Ask ATI Agent Ruby
By
Adar_ICT,
Posted on: 2008-11-18 16:28 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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Ask Agent Ruby: Whoah, partnership with AMD? Does that mean that NVIDIA support will slowly disappear and you will only be able to play the game in the future with an ATI card?
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Sorry Philotic, I gotta ask the same question. Ruby will this ATI partenership mean those of use who spent money on NVIDIA cards are SOL? If it does, I may not be able to keep playing this game which would be sad for me. The year I've been on has been a great time.
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Not sure why people would think this... just because the official video card partner for the game has switched doesn't mean that the game will simply stop working on other graphics hardware. After all, CoX has been playable under ATI cards for years now before the new partnership, albeit with a few driver hiccups.
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Ask Agent Ruby: Whoah, partnership with AMD? Does that mean that NVIDIA support will slowly disappear and you will only be able to play the game in the future with an ATI card?
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Sorry Philotic, I gotta ask the same question. Ruby will this ATI partenership mean those of use who spent money on NVIDIA cards are SOL? If it does, I may not be able to keep playing this game which would be sad for me. The year I've been on has been a great time.
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Not sure why people would think this... just because the official video card partner for the game has switched doesn't mean that the game will simply stop working on other graphics hardware. After all, CoX has been playable under ATI cards for years now before the new partnership, albeit with a few driver hiccups.
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Thus my question. 
See I don't understand a lot about computures. I know enough to keep my driver updated and my harddrive clean of virus' ect.... But since you answered the question. Thanks.
Ruthia Dascht >Co-Founder of Garden of Thorns VG on Guardian. Lvl 50 Energy/Cold Corr
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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."
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Hi Tahquitz - before I go any further, I want to be clear that I a) work for AMD, 2) am much more familiar with our own products vs. the competition's and c) will not be making any comments on our competition, as I am trying to just be as informative on our products as I can be, and turning it into an "us vs. them" discussion does not add value. 
Now, onto your question. Even taking the state of the economy into account, it's a great time if you're looking for a new video card. The advances that have been made over the past year in getting high end features and performance in more affordable solutions is pretty incredible. I would recommend you take a good look at our ATI Radeon 4000 series, and in particular the HD4800 and HD 4600 class of graphics cards.. Both share the same overall family of features (DX10.1, HD video decode, improved AA/AF) but more importantly, both are good options from both a power and price perspective.
So let me start you off with two suggestions:
1) Palit Radeon HD 4670 Super - The HD 4600 line is a great mainstream offering - you can find lots of options for some good cards typically well under $99 US. You can check out a good review of the HD 4670 when it was launched here to get a better feel for what a 4670 is capable of (of course I'd recommend checking more reviews as well). You can get it for a pretty decent price (under $99 US), an example is here.
2) Palit Radeon HD 4850 512MB - The HD 4800 line is notched in between the mainstream and enthusiast - great for any game, but doesn't necessarily break the bank. And again, you can find lots of great deals and options for some fantastic cards typically well under $199 US. You can check out a good review of the HD 4850 from Palit here, but there are literally dozens of reviews out there for the HD 4850 you can check out. It's available here right now for $169.99. I use the HD 4850 in my system at home, and with my 1440x900 panel (not the highest end, but pretty decent resolution), I have yet to find a game that I can't play at max settings.
From reading your post, it looks like you've already got a great idea of what you need, and have started some research, so I don't need to tell you that you should do some more research on us and our competitor, look for great deals (there are lots of them out there right now), and most importantly find the card series that's right for you and your budget - as you said, not everyone needs the highest end graphics card or rig to have a great gaming experience.
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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!!* 
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I take the fork, then look around for a knife and spoon to complete the set.
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But do you then take the fork to eat cake, or pie?
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Ask Agent Ruby:
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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
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I'm curious as to these improvements you speak of. While there may have been performance ups and downs over time, I've come across no functional changes that have resolved any of the known issues nor have I ever seen any of them listed in the patch notes for the new Catalyst packages over the past near four years.
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Believe me, I'm not saying things are perfect. But I've been playing the game since it launched too, and I know a long time ago we had some issues with shadows that have since been corrected, as an example. But as you can see from some of my posts, we do have some improvements to make and are trying to tackle this.
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Ask Agent Ruby: Heroes Or Villains? Both maybe?
Seems to me you a bit of both with hair like hero, clothes like villain, and attitude of mercenary! If you not want to disclose secret I understand ^.~ But don't think i am going let you parade around looking like that all the time. Come seeing me again and lets change up your look!
Love,
Mishii <3
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I like your take, and would agree on some of your suggestions. There have been a few people in this thread who've suggested updating the wardrobe, guess I'll have to do something about it! 
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Sword wielding fashionistas' need more than one outfit -- Jacobi
Why wait for a contest, I want to offer a costume for Agent Ruby now -- gosh golly!!! Anywho, here it is...
AGENT RUBY
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Very nice, very nice indeed. I actually have a hero toon on Guardian (but male) who uses a similar color combo...
