++ Common Solutions & Posting Guidelines ++

READ THIS!

This thread is for solutions only! Please do not post your problems in here. Start another topic instead. Also, please remember that this isn’t your only source. NCSoft keeps an extensive database of symptoms and solutions. If you don’t find your answer in here, look there.

Introduction

Welcome to the Tech & Bugs forum! This is the forum where players try to help players with technical problems and discuss bugs in the game.

There are two big points to remember on these forums. First and foremost – the forum is by players for players. Moderators and developers do join in from time to time but it’s a pretty rare thing. If you are looking for official support, head to www.coh.com and click the Support link to open a ticket. Responses in this forum are from people who think they can help you and are willing to do so. Official support gives researched, professional support. This forum gives off-the-cuff support. (Though we often give support faster and also tell better jokes. )

The second thing to remember is that, just because your symptoms sound similar, it does not mean you have the same problem as somebody else. If your friend gets a rash and it turns out to be from poison ivy, then you get a rash, does that mean you must have rubbed up against some poison ivy? Nope. It could be poison ivy but many things can cause a rash so it would be foolish to just assume that’s what you’ve got. The same thing happens with technical problems. Just because you’ve been crashing and somebody else has been crashing doesn’t mean the crashes have the same cause. For this reason, we generally like to have people start their own topic for computer problems.

Table of Contents
Installation Issues
Upkeep Advice
Crashing & Reboots
Problems Updating the Game
Network Lag
Graphics Lag
Memory Lag
Game Won't Start/Login Trouble
Missing Files (Vista and maybe Windows 7)
How to Post (if these solutions don't help you)

Installation

If you’ve got the CD then just pop it into the drive and install. When you run the updater, it will download the latest version of all the files (it does NOT download one patch at a time) and update them. You can also install the game by getting the latest version of the updater (located at ftp://client.coh.com/US/) and running that. Unfortunately, the last time I tried this (March 2007), the updater was not able to install to directories other than the default directory.

If you are running Windows Vista, it’s best not to install the game to the default directory. The game puts some user data (screenshots, keybind files, …) into the game directory itself and that’s a big no no under Vista. Vista can still run the game fine if it’s located there but it can get a little confusing (see “Missing Files” below).

Also, Vista’s “User Account Control” feature acts to make sure any update of common files requires administrator access. It even notices that the name of the updater is “CoHUpdate.exe”, figures out that you are about to update files, and demands administrator rights. The easy way to get around that is to simply rename the file to “CohStarter.exe” or something like that. Just be careful if/when the game tries to update the updater program itself. You can also get around this by turning off UAC, of course, but that’s a pretty significant security feature to shut down.

Upkeep

City of Heroes (and City of Villains, the two games are officially one game now) is a fairly demanding game. It may be over four years old, but Cryptic and NCSoft have added a lot to it over the years, including physics and fancy graphics options. If you are going to play serious games, you need to be serious about computer upkeep. So here’s a few quick bullet points:

• Reboot every few days! You’re not running a server and it only takes a couple of minutes. If you aren’t running anything overnight, why not just turn off the PC?
• Run a disk check a few times a year. Hard drives are getting pretty reliable so there’s no need to do more than two or three a year, IMHO, unless you move your computer around a bunch. To do a disk check, open Explorer (start key and E at the same time) and right click on the disk to check. Select properties and go to the Tools tab. Select the Error Checking option and, when it asks, turn all the options on. The disk check will take a long time (probably hours). Note that, if you start finding files with the extension .chk in the root of your drive, it’s a sign that your hard drive is starting to have problems.
• Run a disk defrag every month or two. (Many folks run them every week!) You do this much like the disk check, only select the defragment tool instead of the error checking tool. It also takes a long time to run. If you are going to do both, do the error check before you do the defrag.
• Keep your anti-virus program up to date! This game is demanding enough without having some virus pumping out spam emails to the world while you’re trying to play. You can get a great, free anti-virus program at free.avg.com.
• When lightning comes, it’s time to shut down. And by that I mean OFF, not sleeping or hibernating. Turn off the power strip you’re plugged into. Surge protectors are great against fairly distant lightning strikes, but you can still get roasted by close hits.
• Keep your system clean. One of the big causes of crashing is overheating of the computer. Overheating is often caused by dust buildup on the components, especially the fans. Also, if anything is obstructing any of the fans (like, say, a cat plopping down right in front of your PC), the temperature can rise very quickly. The motherboard will probably detect that it’s about to melt before any damage is done and shut down, but don’t risk it.
• Keep your system updated. When Microsoft puts out a service pack, you want it soon. Not having service packs and other critical updates installed leaves your PC open to all sorts of attacks that a virus scanner can’t stop. If you are having trouble remembering, set Windows up so it auto updates.
• Keep your video drivers up to date, as well, but be careful. Video driver releases often add both speed and stability. However, it’s best to check on these forums before updating. Sometimes new video drivers will have nasty bugs. When they do, though, we generally get a topic talking about the problem within a day or two. Try not to let your video drivers get more than a year old.
• Sound cards and motherboards may need driver updates as well.
  

