Windows 7: so slow the game won't even start.

So, I already ask help on another topic, but thanks to Texas Justice, I now know that I should start a new post, so here I am.

Yesterday, I installed Windows 7 Pro (64-bits). Everything went perfectly fine, and everything's working as expected... except CoH. Let's start from the beginning:

Before that, I had Vista Home (32-bits). CoH was installed in a Data hard drive, everything was working fine. Since I wanted to install 7, I also decided to format this data hard drive. So I made a copy of my City of Heroes folder on my external hard drive. Then I formated c: then d: then installed 7 on c: and it was working.
I copied the City of Heroes folder from my external hard drive to the data hard drive, checking files... I launched it, since it was "newly" installed, I had the low resolution/graphics and sound set to maximum, default settings. I obviously decided to change all of it to more "custom" settings: 1680*1050, graphics at maximum, and sound at 5%. "You have to restart the game in order to...". By the way, it was kind of weird, by default the resolution is something around 640*480, and I have a widescreen, so it put to "black stripes" on the side of my screen. Pretty disturbing at first, but it's still better then any resize thing.
Ok, I restart the game.
Launch the updater... "I agree"... "Loading". And here comes the CoH loading screen. For at least 3 minutes, it was "Loading". Then login screen, no problem. Server selection, no problem. Character selection, little lag while loading it, but nothing worst than usual. "Enter Paragon City". At this point, I have the default loading screen, and after a few minutes (let's say 2), I come back to the login screen, without any message (nothing, just the login screen). If I log in, it says "This account is already connected"... So it means I was actually connected with something, even if it didn't load.

My graphics drivers are the last to date (from nVidia website, I re-installed an hour ago, and it's still the same). My internet connection is still the same as yesterday (when I was on Vista), and it's working as usual in any other thing than CoH. I tried launching CoH on "Compatibility mode" with Vista SP2, and Admin Mode. I also tried "Safemode" in CoH, but nothing.

I launched CoH Helper to gather some informations, but it didn't manage to find the game. Hijackthis isn't that good either with 7 ("Platform: Unknown Windows (WinNT 6.01.3504)"), so here are my list of running processes (I tried launching the game without most of them, but we never know...)

Running processes:
D:\Programmes\LeechGet 2009\LeechGet.exe
D:\Programmes\Avast\ashDisp.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\jusched.exe
D:\Programmes\G15_TeamSpeak\G15_TeamSpeak.exe
D:\Programmes\Logitech\SetPoint\x86\SetPoint32.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe
D:\Programmes\Teamspeak2_RC2\TeamSpeak.exe
D:\Jeux\City of Heroes\CityOfHeroes.exe
D:\Programmes\Maxthon\Maxthon.exe
F:\Temp\HijackThis.exe

And here is everything CoH helper managed to find:

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.1.1.8---
DxDiag gathered at septembre 30, 2009 20:30 (+02:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Professionnel 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_rtm.090713-1255)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 2048MB
.Net Memory Report: 844MB out of 2046MB available
Page File: 911MB (3181MB currently in use)
C Drive: (SAMSUNG HD321KJ SCSI Disk Device) 26285MB out of 39999MB (65%) free
D Drive: (SAMSUNG HD321KJ SCSI Disk Device) 235263MB out of 245242MB (95%) free
F Drive: (WD 10EACS External USB Device) 672879MB out of 953867MB (70%) free
E Drive: (ASUS DRW-1814BLT SCSI CdRom Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7600.16385 (64-bit version)
Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.
Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 8800 GTX
Video Memory: 1510 MB
Driver Version: 8.16.11.9062
Driver Date: 01/01/0001 00:00:00
Driver Language: English
Sound Device Description: Haut-parleurs (Périphérique High Definition Audio)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7600.16385
Driver Date: 01/01/0001 00:00:00
Sound Device Description: Audio numérique (SPDIF) (Périphérique High Definition Audio)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7600.16385
Driver Date: 01/01/0001 00:00:00

WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: P5N32-E SLI
Motherboard Version: 1.XX
BIOS Manufacturer: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
BIOS Name: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: Nvidia - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20070328000000.000000+000


PS: I don't know what is wrong mith my "driver date", but as I said, I re-installed my graphic drivers an hour ago.

