No problems with I8 until tonight. Tonight though three crashes exiting or entering an instance. I've been on the load in screen for 40 minutes and no progress.
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
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One main thing I notice is it seems to be using more memory to run.
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Knew I forgot something. SG-mate had to restart last night due to the 1.2 Gb pagefile. Checked mine (I've got 2 Gb RAM) and it, too, was back up to that... between the *last* time that was fixed and issue release, I had roughly half that size. I'll have to keep an eye on process memory usage next time.
While running a CoT mission in CoV my frame rates took a steady dive downwards. The mission was set at Malicious with 2 people. I normal get a fairly steady 25 fps or so in door missions. However, this mission started at 25 then went steadily down.
It seemed to me that as I uncovered each CoT crystal my framerate would take a very small hit. Normally I don't think this would be a huge problem, but every room with Circle in it had multiple crystals in it. By the end of the mission I must have uncovered at least 50 crytals.
The other odd thing about the mission was that my framerate would "surge". As it dropped it would also surge up and down, usually by about 3 fps. By the end of the mission my framerate was going from 8 fps to 11 fps about every 1/2 second. This was according to the /showfps 1 command.
I have not had this repeat in another mission yet, but also have not had another Circle mission with loads of crytals in it. My guess is that the crystals of been set to have the wall wrapping effects and the sheer volume of them is overwhelming my PC.
CPU - 2.53 ghz Pentium
GPU - NVidia 6600 GT 128 mb AGP
Memory - 1 gig
Windows XP Home Service pack 2
Video Driver 91.47
Not sure if this has been reported but here goes. A few times since i8 I have changed zones and there has been no NPCs, cars/trucks or mobs in the new zone.
The first time this happened it was in Faultline and I could see other players with no problem. I tried to exit the zone via the tunnel and I just walked right into it and 1/2 way along it without exiting. I chatted with other players and they could still exit.
I had to log of and on to get out of it. This has happened 4 times now with different toons, with different powers/levels/zones and animations
I was unable to collect badges or do anything in the zone except move around freely.
It has happened a couple of times after exiting a mish too, not just zoning.
Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy!!!
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 GHZ
1Gb DDR2 Ram
nVidia 256MB 7900 GS
Ever since I got a new CPU things were great prior to I8, now thats not to say I8 screwed everything up, its just that some places like Sharkhead Isle still lag.
Loading zones is good, still moves fast, the frames I have now are better.
Although there was this one time where after I had downloaded I8 I was playing and I wanted to see the Info on Triage Beacon or something of the sort, then it froze, and my computer shut down altogether, after everything was fine, but so far it hasn't happened.
I've noticed ALOT more rubberbanding over the last few days...
Thats about it from my point of view.
@KingSnake - Triumph Server
@PrinceSnake
My common sense is tingling... ~ Deadpool
If you can't learn to do something well... learn to enjoy doing it poorly...
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Last night I noticed my framerate was very staggered and choppy.
I tried to figure out what exactly might be causing it, and from what I could tell it only happened when the team I was part of was in combat. I couldn't manage to narrow it down to what the exact cause was, however. We had a warshade who was running orbiting death very frequently, and I noticed a considerable dip in performance whenever he got near a vertical surface.
We also had a few energy melee tankers and energy manipulation blasters on the team, and for some reason whenever they launched a melee attack such as bone smasher or energy punch, I noticed that the game would very briefly pause as soon as the sound and graphic effect was displayed.
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Several members of a team I was on last night, including me, had the same issue. After some experimentation, turning sound all the way down seemed to eliminate it for me, but I'm by no means certain about that (we didn't really test under fully similar conditions after).
We know the sound engine's been changed because they've made an attempt to fix the looping sound bug with many overlapping sounds, so it's rational that many overlapping sounds could be causing a new problem.
It may be worth experimenting with, and if it has an effect, updating sound drivers to see if that helps.
Ok, a short laundry list of things I've noticed (some previously reported in other threads)
Many many powers still have splats of one kind or another, including fire cages, ring of fire, snow storm, ice slick, and glue arrow. I was fighting Tsoo last night and I'm pretty sure their whirling hands attack is splatting too.
