Ask ATI Agent Ruby
By
Adar_ICT,
Posted on: 2008-11-18 16:28 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
Ask Agent Ruby: what costumes have you seen in game that really impressed you?
Ex
Ask Agent Ruby:
One of the things that many players will want to ask you about is the difficulties with in the past is using some of the higher-end effects, such as High water effects, FSAA Depth of Field, and other settings with ATI graphics cards in general. Do these settings still cause problems with City of Heroes/ Villains? If so, are they being addressed?
Thanks for stopping by our forums! 
Ask Agent Ruby: Hey Ruby, although Linux is not an officially supported platform for City of Heroes, with the recent announcement of the partnership between NCsoft and Transgaming for City of Heroes on the Mac, and Transgaming's diligent work on getting City of Heroes to work on Linux via Cedega, I am hopeful that some sort of official support for a Linux client is coming.
What kind of official support does ATI provide for their video cards on Linux? How has ATI worked with the open source community and organizations such as Canonical to ensure that desktop Linux works as well as possible with their cards? Has ATI worked with Transgaming (and if not, are any plans in the works) for assisting their developers in ensuring that games that work under Transgaming works as well as possible on ATI's products?
Also, what are some of the advantages of ATI video cards versus ATI's competitors on a desktop Linux platform?
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
Ask Agent Ruby: Will I be able to run the Palit Radeon HD 3850 SUPER+ 1GB Video Card running Windows XP and not Vista?
[url=http://starwindgraphics.deviantart.com/]My deviantArt page[/url]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/AceFrankly/Starwind-Name-Signature1.gif[/IMG]
Proud member of The Impossibles/Pinnacle -[url="http://www.theimpossibles.org"]www.theimpossibles.org[/url]
Post deleted by Ex Libris
Infinity and Victory mostly
dUmb, etc.
lolz PvP anymore, Market PvP for fun and profit
Agent Ruby: Pie or Cake?
Tell Agent Ruby: I am really happy you changed costumes. The one you had on last night was lame.
Ask Agent Ruby: What kind of product do you put in your hair to make it withstand all those explosions without so much as moving?
Sorry you had to arrive at such a tumultuous time in the game.
About the only two worse times might have been the GDN and ED.
Other than that, welcome, hope you enjoy the game!
Hi Agent Ruby,
Here in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, heroes and villains have a wardrobe of costumes to pick from. I see you haven't maximized your wardrobe as of yet. So I would ask/suggest that if you offer another contest, it should be to give YOU a costume makeover -- are you game?! Don't be afraid it won't hurt,...much!
I know you're probably tired of hearing this question but I'm not sure how you're replying to these questions sooo...
Ask Agent Ruby: I have Radeon ATI 3600 series HD Card on 3 gigs of ram and a 2.6ghz quad core AMD processor. Not sure about the motherboard - windows vista 32 bit. I know people on systems with inferior (by comparison to my card's potential) NVidia cards and 1/3rd the memory I have on windows XP that can get to enjoy the maximum visual affects that this game has to offer. I get a reduced framerate and buggy water effects instead. Will ATI, given their new partnership, address these issues any time soon?
Ruby,
Welcome to Paragon City, Rhode Island, and the Etoile Islands! Do you expect ATI support for the long-standing compatibility issues with CoX, or are things more or less going to stay as they are?
Regards,
Than
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
Ruby
Welcome to the forums, I enjoyed meeting you in Pocket D on Pinnacle. May your journey through CoX be a pleasurable one! I look forward to seeing the winners of the server Contest.
My question to you is, what do you think of CoX ? 
Ask Agent Ruby: Hi there. By chance has a representative of AMD/ATI read this thread in the tech forum which details all the long standing incompatibilities between CoH/V and ATI's drivers?
Followup: What course of action are AMD and NCNC taking in order to make this particular gaming experience less of a problematic hassle for those that currently own ATI video cards?
Be well, people of CoH.
Ruby
I would like to make your over! Please allow me to inject some style into that look
Crime of Fashion Level 50 Rad/Rad Corrupter
My Toons
My Rad/Rad Corrupters Guide
Mindscape - Reworking
Ask Agent Ruby:
Who is your greatest nemesis? The Static Charger, Major Meltdown, Operative Overclock, or perhaps the Diabolical Dust Bunny?
