Official Thread: Performance Issues

Yeah, noticed some lag while teaming yesterday. There were times when some wouldn't be able to move while others were fine. Also I noticed re-zoning a few times helped.

ok... so what could be different about this patch that would cause this problem to be noticable for me now where previously it was not? There has to be something that was keeping me from seeing what you've seen since I7/I8, probably particular to my system, and then something else about the patch has triggered this.
(unfortunately, I'm on my laptop and not at my gaming system, so I can't get specs right now.) (no, I'm not geeky enough to have committed them to memory.)

The game KEEPS crashing on me. It started with I8. I reinstalled the game the other night and I still crash. The crashes are random, sometime in a mission, sometimes on a way to a mission, sometime I crash just standing still. Sometime the game locks up on me other times I'm looking at my hero or villain one second and the next I am looking at my desktop. I crashed 4 times in one hour Wednesday night. I have an AMD Athlon 64 processor, with 1 gig of PC 3200 ram and an Nvidia 5200 video card. I know my card is a little old but this is just crazy. It’s getting to the point where the game is almost unplayable as the frustrations of crashing outweighs the fun of playing.

Hello. First I’ll give you my system specs, some lag tests, then the problems I’m encountering.
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SYSTEM SPECS:
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64, 3200+.
Ram: 1GB (2x 512mb chips, PC-3200, DDR400)
Graphics Card: RADEON 9800XT GeXcube 256mb
Motherboard: GIGABYTE K8VNXP VIA K8T800 Chipset Gigabit LAN ATA RAID Audio
Hard Disk Drive: Western Digital 120 gig 7200rpm SATA JD (x2 drives) (only 25% used)
Monitor: BenQ FP937s, 19" LCD (running at 75hz refresh rate & 1024x768 resolution with 32bit quality)

ATI control: Anti-Aliasing & Anisotropic filtering is set to "let the application decide".
OS: Windows XP Professional
Firewall: Windows firewall, currently turned off.
Internet: ADSL, average speed = 100ms.
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LAGGY COMPARISONS: (framerate & netgraph)
COV – on level 44 plant dominator, brand new fresh start of game. Sparkle aura on.

Outside in Cap Au Diable Map, looking with face planted against ship wall: 73.00 (14m/Fm).
Turning on toggles stealth, combat jumping & acrobatics makes no difference. Turning on toggle Sharkskin drops it to 37.50 (27m/Fm). Turning off sharkskin toggle reverts it to 73. Fly trap pet does not affect the results.

Outside in Cap Au Diable Map, looking at ocean/water: 37.50 (27m/Fm)
All toggles (stealth, combat jumping, acrobatics, AND sharkskin) all make no difference, it stays at 37.50 (27m/Fm). No difference when I pull my fly trap pet out.

Outside in Cap Au Diable Map, using superjump to get to the hospital, with toggles stealth, acrobatics, sharkskin & superjump on, plus fly trap pet out.
Results ranged from 2 (50m/Fm) to 15 (94m/Fm)
Netgraph had medium to large spikes, all green. When it dropped down to 2, it was painfully slow & hard to travel accurately.

Outside in Cap Au Diable Map, standing next to hospital, looking at npcs & gold brickers: 27.30 (34m/Fm)
This is with toggles stealth, combat jumping & acrobatics turned on, & pet flytrap out. Turning on sharkskin drops it to 24.9 (40m/Fm)

Outside in Grandville, standing at the ferry, facing towards centre of map: 34.50 (29m/Fm)
Turning on toggles stealth, combat jumping & acrobatics lowers it to 33.80 (30m/Fm)
Turning on toggle sharkskin drops it to 25.00 (40m/Fm)
Pulling out fly trap drops it to 24.8 (40m/Fm)

Outside in Grandville, using superjump to travel to Arbiter Apolis, with toggles stealth, acrobatics, sharkskin & superjump on, plus fly trap pet out.
Results ranged from 1.9 (**?m/Fm) to 15 (69m/Fm) **note – I could have sworn it was a number like 500. (It was lagging so bad it was hard for me to see the exact number). Netgraph has some large spikes.
Extra note – moving around the zone some more & doing ‘laps’ seems to reduce the lag a little bit.

