CoH Insists I get a New PC :D
By
Call Me Awesome,
Posted on: 2010-08-03 10:26 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
I7 processor is great but I personally would (and did) go with an AMD Phenom II.
The only place where the I7 scores better than the Phenom is if you are using an sli video setup (two video cards connected and running in parallel)
Heading off to work right now but I'll get back to this topic later.
Don't count your weasels before they pop dink!
I saw a couple with Phenom but I didn't know how it ranked against the Intel line. So the i7 is slower than Phenom II?
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That GT 320 is likely an onboard chip and not an actual graphics card. Also, it's in the low end of the 300 series and not designed for gaming. Something in the 200 or 400 series with a x60 or higher or an ATI 5770 or higher would be a better choice for gaming and being able to run the graphics pretty much maxxed out.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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Actually, they didn't say that.|
Originally Posted by Psychic Guardian
After i17 hit, even with ultra-mode turned off, I've been forced down from recommended to minimum graphics settings (yes the devs said nothing would change if you didn't want it to with ultra-mode. They lied apparently
 ). |
They said the minimum requirements might move up a bit, but they would try to enable the original minimum spec as much as possible.
Most of the problems players have had with the Ultra-Mode changes trace back to driver issues with either Nvidia or Intel. Intel in particular because you generally can't get an updated driver that makes calls to the OpenGL reference specification, rather than to proprietary extensions Intel hardware needs in order to perform even halfway decently:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...7&postcount=10
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219502
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...3&postcount=10
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...78&postcount=7
Why yes, this topic does come up semi-often.
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My laptop is 5 or so years old anyway, and it's screen died, so rather than upgrade it I figured I'd just get a new one finally. Since they are less expensive, and I don't really need a laptop I'm looking at desktops. I want to be able to pretty much max coh's graphics with the new computer, so first of all I was thinking i7 processor would be a good start? I am on windows XP and 4gb of ram now and i'm not really satisfied with it's power, and I know the OS wastes a ton of ram now so I was hoping for 8gb of RAM, maybe 6 I guess. |
Maxing CoH in Ultra Mode @ 1440*900 doesn't take much.
Minimum Graphics card on the ATi side: RadeonHD 4850 for everything at once
Minimum Graphics card on the Nvidia side: Geforce GTS 250
Minimum Processor AMD side: Socket AM2 2.2ghz or higher
Minimum Processor Intel side: Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz or higher, Pentium 4's need not apply.
Maxing CoH in Ultra Mode @ 1920*1200 takes a considerable amount more
Minimum Graphics card on the ATi side: RadeonHD 4870 / 5770
Minimum Graphics card on the Nvidia side: Geforce GTX
Processor: you really want something with more oomph, but even an old hamstrung Phenom 9600 with the TLB issue can drive 1920*1200 in it's TLB-off stability mode.
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| Videocards are where I really am clueless. The computer I found I am starting to think is the one to get has a Nvidia GeForce GT 320, it says it has 1gig of it's own memory, that sounds pretty good but again, I have no idea lol. |
You can get a handle on relative graphics cad performance here: http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88
Now, raw performance figures may, or may not, tell you the whole story on performance. Let's use the min cards RadeonHD 4850 and Geforce GTS 250.
RadeonHD 4850: 10,000 MegaPixels 25,000 Megatexels
Geforce GTS 250: 11,808 MegaPixels 47,232 Megatexels
On paper the Geforce GTS 250 is a lot more powerful.
In actual gameplay... well... things change. Since I've got both a Geforce GTS 250 and a RadeonHD 4850 on hand, I put them both through Unigine's Heaven 2.1 benchmark under DirectX mode with settings of 1440*900, 8x Anti-Aliasing, and 16x Anistropic filtering.
RadeonHD 4850: GPUZ Report :: Cpuz report :: Scores 563
Geforce GTS 250: GPUZ Report :: Cpuz report :: Scores 367
The Geforce GTS 250, despite being in Triple SLI mode with a much more powerful backing processor, got creamed when the filtering got turned up compared to a system that was only running a single gpu.
