Graphics Cards...a question

Septimus · 01-08-2009 05:31 PM

Hello all - looking for a little bit of advice regarding graphics cards.

I've given up trying to get COH to run with my two SLI'd 8800s and I've decided to upgrade in order that I can play COH again without crashing out within 30 seconds or so. This begs two questions:

1. If I buy Nvidia again - am I likely to suffer from the same problems?

2 What's a decent card at a decent price that's better than the two 8800s I've already got.

I thought this looked alright...

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1368...html?srcid=867

but given my present setup, my judgement is obviously suspect. I've also given up on SLI altogether and am thinking that one card could do the job better anyway.

Any input would be greatly appreciated and, technically, this is about COH and it is a technical issue...

FloatingFatMan · 01-08-2009 05:36 PM

Are you running on Vista? If so, have you tried the hotfix from Microsoft listed in the following thread?

http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/showfl...e=0#Post1298903

You'll still have to disable the SLi mode, but it should resolve the driver crashes.

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Gangrel_EU · 01-08-2009 06:21 PM

TBH, i runt he game fine on a 7900GS 256MB version, so 2 x 8800 in SLI would be a bit of overkill IMHO.

But yeah, the Nvidia 260 is a good card, although then again so is the ATI 4870 (that is a VERY nice card i reckon)...

I am thinking of upgrading my card as some point in the near future so i am thinking of what to get (hey its my birthday soon so i am allowed to dream )

Septimus · 01-08-2009 06:47 PM

Yes, it's more than enough to run COH but I play a lot of other things too. I was looking at the 4870 too. It has the advantage of not being an Nvidia build...

Cheers for the suggestion FFM - no joy I'm afraid: same Nvidia graphics crash gubbins!

Megaforce · 01-08-2009 09:28 PM

2 x 8800's in SLI mode here running on vista and its fine - and i dont disable the SLI mode either.

LunaWisp · 01-08-2009 09:41 PM

CoX runs perfectly well on my 7800 SLI cards so it's probably not an NVidia thing as such. Having SLI on or off actually makes no perceptible (to me) difference to this game though so it's not really needed.

Septimus · 01-09-2009 05:22 PM

I'm running on 64-bit Vista - it seems to be a, relatively, common problem with "older" games. I've tried (almost) everything and nothing seems to work. That's why I've decided the easier route would be to upgrade.

_Ydyp_ · 01-11-2009 12:12 AM

I crash sometimes with the message openGL had to close the game. That started when I updated my drivers to the latest of nVidia. Also on Vista64, I wouldn't however advice a 17x.x driver. Those made it fully impossible for me to play, started with crahsing out every 30 seconds from I12 onwards. And even up to the state I couldn't get past the loading screen. Then downgraded back to 16x.x and it worked, but crashed everytime I left a SG base, that is why I'm trying the newest drivers. Oh and before I forget I run 2x 8800GT 512MB, but not in SLI.

Gangrel_EU · 01-11-2009 05:02 AM

If you are in XP/Vista and want to use SLI, i *dont* know if this has been reported, as i just picked it up in the driver notes for the most recent NVidia Driver release (181.20)

SLI mode does not appear capable of being enabled with City of Villains.
This issue occurs because City of Heroes and City of Villains share the same executable
name.
You can work around this issue by either
modifying the City of Heroes application profile (this will create a second City of Heroes
profile) to enable SLI AFR mode, or
set AFR as the rendering mode in Global Profile.
For more information on customizing SLI profiles, visit www.slizone.com and navigate to Learn More -> How-to Guides.

OV_ohms · 01-11-2009 09:39 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I crash sometimes with the message openGL had to close the game. That started when I updated my drivers to the latest of nVidia. Also on Vista64, I wouldn't however advice a 17x.x driver. Those made it fully impossible for me to play, started with crahsing out every 30 seconds from I12 onwards. And even up to the state I couldn't get past the loading screen. Then downgraded back to 16x.x and it worked, but crashed everytime I left a SG base, that is why I'm trying the newest drivers. Oh and before I forget I run 2x 8800GT 512MB, but not in SLI.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tried the hotfix linked in this thread?

Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2

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Septimus · 01-11-2009 07:15 PM

Thanks - yes. It's the one FFM posted at the start. I've tried the hotfixes and I've tried disabling SLi mode - nothing really works. Weirdly, the game ran for around ten minutes last night before crashing - around ten time longer than usual- and I hadn't changed anything! Still crashed out though. I'm reluctant to try much older drivers as they may affect other games I play a lot. The new drivers, unfortunately, made no difference. So - I still think I should treat myself to a new graphics card.

It was all much easier with DOS 5.1, it really was.

mereman · 01-11-2009 08:05 PM

I can't quite go back to DOS 5.1 but DOS 6.22 was fine once you had freed up enough memory

Happy to be on Defiant.
Global name @mereman
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Archie Gremlin · 01-12-2009 09:07 AM

I wonder if this is a power supply problem. Firing up two 8800s puts a big strain on the system. Have you tried physically removing one of the cards?