Crashing and Reboots

There are tons of things that can cause crashing. Anything from problems in the game to an ancient joystick you forgot was plugged in to your USB port to your electric company having trouble putting out a steady electric current. Some are extremely difficult to diagnose, like that electric company problem. Please be patient with us and with official support (I would highly recommend using both resources) while we go through the huge mass of possibilities.

If your computer is suddenly rebooting in the middle of game play, that probably means you are crashing. By default, Windows will reboot instead of showing you the rather cryptic and scary Blue Screen of Death. However, as a gamer, you have faced down much nastier things than this and are thus brave enough to face this beast and pull needed information from it.

To do so with Windows Vista, right click on the Computer icon on your desktop (or Start menu) and select Properties. Pick the Advanced Settings option on the left. Select Startup and Recovery. About half way down, you’ll see a checkbox for “automatic restart.” Turn the automatic restart option OFF and you’ll be able to see the blue screens again.

Here are some of the most common causes and what you can do about them.

Bad Memory
City of Heroes uses a LOT of memory, more than most other games, which makes it more susceptible to problems in high memory. People that run into this problem typically have newer computers or have recently bought new memory. Crashes can happen any time but normally happen within the first 15 minutes or so of game play. They can cause lockups and crashes directly to desktop but will more often cause a blue screen of death (or reboot, see above) in a random file. You’ll probably see a different files getting blamed for each crash on your blue screen.

Checking for bad memory in Vista is pretty easy. Go to your Start menu and search on Memory. The Memory Diagnostics Tool should pop right up. Run that and let it run through its tests. You should not get ANY errors at all. Even one error means bad memory.

Checking for bad memory in other operating systems isn’t quite so easy. I would suggest checking out Memtest86+ for a good memory testing program. Again, even one error is bad.

If you find bad memory, you’re going to have to replace it. Check with your hardware manufacturer on how to do that.

Heat Issues
This is another common one, particularly in the summer. City of Heroes hits the video card and the CPU pretty hard, making it more prone to heat problems than many other MMOs so, like the memory issue, it’s not uncommon to see people say they can play WoW just fine but crash playing CoH when they have a heat problem.

Heat issues cause crashing much like bad memory. You can have the game lock up, you can crash to the desktop, or you can get a blue screen of death in a random file (or suddenly reboot, see above). The main difference is that memory issues tend to crop up earlier in the game session than heat issues. My rule of thumb is that crashes after 10 minutes are probably heat and crashes earlier than 15 minutes are probably memory. Note the overlap. That should remind you how accurate rules of thumb are.

You should be getting the dust out of your system periodically anyway, so the best way to check your system for a heat problem is to just try and fix it – namely by blowing the dust out of your system (preferably with a can of air as computers do not appreciate being spat upon). If that doesn’t work, leave the case open while it is running and check to see that all the fans are spinning. If all the fans are running, go ahead and leave the case open and play the game. If you can play the game fine with the case open, you’ve got a heat issue for sure.

Some computer cases need the case closed to keep the airflow at its best so it’s actually possible to worsen heat issues by leaving the case open! Don’t be surprised if you crash even sooner with the case open. However, if leaving the case open does help avoid the crashes significantly, you can be pretty sure you have a heat problem.

(WARNING: Remember how dust is bad? Think how bad cobwebs would be. Or coffee. Be careful leaving your case open! If there’s a toddler in the house, post an armed guard to keep watch.)