Outside in Grandville, standing next to Arbiter Apolis, with toggles stealth, acrobatics, sharkskin & superjump on, plus fly trap pet out, and with 2 other players nearby.
21.20 (46m/Fm).

Inside a door mission (linked to Grandville) inside a standard warehouse map: 37.50 (27m/Fm)
This is with toggles stealth, acrobatics, sharkskin & combat jumping on, plus fly trap pet out.
Attacking 1 “Steel strongman” in this mission: 35.0-38.8 (27m/Fm).
This was with only myself solo on the mission.

I couldn’t test this in team as none of my friends are on right now, and I don’t want to subject strangers to me stuffing about with test results. I do know that on teams it is much slower, especially with masterminds.

I do know when there is really bad lag, sometimes the netgraph spikes are not just green, but they come up red. Usually when this happens, the whole team is suffering lag & all complaining about it.
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PROBLEMS:

* Crash to desktop happening more often. ie - "City of Heroes has encountered a problem, and needs to close" This was a rare occurrence for me prior to i7. Post i7, it happens at least twice a week.
* Rubberbanding more often – occurring in every zone I go into on hero side.
* Rubberbanding always occurring on entering a zone via train or hazard zone entrance (you can run forward 20 feet & then the next thing you know, you are back at the entrance again!). This is very annoying.
* Lag. Outdoor zones lag badly. Indoor missions are a bit laggy but playable. Team missions on an outdoor map lag like hell.
* Lag is bad when teaming with 1 or more Masterminds. This was never a problem for me prior to i7. Post i7, I have avoided teaming with masterminds as it makes playing the game unbearable.
* Lag in Grandville is terrible, especially between the ferry and the arbiter. It is even worse when lots of players are in the zone. It was like this after i7. i8 has made no change, it is still laggy.
* Lag in Arachnos bases is terrible.
* Lag in Atlas Park near Miss Liberty, especially when costume contests are on. I avoid this zone often due to lag.
* Lag in teams when playing together for an hour or longer, especially if a TF/SF. Restarting game tends to fix this. This only became a problem for me after i7.
* Lag when fighting a giant monster (2 or more teams), this became much worse after i7.
* Lag from corrupters with "Thermal Radiation" power pool. The heal 'warmth' and one of their fiery shields that they put on you makes the player lag badly. I have heard team members ask to please not be buffed thanks to the lag. I had problems with this after i7.
* Lag at the steel canyon train (green line) is terribly bad, is this due to the large amount of npc’s roaming past the train?

Note, I have noticed a lot of the above lag related issues after i7 went live, and others already existed.

However, I have noticed some further lag issues post i8. This in particular includes random “lag spikes”, where the netgraph has a huge spike that will be either green or sometimes red, and when this happens, 99% of the time everyone on my team suffers from the same lag issue. These lag spikes happen frequently yet sporadically, at least 1-5 of them per hour of game play (both on hero & villain sides of game).

Thanks for your time. I hope you can fix the lag issues.

[ QUOTE ]
This in particular includes random “lag spikes”, where the netgraph has a huge spike that will be either green or sometimes red, and when this happens, 99% of the time everyone on my team suffers from the same lag issue. These lag spikes happen frequently yet sporadically, at least 1-5 of them per hour of game play (both on hero & villain sides of game).


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I have been experiencing this also. I tried reducing my particle count to the very minimum and this seems to have helped reduce the length of the spikes when playing solo but, when on a team it is no help at all.

I run XP with 2.5G of ram 2.8 ghz processor and a x300 radeon with 128mb

I have been freezing on mission exits and zoning

While in large groups I can't even play its as if I am going frame by frame. I have never had this issue before I have put all settings at the lowest possible and it helps somewhat but the lag is still a major problem

I too get rubberbanding like crazy, many SG members do too. Fights are very laggy, buttons get pushed and I wait a while for powers to go off. I.E., I hit 1 to trigger a power, then again, again, etc, and then after a couple seconds the power goes off and a laggy series of sounds go off that tell me I can't push the button because the power isn't recharged. Note the sounds occur AFTER I've stopped pressing the button and I'm already onto another power.