[ QUOTE ]
I've also given up on SLI altogether and am thinking that one card could do the job better anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

I reckon that SLI isn't worth the hassle. It's always cheaper, quieter and easier to stick to a single card.

FWIW I'm running two CoX systems with new ATI cards at the moment. One's a 4850 on Vista 64 and the other is a 4650 series on XP. They're both more than fast enough but they do tend to crash about once every couple of hours.

Getting CoX to run on ATI cards is a bit of a pain. Basically, you need to disable FSAA etc in the game and use the driver settings instead.

Septimus · 01-12-2009 08:14 PM

I don't think power's a problem - I've got a 600w Enermax and, as I said, all other games are fine. What I can tell from the above comments is: don't get an ATI one as they seem more trouble than they're worth and don't get another Nvidia one because they seem to suffer from the same problem, albeit to a very much lesser extent.

Boh.

Septimus · 01-17-2009 04:36 PM

Having some time today gave me an opporutnity to cut this Gordian knot and it looks like FFM was right: I removed one of the 8800s and, now that it's not an SLi machine, it works darn fine. Rather worringly, there has been no perceptible drop in the graphics quality or performance of any other games I've run.

FloatingFatMan · 01-17-2009 05:14 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Having some time today gave me an opporutnity to cut this Gordian knot and it looks like FFM was right: I removed one of the 8800s and, now that it's not an SLi machine, it works darn fine. Rather worringly, there has been no perceptible drop in the graphics quality or performance of any other games I've run.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh dear... There goes my swelled head again...

I've always maintained that SLi is nothing but a confidence trick, designed to rip off people who (no offence) aren't aware that the performance increase is either minimal, or non-existant.

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Cass_ · 01-17-2009 05:23 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Having some time today gave me an opporutnity to cut this Gordian knot and it looks like FFM was right: I removed one of the 8800s and, now that it's not an SLi machine, it works darn fine. Rather worringly, there has been no perceptible drop in the graphics quality or performance of any other games I've run.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh dear... There goes my swelled head again...

I've always maintained that SLi is nothing but a confidence trick, designed to rip off people who (no offence) aren't aware that the performance increase is either minimal, or non-existant.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's unfair, in software that does actually support it is makes a big difference. but that's the problem. you have to actually find something that does support it.

Most things don't bother as they don't need it.

FloatingFatMan · 01-17-2009 05:28 PM

Even Crysis doesn't need it!

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Septimus · 01-17-2009 06:33 PM

It seems, however, that both our confidences are ill-placed. It's still crashing out - it just takes longer. Here's me thinking I'd solved the problem. Looks like a new graphics card for me then! Which one though? Hmmm.

FloatingFatMan · 01-17-2009 07:55 PM

Did you apply that hotfix?

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Septimus · 01-17-2009 09:37 PM

Yes. I tried that before opening up my machine and taking a card out. :-) Still no joy though. As I said, I can play for ten minutes now instead of 30 seconds but the same crash occurs. Guess I'm just unlucky with my setup.

FloatingFatMan · 01-18-2009 06:31 AM

Hmm... Replacing the card is an expensive solution; there really should be a way of resolving this without that need...

What driver version are you running with? Could you try the latest beta's, 181.22; making sure you clean out all previous versions first. I recommend Driver Cleaner for that. The latest version is pay, but version 1.5 is still available for free and works well. Make sure you reboot after cleaning the drivers.

After updating the video drivers, reapply the hotfix. Probably not necessary, but it can't hurt, right?

Some links for you:

Vista
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvist...1.22_beta.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvist...1.22_beta.html

XP
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_181.22_beta.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_181.22_beta.html

Driver Cleaner 1.5
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

NOTE: With driver cleaner, I always do a normal uninstall from the control panel first, reboot, then run driver cleaner to tidy up, followed by another reboot.

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Archie Gremlin · 01-18-2009 08:50 AM

It's possible that some or all of the crashes are down to another part of your system. The sound card and mother board are the most likely culprits. You might want to rule these out before buying a new card.

Make sure that all your drivers are up to date, not just the graphics drivers.

Try playing with sound disabled for a while. If the crashes go away or become less frequent then you know that the sound card or driver is causing problems.

Can you run with a completely different graphics card? An old card will do. If it still keeps crashing then this suggests that buying a new graphics card won't help you.

FloatingFatMan · 01-18-2009 09:28 AM

Indeed. Another likely cause for this kind of thing is the motherboard drivers. Well worth updating those.

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Septimus · 01-18-2009 03:05 PM

Thanks for the input - I'll give Driver Cleaner a go. I've not considered any other part of my system because the error message specifically relates to the graphics card and it also seems to be a, relatively, common problem: there are lots of threads kicking around about it.

I fear that it is not a problem which is able to be solved from my end only. All my other games and programs work fine. I did have some "older" titles but they appear to work well with the latest drivers. Is it possible that COH needs some patching?