Virus/Malware
Keep that virus scanner up to date and get those security patches and service packs installed! If you get a virus or worm, it can play hell with your computer and cause all sorts of problems.

Driver Problems
If you are getting blue screens of death and they point to a particular file each time, find that file and check its properties. If it’s made by the same folks that make your graphics card (NVIDIA, ATI, AMD, or Intel), then it’s possible your drivers are having problems. Assuming there aren’t threads on the forums saying that the latest drivers are bad, try updating your video drivers. You can get them from the manufacturer's website (www.nvidia.com, ati.amd.com, or www.intel.com). Be sure to follow the instructions carefully.

(Note to laptop users: laptops often can not use the latest video drivers. First check with your laptop manufacturer for the drivers. If they don't have them, you might try Laptop Video 2 Go.

If your drivers are already up to date and you updated them recently, you may need to roll your drivers back again. That’s not quite as easy as updating drivers but it isn’t too bad. First, look up a driver cleaner program such as Guru 3D’s and download it. Uninstall your driver then run the driver cleaner program to make sure all the old files are really gone. Then install the older drivers.

Updating Problems

A number of problems can crop up with the updater.

Unable to update a file
First off, reboot. Sometimes files get stuck in memory and a reboot will fix that.

Second, do a virus scan. You’re probably overdue anyway.

Third, go in to the directory, find the file, and delete it.

If you still have problems, go in to the folder and delete everything with .old or .new as an extension (unless it’s a file you made yourself, of course). Also, delete the Coh.checksum file.

If there are still problems updating files, try renaming the directory City of Heroes is located in and running the updater again (you’ll have to run it directly instead of via your shortcut). The updater should make a new directory and pull down all new files for it. Then copy these new files in the new directory into the directory you renamed. Now delete the empty folder and rename your folder back the way it was.

Also note that sometimes this problem can be caused by bad memory.

Virus and malware programs are another source for this problem. Keep that virus scanner up to date and get those security patches and service packs installed! If you get a virus or worm, it can play hell with your computer and cause all sorts of problems.


Updater Can’t Connect
This is fairly normal if a major update has just come out but that’s a one night deal. You shouldn't get the problem every day.

If you are using a satellite for your internet, you may be looking at real trouble for a long time. The updater expects connections to be made fairly quickly and, while satellite connections can download quickly, many of them can take awhile to connect. Some folks have had luck by opening the updater, giving it 2 seconds to connect and, if it doesn’t, close the updater and try again. Do that over and over until it works.

If you are using a wireless connection, you may be getting interference. Try connecting directly.

Also, from time to time, hackers will mess with the domain name tables and cause havoc with your internet connections. To fix this, take the following steps in Windows XP

• Go to your Start menu and type “cmd” (without the quotes) in the Run box to start the command prompt.
• Type “ipconfig /flushdns” (again, no quotes) at the prompt and press return.
• Close the window.

• Go to your Start menu and type “cmd” (without quotes) in the search box. Cmd.exe should be found.
• Right click on Cmd.Exe and select Run as Administrator. Enter your admin password when prompted.
• Type “ipconfig /flushdns” (again, no quotes) at the prompt and press return.
• Close the window.

• Hit the start key and R to bring up the Run dialog box. Put in cmd and press return.
• At the prompt, type “nslookup cohupdate.coh.com” (without the quotes) and press return. You’ll get a long list of addresses. Keep that window open.
• Go to your shortcut you use to run the updater. Right click on it and select properties.
• In the target window, add a space to the end then put in “-ps” (no quotes), another space, then one of the addresses that was found. So the target box might have something like: "C:\Games\City Of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe" -ps 216.107.250.194
• Click OK and run the updater again via the shortcut. Keep doing this with IP addresses on the list until you find one that works for you.
• After you finish updated, I would suggest putting your shortcut back the way it was. Those IP addresses are subject to change and, if the one you are using does change, your updater will stop working.

Network Lag

Network lag is a delay in the communications between your computer and the game server. It typically results in “rubberbanding” (popping back to where you were a few seconds earlier) and NPCs jumping around. When you use a power, that power may not fire off for a couple of seconds. If the network lag gets extreme, you can be hit with a map server disconnection.

