ATI Issues and Settings Recommendations
By
ActionJakson,
Posted on: 2007-07-09 15:58 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Um, been plenty of suggestions about AGP cards from NVidia... And here's a right nice list of stuff... be sure to pick a 7600 or better, mind:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...amp;Order=PRICE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814145135
is the $100 one.
For $100 you can end your aggravations... pretty cheap therapy. No MB, CPU, RAM needed. Perhaps a PSU upgrade, but on that system another $50 or something like that shouldn't be a big deal either, I'd think... and any ATI card of similar caliber would require the same. A wash, at best, on that matter.
I would not even come close to saying any card is perfect. Far from it. They're made by humans, after all. Suffice it to say I have more experience in fixing ATI related computer issues on customer machines to base my opinons on than merely an opinion that 'ATI sucks.' Truly, if it were just an opinion based on fanaticism... I'd just stay out of the discussion.
If you are saying ATI is keeping AGP in the future... um... no.
----------------
Edit:
Guys and gals, while I'm posting in here, lemme say this... I apologize for all my posts in here the recent couple of days. I know you ATI guys and gals are having issues, and I shouldn't contribute to cluttering up this topic with my opinions and facts as I have them. It should be about helping you people enjoy the game, regardless of what you use, ATI, NVidia, or whatever else. I'll be refraining from posting in here again unless it's going to be helpful to those in need.
To which, those people might want to start a new topic, eh? 
/eject
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
You forgot this one:
Nvidia 7900GS $179 A much better card than the 7600.
The ATI X1950 Pro AGP is better than both, but is no longer available at newegg.
Be well, people of CoH.
Fascinating.
I loaded up the 7.12s. Went into Graphics Options in game, and guess what?
Depth of Field: N/A
Bloom: N/A
Desaturation Effects: N/A
Sittin at 60FPS in RV right outside the entrance.
Setting Water to High FX, disabled FSAA, and caused the flame aura in my eyes to get redder. Low is still fine.
Interesting.
Moving through RV causes my FPS to plummet to 30, even moving back over areas I already loaded.
Rolling back to the 7.10s. Actually.... scratch that. Went outside for a smoke and had a lightbulb flash.
Testing something with the 7.12s.
Be well, people of CoH.
With the 7.12s, I set FSAA and Anisotropic Filtering to Let App Decide within the CCC.
Cat AI off. Vert Sync off. Triple Buffering off.
Went in game. Game managed FSAA will not enable no matter what it is set on. General FPS still sucks.
All pixel buffer/postprocess/hdr effects are still N/A with the exception of High Water, which still borks driver managed FSAA.
The 7.12s are even worse than the 7.11s.
Now rolling back to 7.10s.
Writer_Tina and StarWeaver,
Please look at this link.
It shows that the Nvidia 8800GT outperforms the 3870 by more than the 3870 outperforms my X1950XTX.
My honest advice to you is to return the 3870, if you can, and purchase an 8800GT or an 8800GTS w/512MB. Not the other flavors of 8800GTS.
The 8800GT is a better card for less money.
7.10s allowed me to access the HDR effects again.
Be well, people of CoH.
Alas, there's 2 reasons why that's not going to happen, Bill.
First one's practical: the computers were a gift from someone who lives elsewhere. The sheer logistics of returning bits and pieces of them and getting replacements and dealing with getting our old computers reset up in the meantime is a little much. And it'd probably be the mobo AND the card, as we have Crossfire-enabled mobos and we don't want to give up that possible upgrade capability. (Also I happen to know the gift-giver got the vid cards really cheaply, so it'd probably mean more money, and it's kinda hard to say to someone "Thanks for dropping a few thousand dollars on us, mind spending more?")
Second reason is simpler: I refuse to go buy a completely different video card because ONE GAME has piss-poor support for it. As I keep saying, every single other game I play right now gives me good results with ATI cards, and in fact we've already tested several on the NEW cards and had no problems at all. (In fact, heh, UT2004 couldn't track our FPS. And wow does that game look different in widescreen.)