After this last patch, I also get abysmal frame rates from 3-15 when I used to get 12-30.

6600gt 128mb
AMD 2700xp
10,000 rpm hdd
1gb 2700 ram
sb audigy

Also, did carnies change? I fight carnies now and if there's a boss, they drain my end even if I don't attack. It's like a sapper hit...

Ever since the latest patch, which I download this morning, the game has been extremely laggy and the memory usage has at least doubled. The game usually runs about 350-390k and it's now over 600k and it got up to 800k before I logged off. Other teammates are having issues as well. I have 2 gigs of ram and before this patch had no issues whatsoever playing the game.

Three crashes in a row, after completing a newspaper mission in GV, crashed zoning back into GV, and twice more trying to log back in with the same character. Add that to at least one crash every day since I8 went live, as opposed to the hardly ever I had after I7.

Really would love for that to be fixed, cuz that's the only character I want to play.

<QR>

Siren's Call crashes somewhat regularly, every time someone with wings comes into the zone. I've lost quite a bit of bounty to angels, reformed demons, and bird people.

Also, I can destroy the frame rate of anyone in Pocket D, any time I feel like it. If I drop a Spirit Tree from Plant Control in the new Arena area, all of Pocket D has a lag spike every time it pulses. It does the same thing when I do a cage match, causing hideous lag to everyone in the map (including observers).

[ QUOTE ]
I've noticed ALOT more rubberbanding over the last few days...

Thats about it from my point of view.

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I would like to now point out, that i'm rubberbanding like MAD now... No other real game play issues, but this is getting old real quick. My specs in a nutshell, are a Dual Core 3 gig pent. 2 Nvidia 7900gt's 256 in sli, 2 gigs of ram. Game used to play as smooth as silk, but i started getting the rubberbanding issues about a week or two before I8 went live. I play on Triumph is that makes a difference. It's very VERY VERY annoying.

Pentium 4 3.0ghz
1.5GB of system RAM
ATI x700 pro, 256mb
Windows XP Home edition
Drivers are all current

When I upped my RAM from 512 to what I have now, I also upped my graphics settings pretty much to the max, minus the thing that made everything hazy in the distance, that always gave me a headache. I ran COH fine with no problems, and CoV was no longer a chore to play (actually wouldn't play it because of the chopiness even if I tuned my settings down) Been having a blast and enjoying the game.

I'd noticed it when I8 hit, chopiness, frame rate drops, freeze frames, but I just attriubted it to the fact that on the day I8 hit is the day I began my missions in Grandville. I'd heard the zone was a lag fest as it is. But just standing around waiting, turning the camera has become a chore, frame rate drops into the single digits long load times into zones/base.

Looks like I'll just have to up the RAM once again after my x-mas shopping is done

AMD 64 3500
1gb
6800GS (1440x900)
Internet: Verizon FIOS (6/35mb)

Pre I8: Ran with most settings maxed except for DoF and bloom. 35-50 fps.

Post I8: Solo, I can still do about the same. But, on any team over 3 people, my frame rate drops to anywhere from 5 to 15 fps. They don't even have to fire off any powers and I notice a drop.

I've turned all the settings ALL THE WAY DOWN, and it still runs badly on teams and looks like comeplete crap to boot.

I must ask, how does the game run over at Cryptic? I'm assuming it's played there....

Soon, I will get tired of soloing.

Athlon 64 3400 (Socket 754, no overclock)
DFI LanParty NF3 250gb mobo
2 GB ocz titanium pc3200 ram
evga 7800 GS Superclock (factory overclock, 93.71 drivers)
Creative X-Fi Extreme Music
Fortron 510 watt PSU
1280 X 1024 resolution

CoH used to run pretty darn well at max settings (minus DoF and Bloom). I'd average around 55fps in missions, around 25 fps on a full team with lots of powers (indoors).