You can check your network connection in game pretty easily. Use the command /netgraph 1. This will pop a little network graph up in the lower left of your screen. The graph should display a low, green line. Spikes of red are lost packets. If you have a big bar of red, that means your connection is gone. If it doesn’t come back within 30 seconds, you’ll automatically be logged out. Use /netgraph 0 to get rid of the graph.

Causes of network lag:

Virus/Malware
Keep that virus scanner up to date and get those security patches and service packs installed! If you get a virus or worm, it can play hell with your computer and cause all sorts of problems.

Other Programs
There has been a wave of updater programs that think they are so important that they need to be running at all times. Electronic Arts’ Download Manager is the latest I’ve had do this but by no means the only program. Luckily, all these programs can be set so they do not start every time you boot up your computer. Just check their options to turn that “feature” off.

The exceptions to this would be your virus updater and Windows update. Just make sure to schedule those so they update at a time when you aren’t likely to be playing.

Programs designed to use communicate over the internet constantly can also drag down connections, particularly for dialup users who are having a hard enough time already. Instant Messenger programs can use a surprising hunk of bandwidth, especially if you have several open at once. Weatherbug is another common offender. File sharing programs are, of course, right out.

Others along the line
There’s a long line connecting you to the servers and any problem anywhere along the way can cause issues. There could be problems with one of NCSoft’s ISPs, there could be a problem with one of the internet backbones, there could be a problem with your ISP, or you could just have a loose connection on the back of your cable modem.

If you know a good bit about internet connections (like what a traceroute is and how to read it), you might want to look into the support network tool for City of Heroes. It will check your ports and do traceroutes to all the important servers.

Something you might try when you have trouble with lost packets is the /net_error_correction command. Issue the command in game and follow it with 1 or 2 to see if error correction helps. Use /net_error_correction 0 to turn off error correction again.

Graphics Lag

Graphics lag is when your computer is having trouble keeping up with the game. Typically, this results in the frame rate getting slow, sometimes to the point where the game seems to be a slideshow. You can check your exact frame rate by using the /Showfps 1 command. This will put your frames per second number up on your screen. Use /Showfps 0 to turn it off again. The number should stay above 10.

Graphics lag can actually be caused by more than just graphics. If the sound processing is taking too long or if your CPU is getting overloaded, you can get low frame rates.

The best way to fix this is to start the game in “Safe” mode. Start the Updater and click Next just like normal. However, instead of just clicking “I accept,” check the “Safe Mode” box then accept. This will set all your graphics settings to the lowest value and make the game horribly ugly but it should give you a great frame rate, even on low end systems. From this point, you can turn graphics options on via the in-game menu and figure out just what you can and can’t use.

If you aren’t getting a good frame rate even in safe mode, go in to your options and check the sound settings. Set the volume for both effects and music to 0. That will turn your sound off and may help your frame rate a lot. (If it does, you better look in to updating your sound drivers.)

Still bad frame rates? Well, if you have a very low end graphics card (particularly if it’s just a chip on the motherboard instead of a real card), you might need to use the -usetexenvcombine command line parameter.

If you are still having problems, some other program may be eating up your CPU time. Make sure you shut down all other programs. Even a browser can burn quite a bit if it’s displaying a Flash animation. Virus and other malware programs can burn a lot of CPU time, too. Keep that virus scanner up to date and get those security patches and service packs installed! If you get a virus or worm, it can play hell with your computer and cause all sorts of problems.

Memory Lag
This one tends to be rather unique to City of Heroes because it uses quite a lot of memory. The game currently requires half a gigabyte of memory. “Requires” as in “if you haven’t got this, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to play at all.” To play the game well, you need at least a gigabyte of memory. If you have Vista, then you will probably need a full gigabyte to play at all and 1.5 gigabytes to play the game very well. (Though I should note here that, at the time of this writing, Windows Vista is not officially supported at all, so I’m just guessing on those memory requirements.)

The biggest symptom of having your memory fill up is that load times start to become long. If memory is getting low, it can take minutes just to get into a mission. (If you have a lot of memory and a fast computer, it can take as little as 15 seconds.)

The best solution to this is, of course, to get more memory. Make sure you know what you are doing, though, especially if you are trying to add memory instead of just replacing what you have.