Alot of AOE powers that seem to work OK by themselves or in small combinations will totally crash framerates when heavily layered. I was on a team of 8 the other night and we were laying down glue arrow, poison gas arrow, ice slick, arctic air, frostbite, fire cages, freezing rain and snow storm. FPS nosedived from 60 to 8 by the time snow storm kicked in. I don't know which powers in which combinations, but like I said, just laying down glue arrow and ice slick was okay, poison gas arrow and snow storm was ok, but all of them together was murder.
Poison Gas Arrow and Stone Cages are funky all on their own. They don't seem to splat that I can see, but if you get more than 3 or 4 mobs in them performance starts to drop quickly.
Orbiting Death is now the defacto FPS killer. I was just standing on the IP train station platform while a warshade ran by in the street below with it running and FPS hit the toilet. And yes, it did look like it was splatting. And most warshade powers cause FPS issues anyway. I also have to turn off physics and turn down the particle count whenever there is a WS on the team (but not a PB).
I've also noticed that all of the new indoor mission layouts have some kind of studdering issue. The old ones are just fine, but the new ones aren't. FPS stay high and doesn't fluctuate much, but panning with the mouse is not smooth like it normally is, it's jumpy. I don't know how else to explain it. And I've only seen it on these new layout maps.
Fire powers still produce so much splatter that I need to turn off physics anytime a fire blaster/corruptor is on the team. And even with it off there is a lot of splatter. Tho it seems the splatter blobs themselves have been reduced in size/detail there are just as many of them as before, and still causes a big hit when physics is turned on and particle count is high.
Like I said before, most of these problems you just don't see while solo or on small groups, but really become a problem on large teams. This was always true to some extent in previous issues, but has gotten significantly worse with I8.
I agree it MAY be a sound issue as I too tried turning off the sound (slider down to 0) and the FPS went up a bit in normal and stopped the "Slide show" effect during big team battles (although still not on par with I7)
Shader setting also effects more FPS than they did pre I8. Turning it down from high to Low gained a good 10 FPS flying around in Steel, again still not up to what I had Pre I8.
Tech support had me load Aquamark benchmark and send them my score (34,147 if you are interested) which I thought was a bit odd. Then they closed my issue without a reply, I reopened it of course.
AMD 64 +3400
ATI 9500 Pro 128M
1 Gig Consair Ram (1 one Gig stick)
1208X1024 (LCD monitor native Res)
250(X2)WD SATA Hard drives
Asus KV8 SE Mobo
VIA Chipset
Another little addon to my previous post. I was playing around with my fire/thermal corruptor and noticed that Warmth has a big performance hit, as much as 15 FPS. And this was SOLO. It didn't look like it was splatting anymore tho.
And I'm going to reiterate about all the fire splatter. DAMN, with physics on low there is just fire splatter EVERYWHERE. I mean, yes it's pretty, but it's just eye candy, and the performance hit is astronomical. And this has been a problem since the splatter was first introduced, it's not new. But it's definitely worse now than it's ever been. I don't even want to know what it's like with physics on high.
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I agree it MAY be a sound issue as I too tried turning off the sound (slider down to 0) and the FPS went up a bit in normal and stopped the "Slide show" effect during big team battles (although still not on par with I7)
Shader setting also effects more FPS than they did pre I8. Turning it down from high to Low gained a good 10 FPS flying around in Steel, again still not up to what I had Pre I8.
Tech support had me load Aquamark benchmark and send them my score (34,147 if you are interested) which I thought was a bit odd. Then they closed my issue without a reply, I reopened it of course.
AMD 64 +3400
ATI 9500 Pro 128M
1 Gig Consair Ram (1 one Gig stick)
1208X1024 (LCD monitor native Res)
250(X2)WD SATA Hard drives
Asus KV8 SE Mobo
VIA Chipset
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When you turn off the sound you get better framerates cause the CPU now has a few more cycles to use towards the visuals. You'll see a much larger improvement in FPS when you turn off sound if you use onboard or a low-end add-in card (where all the sound processing is done in software via the driver).