Ruby,
Ignore these nubs and thier lack of manners. Your costume looks better than most I see in game. You don't need to change a thing.
[ QUOTE ]
I know you're probably tired of hearing this question but I'm not sure how you're replying to these questions sooo...
Ask Agent Ruby: I have Radeon ATI 3600 series HD Card on 3 gigs of ram and a 2.6ghz quad core AMD processor. Not sure about the motherboard - windows vista 32 bit. I know people on systems with inferior (by comparison to my card's potential) NVidia cards and 1/3rd the memory I have on windows XP that can get to enjoy the maximum visual affects that this game has to offer. I get a reduced framerate and buggy water effects instead. Will ATI, given their new partnership, address these issues any time soon?
[/ QUOTE ]
Ask Ruby,
above me and,
I have always wondered this. I have the same card mentioned above, the ATI 3600 HD (thats what it says) but its supossed to be the overclocked vertion. The 3650, BUT, it doesnt say the 3650, it says the 3600 when I check my hardware. And also in the part you can overclock the card more in the ATI controls, when you unlock it, it wont let you put it where it is supossed to be.And that is at 800 and 400. It says and stays at 724 and 396. The card is supossed to be at 800 and 400 minimum and it is supossed to be a 3650. Also, when I go to get drivers for the card on the AMD/ATI site I can never find the 3650, only the 3600 drivers.
Can you please tell me why this is? If not here hopfully in a PM so it doesnt get lost in the forum mess this will end up becoming lol.
Thanks in advance, Whiteseeker
You come to a fork in the road. On the left is a dark and heavily forested area. On the right, the path leads down to what appears to be a cave entrance. Which do you take?
*That's right, I ask the tough questions!!* 
I know you can't comment on upcoming technology, and that puts a bite on what I can ask. I won't ask about 45nm processors so no questions about Fusion, can't touch the "CoH Divide" as far as graphics issues (Everyone else asked already, I'm sure you get the hint), and I don't own any ATI equipment (haven't since I had a PCI Diamond Stealth Radeon 9600 in a Celeron three years ago.) Since I'm soon to be in the market to build a new PC myself, the obvious question remains...
Ask Agent Ruby: What card or line do you advise for the budget-conscious (Cheap, but not "Value-conscious", I still want to play games in the first place... let's say less than $200 as a ceiling, $150-100 preferable) that are worth an MMO gamer's attention from ATI?
I qualify an MMO gamer's needs being different from other gamers as follows (this doesn't need to be a part of your published question, just for your sake):
-- solid performance, but it doesn't have to be bleeding edge effects (CoH uses DirectX 9/OpenGL 2.0 versus DirectX 10, I'm sure WoW and other MMO's are just a little below the curve too compared to the requirements of Crysis and others), has a good cross-section of graphic effects available: 2X or better Antialiasing, 4X or better Anisotropic Filtering, Shader 2.0/3.0 Support, adequate memory/GPU strength for world detail so we can see well, etc... we're not particularly hard to please. Unlike FPS Gamers, MMORPG Games do not rise dramatically in system requirements... Doing so cuts into people's ability to meet those standards, and that means less subscribers.
-- delivers consistent framerate above 30 FPS with aforementioned Graphic Effects "on" or better at common widescreen resolutions at or less than 1680x1050, considering I follow the System Recommendations in the first place... If I plug in a HD3000 into a Athlon-XP by some freak act of nature, I know the FPS will be weak regardless of what the card can do.
-- has ample heat dissipation: Every degree I can keep my PC below 45-50 C is important during a 3-4 hour long Task Force, even then, most of my real "sessions" run 6-8 hours long on weekends. As a correlation to heat, power consumption adequate for the task but doesn't require me to get a 600-800W "Crossfire-certified" monster of a PSU. Green-conscious (Low Power Consumption) is always good, but let's face it, most of us out here are hobbyists and given a choice between "Green Friendly" and "Runs Well", we're going to lean towards "Runs Well."