I also just ran the same test again, making sure both computers were in their multi-gpu modes, with the DX10 API specified, and only 8x anistropic:
Geforce GTS 250: score 1285
RadeonHD 4850: score 1686
The GT 320, on paper, only has 8,000 megapixels, and at best 28,000 megatexels.
That's not far off the theoretical performance of the RadeonHD 4850. However, as the GTS 250 demonstrates, that particular Nvidia architecture does not fair well at actually exposing that power.
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My pricerange I was going to give was $1,000-$1,300(max), but i'm pretty interested in this one i found now, for $999.99 it looks like a great deal, but I'll let you guys point out what's wrong with it . I also really wanted Windows7 Premium, but this one is Home, however it has an upgrade thing that can be purchased with it for like $89, is that a good deal, and does upgrading require a harddrive wipe?
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As far as upgrading: Microsoft still uses a central registry mechanic to house all of their operating system information. This central registry mechanic makes upgrades problamatic, and where as most modern Unix type systems, such as Linux or Darwin BSD (sold as Apple OSX) will change processors, hard-drives, graphics cards, and everything else without a second thought... you'll need to be familiar with tools like Driver Sweeper when changing many components under Microsoft Operating Systems... and yes... if you change major components like motherboards, be prepared to reinstall.
You should not, in most cases, have to actually wipe or format a pre-existing drive.
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The Lenovo - Ideacentre Desktop / Intel® Core™ i7 Processor / 8GB Memory / 1TB Hard Drive Edit: I have 2 accounts I -used- to play at once I would like to again, does this setup look like it could handle 2 accounts on performance/performace, if not UM/performance or better yet (and sounding impossible) UM/UM? |
A: Unigine just crashed on the RadeonHD system and I don't know why, I suspect it's because I had that system in hibernate and something went screwy on the Windows back end.
B: just to get this up while I look through what you actually want to spend and see if I can find something that will do Ultra-Mode without ripping you off.
It looks like you run your numbers by the superhigh resolutions. By personal preference I really don't go higher than 1280x800/1024, just because I don't like everything so fine on the 20" screen i'm on. Since you are aiming at 1440x990 does that mean it'd be substantially better on the res I use?
Does the PC I linked seem like it could max coh or get near it? I've never even taken a step with reflections and shadows turned on, I enable them and crash, so if I can't max them all the way but can get close I guess it's not really a loss.
Edit: Oh, and my current graphics card is ATI, not Nvidia or Intel, so I guess I don't get a quick driver fix :/
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For reference: |
Originally Posted by Psychic Guardian
It looks like you run your numbers by the superhigh resolutions. By personal preference I really don't go higher than 1280x800/1024, just because I don't like everything so fine on the 20" screen i'm on. Since you are aiming at 1440x990 does that mean it'd be substantially better on the res I use?
|
the pixel area of 1280*1024 is 1,310,720
the pixel area of 1440*900 is 1,296,000
The performance profile of the two resolutions is pretty much the same with only a 14,720 pixel count difference.
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| Does the PC I linked seem like it could max coh or get near it? I've never even taken a step with reflections and shadows turned on, I enable them and crash, so if I can't max them all the way but can get close I guess it's not really a loss. |
If you look at other posts made by me, such as the sticked Ultra Mode Graphics Guide, a Geforce GTS 250 struggles to do Ultra Mode in 1680*1050, and generally will only run medium settings on 1440*900.
The GT 320 is weaker straight out, and share's the same general architecture.
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| Edit: Oh, and my current graphics card is ATI, not Nvidia or Intel, so I guess I don't get a quick driver fix :/ |
Currently the free image hosting part of GPUZ seems to be borked, but you can still save the file and upload to a free image hosting site like photobucket, picasaweb, or imageshack.
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When you say minimum here do you mean minimum to turn ultramode on or to max it? If it only takes the 250 to max ultramode in 1440x990 then my PC I found upgraded to the GTS250 should do fine right? |
Originally Posted by je_saist
Maxing CoH in Ultra Mode @ 1440*900 doesn't take much.
