No advice at all? 
only thing that's ever worked for me is to move the graphics slider in options down a notch.
Best I can come up with I'm afraid
Allodoxaphobia is the fear of opinions.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. MARCUS AURELIUS (121-180 AD)
I'm exactly the same in terms of what happens to the FPS. Sadly, i'm on ATI, so I can't offer any GFX card related stuff.
Whenever it gets really bad, i simply move particle physics down to the minimum (aswell as draw distance). Inside missions, as you say, it's fine (unless i've scrolled too far in on my /DA scrapper...machine hates that)
Try and tweak with the GFX, and maybe look into a tweaktool for your GFX card. CoX is a fickle beast
I have a similarly specced system (quad core, 9800GTX+, 4GB, Vista64). The whole thing rocks along at 60fps but was occasionally dropping. I traced the problem to a very cpu-hungry task running in the background. It turned out to be one of the bundled tools that came with the Asus Motherboard. I don't really know why it would reduce the framerate on CoH as it wasn't causing the processors to max out but when I removed it from the task scheduler CoX went straight back up to 60fps and stayed there.
Hope that's helpful.
Drag
Ever wondered how our costumes stay so clean and shiny given everything we put them through?
Then you need to try out Spandex Crisis (Arc ID 32943)
Rubbish computer get a new one! 
Seriously tho, try fiddle with the graphic settings some. I had to take down the anti-aliasing some to move around city scape it the game lagged alot. Alternatively, fiddle with view distance some.
I personally prefered the slight reduciton in quality from lower anti-aliasing (i can't tell the diffrent, really) compared to shorter view distance (it's max).
Now this is getting very odd, I have no background processes running that take up much memory or CPU and no matter what I do to the graphical settings I only yield a one or two FPS difference. With FSAA and Anistropic Filtering AND particles down to 0 I still get lag patches!
This is very strange.
Agreed, very strange and very annoying. Given that we have almost identical systems and yet see very different performance I guess it's time to look for what the differences *might* be?
What's your disk capacity and fragmentation like?
Given that you only see this drop in performance on CoV and, frankly, a machine with this spec should be able to run CoX on max everything at max framerate I can only guess that there's something special about this particular game's config. Maybe a complete clean re-install of CoX might do something.
Of-course at this stage it's probably sensible to abandon all logic completely and start rearranging the pot plants in the house, turn off the fridge when playing, move your chair 2 cm to the left etc. etc....
Ever wondered how our costumes stay so clean and shiny given everything we put them through?
Then you need to try out Spandex Crisis (Arc ID 32943)
Ha, yep I agree. Abandoning reason does seem fairly tempting at this point.
I have two hard drives. Only one is currently in use and that is a '7200RPM 750GB NTFS Drive'. I defragged fairly recently; in the last 3 months, many many months after I installed CoX.
I'm glad to hear you have no issues with the game as it gives me hope. May I ask where abouts you're situated?
Deepest, darkest rural Suffolk in the UK. Unfortunately practically at the limits of ADSL coverage..... 
Ever wondered how our costumes stay so clean and shiny given everything we put them through?
Then you need to try out Spandex Crisis (Arc ID 32943)
Hm, this gets more confusing by the post! I presumed you lived abroad in mainland Europe, as it would be closer to the server. Since this is not the case (and since your internet must be miles from the nearest exchange) I can think of absolutely no reason for our performance differences!
I'm flummoxed.
Hardware fault? Dodgy RAM? Firewall settings? Low quality router?
I really should do something about this signature.
I stand to be corrected on this but I'm fairly certain that poor connectivity will result in lag-related symptoms:
- rubberbanding
- lag between clicking a power and it activating
- mobs/other players appearing to jump around randomly
(and believe me, I see all of these!).
I don't believe it would result in a reduction in framerate.
But as I say, I stand to be corrected.
Ever wondered how our costumes stay so clean and shiny given everything we put them through?
Then you need to try out Spandex Crisis (Arc ID 32943)
One thing that can cause all of these things on my laptop is the power saving settings it uses when not plugged into the mains.
Maybe insufficent power is getting to your graphics card?
I really should do something about this signature.
I had a problem once where the game would freeze for an extended time (60 secs or so) when game resumed i was overloaded with lag as game tried to catch up those 60 secs.
I was dead sure it was a connection issue, and nothing i did fixed it.
