:: BEFORE YOU POST - Common Solutions Inside ::
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2005-09-26 11:34 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Memory Lag
This one tends to be rather unique to City of Heroes because it uses quite a lot of memory. The game currently requires half a gigabyte of memory. Requires as in if you havent got this, theres a good chance you wont be able to play at all. To play the game well, you need at least a gigabyte of memory. If you have Vista, then you will probably need a full gigabyte to play at all and 1.5 gigabytes to play the game very well. (Though I should note here that, at the time of this writing, Windows Vista is not officially supported at all, so Im just guessing on those memory requirements.)
The biggest symptom of having your memory fill up is that load times start to become long. If memory is getting low, it can take minutes just to get into a mission. (If you have a lot of memory and a fast computer, it can take as little as 15 seconds.)
The best solution to this is, of course, to get more memory. Make sure you know what you are doing, though, especially if you are trying to add memory instead of just replacing what you have.
Beyond just throwing money at the problem, though, you might want to try a couple of things. The first is to simply close other programs. No browsers, no IM programs, no email programs. Task Manager (which can be started by hitting control-shift-esc) can show you what is running and how much memory is being used.
You can also optimize your virtual memory. Virtual memory is hard drive space that Windows uses when it runs out of RAM. Here is an old gamers trick for optimizing this virtual memory swap space (old but, I think, still relevant):
1. Right click Computer on your desktop and select properties. Select Advanced System Settings.
2. Under Performance, click the Settings button.
3. Click the Advanced tab then click the Change button for Virtual Memor.
4. Turn off the option to automatically manage the page file size.
5. Set the page file size to 0 (no page file). Reboot if asked.
6. Follow the steps up in the upkeep section of this guide to defragment your hard drive. It could take a few hours so be patient.
7. Now go back to the virtual memory setting again by following steps 1 through 3.
8. Set your virtual memory to a custom size and be sure to set the minimum and maximum to the same value. That will keep Windows from resizing the swap file and possibly fragmenting it more. I would recommend making the swap file two or three times bigger than your main memory but no more than 2 gigabytes. So, if you have half a gig, you might make the swap file 1300 megabytes. However, if you have six gig, dont make the swap file 18000 megabytes, just keep it at 2000.
Of course, virus and malware programs can also eat up memory (and CPU and cause file conflicts and
.) so be sure to keep your virus scanner up to date and get the latest service packs and security patches installed for Windows.
Game Doesnt Start
Occasionally people will start the game, see the small loading message, and then
nothing. This is most often caused by skinning programs that change the look of Windows, such as Window Blinds. Check the options for your skinning program and you should be able to have it exclude City of Heroes.
People also often have trouble with their computer locking up right when they try to log in, particularly right after an update to the game. This is often caused when a firewall program recognizes that the program has changed and prompts you to see if you want to let it connect to the internet. Unfortunately, if you have the game up in full screen, that prompt might be behind the game. But you cant get out of the game because its too busy trying to connect! Normally, if you just wait a minute or two, the game will give up and give you an error message. Then you can alt-tab out and answer the firewall prompt.
Another common crash point is right after selecting a server, which takes you to the character selection screen. This is the first point in the game where 3D graphics are displayed. If your graphics drivers are in bad shape or if your DirectX installation has gotten messed up, you can error out here. You might want to update both of them. (Microsoft updates DirectX every few months. Just go to www.microsoft.com and do a search.)
Of course, virus and malware programs can cause all three of these problems, too. Even the second one if you are skipping the updater. But I only want to drive the point about virus/malware into your heads, not drive it all the way through your heads by repeating it in every section. So I wont bother to tell you to keep abreast of all the latest Windows updates and service packs, or bug you about keeping your anti-virus program updated this time.
Missing Screenshot, Demo, Keybind files (Vista only)
Some folks using Vista find that, when they take a screenshot, the screenshot is not located inside the game directory in a screenshot folder. When they record a demo, the demo cant be found. When they save a keybind file, it doesnt show up. However, if they try to load the saved keybind file, it does load! What the Hades is going on here??
Whats going on is Virtualization. Windows Vista is much more particular about saving user data in the program files directory. If a program tries to do it anyway and the user isnt an administrator, Vista pulls a fast one to keep the program from crashing with an access denied error while keeping the program data clean. It does this by saving and loading the files from a special folder.