Minimum Graphics card on the ATi side: RadeonHD 4850 for everything at once Minimum Graphics card on the Nvidia side: Geforce GTS 250 Minimum Processor AMD side: Socket AM2 2.2ghz or higher Minimum Processor Intel side: Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz or higher, Pentium 4's need not apply. Maxing CoH in Ultra Mode @ 1920*1200 takes a considerable amount more Minimum Graphics card on the ATi side: RadeonHD 4870 / 5770 Minimum Graphics card on the Nvidia side: Geforce GTX |
And upgrading is just a matter of sliding out the old card and putting in the new one? I had to build a desktop at work years ago, but I've forgotten everything since I just did it the one time.
For the 1920x1200 for nvidia you didn't put a #, just GTX, do you mean any GTX model?
And I remember your guide to UltraMode now, that is an incredible guide. Since I couldn't turn any feature on last time I just skimmed the gist of it and looked at the different stages of pics and effects of each feature, now I was able to compare what the graphics #s mean.
Edit: Looking through retailers of graphicscards, Nvidia's for example, there are all these different "manufacturer" names, how am I supposed to know which to pick, just the cheapest? I thought they were all made by Nvidia if they were a Nvidia GTX xxx card??? lol
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nVidia makes the chipset and I believe provides a reference design for the cards but doesn't actually make and distribute video cards. ATI does the same. They partner with various card manufacturers that make and distribute the cards using their chipsets, often tweaking clock speeds, offering different cooling methods or other minor changes or even tossing in various software packages with the cards. Those are the manufacturer's names that you are seeing. XFX has a really good warranty program and good cards, ASUS cards are generally well made, the EVGA cards seem to be rated well although I've not used them.
I've gone more to the ATI cards of late since they generally outperform the same level of nVidia chipset in CoH, they generally use less power than comparable nVidia cards and often run much cooler as well.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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There are several different graphical features that make up Ultra Mode. I walk through all of these settings in this thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219534|
Originally Posted by Psychic Guardian
When you say minimum here do you mean minimum to turn ultramode on or to max it? If it only takes the 250 to max ultramode in 1440x990 then my PC I found upgraded to the GTS250 should do fine right?
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Minimum here is defined as: The least powerful graphics processor that can turn all of the Ultra Mode features on at the same time, against an average processor.
A stock GTS 250 will not be able to run all UltraMode features at once in maximum quality in 1440*900. Trust me. I tried.
The Geforce GTS 250 is the starting point for where all UltraMode features at once can be rendered with a 20 frames per second or higher frame rate.
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| And upgrading is just a matter of sliding out the old card and putting in the new one? I had to build a desktop at work years ago, but I've forgotten everything since I just did it the one time. |
if you are changing brands, such as going from Nvidia to AMD, or AMD to Nvidia, then you'll need to uninstall the current graphics drivers, and run the Driver Sweeper tool mentioned earlier.
if you are changing generations of graphics cards, such as going from ATi Radeon x1600 to AMD RadeonHD 5600, you'll also want to run the Driver Sweeper tool.
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| For the 1920x1200 for nvidia you didn't put a #, just GTX, do you mean any GTX model? |
Would I buy any of the 2xx series GTX cards? Oh hell no.
Would I buy any of the 4xx series GTX cards? If my money was on the line I would give the EVGA GTX 460 768 megabyte card at it's $200 price point a serious glance. Unlike RadeonHD 5830's at that price point, the GTX 460 series tends to be a good card to overclock.
If I was looking to spend over $200, well, I dunno. The GTX 460 at 1gb starts around $230. It's probably worth the cash difference in the long run if you are looking to cap spending under $250. I think I'd save up my money and go for the RadeonHD 5850.
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And I remember your guide to UltraMode now, that is an incredible guide. Since I couldn't turn any feature on last time I just skimmed the gist of it and looked at the different stages of pics and effects of each feature, now I was able to compare what the graphics #s mean. Edit: Looking through retailers of graphics cards, Nvidia's for example, there are all these different "manufacturer" names, how am I supposed to know which to pick, just the cheapest? I thought they were all made by Nvidia if they were a Nvidia GTX xxx card??? lol |
As far which to pick... well... I've had hands on with quite a few Nvidia branded cards. I've got a list sitting somewhere around these forums.