What the error was tho, was the graphics card was dying on me. More and more games stopped working, when eventually the card just died and showed wierd color patterns only.
What had happened was one screw on the fan had fallen loose so the card was overheating slowly buy surely.
Perhaps it's something like that happening to you? Open the case and check if the card is running too hot. I actually burned myself touching the graphics card. Guessing it was around 150-200 degrees C.
No, this isn't happening, but thank you for the suggestions. My card is nearly always at a very safe 70-80 degrees. Also, I was getting a very similar problem with City of Villains on my old system back when I had completely different everything; router, ISP, machine, so a hardware fault is very unlikely.
This is certainly a real pickle of an issue, it's a true conundrum.
[ QUOTE ]
Whilst this system works very well with everything it tackles (achieving a fairly steady 15-30FPS on Crysis Very High, 25-60FPS on Age of Conan etc) I get huge client-side lag spikes on CoV, dropping my FPS as low as 12 (especially in Nerva or Sharkhead, or whilst looking at particle dense effects such as smoking chimneys). This only happens in exterior zones and I never get lag in actual missions (unless, of course, it's server-side). Does anyone have any similar issues?
[/ QUOTE ]
Somewhat. I'm running XP on a 1.8Ghz Athlon 64, gig of RAM, X1950 Pro, conservative graphics settings (particularly, particle physics off, 100 max particles). I noticed before I'd sometimes get FPS spikes - before the "suppress FX when close" option was added, backing my Invul tanker into a corner caused a massive FPS drop.
I've just come back to the game and looked at it in more detail. It only seems to happen when teaming - I think just because of the number of entities in view - and so far I have only observed it when teaming against Clockwork. I've run a scrapper up to 21st, done Synapse (very poor performance) and Positron (poor performance against Clocks, fine against CoT and Vahz).
This leads me to suspect there is some _specific_ effect which is to blame.
I had a problem where herostats was causing servere graphics lag, I updated to the latest version and it went away, my system was similar to your, do you run herostats?
I'd second that, if the version of herostats you run is out of sync with the current live version of CoX it can cause huge performance issues. The titan tracker used to do it, but iirc they correct a couple of issues.
What have you got set for your depth of field and bloom effects?
Obviously both I and the original poster could answer this question. Here's my answers:
[ QUOTE ]
I'd second that, if the version of herostats you run is out of sync with the current live version of CoX it can cause huge performance issues.
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't as a rule - only on buffers. I've not used it at all since coming back to the game this month. Also, Clockwork-specific?
[ QUOTE ]
What have you got set for your depth of field and bloom effects?
[/ QUOTE ]
Both at minimum settings (off, where that's a possibility).
I tried using TweakCoH to reduce max particle fill, which is a setting which exists but is not available in the in-game GUI (naughty Cryptic!) I can't induce any FPS issues by aggroing the maximum number of Clocks in a single-player mission, and I'm going to try a Clocks mission with multiple players as soon as I can. I'll report back on the results.
It's _sound_.
Sound off, FPS fine. Not great in really big fights, but the sort of "oh, there are lots of guys around, I'm getting 15fps" way you expect in 3D games.
Sound on, either Performance or Compatibility, runs like a drain when things get busy. Still varies by enemy group, but of course sounds vary by enemy group.
Checking m/b drivers and what the performance is like using the USB headset instead of the soundcard.
Confirmed this. Today, I fitted a CMI 8768+ based soundcard (Terratec Aureon 7.1), which is pretty cheap, but a big step up from the AC97 on the motherboard. When I was testing this before, I recorded a demo on a 6-man mission in Faultline to play back with different graphics and audio settings (so as to be viewing exactly the same piece of gameplay each time). Sound off, it's fine; sound on on the AC97, performance very poor; sound on on the new card, performance fine.
I dunno if we have a sticky, but I think it's well worth recommending that people with framerate problems in large teams try playing sound-off before they splash cash on posh graphics cards. A cheap soundcard upgrade may be all that's needed.
[ QUOTE ]
Confirmed this. Today, I fitted a CMI 8768+ based soundcard (Terratec Aureon 7.1), which is pretty cheap, but a big step up from the AC97 on the motherboard. When I was testing this before, I recorded a demo on a 6-man mission in Faultline to play back with different graphics and audio settings (so as to be viewing exactly the same piece of gameplay each time). Sound off, it's fine; sound on on the AC97, performance very poor; sound on on the new card, performance fine.
