City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Strange windowed mode Graphics issue. Watching Hulu

Pelonius_Zhintel

By Pelonius_Zhintel,
Posted on: 2010-05-10 01:16 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs

 

Posted

I sometimes play City of Heroes while watching various videos on hulu or doing lots of other things. I've never had a problem with it on various graphics settings. Since Issue 17 I experience issues with Hulu's video becoming choppy when CoH window is in focus. However, if I bring up the Options window in CoH everything works out. So... if I play with the options menu up, the game works how I want it to. I don't want to play with the options menu up all the time. My issue did not exist before Issue 17. What has changed and how can I change it back?

All CoH options to minimum/off except 3d resultion scaling which is max. CoH in windowed mode. Takes up half screen. Hulu on other half. I usually play with the graphics settings much higher. But even at the minimum these issues occur.

Options Menu off. CoH window in focus. Hulu is choppy in background.
Showfps = 77
Graphfps7 top = 10 - 17
middle = 8 - 16
top = 8 - 16

Options menu on. coH in focus. Hulu is clean.
Showfps = 48
Graphfps7 top = 18 - 24
middle = 14 - 19
top = 14 - 19

I can flick the options menu on and off and the Hulu video and CoH FPS will instantly change. The Hulu video plays perfectly while CoH is in focus.

 

Posted

This, I think, has pretty much been identified as one of the major issues with the Issue 17 release: when the CoH window is in focus, it switches to a higher priority (above normal, if I recall correctly), even if it doesn't actually need to. When it's out of focus, it goes to 'low'. This can probably be tied to your issues with Hulu, as well as problems with Ventrilo and Skype - and, for more than a few of us, crippling mapserver disconnections. I don't know the exact reasoning for the change, but it may be related to a need for a higher priority with Ultra Mode on.

To test whether this is, in fact, the issue, head to the Task Manager, and switch the priority of whatever browser you're using (Firefox, Opera, IE) to 'Above Normal', then see if the problem still occurs. Bear in mind that this will probably make everything else run a bit oddly, though.

From what I've heard, the DevTeam is aware of these issues, but remember that this is hearsay; I can't speak for them.

Also... how interesting that those changes occur with the options menu open.

Mea maxima culpa.
--
Pelonius Zhintel (Kin/Son Defender on Guardian), and countless others.
UI: CoHHelper can be found here, and HijackThis is found here. Great tools for troubleshooting.