Beyond just throwing money at the problem, though, you might want to try a couple of things. The first is to simply close other programs. No browsers, no IM programs, no email programs. Task Manager (which can be started by hitting control-shift-esc) can show you what is running and how much memory is being used.

You can also optimize your virtual memory. Virtual memory is hard drive space that Windows uses when it runs out of RAM. Here is an old gamer’s trick for optimizing this virtual memory “swap space” (old but, I think, still relevant):

1. Right click Computer on your desktop and select properties. Select Advanced System Settings.

2. Under Performance, click the Settings button.

3. Click the Advanced tab then click the Change button for Virtual Memor.

4. Turn off the option to automatically manage the page file size.

5. Set the page file size to 0 (no page file). Reboot if asked.

6. Follow the steps up in the “upkeep” section of this guide to defragment your hard drive. It could take a few hours so be patient.

7. Now go back to the virtual memory setting again by following steps 1 through 3.

8. Set your virtual memory to a custom size and be sure to set the minimum and maximum to the same value. That will keep Windows from resizing the swap file and possibly fragmenting it more. I would recommend making the swap file two or three times bigger than your main memory but no more than 2 gigabytes. So, if you have half a gig, you might make the swap file 1300 megabytes. However, if you have six gig, don’t make the swap file 18000 megabytes, just keep it at 2000.

Of course, virus and malware programs can also eat up memory (and CPU and cause file conflicts and….) so be sure to keep your virus scanner up to date and get the latest service packs and security patches installed for Windows.

Game Doesn’t Start
Occasionally people will start the game, see the small “loading” message, and then… nothing. This is most often caused by “skinning” programs that change the look of Windows, such as Window Blinds. Check the options for your skinning program and you should be able to have it exclude City of Heroes.

People also often have trouble with their computer locking up right when they try to log in, particularly right after an update to the game. This is often caused when a firewall program recognizes that the program has changed and prompts you to see if you want to let it connect to the internet. Unfortunately, if you have the game up in full screen, that prompt might be behind the game. But you can’t get out of the game because it’s too busy trying to connect! Normally, if you just wait a minute or two, the game will give up and give you an error message. Then you can alt-tab out and answer the firewall prompt.

Another common crash point is right after selecting a server, which takes you to the character selection screen. This is the first point in the game where 3D graphics are displayed. If your graphics drivers are in bad shape or if your DirectX installation has gotten messed up, you can error out here. You might want to update both of them. (Microsoft updates DirectX every few months. Just go to www.microsoft.com and do a search.)

Of course, virus and malware programs can cause all three of these problems, too. Even the second one if you are skipping the updater. But I only want to drive the point about virus/malware into your heads, not drive it all the way through your heads by repeating it in every section. So I won’t bother to tell you to keep abreast of all the latest Windows updates and service packs, or bug you about keeping your anti-virus program updated this time.

Missing Screenshot, Demo, Keybind files (Vista only)

Some folks using Vista find that, when they take a screenshot, the screenshot is not located inside the game directory in a screenshot folder. When they record a demo, the demo can’t be found. When they save a keybind file, it doesn’t show up. However, if they try to load the saved keybind file, it does load! What the Hades is going on here??

What’s going on is Virtualization. Windows Vista is much more particular about saving user data in the program files directory. If a program tries to do it anyway and the user isn’t an administrator, Vista pulls a fast one to keep the program from crashing with an “access denied” error while keeping the program data clean. It does this by saving and loading the files from a special folder.

So, instead of looking in the game directory, look in the game directory’s virtualization folder located in your user directory. For me, that would be C:\Users\Zloth\AppData\Local\VirtualStore. Note that the “AppData” directory is hidden so you may need to change your folder options to see it. Or, better yet, just replace “Zloth” with your own Windows user name and search on it in your Start menu.

How To Post
So you read the relevant section(s) for your problem and you still haven’t figured it out? Well, that’s what the forums are for!

You’ll want to state your problem clearly and given plenty of details. If you just say “I’ve been crashing, why?” then we’re going to have to grill you with several questions before we can help. Tell us things like when the crashing started, describe the crash (do you crash to desktop? Suddenly reboot? Lock up?), and say if the crashes happen soon after you start the game or if they only happen after 30 minutes of play. If you really don’t know what details are relevant, give it your best shot. You’ll probably have to go through a round of questions but as long as you are trying, we’re happy.