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Ask Agent Ruby: Whoah, partnership with AMD? Does that mean that NVIDIA support will slowly disappear and you will only be able to play the game in the future with an ATI card?
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Absolutely not! Nothing will change, except hopefully some better CoH/CoV support for ATI Radeon users.
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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!
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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.
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Oh, new drivers have been tried. MANY new drivers. Same with CCC settings. Please understand, these problems have been going on for at least three YEARS now.
The Catalyst Crew sounds good, maybe they can get the ball rolling and a fix can be found. But right here, right now, and for the past three years, your cards have not been able to do Full Screen Anti-Aliasing and use the high end graphic options like high detail water effects at the same time.
So my question is - why would we buy one of these cards when <ahem> the other company makes cards that can use the high end options?
(Sorry for such a pointed question but this has been going on for years and instead of sending an engineer they sent a saleswoman. I myself suffered through this problem for a year and half. Coming in here to try and sell us a product with that still going on is galling to say the least.)
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I completely understand, and your question makes perfect sense. A couple of things I'd say - first, unfortunately while it's obviously impossible to do anything about the past three years, we are trying to improve things going forward. Second, we are not doing these activities to just blatantly sell you a product (although let's be honest, we are in the business of selling products!). Things like this let us support NCSoft, a valuable partner, and also let us get honest feedback from you, the people who buy CPUs, graphics cards and motherboards. So while some of the feedback is not positive, it's not something we want to ignore, because it obviously tells us how we can improve things.
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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?
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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
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Hi Whiteseeker - the 3650 is part of the ATI Radeon HD 3600 family, so when you check in Catalyst Control Center it will list the family and not the specific variant, and that's how it's listed (by family) when you're looking for a driver as well. As for the changing the clocks, I assume you're using the OverDrive feature - I apologize but I don't have details around this to be able to answer correctly. I would recommend you check out our Catalyst Crew Feedback Program and submit this issue, or if you've registered your product, you can also submit this to our Customer Care program. Hope this helps!
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Oh thanks you Ruby
I understand now. And yes I will do what you have suggested.
Thanks again for being so kind as to answer our questions 
EDIT: Oh yeah umm hehe, can you suggest that they take that terrible WoW trial thing out of the Driver packedge download? LOL.
It is kind of nerve racking to have to try and hunt that thing down and delete the 3-4 MB it takes up on your HD. deleting the shortcut it slaps on your desktop doesnt get rid of what it really puts on your HD.
I am sort of sayibng this jokingly and sort of not lol.
Maybe have the option to choose to have it in the download instead of having the trial snuck in with the packadge.
I see it was asked on page 6, but there was no reply. When will winner be announced for the server costume contest?
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Hi Ruby!
It was nice to have met you very briefly on Virtue when the comic photoshoot with Back Alley Brawler was prepping. Since you said that you have been playing CoX since launch, what would you say is your favorite archetype on each side of the coin?
Ashes to ashes,
Pheonyx
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Hi Pheonyx! That comic shoot was fun. On CoH, I've mainly stuck between either being a blaster or a scrapper. My only lev50 hero is an energy blaster, and it took me forever to get him to 50. Then, I have a few scrappers and blasters in the 20s and 30s, who I jump back and forth on depending on my mood. On the Villains side, I have a Stalker and a Brute who are both in the mid 20s.
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Welcome to the Forums! Of DOOOM!
Glad to see somone on the tech end making themselves so accessible
Like any true hero would.
Ehh...questions...questions...Do you think the Phillies would repeat as WS champs if every game were 3 innings long?
Follow up question: What would you name Paragon City professional sports team and which sport would you prefer?
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Okay, these are tough! To answer in order:
1) Doesn't matter if it was 3 innings or 33, I think the Phillies have what it takes to win the World Series every year (I was a big Mike Schmidt fan growing up and always have loved the Phillies because of it - when the Blue Jays beat them in the '93 World Series, I think I was the only Canadian booing).
2) It would have to be hockey, and I would go with the Paragon City Pugilists.
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I love how she didn't touch the NVIDIA questions, either of them... heh.
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Not true!!! I did answer you!
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Ask Agent Ruby: Whoah, partnership with AMD? Does that mean that NVIDIA support will slowly disappear and you will only be able to play the game in the future with an ATI card?
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Sorry Philotic, I gotta ask the same question. Ruby will this ATI partenership mean those of use who spent money on NVIDIA cards are SOL? If it does, I may not be able to keep playing this game which would be sad for me. The year I've been on has been a great time.
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I already answered this, but just to reiterate: NO NO NO. It would make absolutely no sense (not to mention the fact that the great folks at NCSoft would never go for something like that, nor would we want that).
Ask Agent Ruby: Everyone has some horror story be it lousy teaming experance or an 'oops' personal moment. Can you think of one of your own that you could share?
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Agent Ruby,
No pressure or anything, but when will the winners of the server costume contest be announced?
BTW, what do you think is happening with the Rikti Invasion RP thingy going on?
