White maps kill my fps - any solutions?

Hi folks,

Wondering if there's any ideas or suggestions for this - the game runs fine 99% of the time (I get the same lag spikes and rubberbands anyone gets in the usual places and times like Talos WW and heavy server load places) and I do not have it on ultra mode until I get a new video card. However, any "white" maps - Praetoria labs and Longbow maps - kill my fps. I drop down to single digits as soon as I zone in, and nothing makes it any better.

Does anyone have any suggestions for anything that could ease the pain of ending up on those maps? Some setting I can adjust for them?

a nice start would be information about your computer:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219502
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=231628

I'm honestly curious: why would my machine specs matter when the game runs fine on any other kind of map? It's clearly just this one graphic type that's doing me in, which means it should be something in the game settings.

If you go to the doctor with swollen joints and the doctor asks what your diet is like hopefully you don't say "I don't see what diet has to do with the problem. It's my joints not my stomach."

Not meaning to be insulting but the players who hang out here in the tech forum do this because we like helping out other players who are having problems. None of us work for the company but many of us have a lot of experience spotting problems based on the information from two simple programs. Often the symptoms seem completely unrelated to the problem.

So your problem could indeed just be one particular setting. Or it could be something with your drivers. Or it could be something with some other program known to drain resources or conflict with CoH. And on top of that CoHHelper will list not only your driver and hardware information but your in game settings.

So we can guess things, for instance the mention of "white" maps says to me older drivers. But that's just a guess. And if you feel like digging up that information the two programs are here.

CoHHelper and Hijackthis

Okey dokey, I'm fairly computer illiterate, so you're the boss! This is what CoHHelper says:

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

DxDiag gathered at August 30, 2010 02:38 (-04:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.100216-1514)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: BIOS Date: 08/27/08 Ver: 08.00.14
Central Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 3328MB
.Net Memory Report: 2352MB out of 3327MB available
Page File: 6934MB (1219MB currently in use)
C Drive: () 59229MB out of 131061MB (45%) free
G Drive: () 20196MB out of 345875MB (5%) free
D Drive: (HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GH22NS30) 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.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 3300 Graphics
Manufacturer / Chip: ATI Technologies Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x9614)
Video Memory: 700.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6833
Driver Date: 6/24/2008 10:10:10 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Realtek HD Audio output
Driver File: RtkHDAud.sys
Driver Version: 5.10.0000.5628
Driver Date: 5/20/2008 5:53:00 AM

Sound Device Description: ATI HD Audio rear output
Driver File: AtiHdmi.sys
Driver Version: 5.00.40001.0009
Driver Date: 7/20/2007 7:40:10 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: M3A78-T
Motherboard Version: Rev 1.xx
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: BIOS Date: 08/27/08 Ver: 08.00.14
BIOS Version: 082708 - 20080827
BIOS Release: 20080827000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1680x1003
3D Resolution: 1680x1003 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: No
Maximized: Yes
Screen Position: -9, -3
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes


Physics Quality: Low
Maximum Particles: 3864
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No


Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: None
Bloom: 0.452 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: Medium?


World Texture Level: High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 0.859
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
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: 1.000
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: 0.054
Music Sound Volume: 0.000

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.500
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 172354 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1850.201007290124.21T2
Installation Directory: G:\City of Heroes\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

Your video card drivers are over 2 years old.

I'd recommend updating them from the ATI site.

Be sure to uninstall the old drivers first, reboot to safe mode and run Driver Sweeper to remove the files that are always left behind, then run reboot back into normal mode and install the new drivers.

The drivers really do need to be updated.

That being said, from the Patch Notes that were released with the patch on August 24.

No, they have the same "texture" as the normal "light blue" tech maps. They're just white instead. And the Longbow maps are grey and white, but otherwise the same as the "Crey lab" map. It's something about the white that does it.

Ok, I'll give that a go...

Well, after following the recommended method and updating my drivers, the result is sadly nill. The Longbow maps still drop me to single-digit FPS and make playing nearly impossible in the slideshow

Sometimes the audio in this game also causes problems with framerate. You have two audio devices and both are very out of date on their drivers. I've got to run off to work so I can't get you a download location for them right now but I'm sure somebody here can if you can't find them. I'll be checking back either tonight or tomorrow depending on how long today winds up being.