After that, give us some data. My CoH Helper program can gather a lot of information about your computer and game settings and format it nicely for our forums. Paste that info into your post. You should also gather a HijackThis log so we can see what programs are running on your PC. If you have some programs up that you normally close before playing, go ahead and close them before getting your HiJack log, too.

Don’t worry too much about grammar and spelling. However, you are asking us to spend some time helping you. If you can’t be bothered to use any capitalization or punctuation, it doesn’t exactly inspire people to spend half an hour researching your problem.

And no bumping! It’s against forum rules.

Close
I hope this guide was helpful to you! Proximus' original guide listed off several of the people that helped gather the information in his guide but, after all these years, that list would go on for pages! So I'll just give thanks to the whole City of Heroes community for all their efforts in keeping this game great.

Sticky pin and kept!

Ex

You should add some detail in the crashing thing about the "driver stopped responding" crash, since it seems fairly common (is there even an actual fix anyway?).

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!

Thanks Zloth for re-reposting this.

[ QUOTE ]
You should add some detail in the crashing thing about the "driver stopped responding" crash, since it seems fairly common (is there even an actual fix anyway?).

[/ QUOTE ]
There's the Vista Hotfix that helps a lot of folks, but not everybody. I keep hoping it will show up in Windows Update any day now but it's starting to look like it will be Service Pack 2.

Here's the story:

Windows Vista has some sort of timing bug that will cause your video drivers to stop responding and, after a minute or two, reset. The faster your machine and your graphics card, the more often you can run into this bug. It can happen as soon as you start playing or hours later. On my 8800GFX, I was crashing about once every 20 hours of play.

Hotfixes should not be installed lightly. Microsoft only gives them a little testing. Don't install this just in case you might get the problem some day. Only install it if you are already having symptoms along these lines.

Regarding Mid's post - yes, please repost that!

CoH Helper is moving! Roadrunner is pushing everyone on to the same server so the URL is changing. The new URL is http://home.roadrunner.com/~dasloth/CoH/CoHHelper.html

The old URL should work for a few more weeks but then it will vanish - no forwarding.

I'll update my signature as soon as I make an index page. (Dang new servers don't let us get directory listings.)

Second or third to last edit that I had done before I had posted it last time...but hopefuly only some missing info...and no broken links <crosses fingers>

( Get me quick if you see any blatant errors...only one day to edit )

Here are some useful little proggies I use. I'm sure there are dead links here...but might be useful.

General System Info:

Cpu-Z -
A simple, tiny, 0 footprint application packed with extrordinary amounts of information. No install process. Works on anything and everything. Shows cpu/memory/board/fsb/membus/timings/cpu votage/bios/graphic interface/board revision/cpu stepping/instruction set/cache/clocks/chipset/southbidge. Regularly updated and a very nice forum community (including me).
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

SiSoftSandra Lite (free version) -
This is an all araound program, gives alot of info about your system. Has alot of benchmarking tools. Has a little stress testing. Gives advice on what may or may not be wrong. Will also give advice on how to improve your system hardware wise and settings wise. The main meat of it however, will cost you...and honestly, it's not worth the cash to pay for what some free apps do better. THe free version is pretty good, but no reall need to buy the full version.
http://www.sisoftware.net/index.html?dir=&location=home&langx=en&amp ;a=

DxDiag.exe -
This one you allready have, everyone does. Start menu > Run > Tyoe "dxdiag" (without the quotes) and watch it go. Shows tons of info about system, focusing on drivers and multi media stuffs. Can be exported to a text document to be cut and pasted onto a forum. Allready noted by someone else but ALWAYS worth noting again.