And I'm not a hardcore gamer. If the card I have delivers 70fps instead of 90, I'm not going to notice or care. The new systems are already such a huge leap from the old systems that our actual performance increase has been insane, EVEN HERE despite the problems. Outdoor FPS actually tripled. Srsly.
I understand why you're frustrated. We are, too. But seeing as how nothing else I've played or mean to play in the future has this sort of issue with ATI cards, my personal opinion is that this is the GAME'S problem. If they can't resolve it, then either I will choose to put up with the problems because I like the game enough, or I will take my money elsewhere until they decide it's worth resolving. Again, still not sure which one's going to happen. Next bill date is the 23rd, so we'll be figuring it out by then.
One drawback of the internet is how it has trained so many people to think that one day is a long time.
Sorry, those are both less powerful than the card I already have. What is the point in getting a different card if I have to turn down the graphics setting anyway. And I don't expect ATI to always support AGP. But until I can afford to replace my system I am stuck with AGP. I was planning on rebuilding my system sometime this year, going PCie, but life has interfered. Squeezing out a hundred or so for a new card is possible, but unless something changes more than that is out for quite a while.
I am not an ATI fanatic and never have been. My last 2 cards have been from them, but that is because, at the time I was buying, they were the best cards on the market according to places like Tom's Hardware and other hardware sites. If they had recommended Nvidia, that is what I would be running right now.
Bill's suggestion is more powerful, and more to my taste at this point since it isn't ATI, but unfortunately from the reviews at NewEgg, it looks like the quality is a crapshoot. 
Justice Blues, Tech/Tank, Inv/SS
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Fighting The Future Trilogy
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I didn't forgot... I was thinking economics. $79 more than the 7600 may be a deciding factor... and it's listed there anyway, first link.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150174
That one is cheaper, has faster ram clocks, and has more positive reviews than the other one...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...amp;srchInDesc=
Just to be clear... the only two 7900s on tap at newegg...
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
BillZBubba,
I need your help again, I have changed My notebook for an Satellite A215 with a Xpress 1200 and Vista home
unfortunately I notice that with the command -usetexenvcombine the games not even start, crash in the first Loading, without it I have the amazing original graphics but with video lag, is there anyway to solve this?
I`m using the 7.12 ccc version
Thanks
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I think current wisdom is to not go past the 7.10 drivers.
Got RAM?
I think current wisdom also states: Vista + Hypermemory Graphics card + CoX = 2 Gig of RAM minimum.
-Wolf sends
Okay, I didn't start having this problem until I changed my graphics settings based on the original post here.....
But now, I've been getting some funky colors from any aura-like effects. The trail you leave while running turns red or yellow or even just pure black. It seems totally random and doesn't want to go away. Other effects, such as when the hands shine brightly while performing a Pocket D teleport, are very sharp edges and less glowy.... If I see it again I'll take some screen shots.
I'm going to do some altering on my CCC to see if it will help, because anything I try with the in-game graphics settings provides little to no results.
[ QUOTE ]
Got RAM?
I think current wisdom also states: Vista + Hypermemory Graphics card + CoX = 2 Gig of RAM minimum.
-Wolf sends
[/ QUOTE ]Yep 2gb
The strange is the fact that this new notebook is a lot better than the other one all the others games that I`m playing I can notice a large upgrade in the performance, but in CoX I got 5fps with the char stoped in the top of a building doing nothing
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I was having the same problem with my Xpress 1200. First thing I did was completely uninstall the CCC and ATI programs in my Add/Remove programs menu, then went to OmegaDrivers and picked up their latest ATI radeon set-up. It isn't perfect, but it's definitely a huge improvement over the CCC.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
Well Bill... not sure if I have an Agia Phys X card, but I do have that setting in control panel, so I would assume yes.
I have an ATI 9800 Pro (256) and either the game fixed itself or updating the Phys X drivers did it.