So, instead of looking in the game directory, look in the game directorys virtualization folder located in your user directory. For me, that would be C:\Users\Zloth\AppData\Local\VirtualStore. Note that the AppData directory is hidden so you may need to change your folder options to see it. Or, better yet, just replace Zloth with your own Windows user name and search on it in your Start menu.
How To Post
So you read the relevant section(s) for your problem and you still havent figured it out? Well, thats what the forums are for!
Youll want to state your problem clearly and given plenty of details. If you just say Ive been crashing, why? then were going to have to grill you with several questions before we can help. Tell us things like when the crashing started, describe the crash (do you crash to desktop? Suddenly reboot? Lock up?), and say if the crashes happen soon after you start the game or if they only happen after 30 minutes of play. If you really dont know what details are relevant, give it your best shot. Youll probably have to go through a round of questions but as long as you are trying, were happy.
After that, give us some data. My CoH Helper program can gather a lot of information about your computer and game settings and format it nicely for our forums. Paste that info into your post. You should also gather a HijackThis log so we can see what programs are running on your PC. If you have some programs up that you normally close before playing, go ahead and close them before getting your HiJack log, too.
Dont worry too much about grammar and spelling. However, you are asking us to spend some time helping you. If you cant be bothered to use any capitalization or punctuation, it doesnt exactly inspire people to spend half an hour researching your problem.
And no bumping! Its against forum rules.
Close
I hope this guide was helpful to you! Proximus' original guide listed off several of the people that helped gather the information in his guide but, after all these years, that list would go on for pages! So I'll just give thanks to the whole City of Heroes community for all their efforts in keeping this game great.
Phew. OK, I'll let you folks pick that over for a few hours then I'll start a new topic with those posts. (I want to get them inside the edit window so I can get all the UBB codes.)
The first post will have a list of each of the posts in the table of contents and a link to each one. Hopefully that will reduce the "ZOMG itz huge! I'll just ask" factor. A little.
No comments?? Wow, don't get that often. Well, the new topic has been created. I'll see if I can get it stickied.
Zloth, I had maybe one or two nitpicks... but I decided that they were so inconsequential that I had nothing to say... except maybe: WOW. You spent a lot of time on that... good job!
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
Thanks!
Excellent work. Much easier to reply to everything with a link to this thread!
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
Also sent this in PM to Zloth. Pick it apart as you see fit if you feel like using any of it in your New thread.
I'm sure there are dead links here...but Might be useful.
You asked in your thread...so I thought I'd pull this out of storage ( ). It's far from complete, and probably some links are dead...but I thought I'd offer it up. I'm no writer....so do what you will if you want.
General System Info:
SiSoftSandra Lite (free version) -
This is an all araound program, gives alot of info about your system. Has alot of benchmarking tools. Has a little stress testing. Gives advice on what may or may not be wrong. Will also give advice on how to improve your system hardware wise and settings wise. The main meat of it however, will cost you...and honestly, it's not worth the cash to pay for what some free apps do better. THe free version is pretty good, but no reall need to buy the full version.
http://www.sisoftware.net/index.html...angx=en&a=
Cpu-Z -
A simple, tiny, 0 footprint application packed with extrordinary amounts of information. No install process. Works on anything and everything. Shows cpu/memory/board/fsb/membus/timings/cpu votage/bios/graphic interface/board revision/cpu stepping/instruction set/cache/clocks/chipset/southbidge. Regularly updated and a very nice forum community.
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
DxDiag.exe -
This one you allready have, everyone does. Start menu > Run > Tyoe "dxdiag" (without the quotes) and watch it go. Shows tons of info about system, focusing on drivers and multi media stuffs. Can be exported to a text document to be cut and pasted onto a forum. Allready noted by someone else but ALWAYS worth noting again.
Everest Ultimate Edition -
Shows absolutly everything about your system, but only a 30day trial. In my opinion, this one is actually worth paying for. Benchmarking with comparison charts, stress testing, health, details, advice, temp displays, voltage monitors, much more.