Everest Ultimate Edition -
Shows absolutly everything about your system, but only a 30day trial. In my opinion, this one is actually worth paying for. Benchmarking with comparison charts, stress testing, health, details, advice, temp displays, voltage monitors, much more.
Trial is here : http://www.lavalys.com/products/download.php?ps=UE&lang=en

PCWizard 2008 -
Everything that Everest does....but for free, forever. Also, it's made by the same people who do Cpu-Z. Great prog, probably my favorite all around info application.
http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php

Sysinternals -
Yeah, Microsoft bought them but there's some really good system analysis tools from them. Processor Explorer is a good one, like Windows Task Manager but...better...MUCH better. Lots more little app.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx


Temperature Progs:

CoreTemp -
Simple temp monitor. Very small footprint (=very low resource use). Detects Core2Duo temps from on die of each core instead of center of chip. Only works for Core2Duo proccessors though.
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

SpeedFan -
Slightly larger then CoreTemp but shows temps for quite a bit, including SMART inabled hard disks, ambient case temp, basically anything your mother board and hard disks have sensors on, but does not show Video Card temps. Works on most proccessors, quite a few Intel and AMD 's. It supports Core2Duo's also, however it shows the old Tm1 (center of bts diode) temperature. It can monitor and change fan speeds provided your mobo supports that feature. Has a simple voltage readout. You can overclock with it but I do not recommend it, not even to experienced OC'rs. Has some info on hard disks, though very technical. Handy temperature graph.
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Intel(R) Thermal Analysis Tool or TAT -
Genuine Intel program. Show temps from TM2 (on die diode) so will show a seperate temp per core of a Core2Duo. Very simple yet very handy processor stress testing tool. Outputs temperature logging to a simple Text document for easy cutting and pasting to forums (hehe). Sadly, only works for Core2Duo systems. Does not seem to work in Vista or with 4core Intels. BOOO!
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/392/Intel_Thermal_Analysis_Tool.html

Motherboard Monitor 5 or MBM5-
Highly customizable temp monitor. Requires some tech knowledge but it is minimal. Shows voltages, fan speeds, temps, clocks. Can be made to be always on top, transparent (so you can play games with it on), hot keyed, everything. Sadly it not being developed anymore, but it can still be used with a WIDE selection of older motherboards and a few newer ones. This is my favorite monitoring program, simply for it's extraordinary customizability.
http://www.download.com/Motherboard-Monitor/3000-2086_4-10518385.html?tag=lst-0-1


System Cleansing and General Upkeep:

HiJackThis and AdAware have allready been noted so I'll skip those.

Good old Windows Defragmentation tool -
People forget about good old Windows Defragmentation tool. That's not a good thing! Use it, regularly. Defragments you drives.

DiskKeeper -
It's a third party hard drive defragmentation software that's quite a bit more elaborate then the built in Windows one. Allows for different ypes of defragmentation: Boot defrag, MFT defrag, blah blah blah. I bought, I love it, most would say it's not absolutly needed though.
www.diskeeper.com


Video testing and Information:

RivaTuner -
Can be used with almost any vid card. Very non intuitive but VERY comprehensive. Just a TON of stuff to run through. Allows for use with both ATI and NVidia of all generations. This program DEFFENITELY REQUIRES reading through the manual and NO ARBITRARY CLICKING OF OPTIONS. It can break a videocard if you go about mucking with bits you don't understand. Best video detail/OC app I've ever found.
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163


PC Health, Testing, Benching, StressTesting:

PCmark05, 3DMark05/06, etc. -
I'll put these here since the different programs offered by this FutureMark can stress different types of things. Some of FutureMarks products can stress and bench your grahics capability some give give an overall look at your PC's strengths and weaknesses (sp?).
http://www.futuremark.com/download/

BurnInTest -
THis is one great stress testing program. Can stress each and (almost) every peice of you PC seperatly or all at once. Gives good info and can communicate with quite a few temp/voltage monitoring softwares to give an even more complete look at how your system performs at Load/under stress. It does offer a 30day free trial, but I'm all for outright buying it, it's that useful.
http://www.passmark.com/products/bit.htm

Orthos -
Memory, Dual Core cpu, single core cpu, memory+cpu tesing utility.
http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=200