I have been problem free since I posted.
My symptoms were hard lockups in game, sometimes followed by vertical pinstripes on screen. Most problems happened in RV and once in Pock D. Anyone that has hard lockup problems in RV, I would suggest giving this a try.
I am PL in RL.
Freedom- Magnet Man, Hott Sauce, Stand-Up Comic
[ QUOTE ]
I was having the same problem with my Xpress 1200. First thing I did was completely uninstall the CCC and ATI programs in my Add/Remove programs menu, then went to OmegaDrivers and picked up their latest ATI radeon set-up. It isn't perfect, but it's definitely a huge improvement over the CCC.
[/ QUOTE ]But, are you running with Win Vista and using the "-usetexenvcombine -compatiblecursors 1"?
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Ah, in that case, no I am not. It's just been my general experience (and others as far as I've read) that driver systems from Omega seem to work MUCH better than the CCC system. It was actually my frustration with a rather persistent CCC error that caused me to seek out Omega drivers to begin with.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
[ QUOTE ]
Ah, in that case, no I am not. It's just been my general experience (and others as far as I've read) that driver systems from Omega seem to work MUCH better than the CCC system. It was actually my frustration with a rather persistent CCC error that caused me to seek out Omega drivers to begin with.
[/ QUOTE ]
Not sure I would agree, at least as far as the Omega drivers are concerned for ATI. They are a great fallback though if you can't get the CCC ones to work. Omega drivers used to be my number one pick though. They do pretty good at optimizing settings for performance, which tends to help out the lower-end cards. However, if you were having problems with CCC itself, and this fixes them, then mission accomplished. 
The -usetexenvcombine switch will make CoX use a simpler rendering method, which is far less intense on your system, which should give you better performance, especially in combination with the Omega drivers.
-= TANSTAAFL =-
Adar - Lvl 50 Emp/Elec/Psy Defender on Guardian (411 badges)
Itsy Bitsy Slicer - Lvl 50 Kat/Reg Scrapper on Guardian
Flying-Tiger - Lvl 32 Sonic/Energy Blaster on Guardian
I can't get the AA to work at all without Omega drivers... with them I get more frames per second and a nice, sharp AA. I have an ATI Radeon X1900XTX 512MB, so it's hardly a lower-end card. I'll switch back and forth between the cats and omegas as it suits me.
I get AA working fine with the Catalysts as long as Bloom, DoF, High Water and Desaturation Effects are all disabled. X1950XTX here. I also used to use the Omegas. I stopped when I stopped noticing any performance gain over the associated Cats.
In the end, though, using ATI cards on the whole have become far more of a hassle than they are worth.
I don't like having to have .net framework installed in order to install my drivers. Omegas don't need that, but they do force you to load up ATITools in order to tweak anything. So you're damned either way.
One item that I'm not looking forward to with my future jump to Nvidia is their control panel. I recently had the chance to be in front of a system with dual 8600GTs, and I found Nvidia's control panel to be a clunky mess. I'm not looking forward to relearning everything.
Be well, people of CoH.
OK, after 2 days of tests doing everything that I could I found the solution for my problem.
Is important to notice that I was already playing using full screen with the resolution set as the same as the desktop, but for some reason this was working and screwing my game, the good news is that I dont need the command -usetexenvcombine, the game is working perfectly
the solution?
Solution
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Just wanted to add my 2 cents worth of experiences to the thread here...
Running an HD2600 Pro AGP card 256mb on Windows XP Pro SP2 with 3gb of RAM.
Getting the same probs as other folks. Strange colors abound, but ONLY in effects such as character powers, sprint trails, flashlights (on Clockwork, police, etc.). As one poster said, hooray for pink spectral demons! 
AA (set in CCC) was working for a bit for me, but something has happened so now it works UNTIL I am actually logged into the game. The character models in the selection screen are AA'ed fine, but once I actually get into the game, it's gone.