The same is true of the network. Using onboard or low-end network cards (again where all the work is being done in the driver) will give you lower game performance than if you had a dedicated hardware-based network adapter.
A general rule of thumb is to look at the size of the basic driver package (not the full package that often contains control panels, utilities, etc.) Very small driver sets, say 1 MB or smaller, usually indicates the chip/card is doing most of the work. Driver sets that are 5 MBs or more (as are most onboard sound and network drivers) usually means all the work is done in software by your CPU.
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I agree it MAY be a sound issue as I too tried turning off the sound (slider down to 0) and the FPS went up a bit in normal and stopped the "Slide show" effect during big team battles (although still not on par with I7)
Shader setting also effects more FPS than they did pre I8. Turning it down from high to Low gained a good 10 FPS flying around in Steel, again still not up to what I had Pre I8.
Tech support had me load Aquamark benchmark and send them my score (34,147 if you are interested) which I thought was a bit odd. Then they closed my issue without a reply, I reopened it of course.
AMD 64 +3400
ATI 9500 Pro 128M
1 Gig Consair Ram (1 one Gig stick)
1208X1024 (LCD monitor native Res)
250(X2)WD SATA Hard drives
Asus KV8 SE Mobo
VIA Chipset
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When you turn off the sound you get better framerates cause the CPU now has a few more cycles to use towards the visuals. You'll see a much larger improvement in FPS when you turn off sound if you use onboard or a low-end add-in card (where all the sound processing is done in software via the driver).
The same is true of the network. Using onboard or low-end network cards (again where all the work is being done in the driver) will give you lower game performance than if you had a dedicated hardware-based network adapter.
A general rule of thumb is to look at the size of the basic driver package (not the full package that often contains control panels, utilities, etc.) Very small driver sets, say 1 MB or smaller, usually indicates the chip/card is doing most of the work. Driver sets that are 5 MBs or more (as are most onboard sound and network drivers) usually means all the work is done in software by your CPU.
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I agree and will try an old SB Audigy 1 card I have somewhere around here. But this still does not explain why I wasn't having a problem pre I8 or why people with Uber systems (unlike mine) are seeing issues too.
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I agree it MAY be a sound issue as I too tried turning off the sound (slider down to 0) and the FPS went up a bit in normal and stopped the "Slide show" effect during big team battles (although still not on par with I7)
Shader setting also effects more FPS than they did pre I8. Turning it down from high to Low gained a good 10 FPS flying around in Steel, again still not up to what I had Pre I8.
Tech support had me load Aquamark benchmark and send them my score (34,147 if you are interested) which I thought was a bit odd. Then they closed my issue without a reply, I reopened it of course.
AMD 64 +3400
ATI 9500 Pro 128M
1 Gig Consair Ram (1 one Gig stick)
1208X1024 (LCD monitor native Res)
250(X2)WD SATA Hard drives
Asus KV8 SE Mobo
VIA Chipset
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When you turn off the sound you get better framerates cause the CPU now has a few more cycles to use towards the visuals. You'll see a much larger improvement in FPS when you turn off sound if you use onboard or a low-end add-in card (where all the sound processing is done in software via the driver).
The same is true of the network. Using onboard or low-end network cards (again where all the work is being done in the driver) will give you lower game performance than if you had a dedicated hardware-based network adapter.
A general rule of thumb is to look at the size of the basic driver package (not the full package that often contains control panels, utilities, etc.) Very small driver sets, say 1 MB or smaller, usually indicates the chip/card is doing most of the work. Driver sets that are 5 MBs or more (as are most onboard sound and network drivers) usually means all the work is done in software by your CPU.
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I agree and will try an old SB Audigy 1 card I have somewhere around here. But this still does not explain why I wasn't having a problem pre I8 or why people with Uber systems (unlike mine) are seeing issues too.