Now, with my settings neutered (character textures from very high to high, world detail from 200 to 100, character detail from 100 to 80, particle from 50k to 17k, FSAA from 4 to 2, aniso from 16 to 4), I can still get around 50-60 fps indoors, but only when standing around doing nothing. If I'm on a small team, my fps can drop to around 11 while fighting. Playing on a big team is basically impossible - I'll bottom out at around 3 fps (3!!!).

Plus the CONSTANT rubberbanding! Jeez that s--t is annoying! Trying to reposition for a cone attack and I keep popping back every 10 feet - for 15 seconds or so. That was so rare for me pre-I8.

Also, frequent base kicks and completely borked Warshade graphics (first reverting to human graphics while still in dwarf or nova, then having the base portal "zoning" graphics and the croatoa fairy ring "zoning" graphics flashing, then finally turning invisible), broken Citadel TF, crashes while zoning...

I sure like the content of I8, but damn, the implementation is...um...less than stellar.

2 Days Ago while STANDING outside the portal by the portal to recluses victory, the portal for the defeat lord recluse mission. I dced 3 times, upon the third DC my clinet ALWAYS crashed when attempting to load back in (after a game restart and verify) This happened about 20 times. Then i finaly got in, and we got in the missions (out of the 8 ppl we had 7 had dced including me) So everyone took about an hour of waiting, everyone got back on and then I DCED again, and the whole auto crash thing, again.... Then once i got back about 30 mins later we kille drecluse with only 3 ppl. I do hope this gets fixed soon.

Here's an intersting one for ya Devs. I have 2 nearly identical systems...
AMD 3200+ single venice core
1 gig ram
Leadtek 6600 GT PCI-e
Biostar Geforce 6100-m9 mobo

only difference between the two is harddrives. One is mine, the other is the GF's. We both play, but in different ways. I solo almost exclusively. She is a teamaholic(routinely with the full complement of 8). I have yet to experience anything more than a small loss of framerates. She crashes at least 10 times a day. I can't give you exact times and conditions...all I get to hear is a loud frustrated scream. Based on the situation though, it's clearly linked to the teaming. As stated my system is rock solid and hers gets flaky. I do the maintenance on both machines (hell, I built them both). There is one software difference..she uses Skype. However they have left this off and the crashing still occurs. She has told me that when these crashes occur, it takes the whole team down. It's not always a hard crash, sometimes it's just a forced DC.

We've had this during the LRSF. One by one were were DC'd. One time it was the whole team, the other it was just half. I've done the LRSF twice in the last 4 days and it happened both times. One time we were in the middle of the last fight, 4 heroes were down and everyone froze. When we logged back in it was as if No Nukes, Shivans, or Vengences were ever cast. All Enhancements, Inspirations and Accolades were not used either.

I play on Virtue and whenever I my 29 Earth/Radiation controller uses Earthquake in a Safeguard misison my FPS plummet. It only happens in Safeguard missions.

I suppose I should have posted this here, but me and many people i play with have been haveing some major FPS drops in CoV while zoneing or leaveing missions while on teams of 4 or more people. I have a rather state of the Art PC. screen shots of task manager, dx logs and all that other stuff can be found here

[ QUOTE ]
I suppose I should have posted this here, but me and many people i play with have been haveing some major FPS drops in CoV while zoneing or leaveing missions while on teams of 4 or more people. I have a rather state of the Art PC. screen shots of task manager, dx logs and all that other stuff can be found here

[/ QUOTE ]

Happens in CoH too, and I posted about this in the beginning of this thread. Everything will be going fine, great FPS in mish, then when you leave the mish FPS gets cut in half for no reason whatsoever. The only way to restore it is to quit the game and restart.

CPU: AMD Opteron 170 CPU
RAM: 2GB (1GBx2) Corsair DDR400 Timings 2-3-3-6, 1T Command Rate
Video Card: XFX 7950GT
Sound Card: Creative Labs X-Fi Platinum
Motherboard: MSI K8N SLI Platinum (nForce 4)
Connection: 10MB internet connection

Drivers:
All current including AMD multi-thread optimizer and Windows XP Pro dual core fix.

