unable to create a demon summoner

i have made several attempts to create a demon summoner but every time i do the game crashes. i can make any other toon, just when it comes to demon summon i get to the character id screen put in the name and hit enter rogue isles. it then ask if i want kalinda or burke. once i choose one of those the game crashes. help plz

still not able to make one. help plz

I have just successfully created a DS choosing Kalinda as starting contact.

Have you tried different servers, or/and have you tried different costumes?
It might be that a server or a particular costume item is bugged.

Hmmm...
Does it give out any information why it crashes, like an error code?

Its a known bug, can you tell me do you also crash with existing charecters if you try using the tailor? Also when you make a demon summoner does it crash on the name entry screen?

So far every person Ive heard of with this bug has also crashed there too, apparently its something to do with costume showing up on display, some people even crash talking to contacts because of it, others are just lagging talking to contacts and then get a weird distorted image on contact picture.

Arbiter Kim told me its being looked at by engineers right now and they think they know whats causing it.

Which means give it a couple of days and it should work

EDIT: Missed the part about clicking starting contact, you managed to get further than most of us lol.

yea i hope they fix this soon. meh wantz mah demonz lol

Can you give us some information that might help when trying to troubleshoot the problem?

What OS are you using, including Service Packs if any and whether it is 32-bit or 64-bit?

What video card/onboard graphics solution are you using?

What version of the video drivers are you using?

How much memory does your computer have?

Is this a desktop or laptop? Is it a brand name computer or no-name build? If it is a brand name computer, what brand and model?

I'll be glad when Zloth finishes the new UM capable version of CoH Helper so that I can point people to it and get the information needed from that program.

Hopefully, it will be finished today.

Okay, Netbooks aren't designed for gaming. I've not seen anything using an Atom processor aside from Netbooks although I'm sure there may be a few.

There are known problems with the Intel graphics chipsets, especially the integrated chipsets like you have here. The 945 is an older model chipset at that.

Zloth has luckily updated his CoH Helper program to be I17 compliant. You can download it from here, run it, then paste the results into a reply. I'm not sure if it will give any more information but it will let us see some of the game settings as well. It will also show the driver date and version of your graphics chipset driver.

As a side note, a lot of people are reporting problems with I17 that may be related to wireless connections. Try disabling the wireless connection and connecting the "computer" using an ethernet cable and see if that helps any.

Well, leave it to eMachine to do something like putting an Atom processor in a desktop computer. Netbook or Desktop, it isn't a processor built for gaming just as that graphics chipset isn't a chipset built for gaming. 1GB of memory also isn't going to help for gaming.

As for the wireless, I'm going by reports from other players of problems and they make perfect sense to me. Even with my wired connection I'm seeing a lot more network traffic but it's a stable connection and is handling it okay. Wireless is generally running on a narrower bandwidth and the extra network traffic may be overloading the buffers in the router or just be more than the wireless adapters can handle.

Oh come on... no offence intended here but you seriously cant be trying to say that an optional update that lets you keep your settings the same, is stopping people playing simply because they have netbooks and laptops that dont cost loads?

An optional addon should be just that, the client crash is an issue with the files, nothing more nothing less. I myself could run CoH fine on test server, yet now everytime I do anything involving changing costume, editing costume, creating new charecters and talking to contacts I get a client crash.

The issue is we had a worse than beta version of i17 rushed out to clash with the 6th anniversary thats all. Ive completely deleted and reinstalled the game from scratch now and still get the same issues and my drivers are fine before you suggest that. As for wireless, yes I do use that but I also used a cabled connection too which is no better.

Happy 6th Anniversary! Enjoy your crash reports!

No, I'm saying that the graphical updates and the data being sent are apparently sending more network traffic than previously were being sent. I'm seeing it on a wired Gigabit connection, and seeing spikes in the netgraph that correspond with some really high ping times. And all I said about the netbooks, the Atom processor and the Intel graphics chips is true, they aren't designed to run games. I never said anything derogatyory about computers that "don't cost loads". You can spend 2500 on a computer and if the components in it aren't designed to support gaming, it's gonna run like garbage. Cost isn't the factor here, the components are.