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Turning off your sound pre I8 would have yielded a similar increase in performance. This isn't something new to I8.
But I understand your point. I8 is having performance issues, hence the reason we have this thread.
One other thing I forgot to mention here is that the renderthread switch is now off again by default. If you have a dual core or hyperthreaded CPU you need to add it back into the target box in the updater's shortcut like this:
"I:\City of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe" -renderthread 1
This should have little to no effect on single core, non-HT processors.
I always wondered do you have to have a special Video Card to download PhysX are is just software that works with most Video cards?
I'm at work so I can't try it now (Darn RL getting in the way)
As I remember last night, as others said here, fire effect slow things down and look...not right.
Like I said lowering my Shader setting helped a bunch, that setting never did much for my FPS pre I8 so it may or may not be a clue.
The other thing I noticed in a big Banished mission last night is with the /showfps 1 on during the "Slide Show" effect the FPS jumped for a second to the 20s in between the pauses so it might be something besides video. There was no Hard drive hashing during the pauses like there can be with other pauses in the game.
Ive bugged it and posted other places, but I must again stress, post Issue 8 is not playable! If I do any action or movement my frame rate drops to 7 !! This is unnaccetable....
Thanks, Positron.
For those curious, I PMed Posi asking for this thread. Lighthouse, I don't know if Positron passed the request on to you or not, or if many others also asked for the thread, but I'm thankful that it was started.
Items I've noticed:
Persistent Lag Spikes. Not constant, but enough to be noticed. This, of course, leads to a persistent recurring glitch.
Even outside of the lag spikes, power animations are missing more often now, having to reclick powers to fire them off has increased, overall choppiness in gameplay has increased.
When I get home tonight and over the weekend, I'll be more attentive to the netgraph and attempt to get more specific.
Overall FPS seems consistent. I've had no lockups, and only one LCMS last night since I-8 go live.
Overall performance has dropped 10-15% since I-7, but only in city ones. Door missions appear untouched. Perhaps this is due to more players being logged in and the server is suffering for it, perhaps something else has occurred.
By the time this is read, I'll have updated my rigs and settings link in my sig.
As I've stated in other threads, I'm not sure what needs to be done to return to us some of the performance we once had, but something must be done soon. This is now the 4th issue including CoV go live that performance has continued to decline.
Please, have the coders go back in and redo whatever is necessary to get rid of the occlusion issue, the power effects that nail FPS like dark/warshade powers and wallcrawlinig auras.
Please find out what information the servers can keep to themselves instead of dumping to the client to lessen the impact on our systems. If I'm on monkey island in PI, I shouldn't be getting a performance hit from someone coming in on the ferry.
If at all possible, please rewrite Bloom, Depth of Field and High Water so that ALL of your players can use driver manage FSAA, since software drive FSAA is either a performance hit, for Nvidia cards, or nonfunctional, as for ATI cards.
Be well, people of CoH.
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I always wondered do you have to have a special Video Card to download PhysX are is just software that works with most Video cards?
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People have said that installing the software even though you don't have the hardware does give a boost in physics performance. But honestly, I'm not sure I notice a difference myself.
But I don't think it's hurting either, so you have nothing to lose by trying.
I wonder tho if the game is designed to use a particular version of the PhysX software? There have been a few updates over the last couple of months, and I don't know if that helps or hurts things.
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I always wondered do you have to have a special Video Card to download PhysX are is just software that works with most Video cards?
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People have said that installing the software even though you don't have the hardware does give a boost in physics performance. But honestly, I'm not sure I notice a difference myself.
But I don't think it's hurting either, so you have nothing to lose by trying.
I wonder tho if the game is designed to use a particular version of the PhysX software? There have been a few updates over the last couple of months, and I don't know if that helps or hurts things.
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I PMed Lighthouse with several questions regarding the PhysX software, so hopefully a post will be forthcoming about the specifics.
Be well, people of CoH.