Ok, so I tried moving my CoH folder from the d: drive to the c: drive (system), and... it worked. It's very strange, since everything else that is installed on my d: drive is working fine. I don't have other game installed yet, but I'm downloading some on Steam at the moment.

So for me it's more a temporary solution than "the" solution, since the bug is still here. Has anyone with Win7 been able to play CoH installed on a different drive than system? I'm still looking to find how to make it run on d: but I'm running out of idea at the moment...

May be a formatting issue with the D drive. /shrug

I never install anything to C: personally unless the software itself forces it (And most times I refuse to install it if that's the case). I've never had this issue using a secondary drive for all my software/games. Whether it's a virtual drive or an actual drive. Sounds sketchy to me.

We'll see....

I think I did it that way (I'm pretty sure actually):

Reducing Data Drive size (using Vista's default tool), formatting it, installing Win 7 on C: (after formatting it) and then installing CoH on D:

So D: wasn't formated beetween Vista -> Win7, but it hadn't been used, and was empty the whole time.

when ive switched OS's ive copied the coh folder too, but before i copy it back over i run the updater to make the folder for me and certain files, then stop it from downloading and copy the coh folder over, its worked in the past just fine. but when i installed windows7 i just decided to download it from scratch. just cause. also make sure you stick it in the program files (x86) folder. hope this info helps, thanks -codoc

\Program Files (86)\ is the LAST place you should be installing CoH to. Win 7 sandboxes that folder tree so that any programs writing to it write to a virtual folder instead. This has a habit of screwing up programs that update themselves.

Exactly. Make a C:\Games folder, and stick Co* in that: C:\Games\City of Heroes.

Make sure the Games folder has no restrictions on writing or reading, and it should be good to go.

I installed my 7/Ubuntu dual boot on my other computer (same config as the first one).
The only difference beetween the two processes is that I formated D: after installing 7 on this computer. And CoH now runs perfectly while installed on D:

Thanks everyone for the help!

not sure if it has anything to do with windows 7, but it looks like your video and sound drivers have bad installs.

I'm running WIndows 7 final retail release, thanks to being at a college that's MS certified for teaching Info Tech.

Long story short, on my dual boot system, Windows 7 runs CoH ALMOST as well as XP Pro does. In fact thanks to using the "Rate Your Computer" benchmarking options, Windows 7 did a MUCH better job of helping CoX find optimum default settings.

MY only problem with Windows 7 vs XP Pro is that CoH doesn't seem to purge the game memory files or something (blind guess admittedly, I'm more of a hardware person than software). After anywhere form 2 to 4 hours the game wil crash from zoning and when I go to close it out with Task Manager, there's always an old screen screen/frame showing as CoX closes out. Ergo I'm assuming it's a memory clearing issue.

THAT is the ONLY problem I've had with ANY program on my system. Windows 7 actually does a much better job than XP at running that OTHER superhero game that's too much like WOW and seems to be all about ranged scrappers. Yeah I never made it past beta with CO, lol.

Anyway, if you haven't done so yet, try the "Rate Your Computer" option to benchmark your system. It'll help CoX find the dieal settings better, AND if you turn up a REALLY subpar rating on a piece of hardware, you can look at that as a potential poblem area.

There's also the option of trying to see if running CoX in Compatibility Mode will help. I haven't needed to use it for the game but it's an option



OH almost forgot since I'm sure somebody will ask... Windows 7 sort of pushes you to run the benchmarking at setup. If you already have and want to recheck things, go to Control Panel / System / Check the Windows Experience Index.

That will bring up your earlier test results, and at the bottom right of the window there's an option to re-run the test. The bottom of the window also has help links to tweak your PC's performance too. If you haven't run the benchmark yet, I'm assuming the option is going to be found in a similar spot. There's always Windows Search if you can't find it any other way