Major upgrade and still low performance

I just did a major overhaul of my gaming rig. I went for pretty high performance, and assumed it would be able to run ultra mode at max settings with no problem.

I checked it out this morning, and was disappointed when I found out I couldn't.

With the graphics settings shown below in the COH Helper report, I get about 30 FPS. If I max out absolutely everything, it drops down to about 20. Ambient occlusion seems to affect the framerate the most. If I turn it off completely, I go up to around 45-50 FPS. Full Screen Anti-Aliasing seems to drop it quite a bit if set beyond 4x as well.

Any suggestions on what could improve performance, or is it really that hard to run CoH on max settings?

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

DxDiag gathered at August 21, 2010 05:08 (-04:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_rtm.090713-1255)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: BIOS Date: 05/21/10 15:34:47 Ver: 08.00.15
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 760 @ 2.80GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.9GHz
Memory: 8192MB
.Net Memory Report: 6766MB out of 8190MB available
Page File: 14631MB (1746MB currently in use)
C Drive: (ST3500630AS ATA Device) 424837MB out of 476837MB (89%) free
E Drive: (TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203N ATA Device) zero-size drive
D Drive: (TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203N ATA 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.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: ATI Technologies Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x6898)
Video Memory: 4070 MB
Driver Version: 8.753.0.0
Driver Date: 7/6/2010 9:53:20 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7600.16385
Driver Date: 7/13/2009 8:07:00 PM

Sound Device Description: Digital Audio (HDMI) (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7600.16385
Driver Date: 7/13/2009 8:07:00 PM

Sound Device Description: Digital Audio (S/PDIF) (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7600.16385
Driver Date: 7/13/2009 8:07:00 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: P7P55D-E PRO
Motherboard Version: Rev 1.xx
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: BIOS Date: 05/21/10 15:34:47 Ver: 08.00.15
BIOS Version: 052110 - 20100521
BIOS Release: 20100521000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1680x1050
3D Resolution: 1680x1050 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes


Physics Quality: Very High
Maximum Particles: 50000
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No


Anti-aliasing: 4x
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: Ultra quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: Yes
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: High


World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 2.000
Entity Detail Level: 2.000
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Unknown (5)
Shadow Map Shader: High quality
Environmental Reflections: Ultra quality
Advanced Occlusion Settings: Yes
Ambient Occlusion: Ultra
Occlusion Strength: Strong with color bleeding
Blur: Trilateral
Ambient Resolution: Quality


Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 0.500
Music Sound Volume: 0.302

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.500
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: Unknown bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1850.201007290124.19T2
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found

There isn't a card on the market in which you can turn everything to the highest setting and get over 20 fps.

Maybe... if sli/crossfire got fully implemented and you had two high end cards, it could happen.

UM was made for the next generation of graphics card. It went beyond what the current generation could do.

I have a better configuration than you can I can't put everything up.

So, my recommendation is: Shut off occlusion. Too little gain for so much fps cost.

Turn up FSAA one more notch and if there isn't a big fps hit, leave it there.

And you'll be good to go.

Turn down World Detail, it now affects the UM shadow and reflection effects as well as draw distance.

I'll second what Father X said. I've always had world detail set to 200% before this and had no problems. Now with the additional rendering needed for shadows and reflections dropping it down to 100% results in a significant framerate increase.