Wireless networks are subject to a lot more interference sources than a wired connection. They also have a smaller pipeline to pump that data through and the buffers used in the router for wireless connections may be overflowing that buffer causing some of the problems people using wireless are reporting. Having worked for a wireless router manufacturer in a technical position I have a bit of an understanding of how they work internally. I did quite a bit of product and throughput testing using both wired connections and wireless connections so I'm used to seeing what those differences are as well.

As far as an optional update, no, Issue 17 isn't optional. The use of the new Ultra Mode settings is optional, but any time you make a change to one of the sub-systems of the game, in this case the graphical sub-system, you have a chance of unintended results on hardware and drivers that simply cannot handle the new instructions correctly. Even if you have disabled those settings, it's quite possible that the servers are sending the data to you anyway and your client settings are determining what of those instructions is used. That could account for the increased bandwidth usage, and possibly even the higher CPU usage some report since it's having to decipher the incoming data and process it against the settings for the game to decide what to send to the GPU to render. Without putting a sniffer on it I can't tell exactly what's in those packets so can't say for certain.

All of the graphics card manufacturer's have a history of problems with the OpenGL support in their drivers mostly because most games use DirectX instead and there are fewer and fewer people that understand OpenGL enough to write the drivers correctly (and part of that may be due to the wages being paid to the people writing the drivers being a bit low). Intel specifically has some really poor OpenGL support in their drivers and that could be causing some of the problems that weren't expected. They've told us that they are working on solutions, and I'm sure they are. It may not be an easy fix however.

We've seen several instances in the past of things that didn't show up the same on the Test server as they do on the Live servers. Some of it is due to server load but there are other factors that can come into it as well.

Having a background and degree in programming also helps me understand some of the problems and how something that "shouldn't" have an effect on something will cause strange occurences in places it doesn't even seem related to or strange occurences due to it's interaction with other software such as drivers. Combining that with my hardware knowledge and experience along with my networking knowledge and experience gives me a bit of insight into how things interact that most people can only try to imagine partially if at all.

I'm one of the lucky ones I guess. Even though I've got an unreliable ISP connection I'm having little to no problems with the game since release. Then again, I replaced my computer last year, added a new hard drive to be able to swap OS's easily when Windows 7 was released, and know how to keep my computer tuned and in good running form.

I wouldn't say an 1.6MHz Atom is below minimum specs, since that is an 800MHz PIII. Not great but still possible. The major problem of course is the GMA 950 integrated graphics in the 945 chipset. Horrible, horrible graphics solution.

As for Nettops, as they are called Texas Justice, there are quite a few of them on the market including DIY ones using either Intel's or nVidia's integrated graphics (ION). Yes they're meant to be more of a browser/light office platform than a gaming platform but they do exist. I think Asus is coming out with one shortly in the form factor of a keyboard.

Wonderful, so we'll be getting a lot more of the "but I just bought this" posts?

/e headdesk

GMA 950 is officially not supported I believe, at least in the case of macbooks.

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---

DxDiag gathered at May 2, 2010 08:03 (-07:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.100216-1514)
System Manufacturer: eMachines
System Model: EL1600
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Central Processor: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 230 @ 1.60GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 1016MB
.Net Memory Report: 445MB out of 1015MB available
Page File: 1901MB (540MB currently in use)
C Drive: (Hitachi HDT721016SLA380) 113291MB out of 142376MB (79%) free
D Drive: (HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH40F) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DirectX Diag version: 5.03.2600.5512 (32-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family
Manufacturer / Chip: Intel Corporation / Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family
Video Memory: 224.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.4926
Driver Date: 1/12/2009 2:23:37 AM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Realtek HD Audio output
Driver File: RtkHDAud.sys
Driver Version: 5.10.0000.5783
Driver Date: 2/20/2009 12:42:26 AM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: eMachines
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: E945GCU
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: AMI
BIOS Name: Default System BIOS
BIOS Version: ACRSYS - 20090317
BIOS Release: 20090317000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1280x1024
3D Resolution: 1280x1024 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 75Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: No


Physics Quality: None
Maximum Particles: 100
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No


Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: None
Texture LOD Bias: Crisp
Water Effects: None
Bloom: 1.000 (turned off)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: No
Shader Detail: Unknown (4)


World Texture Level: Low
Character Texture Level: Medium
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 0.500
Entity Detail Level: 0.300
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Disabled
Shadow Map Shader: Unknown (0)
Environmental Reflections: Disabled
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: Off
Occlusion Strength: Off
Blur: Bilateral
Ambient Resolution: Performance


Gamma Correction: 0.697
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: Yes
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.600

Show Advanced Graphics Options: No
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.000
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 336844 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1800.201003300904.10T4r
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
.\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Midnight_Squad has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\static has 32 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 16 files

Ok. Your video drivers are over a year old so those need to be updated. I'm not certain that this link will work to get the drivers, but you can try it. Save it to the desktop and skip the next paragraph, then follow the instructions in the following paragraphs.