Problems:
- Decreased framerates
- Increased rubberbanding
- Most notably on teams over 5 in size I won't be able to do anything but move. I can see my teammates attacking and such but my character does not do a thing. When it catches up my combat log shows no attacks even though buttons where pressed and cycled.
- I've seen the memory usage in Windows Task Manager up as high as about 1.4GB while eating up a full CPU core when the game locks up. I get more lockups than drops, but both happen frequently.
- Every 3rd or 4th Teleport on my stone tank results in him not moving to the new location until after he drops.
- Frame rates drop any time fire cages or hot feet is used in the vicinity of my characters to 6-9 FPS from about 35-39 FPS. Mapserver DC occurs about 50% of the time. I'm guessing the WS power would also accomplish the same thing, but I haven't teamed with one that has it since i8.

Pre-issue-7:

Originally, I had an old vanilla nvidia 6800 card on my system, and things were kind of choppy at the high end (frame rates in the teens), and acceptable (around 20) when turning off key things like shadows, water, and all the let's-make-things-prettier-by-making-them-blurrier options.

Then I upgraded to a 7950 GT OC, and everything, and I mean everything, was as silky smooth as could possibly be, even at the high end. framerates always averaged above 20+, and could go as high as 60, depending on how much was being drawn on the screen.

Post-Issue-8:

And I might as well be playing with my 6800. With high-end settings, it just drags, and low end merely doesn't drag as much (and I mean setting everything to minumum). I have to be solo and just standing there to get above 20 reliably.

I've the usual problems on teams, where too many players with too much combat reduces framerates into the single digits.

Approaching many players or many mobs on a map makes the jumping/flying/running animation very jerky. I notice that some, but not all, jerkiness is associated to reading from my hard drive. Even one player being approached causes a noticeable skip.

Finally, a slightly different observation, w/r to close-up shots with heavy aura powers (e.g., invuln tank auras, Kheldian in Nova form). Every now and again, even pre issue 7, the camera would be forced very close to my character and the aura rendering would be very choppy. When I upgraded to the 7950, this choppiness completely disappeared when this happened. Completely. I was soooo happy. Then Issue 8 decided to nerf my brand new graphics card.

(But I guess I'd really be badly off with my prior card, so I guess it's a wash.)

Here's to hoping that the performance issues are resolved. I think there's something very funky about how power animations are being rendered NOW vs how they were rendered before. Hopefully what's causing the poor performance isn't integral to whatever upgrade in graphics is being made.

I didn't see it mentioned in the patch notes at all (last two patches,) but Orbiting Death no longer "splats." I was running my WS with the rest of the Squid Squad last night, and it ran like it used to - no reflecting on the walls or whatnot.

My warshade is *very* happy.

As far as human-graphic nova, I did see something interesting. The two single target blasts and the AOE all fired from the forehead. The multi-target cone (I'm drawing a blank on names) brings out a shotgun. Appropriate and amusing, I suppose... that's on that same WS, btw.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Well since the last patch that came out 12.12.06 game play has become somewhat smoother but I am still running into some problems.

1) When leaving The Hive after a raid game play becomes very jerky once I zone from The Hive and the only way to make it better is to log out of the game completely.

2) On the Infernal Portal mission, as the team neared the portal room, game play came to a near stop forcing me to log out of the game. Then as we were taking down the portal I was mapservered out of the game. The rest of the team was unaffected. Team size was 7 players including myself.

3) I am still getting lag spikes on my net graph. The problem becomes more pronounced when on a team of more than three players.

4) Turning my game sounds completely off seems to help with game performance. During today Hammie raid, which had 80+ players in zone, game play was smoother than with the sound turned on.

I8 was unplayable. The latest patch is better, but crashing still happens the memory leak still persists.

When I log on to the game FPS is great.
The more players I'm exposed to, the more powers go off, the more combat there is, and the longer I'm on all compound to make the game eventually unplayable - Requiring a restart.