I dunno if we have a sticky, but I think it's well worth recommending that people with framerate problems in large teams try playing sound-off before they splash cash on posh graphics cards. A cheap soundcard upgrade may be all that's needed.
[/ QUOTE ]
Quick question, because AC97 is very commonly used and we're not seeing any wide spread reports (my own machine uses AC97 and I've not seen this problem):
Did you search for newer AC97 drivers and install them if found?
[ QUOTE ]
Quick question, because AC97 is very commonly used and we're not seeing any wide spread reports (my own machine uses AC97 and I've not seen this problem):
Did you search for newer AC97 drivers and install them if found?
[/ QUOTE ]
Absolutely, yes, as soon as I formed a suspicion about sound.
I know this may become a bit tinfoil-hatted, but I suspect some people are affected but simply don't ever think that soundcards could be the issue. Some US boards threads (alas, their aggressive archiving doesn't help) mention the perils of unaccelerated sound, for example:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....rt=all&vc=1
[not a good example, because all the good ones have been archived.]
The symptom I experience, more specifically, is that CoX runs fine until you're in the thick of things in a big fight, and there is a sharp dropoff in framerate, not at all like the gradual degradation one expects for graphics performance problems, but as if a threshold has been crossed.
Now-archived US threads suggest this is because CoX has no limit on simultaneous sounds being played. I would be very interested to know if this is the case and, if so, if we can submit an RFE to have a limit and to have that limit be configurable.
I observe in passing that CoX could use a "effects test" facility that lets you simulate sitting in a room with 20 sets of Invulnerability or whatever to see exactly what effects choke your computer. Obviously this is a more radical proposal.
[ QUOTE ]
Confirmed this. Today, I fitted a CMI 8768+ based soundcard (Terratec Aureon 7.1), which is pretty cheap, but a big step up from the AC97 on the motherboard. When I was testing this before, I recorded a demo on a 6-man mission in Faultline to play back with different graphics and audio settings (so as to be viewing exactly the same piece of gameplay each time). Sound off, it's fine; sound on on the AC97, performance very poor; sound on on the new card, performance fine.
[/ QUOTE ]
I spoke too soon (and was confused by the pagefile issue below, and perhaps was engaging in a bit of new-hardware optimism); performance improved, but later in the demo it's still very bad, and on 8-man teams it's still rotten.
I'm keen to get to the bottom of this, especially since I was not expecting you to pop up and say "Oh, I use an AC97 and it's fine". What's really weird is that when I started playing City of X, although the graphics performance was much worse, this "choking sound" problem didn't manifest.
This demo (names of teamies have been changed; you may need to rightclick and Save As) is a good example of the problems I am having (as well as the transparent wall problem in Faultline).
There is a brief fight outside (30fps) and then we go through the door into the building. The framerate stays at 30-40 fps as I taunt a group down and we fight them. The framerates quoted here are from atitray's FRAPS-like facility, not guesses on my part.
As Samurai Costume and I are fighting at the base of the ramp, the Storm defender comes forward and drops an effect behind me - this is the first time you see her after going inside the building. As she does that, the framerate drops radically, to perhaps 5fps for a second or so.
Shortly afterwards I run up the ramp and attack a Force Field Generator. As I am doing so, a grenade is lobbed at me. _If and only if_ I have the pagefile enabled, the framerate then drops equally dramatically as it hits and I spin round and head back down the ramp.
Shortly after that Samurai Costume comes up to help me with the Generator. Regardless of the state of the pagefile, the framerate drops very badly as he makes his initial attacks on it.
If the sound volume is set to 0%, I get a steady 30-40fps throughout these sequences. Setting the sound to any other sub-100% value has no beneficial effect.
I use TweakCoH to ensure CoH and EUCOH registry settings match up - since demo playback seems to use the CoH settings.
I include as much information as possible in the hope some difference between my system and yours will become apparent.
