.

Another approach, and one advocated by Terry Makoden and John Bridgman of AMD is to bug your graphics card vendor. Let them know you buy a card for a particular feature. An OEM like Sapphire, Asus, XFX, Acer, Tul / PowerColor, or the like has a greater amount of pull with driver developers. Michael Larabel (of Phoronix) wrote about this method in response to getting better Linux drivers back in 2007: http://www.michaellarabel.com/index.php?k=blog&i=121