Fiddling with settings in the CCC and in the game seems to have little to no effect for the most part on these problems. It almost seems to be completely random whether or not the glitches stay or go. When they're not there, the game looks and plays wonderfully. I am convinced that the Catalyst A.I. is evil, also.
So far the only driver versions I have been able to test are 7.7 (came with the install CD) and 7.11. No other versions that I have tried will install properly (7.8, 7.9, 7.10, 7.12). Just get error messages that "suitable hardware/system could not be found". Ok then! As a side note, the 7.7 drivers have crashed CoX once, and that crash proceeded to crash/restart my whole system, so...
This card has also been giving me problems with World of Warcraft, on an (un)related note. Massive UI glitching and funky texture overlays.
Karate Man - 50 MA/SR Scrapper
Frostgleam - 40 Ice/Axe Tanker
Twilight Flux - 40 Kin/Dark Defender
Necrosaro - 27 Necro/Dark Mastermind
Selena Moonblade - 30 DB/WP Scrapper
"Live life to it's fullest, and die playing Zelda!"
Voyagers forever! Long live M59, Server 100!
Well, as per an earlier suggestion in the thread, I updated my drivers to the 7.12 Omega build, and so far that seems to be doing ok. This is, of course, per the Radeon HD2600 PRO AGP card as listed in my previous post. YMMV with whatever folks have.
The colors are normal for now, and I can finally access the other in-game options that I knew the card was capable of handling, but that I assume CCC wasn't letting me use, even with the disabling of the Cat A.I. Namely, Depth of Field, Bloom and Desat are useable now.
Not sure about AA yet. I've turned it on in the 3rd party 3D option prog., but I'll do some further experimenting to see what I get. I'll also update and let folks know whether things change (for better or worse) or stay the same. Only time will tell!
Now if I can only get WoW working right...
Karate Man - 50 MA/SR Scrapper
Frostgleam - 40 Ice/Axe Tanker
Twilight Flux - 40 Kin/Dark Defender
Necrosaro - 27 Necro/Dark Mastermind
Selena Moonblade - 30 DB/WP Scrapper
"Live life to it's fullest, and die playing Zelda!"
Voyagers forever! Long live M59, Server 100!
I should do more research in the future before buying something. I recently bought an ATI Radeon x1600 512 mb Video Card. When I installed it the otherday, Monday or Tuesday it worked fine up to a point. That point being CoH, when I first installed this card I could get upwards of 5 hours of play before everything would lock up. I never had this problem before installing this card. That was no biggy I was beyond having to do the occasional reboot every so often. Makes heck when your teaming though. But today I got tired of the reboots and started looking for solutions. Found this thread and did all of what it said back on the first page. And now I can't stay in the game for more than a minute or two before everything freezes. I tried resetting back everything to defaults and it continues to not want to let me stay in more than a minute or two. I'm at my wits end. If I pull this card I won't have one anymore as my old one was on its last legs, the fans already shot on it.
I would say its just incompatible with my outdated computer but nothing happens when I'm not inside the game. Which leads me to think its more than just my computer being incompatible. Or it would do it all the time not just when I'm in CoH.
Motherboard: ECS K7S5A
CPU: AMD Duran 1.2 ghz
Memory: 1GB
Vid: ATI Radeon x1600
Sound: Creative AudioPCI
TV Tuner
IDE Expansion
USB Expansion
Onboard Lan
I could use some help getting this to work before I have to find money that I don't have to buy another video card.
Post that in a new thread would be a better thing to do, and please post a hijack this and a dxdiag log ('read this' below.) We'll be able to direct our attention to you and not clutter this thread up further. Thanks!
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 ]
Bill, I know you have said that the Desaturation effect breaks things, but I have had no problems with it at all using your settings. Wouldn't want things to be consistent would you?
[/ QUOTE ]
FSAA functions? Great, so nothing is true anymore. I feel like I've been taking crazy pills.
Be well, people of CoH.