[ QUOTE ]
You come to a fork in the road. On the left is a dark and heavily forested area. On the right, the path leads down to what appears to be a cave entrance. Which do you take?
*That's right, I ask the tough questions!!*
[/ QUOTE ]
I take the fork, then look around for a knife and spoon to complete the set.
[ QUOTE ]
Ask Agent Ruby: what costumes have you seen in game that really impressed you?
Ex
[/ QUOTE ]
First of all, congrats on being first in line. 
For me, I really appreciate a few kinds of costumes - I LOVE "classic" hero costumes that look like someone just stepped out of a comic book, but is original enough to not make you think of an established character (there have been lots of great designs I've seen across the servers that have been fantastic). I also look for really funny ideas (last night meeting Captain Inadequate was hilarious).
But I think so far, one of my favourites (can't remember the server) was someone who came in as a Toy Soldier.
[ QUOTE ]
Ask Agent Ruby:
One of the things that many players will want to ask you about is the difficulties with in the past is using some of the higher-end effects, such as High water effects, FSAA Depth of Field, and other settings with ATI graphics cards in general. Do these settings still cause problems with City of Heroes/ Villains? If so, are they being addressed?
Thanks for stopping by our forums!
[/ QUOTE ]
Great question - there are some things still being tackled, but being a CoH player myself, I can tell you that there have been a lot of improvements over time. A few things to point out:
First, AMD releases a new CATALYST driver every month with performance and feature improvements, so it's always a good idea to keep your drivers up to date
Second, we have a great support program through our "Catalyst Crew" program - the Crew is a group of dedicated (some would say fanatical 
) Catalyst testers who put our drivers through the ringer regularly, and test against as much as they can. They also try to reproduce as many issues that are submitted as possible, and you can submit any issues you encounter HERE.
Finally, our Catalyst Control Center (CCC) has a number of options you can optimize to change things like AA, AF and a number of other features, which sometimes helps in improving performance and image quality. There are also some good resources on our website on how to optimize CCC for a better gaming experience.
[ QUOTE ]
Ask Agent Ruby: Hey Ruby, although Linux is not an officially supported platform for City of Heroes, with the recent announcement of the partnership between NCsoft and Transgaming for City of Heroes on the Mac, and Transgaming's diligent work on getting City of Heroes to work on Linux via Cedega, I am hopeful that some sort of official support for a Linux client is coming.
What kind of official support does ATI provide for their video cards on Linux? How has ATI worked with the open source community and organizations such as Canonical to ensure that desktop Linux works as well as possible with their cards? Has ATI worked with Transgaming (and if not, are any plans in the works) for assisting their developers in ensuring that games that work under Transgaming works as well as possible on ATI's products?
Also, what are some of the advantages of ATI video cards versus ATI's competitors on a desktop Linux platform?
[/ QUOTE ]
Hey TonyV - thanks for the question. We have a dedicated Linux team in-house and not only release a monthly Catalyst driver for Windows platforms, but we also do the same for Linux! While I am not the Linux expert, there are some great sources I can point you to:
1) ATI Catalyst 8.11 (latest release) for Linux
2) Official AMD Linux driver FAQ
3) Unofficial AMD Linux drive Wiki
<center><h1>Greetings Heroes and Villains!</h1>
<img src=http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk218/NCNiviene/City%20Of/RubysaysHi.jpg>
I am ATI Agent Ruby</center>
You may have seen me in Pocket D recently as part of the Palit/AMD/City of Heroes "Create a Character" Costume Contest festivities, now here is your chance to get to know me and AMD a lot better!
I will be joining you on the forums in this thread from now until Monday, December 1st to answer your questions on anything from AMD products (Phenom processors, ATI Radeon graphics, AMD motherboards) to the recently-announced partnership with NCSoft and City of Heroes/Villains - or whatever else youd like to know about.
There will obviously be some things I will not be able to comment on (like unannounced products or technology), but Ill do my best to answer your questions, so be sure to think of something good and get to posting soon!
In order for me to address your questions quickly it would be helpful for you to use the following format:
Ask Agent Ruby: insert question here
I look forward to hearing your questions and getting to know you better.
Yours,
Ruby