Memtest86+ -
(Cribbed from README)
This is a utility designed to test whether your memory is in working order. It repeatedly writes an enormous amount of different patterns to all memory locations and reads them back again and verifies whether the result of the read is the same as what was written to memory.
There can be a multitude of reasons for running memtest, but foremost of all is of course to test whether your memory modules might be bad. Whenever you suspect your modules to be bad because of system crashes, lockups or reboots it would be nice to know whether the modules are in working order. Memtest86+ is a utility which tries to answer that question for you.
Another common use exists in the overclocking scene. When overclocking a system you are essentially pushing your system to the limits and at some point it will simply give way and break. Unfortunately there isn't a clear cut way of deciding whether a system is still working correctly. Because of the complexity of a computer a system which is pushed to the limits doesn't just break completely when it starts to fail, instead little errors start showing up in many different places in the system growing more frequent and widespread the more the system is pushed. Each one of these little errors can lead to a crash of your system but can also go unnoticed for days or weeks in a running system. The art so to speak of overclocking is thus to push the system as far as it can go without introducing any such errors. As memory is usually one of the first places these such errors start coming up a memory test is very useful.
www.memtest.org

Prime95 -
Another memory testing program (pretty much the same as Orthos), just a little simpler and just as good. Takes a few more clicks to set it up to stress a dual core cpu....but oh well. Not as pretty as Orthos though.
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

AquaMark -
Another benchmarking proggie...very low end though...stresses OpenGL more than anything, if I remember correctly.
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=673


Network and Internet testing:

Ping Plotter -
(cribbed from their 'help-me' file) Ping Plotter Freeware is an enhanced graphical trace route program. A "trace route" program uses Ping and ICMP echo requests to trace the route a packet takes between your computer and a final destination. Ping Plotter does this - and throws in multi-threading, enhanced statistics, and a multi-threaded high speed engine.
www.pingplotter.com


FUN STUFF!:

Slax -
(cribbed from their site) Slax is a modern, portable, small and fast Linux operating system with a modular approach and outstanding design. Despite its small size, Slax provides a wide collection of pre-installed software for daily use, including a well organized graphical user interface and useful recovery tools for system administrators.
The modular approach gives you the ability to include any other software in Slax easily. If you're missing your favourite text editor, networking tool or game, simply download a module with the software and copy it to Slax, no need to install, no need to configure.
If you are a beginner or you're just too busy to make it yourself, follow a few steps to build your own customized operating system by using web-based interface here: http://www.slax.org/


MORE STUFFS!:
-HDTach (Check Hard drives) - http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach
-PCI32 ( PCI32 http://members.datafast.net.au/dft0802/downloads.htm )
-GCPUID (Vid proggy...kinda like CPU-z) - http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/GCPUID.shtml
-Super PI (memory testing) - http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=36
-HWMonitor (another CPU-z clone - http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php - In both 32bit and 64bit... )
-Lot sof burnin and testing stuff's here too: http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/browse.php?c=18

Good websites to find Teh Tech Stuffs:
-Random proggies, drivers, and utilities - http://www.guru3d.com/
-Laptop Drivers - http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

I probably missed a ton of stuff but this is a start....I know there's alot more usefull programs out there, but I'm only one person.

Good Luck!

(P.S. Pardon my spellling and grammer...I know they suck...was VERY tempted to send this to Houtex prior to posting, hehe )

I just realized Lighthouses thread entitled "Contacting Support & About this Forum: PLEASE READ" still has the link to the OLD/OLD version of this thread.

This has come up enough times that it's probably worth including here. On that page is also a link for a Port setup site.


From the PlayNC Knowledge Base here.

City of Heroes and City of Villains require that the following ports be fully unrestricted and accessible inbound and out.

All of these ports:
TCP 2104
TCP 2106
UDP 7000-7100

One of the following ports:
TCP 6994 or TCP 13094 or TCP 23094

If you are connecting to the game while on a campus or business network, please consult your network's administrator to verify that these ports are available. If you are on a home Local Area Network (LAN) or behind a router, please make sure that your network's hardware is properly configured.

You can also change your graphics settings without running the game. TweakCoH was developed by Circeus and it is a very useful tool.
Thank you again Circeus for your work.

What should I set my virtual memory to, there is 236678 MB available.

Hot diggity, the boards are finally moving up! I've still got the text for this guide sitting on my desktop, waiting to post to the new boards if need be. (Hopefully I won't need to do that.)

Edit: No need! I just had to do some edits and all was well!

If you have windowed mode and maximized, and the sidebar is up. For some reason the image starts tearing badly as if VSync wasn't on at all.

NVidia 8800 GTX user.