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Sorry, I don't know the exact timelines, but if you check back to your server's forum section there will be further updates in the near future. In the meantime, we still have a few more servers to visit before everything is finalized and the judging begins!
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Ask Agent Ruby: Everyone has some horror story be it lousy teaming experance or an 'oops' personal moment. Can you think of one of your own that you could share?
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Do you play the game Ruby? I meen like, play normally or are you just here and maybe playing cause of this.
Just curious.
And if so, what do you think of the game? Me, I love this game. Been here longer than my reg date says. I just didnt bother with the forums till later. And no matter what changes they are or might make to the game, I like it enough that I will stay and have fun playing no matter what.
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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?
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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
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Hi Whiteseeker - the 3650 is part of the ATI Radeon HD 3600 family, so when you check in Catalyst Control Center it will list the family and not the specific variant, and that's how it's listed (by family) when you're looking for a driver as well. As for the changing the clocks, I assume you're using the OverDrive feature - I apologize but I don't have details around this to be able to answer correctly. I would recommend you check out our Catalyst Crew Feedback Program and submit this issue, or if you've registered your product, you can also submit this to our Customer Care program. Hope this helps!
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Oh thanks you Ruby
I understand now. And yes I will do what you have suggested.
Thanks again for being so kind as to answer our questions
EDIT: Oh yeah umm hehe, can you suggest that they take that terrible WoW trial thing out of the Driver packedge download? LOL.
It is kind of nerve racking to have to try and hunt that thing down and delete the 3-4 MB it takes up on your HD. deleting the shortcut it slaps on your desktop doesnt get rid of what it really puts on your HD.
I am sort of sayibng this jokingly and sort of not lol.
Maybe have the option to choose to have it in the download instead of having the trial snuck in with the packadge.
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On the trial thing - duly noted and I will share internally.
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I see it was asked on page 6, but there was no reply. When will winner be announced for the server costume contest?
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Sorry - just answered it, but to repeat: we still have some servers to visit, and then I believe the judging will begin. At this point all I can say is to keep checking your server forum section for updates.
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Ask Agent Ruby: Everyone has some horror story be it lousy teaming experance or an 'oops' personal moment. Can you think of one of your own that you could share?
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I can't think of a really bad time specifically, but for me, I've always embarrassed when i ask players "dumb" questions on how to do this or that, or how to find this or that, and then have to tell them that I have been playing since the game launched. For example, I have never even tried to do binds! Is that bad? 
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Ask Agent Ruby: Everyone has some horror story be it lousy teaming experance or an 'oops' personal moment. Can you think of one of your own that you could share?
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Do you play the game Ruby? I meen like, play normally or are you just here and maybe playing cause of this.
Just curious.
And if so, what do you think of the game? Me, I love this game. Been here longer than my reg date says. I just didnt bother with the forums till later. And no matter what changes they are or might make to the game, I like it enough that I will stay and have fun playing no matter what.
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Yes, I've been playing since launch years ago, and love the game. I've been lucky to be in a SG that has stayed together for a long time, and have made a lot of great friends because of it.
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Ask Agent Ruby: Everyone has some horror story be it lousy teaming experance or an 'oops' personal moment. Can you think of one of your own that you could share?
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I can't think of a really bad time specifically, but for me, I've always embarrassed when i ask players "dumb" questions on how to do this or that, or how to find this or that, and then have to tell them that I have been playing since the game launched. For example, I have never even tried to do binds! Is that bad?
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What's a bind?
@PlasmaStream
"Big Bada Boom(tm)!"
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http://GuardianForce.Guildportal.com - Virtue
Niska: Are you Familiar with the works of Shan Yu?
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Ask Agent Ruby:
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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
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I'm curious as to these improvements you speak of. While there may have been performance ups and downs over time, I've come across no functional changes that have resolved any of the known issues nor have I ever seen any of them listed in the patch notes for the new Catalyst packages over the past near four years.
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Believe me, I'm not saying things are perfect. But I've been playing the game since it launched too, and I know a long time ago we had some issues with shadows that have since been corrected, as an example. But as you can see from some of my posts, we do have some improvements to make and are trying to tackle this.
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Were you an ATI employee prior to the AMD buyout?
I must admit some level of curiosity at the fact that you've been playing since launch but seem unaware of the extent and depth of the ATI issues that have plagued this game since launch.
In any case, thanks for punching that thread through the channels.
Back when I was more interested in the fight, I sent those same findings through the feedback channels at ATI, then again after the AMD merger, and constantly pushed the info here for the Cryptic team prior to the NCNC conversion.
I believe I gave up some time before Cryptic left the picture.
It will be nice to see if any of this leads to better days for ATI users. It wasn't until the somewhat recent purchase of an Nvidia G92-8800GTS that I had used anything except ATI video cards since 3DFX went under way back when.
Be well, people of CoH.
Agent Ruby,
No pressure or anything, but when will the winners of the server costume contest be announced?
BTW, what do you think is happening with the Rikti Invasion RP thingy going on?