To test the audio theory next time you have a huge drop in frame rate go into your game settings and turn off both sound and music.

Latest Realtek audio drivers are here Give them a try and see if it helps. But it might just be that your video card isn't up to handling those maps.

Could you put up another CoHhelper though so we can see if the video update installed correctly?

I updated the video and sound card drivers... I haven't been able to locate a safe download location for the ATI HD Audio rear output drivers.


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

DxDiag gathered at September 6, 2010 21:30 (-04:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.100216-1514)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: BIOS Date: 08/27/08 Ver: 08.00.14
Central Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6400+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 3328MB
.Net Memory Report: 2513MB out of 3327MB available
Page File: 7436MB (717MB currently in use)
C Drive: () 59326MB out of 131061MB (45%) free
G Drive: () 18673MB out of 345875MB (5%) free
D Drive: (HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GH22NS30) 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.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 3300 Graphics
Manufacturer / Chip: ATI Technologies Inc. / ATI Radeon HD 3300 Graphics (0x9614)
Video Memory: 700.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.7111
Driver Date: 8/3/2010 9:46:04 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Realtek HD Audio output
Driver File: RtkHDAud.sys
Driver Version: 5.10.0000.6167
Driver Date: 7/28/2010 6:27:36 PM

Sound Device Description: ATI HD Audio rear output
Driver File: AtiHdmi.sys
Driver Version: 5.00.40001.0009
Driver Date: 7/20/2007 7:40:10 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: M3A78-T
Motherboard Version: Rev 1.xx
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: BIOS Date: 08/27/08 Ver: 08.00.14
BIOS Version: 082708 - 20080827
BIOS Release: 20080827000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1680x1003
3D Resolution: 1680x1003 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: No
Maximized: Yes
Screen Position: -9, -3
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes


Physics Quality: Low
Maximum Particles: 3864
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No


Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: None
Bloom: 0.452 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: Medium?


World Texture Level: Medium
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 0.859
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
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: 1.000
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: 0.054
Music Sound Volume: 0.000

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.500
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 689691 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1850.201007290124.24T2
Installation Directory: G:\City of Heroes\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
.\texture_library\GUI\Icons\Enhancements has 38 files
.\texture_library\GUI\Icons\Inspirations has 51 files
.\texture_library\GUI\Icons\Inspirations\Alternate s has 1 file
.\texture_library\GUI\Icons\Pet_Command has 12 files
.\texture_library\GUI\Icons\Pet_Command\ALTERNATE-1 has 6 files
.\texture_library\GUI\Icons\Powers has 1275 files
.\texture_library\GUI\Icons\Powers\ALTERNATE-1 has 28 files
.\texture_library\GUI\Icons\Powers\ALTERNATE-2 has 12 files
.\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

Yeah, it looks like the drivers both installed just fine. I'm at a loss to come up with any other possible solutions. Sorry.

Ok, this is really, really weird, but here it is.

Turning off ALL game sounds made my FPS go back up. The white maps (and indeed, the rest of Praetoria) are now at comfortable framerates, and the old CoX content is nice and speedy.

Of course, this presents me with the problem of now playing the game without sound. I turned off the music long ago (mostly because it was repetitive and changed too rapidly when traveling across a zone for my tastes) but I DID like game sounds on. Not only does it make me feel more "present" in the combat, but it's hard to find things like glowies now.

Any suggestions for being able to turn my sound back on without killing my FPS? >.< I updated my sound driver when I did my video driver, darn it!

Well, I got a brand spanking new Radeon 5770 and reformatted my c: drive (my windows was crudded up) and that pretty much took care of the matter, LOL Thank you for your help, folks!

I've found its the shader settings that affect me most on the white praetoria maps. try moving the slider down to Low or Medium in the Options/Graphics and Audio setup page. Doesn't look as pretty but sure makes it play better.

Woah, my sig is ancient, need to update that!