If it doesn't link straight to the download, go to this page and click on Desktop in the box, click on EL Series in the box, click on EL 1600 in the box. When the listing appears, right under the boxes click the down arrow next to Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic x32 and select Microsoft Windows XP Home x32. Click the green circle/down arrow next to VGA to start the download. Save the file to your desktop so you can find it easily. Unzip the file to a folder on your desktop.

Go to Add/Remove programs and remove any listings for Intel Graphics or Display that you find. DON'T remove any other Intel listings unless you know for certain that they are for the graphics chipset only. Reboot the computer once it's finished. When Windows starts loading again, cancel any Found New Hardware wizards. Once everything is fully loaded and no more Hardware wizards are coming up (your graphics may look pretty bad at this point, don't worry, they'll look better soon) open the folder where you unzipped the driver file to earlier and run the Setup program. Let it install the drivers and software and reboot when prompted.

Rerun the CoH Helper and post the results here.

The newest drivers avaiable from eMachine are from 9/2009, but they are newer than the ones you have currently.

Unfortunately, when I try the Intel site it doesn't even list drivers that new for that chipset. Not sure what's going on there but you can try using the Intel Driver Update Utility to see if it has a newer driver to offer. If it does, download it and follow the same instructions listed above.

You are still going to be limited by 3 factors. The current problems they are having with Intel chipsets, especially older chipsets like the 945G. The Atom processor. Only having 1 Gb of memory.

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---

DxDiag gathered at May 2, 2010 08:56 (-07:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.100216-1514)
System Manufacturer: eMachines
System Model: EL1600
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Central Processor: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 230 @ 1.60GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 1016MB
.Net Memory Report: 503MB out of 1015MB available
Page File: 2009MB (432MB currently in use)
C Drive: (Hitachi HDT721016SLA380) 113204MB out of 142376MB (79%) free
D Drive: (HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH40F) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DirectX Diag version: 5.03.2600.5512 (32-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family
Manufacturer / Chip: Intel Corporation / Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family
Video Memory: 224.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.4926
Driver Date: 1/12/2009 5:23:36 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Realtek HD Audio output
Driver File: RtkHDAud.sys
Driver Version: 5.10.0000.5783
Driver Date: 2/20/2009 12:42:26 AM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: eMachines
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: E945GCU
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: AMI
BIOS Name: Default System BIOS
BIOS Version: ACRSYS - 20090317
BIOS Release: 20090317000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1280x1024
3D Resolution: 1280x1024 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 75Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: No


Physics Quality: None
Maximum Particles: 100
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No


Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: None
Texture LOD Bias: Crisp
Water Effects: None
Bloom: 1.000 (turned off)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: No
Shader Detail: Unknown (4)


World Texture Level: Low
Character Texture Level: Medium
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 0.500
Entity Detail Level: 0.300
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Disabled
Shadow Map Shader: Unknown (0)
Environmental Reflections: Disabled
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: Off
Occlusion Strength: Off
Blur: Bilateral
Ambient Resolution: Performance


Gamma Correction: 0.697
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: Yes
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.600

Show Advanced Graphics Options: No
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.000
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 336844 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1800.201003300904.10T4r
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
.\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Midnight_Squad has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\static has 32 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 16 files

i did what you said.. but i think i did it wrong.. lol.. they look the same

Bah. I hate when OEM's do things like this. I just looked at the files in that driver package. Even though eMachine lists the driver date as 9/2009, the files themselves are dated 1/2009 so it's the same drivers as what you already had.

That's one of the reasons I asked you to post the fresh CoH Helper, to point out problems like this. In this case, it made me download and unzip the files then start looking at dates on the files.

OK. That was a bust then.

Did you try running the Intel Driver Update Utility that I linked in the earlier post? I don't know if it will do any good, but it never hurts to try.