All remotely pertinent registry settings:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cryptic\EUCOH]
"Installer Language Temp"="1033"
"Installation Directory"="I:\\games\\CoX"
"CurrentVersion"="17.20080821.9T4"
"Installer Language"="1033"
"DbServer"=""
"TransferRate"="108510"
"gamma"="0.740000"
"fxSoundVolume"="1.000000"
"musicSoundVolume"="0.490000"
"dontSaveName"="0"
"screenX"="1024"
"screenY"="768"
"refreshRate"="75"
"screenX_pos"="0"
"screenY_pos"="0"
"maximized"="0"
"fullScreen"="1"
"mipLevel"="0"
"characterMipLevel"="1"
"texLodBias"="2"
"texAniso"="8"
"worldDetailLevel"="1.000000"
"entityDetailLevel"="1.000000"
"shadowsOn"="0"
"ageiaOn"="0"
"physicsQuality"="1"
"showAdvanced"="1"
"graphicsQuality"="0.600000"
"maxParticles"="2889"
I have in the past run with this at 100. There is no appreciable difference.
"maxParticleFill"="1.000000"
"suppressFx"="0"
"suppressCloseFx"="1"
"suppressCloseFxDist"="3.000000"
"forceSoftwareAudio"="0"
"enableVBOs"="1"
"enable3DSound"="0"
"renderScaleX"="1.000000"
"renderScaleY"="1.000000"
"useRenderScale"="0"
"shaderDetail"="0"
"useWater"="0"
"useBloom"="0"
"useDesaturate"="1"
"bloomMagnitude"="1.000000"
"useDOF"="0"
"dofMagnitude"="1.000000"
"antiAliasing"="1"
"useShadowmaps"="0"
"useLightmaps"="0"
"useVSync"="1"
"fancyMouseCursor"="1"
---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.1.1.3---
DxDiag gathered at November 19, 2008 16:29 (+00:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 1 (2600.xpsp1.020828-1920)
System Manufacturer: NVIDIA
System Model: AWRDACPI
BIOS: )Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+, ~1.8GHz
Memory: 3072MB
.Net Memory Report: 2572MB out of 3071MB available
Page File: 2572MB (343MB currently in use)
I am very suspicious about this. I have no pagefile, currently; and the figure of 2572 MB appears twice.
C Drive: (QUANTUM FIREBALLP AS20.5) 6888MB out of 6993MB (98%) free
D Drive: () 4912MB out of 13935MB (35%) free
E Drive: () 1437MB out of 8706MB (16%) free
F Drive: () 8056MB out of 17014MB (47%) free
G Drive: (QUANTUM FIREBALLP AS20.5) 3778MB out of 5918MB (63%) free
H Drive: (QUANTUM FIREBALLP AS20.5) 1952MB out of 6675MB (29%) free
I Drive: () 3549MB out of 17491MB (20%) free
K Drive: () 3386MB out of 17466MB (19%) free
Windows directory location: H:\WINDOWS
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DirectX Diag version: 5.03.0001.0904 (32-bit version)
Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.
Monitor: Iiyama A201HT VisionMaster Pro 510
Monitor's Max Resolution: 2048,1536
Video Device Name: Radeon X1950 Pro
Manufacturer / Chip: ATI Technologies Inc. / ATI Radeon Graphics Processor AGP (0x7280)
Video Memory: 512.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6844
Driver Date: 08/01/2008 04:32:35
Driver Language: English
Sound Device Description: Aureon 7.1 PCI
Driver File: cmuda3.sys
Driver Version: 5.12.0001.0047
Driver Date: 01/01/0001 00:00:00
Sound Device Description: Realtek AC97 Audio
Driver File: ALCXWDM.SYS
Driver Version: 5.10.0000.6300
Driver Date: 01/01/0001 00:00:00
WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer:
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: nForce
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS Name: )Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: Nvidia - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20060607******.******+***
Hi! I've been playing the game for around 20 months now and I've been meaning to ask about the strange FPS issues for a very long while.
My system is as follows:
Nvidia 9800GTX OCX
Intel Q6600 Quad Core
4gig 800MHZ RAM
X-FI Xtreme Audio Sound Card
Vista Home 64-Bit
24 MBpS Sky Broadband
Whilst this system works very well with everything it tackles (achieving a fairly steady 15-30FPS on Crysis Very High, 25-60FPS on Age of Conan etc) I get huge client-side lag spikes on CoV, dropping my FPS as low as 12 (especially in Nerva or Sharkhead, or whilst looking at particle dense effects such as smoking chimneys). This only happens in exterior zones and I never get lag in actual missions (unless, of course, it's server-side). Does anyone have any similar issues?
Thanks!