Trial is here : http://www.lavalys.com/products/down...UE&lang=en
PCWizard 2008 -
Everything that Everest does....but for free, forever. Also, it's made by the same people who do Cpu-Z. Great prog, probably my favorite all around info application.
http://www.cpuid.org/pcwizard
Sysinternals -
Yeah, Microsoft bought them but there's some really good system analysis tools from them. Processor Explorer is a good one, like Windows Task Manager but...better...MUCH better. Lots more little app.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...s/default.mspx
Temperature Progs:
CoreTemp -
Simple temp monitor. Very small footprint (=very low resource use). Detects Core2Duo temps from on die of each core instead of center of chip. Only works for Core2Duo proccessors though.
http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com...opic.php?t=137
SpeedFan -
Slightly larger then CoreTemp but shows temps for quite a bit, including SMART inabled hard disks, ambient case temp, basically anything your mother board and hard disks have sensors on, but does not show Video Card temps. Works on most proccessors, quite a few Intel and AMD 's. It supports Core2Duo's also, however it shows the old Tm1 (center of bts diode) temperature. It can monitor and change fan speeds provided your mobo supports that feature. Has a simple voltage readout. You can overclock with it but I do not recommend it, not even to experienced OC'rs. Has some info on hard disks, though very technical. Handy temperature graph.
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
Intel(R) Thermal Analysis Tool or TAT -
Genuine Intel program. Show temps from TM2 (on die diode) so will show a seperate temp per core of a Core2Duo. Very simple yet very handy processor stress testing tool. Outputs temperature logging to a simple Text document for easy cutting and pasting to forums (hehe). Sadly, only works for Core2Duo systems.
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads...ysis_Tool.html
Motherboard Monitor 5 or MBM5-
Highly customizable temp monitor. Requires some tech knowledge but it is minimal. Shows voltages, fan speeds, temps, clocks. Can be made to be always on top, transparent (so you can play games with it on), hot keyed, everything. Sadly it not being developed anymore, but it can still be used with a WIDE selection of older motherboards and a few newer ones. This is my favorite monitoring program, simply for it's extraordinary customizability.
http://www.download.com/Motherboard-...ml?tag=lst-0-1
Hardware Health:
Drive Check -
System Cleansing and General Upkeep:
HiJackThis and AdAware have allready been noted so I'll skip those.
Good old Windows Defragmentation tool -
People forget about good old Windows Defragmentation tool. That's not a good thing! Use it, regularly. Defragments you drives.
DiskKeeper -
It's a third party hard drive defragmentation software that's quite a bit more elaborate then the built in Windows one. Allows for different ypes of defragmentation: Boot defrag, MFT defrag, blah blah blah. I bought, I love it, most would say it's not absolutly needed though.
www.diskeeper.com
Video testing and Information:
RivaTuner -
Can be used with almost any vid card. Very non intuitive but VERY comprehensive. Just a TON of stuff to run through. Allows for use with both ATI and NVidia of all generations. This program DEFFENITELY REQUIRES reading through the manual and NO ARBITRARY CLICKING OF OPTIONS. It can break a videocard if you go about mucking with bits you don't understand. Best video OC app I've ever found.
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163
PC Health, Testing, Benching, StressTesting:
PCmark05, 3DMark05/06, etc. -
I'll put these here since the different programs offered by this FutureMark can stress different types of things. Some of FutureMarks products can stress and bench your grahics capability some give give an overall look at your PC's strengths and weaknesses (sp?).
http://www.futuremark.com/download/
BurnInTest -
THis is one great stress testing program. Can stress each and (almost) every peice of you PC seperatly or all at once. Gives good info and can communicate with quite a few temp/voltage monitoring softwares to give an even more complete look at how your system performs at Load/under stress. It does offer a 30day free trial, but I'm all for outright buying it, it's that useful.
http://www.passmark.com/products/bit.htm
Orthos -
Memory, Dual Core cpu, single core cpu, memory+cpu tesing utility.
http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=200
Memtest86+ -
(Cribbed from README)
This is a utility designed to test whether your memory is in working order. It repeatedly writes an enormous amount of different patterns to all memory locations and reads them back again and verifies whether the result of the read is the same as what was written to memory.
There can be a multitude of reasons for running memtest, but foremost of all is of course to test whether your memory modules might be bad. Whenever you suspect your modules to be bad because of system crashes, lockups or reboots it would be nice to know whether the modules are in working order. Memtest86+ is a utility which tries to answer that question for you.
Another common use exists in the overclocking scene. When overclocking a system you are essentially pushing your system to the limits and at some point it will simply give way and break. Unfortunately there isn't a clear cut way of deciding whether a system is still working correctly. Because of the complexity of a computer a system which is pushed to the limits doesn't just break completely when it starts to fail, instead little errors start showing up in many different places in the system growing more frequent and widespread the more the system is pushed. Each one of these little errors can lead to a crash of your system but can also go unnoticed for days or weeks in a running system. The art so to speak of overclocking is thus to push the system as far as it can go without introducing any such errors. As memory is usually one of the first places these such errors start coming up a memory test is very useful.
www.memtest.org
Prime95 -
Another memory testing program (pretty much the same as Orthos), just a little simpler and just as good. Takes a few more clicks to set it up to stress a dual core cpu....but oh well. Not as pretty as Orthos though.