Basically, if it was my money on the line, I'd only be looking at two different vendors. XFX and EVGA.
The other vendors... well... maybe I can put it this way: Galaxy, Palit, and Zotac have been known to give Diamond Multimedia a run for the lack of quality award.
Here is the GPU-Z for my current PC, im not sure how the software works, I had video streaming on my screen and the sensors tab sat at 0.
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I tried finding the drivers for it, but couldn't on AMD.com or any of the sites you listed, you mention the Radeon HD 2xxx series, but only with vista, and the site only had the drivers for Vista, but my laptop shipped with that on XP. I looked at gateway too, but they want my serialnumber and I am too tired to get my laptop disconnected from everything to read the bottom lol.
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Try Omega Drivers, I've found updated ATI drivers for various "proprietary" laptops there that work fine while looking on ATI's site I get referred back to the laptop manufacturer for driver support.
You want the latest drivers for your ATI Mobility card.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
I tried opening my Catalyst Control Center this morning and realized...it won't open. I click any of the CCC shortcuts from the startmenu and watch the processes in the taskmanager, CCE.exe starts up and then disappears, and the program or taskbar icon never open. So I tried getting the new CCC from AMD.com, I downloaded the installer which said it installed it but nothing is different lol. They had a bunch of options, and I didn't think updating a "display driver" on a laptop was a good idea from AMD so I picked a different option, maybe I didn't update anything idk 
.
I spent the morning on CyberPowerPC, this is what I'm up to now:
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1CLB54
I wasn't sure if the AMD Phenom II X2(the dual-core) was particularly worse, so I added the X4 to the one above. I also raised the powersupply from 700 to the 850 and upped windows 7 a step. The ATI RadeonHD 5830 should be great for maxing ultramode if 7770 is usually the bar for that right? The only thing that concerns me is CyberPower doesn't say which brand they're gonna give you.
If it's easy to gauge would the Phenom II X2 be like Intel i7 range or significantly lower since it's dualcore, I'm probably gonna keep the X4 but i'm kinda interested lol.
10 50's To Date! Check out Titan Sentinel; it got my CoH presence synced online
After i17 hit, even with ultra-mode turned off, I've been forced down from recommended to minimum graphics settings (yes the devs said nothing would change if you didn't want it to with ultra-mode. They lied apparently
).
. I also really wanted Windows7 Premium, but this one is Home, however it has an upgrade thing that can be purchased with it for like $89, is that a good deal, and does upgrading require a harddrive wipe?
My laptop is 5 or so years old anyway, and it's screen died, so rather than upgrade it I figured I'd just get a new one finally. Since they are less expensive, and I don't really need a laptop I'm looking at desktops.
I want to be able to pretty much max coh's graphics with the new computer, so first of all I was thinking i7 processor would be a good start? I am on windows XP and 4gb of ram now and i'm not really satisfied with it's power, and I know the OS wastes a ton of ram now so I was hoping for 8gb of RAM, maybe 6 I guess.
Videocards are where I really am clueless. The computer I found I am starting to think is the one to get has a Nvidia GeForce GT 320, it says it has 1gig of it's own memory, that sounds pretty good but again, I have no idea lol.
My pricerange I was going to give was $1,000-$1,300(max), but i'm pretty interested in this one i found now, for $999.99 it looks like a great deal, but I'll let you guys point out what's wrong with it
The
Lenovo - Ideacentre Desktop / Intel® Core i7 Processor / 8GB Memory / 1TB Hard Drive
Edit: I have 2 accounts I -used- to play at once I would like to again, does this setup look like it could handle 2 accounts on performance/performace, if not UM/performance or better yet (and sounding impossible) UM/UM?
10 50's To Date! Check out Titan Sentinel; it got my CoH presence synced online