Last night, I was running an 8 man team without any problems. A couple people logged and I found 2 defenders (2 TA/Archery, imagine the odds). Then when we started fights, they dropped glue arrowsx2, oil slicksx2, flashing arrow thingsx2 and the game stopped moving for seconds at a time, for everyone on the team. At one point, I asked the archers to stop using there powers and sit in the corner and surprisingly there was no lag after that. Thats bad when you have to tell players, please dont play...
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Last night, I was running an 8 man team without any problems. A couple people logged and I found 2 defenders (2 TA/Archery, imagine the odds). Then when we started fights, they dropped glue arrowsx2, oil slicksx2, flashing arrow thingsx2 and the game stopped moving for seconds at a time, for everyone on the team. At one point, I asked the archers to stop using there powers and sit in the corner and surprisingly there was no lag after that. Thats bad when you have to tell players, please dont play...
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Wow. Devs, ... wow. TA/A's don't get enough love as it is. Now this?
Be well, people of CoH.
I played the other night on my 50 Fire/Stone tanker on Pinnacle in a Safeguard mission. I think it was Defeat Kara and her Guards but it was a cave mission and for some reason my fps dropped to 14-19 no matter where I was in the map. I had played other Safeguard cave maps and while not great performance considering my rig, I was getting above 20fps most of the time. This also happens on some of the bank missions or when the mission is in the police station. While it is nice to see new maps in CoH, it feels like I'm playing some Arachnos maps.
Also, before I8 I used to easily get over 30fps with my newly upgraded dual-core system in Peregrine. And I have to admit that was really great to finally seem some improvement in that zone for me. Even when I came upon a group of people, it hardly dropped. Now it doesn't matter, unless I am standing completely still right in front of and staring at a wall.
Warshades are brutal ...
AMD X2 4400+
ATI 1900XTX (6.11 drivers)
2 gigs of RAM
Last night on a team, 50 FPS in the mission, 35-40 in combat (playing my dark / dark defender, a well-known FPS killer from days gone by), and 10 to 15 when the Warshade fired off a power -- I think Orbitting Death.
Ummm. Ouch.
I play with awfully close to minimum effects (I prefer performance over eye candy) with a decent system.
As soon as the WS left, I was cruising along at 35+ FPS.
I'm not sure what hardware you folks test the game on ... but what exactly *is* the reccomended hardware for the game now? What do your QA people use?
Quicksand still "splats" and halves my performance. I have all the newest drivers, which I downloaded from the ATI site when I8 went up on Training Room. The usage of many Kheld powers hammers performance as well.
Last night we were doing many Portal missions in Peregrine IsIand. In PI itself performance was normal, typically 20-30 fps. After exiting the last mission, however, the framerate plummeted to 5 fps in PI. This was in the portal room, with no one present except our team. Poor performance continued all the way to the base portal. Once in the base the framerate returned to normal. This was on Pinnacle about 10:20 CST, 30 November.
I have been experiencing rubberbanding and freezing in Talos, Atlas and PI. Some minor loss of framerate due to powers.
Biggest thing I've seen is while doing missions in Croatoa and Brickstown.
In Croatoa, the Red Caps don't fall down when the die.
In Brickstown, I was doing scanner missions with three sg mates. In a lab map, I ran into the center area when you first enter the map. There was nothing there on my screen.
I stopped, looked left nd right, told the others it was clear, and all the sudden, a mob of Arachnos appeared around me. Several other times during that mission, there would be nothing, then a mob would appear. One time, I watched all nine imps (yes, three fire/kins) attacking thin air. The damage numbers were showing, but the mob was not. Could not target directly.
My system:
Intel 2.8 ghz Pentium D dual core
ECS P4M800PRO-M mobo
ATI X1600Pro 512 mb AGP x8
1gb DDR 333 memory
Realtek AC'97 on board sound
DirectX 9c
All drivers current
Brandi Layne- 50 Rad/rad Defender
Jumbaboobala- 36 Dark/regen Scrapper
Magically Delicious- 34 Fire/kin
Hakan Tayanita- 33 Peacebringers
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Peace through superior firepower and TOTAL retaliation.