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm
AquaMark -
Network and Internet testing:
Ping Plotter -
(cribbed from their 'help-me' file) Ping Plotter Freeware is an enhanced graphical trace route program. A "trace route" program uses Ping and ICMP echo requests to trace the route a packet takes between your computer and a final destination. Ping Plotter does this - and throws in multi-threading, enhanced statistics, and a multi-threaded high speed engine.
www.pingplotter.com
MORE STUFF!:
-HDTach (Check Hard drives)
-BurnInTest (Checks EVERYTHING)
-PCI32 ( PCI32 http://members.datafast.net.au/dft0802/downloads.htm )
-GCPUID (Vid proggy...kinda like CPU-z)
-Super PI
-HWMonitor (another CPU-z clone)
I probably missed a ton of stuff but this is a start....I know there's alot more usefull programs out there, but I'm only one person.
Good Luck!
Zloth: Awesome reworking of all that info! It looks like you put a ton of work into all that and it looks good. 
Mid: Oooo...you've reacquainted me with some old friends and introduced me to a bunch of new ones. I'm definitely going to have to download a bunch of stuff when I get home tonight. Thanks for the info! You're spel checker seems to be slacking, btw. 
But still I fear and still I dare not laugh at the madman!
One man's "meh" is another man's "zomg". - Leatherneck
Procrastination meter coming soon.
That's perfect Mid! Well, practically perfect... most Vista users probably don't have the Run option on their Start menu. There's a Search instead that finds it just as well. (Or you can type windowkey-R to bring up the run menu.)
Oh frak, I just remembered today that there are still Vista-only steps in my guide! Well, I hope they were real close to what's in XP. (I just did that 'zero virtual mem, defrag, fix virtual ram' trick today under XP and it was pretty close. The 'advanced settings' is just 'advanced' and it's in a tab along the top instead of a link on the left side, but all the rest was the same.)
Which brings up the topic, so it's not off topic now. Yay.
That's what's screwed up about these Windows products. Can't leave well enough alone, and just *build* on something... Gotta go make some silly change that is "for the better" but just makes it more confusing. I love the Add/Remove Programs, for example, it makes a sorta sense... but in Vista, it's 'Programs and Features'. WHY?! We had it figured out, guys! Stop making the targets move!!!
That change alone torqued me off so bad... Not only is it named differently, it's freakin' MOVED. Now that I know where it is, I am ok with it... I guess... still isn't really 'right'... but I'm sure there'll be an entirely NEW name for the next version... sigh.
Of course, they woudn't have that issue if they didn't allow me to use 'Classic' mode... I refuse to use Control Panel the other way. It sucks. For the record, MY Vista is set to be like XP... with a proper Run and Shutdown. Classic look to it, as they call it. Because that Vista style is stupid, IMO.
Unless you're a Mac fan, I suppose. I can't figure out why else they're doing it. Which is a whole other debate, but really... stop trying to copy something you already pwn in sales, Microsoft. Bad enough one has to 'Start' to 'Shut down'. Now you gotta 'Search' for something to 'Run'? Um... yeah, not so much, guys, that's just taking it too far. Stop obuscating, people aren't *entirely* stupid and need spoon feeding and guidance.
Imagine if, oh, I dunno, CoH had decided that the mouse was gonna be used for firing off powers only you had to move/look with the arrows only. You might be able to adjust, but more likely, you'd move on, cursing Co*, or you'd put it in 'Classic' mode. Which isn't explained that you can do, by the way.
That's what they did. They moved stuff, changed it, and just confused people. I think this and UAC alienated a ton of people. But that's just my opinion.
Now... what were we talking about over here again?
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
[ QUOTE ]
We had it figured out, guys!
[/ QUOTE ]
"We" being the people who have used it a lot. The people who haven't probably aren't going to think to look in the "A's" to remove a program. I don't think anyone ever used that feature to add a program. If it were up to people like you, we would still be stuck with those old QWERTY keyboards! Oh wait...
Search is friggin' hugely cool. I never use Run anymore, even though I added it to my Start menu.
But anyway, I think we were talking about how this topic should be unstickied and replaced, or something like that.
There you go, using "not used it before" methods to prove me wrong.
[Zim]
Curse you Zloth! CUUURSE YOUUUUUU!
[/Zim]
/Seriously - Homestar Runner
//Oh... and maybe split up with the good stuff staying, and the weird stuff left behind? Just a suggestion.
///AND... Yes, Mods, STICKY.
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
[ QUOTE ]
That's perfect Mid!
[/ QUOTE ]
Hmm, maybe I'll have to 'Man Up' ( 
) and work up the nerve to post it over in your new thread...after I fix any broken links and add a bit to descriptions...not grammer and spelling checking though, it just wouldn't be a Mid Post if there was no grammer or spelling mistakes!
....can I add a General Overclocking Walkthrough too??? PLEASE!!!!!??????!!!!???
(Hehe, J/K about the OC stuffs...I swear 
)
'Woman Up'
grammar
<--Official Mid_Forever spell checker and... uh... well, I dunno what I'd be for the first part. 'Gender checker' seems a little naughty...
/Walkthrough I let slide, even if Chrome says otherwise. I think it's wrong, so there.
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
[ QUOTE ]
<--Official Mid_Forever spell checker and... uh... well, I dunno what I'd be for the first part. 'Gender checker' seems a little naughty...
[/ QUOTE ]
I know, I know, goofing off in a stickied thread is frowned upon, but...that gave me a real, good laugh!
Thanks Houtie!
[ QUOTE ]
'Woman Up'
grammar
<--Official Mid_Forever spell checker and... uh... well, I dunno what I'd be for the first part. 'Gender checker' seems a little naughty...
/Walkthrough I let slide, even if Chrome says otherwise. I think it's wrong, so there.
[/ QUOTE ]
can't be as bad as a co-worker who wrote a program in Java and called one of his function " gender neutralizer" cause it would remove any "He, she. her, him"... and change it to "they"
Now back on track: the idea of a OC Walkthrough isn't that bad actually, some people might not know how to do it and screw the computer ( althought that would be more on a different thread)
Some also have the multiplier set lower than what it's suppose to be ( like that thread we had yesterday I think) so knowing where to check the multiplier and how to change it would be a good idea.
can we get this one unstickied since we have Zloth's new one?
But still I fear and still I dare not laugh at the madman!
One man's "meh" is another man's "zomg". - Leatherneck
Procrastination meter coming soon.
Why... I think it is! Yay mods!
/now all I have to do is keep commenting in it... that'll confuse 'em!
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
Aw man, ParagonWiki has done moved and my new guide points to the old Wikia wiki.
What happened to the stickied version of this?
But still I fear and still I dare not laugh at the madman!
One man's "meh" is another man's "zomg". - Leatherneck
Procrastination meter coming soon.
Call Lighthouse or Ex to resticky it.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Graphics Lag
Graphics lag is when your computer is having trouble keeping up with the game. Typically, this results in the frame rate getting slow, sometimes to the point where the game seems to be a slideshow. You can check your exact frame rate by using the /Showfps 1 command. This will put your frames per second number up on your screen. Use /Showfps 0 to turn it off again. The number should stay above 10.
Graphics lag can actually be caused by more than just graphics. If the sound processing is taking too long or if your CPU is getting overloaded, you can get low frame rates.
The best way to fix this is to start the game in Safe mode. Start the Updater and click Next just like normal. However, instead of just clicking I accept, check the Safe Mode box then accept. This will set all your graphics settings to the lowest value and make the game horribly ugly but it should give you a great frame rate, even on low end systems. From this point, you can turn graphics options on via the in-game menu and figure out just what you can and cant use.
If you arent getting a good frame rate even in safe mode, go in to your options and check the sound settings. Set the volume for both effects and music to 0. That will turn your sound off and may help your frame rate a lot. (If it does, you better look in to updating your sound drivers.)
Still bad frame rates? Well, if you have a very low end graphics card (particularly if its just a chip on the motherboard instead of a real card), you might need to use the -usetexenvcombine command line parameter.
If you are still having problems, some other program may be eating up your CPU time. Make sure you shut down all other programs. Even a browser can burn quite a bit if its displaying a Flash animation. Virus and other malware programs can burn a lot of CPU time, too. Keep that virus scanner up to date and get those security patches and service packs installed! If you get a virus or worm, it can play hell with your computer and cause all sorts of problems.