Shouldn't I get better performance with the 5770?

My son bought a nice computer about 2 years ago and got a 9800 nVidia card. The game looked great and we never had any problems.

After Christmas, Staples had a close out on computers and I picked up what I thought was a screaming computer for a very reasonable price. HP Elite HPE-250f with an i7-860 processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM and an ATI HD 5770 video card. Much to my disappointment the City runs slower and looks worse at the same settings as the 9800. Two items that are readily noticeable is a lower frame rate even in non-stress settings such as running alongside cars and much poorer world detail. I was hoping I could get some help here to fix the problem because I have little confidence Staples will know what I'm talking about at all.

Thank you for any help you can give.


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

DxDiag gathered at January 18, 2011 21:46 (-08:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.100618-1621)
System Manufacturer: HP-Pavilion
System Model: BK174AA-ABA HPE-250f
BIOS: 03/03/10 20:25:08 Ver: 5.13
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 8192MB
.Net Memory Report: 6709MB out of 8151MB available
Page File: 14613MB (1686MB currently in use)
C Drive: (ST31000528AS) 889496MB out of 942444MB (94%) free
D Drive: (ST31000528AS) 1639MB out of 11321MB (14%) free
E Drive: (hp BDDVDRW CH20L) 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.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: ATI Technologies Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x68B8)
Video Memory: 4070 MB
Driver Version: 8.801.0.0
Driver Date: 11/25/2010 6:57:08 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Driver File: RTKVHD64.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5938
Driver Date: 9/15/2009 11:08:00 AM

Sound Device Description: Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Driver File: RTKVHD64.sys
Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5938
Driver Date: 9/15/2009 11:08:00 AM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: MSI
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: IONA
Motherboard Version: 1.0
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: 03/03/10 20:25:08 Ver: 5.13
BIOS Version: HPQOEM - 20100303
BIOS Release: 20100303000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1920x1080
3D Resolution: 1920x1080 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes


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


Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: Medium 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): 1.331
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Unknown (3)
Shadow Map Shader: High quality
Environmental Reflections: Medium quality
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: Quality
Occlusion Strength: Medium
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: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.600

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: 1900.201011102104.27
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.4
Scan saved at 10:00:33 PM, on 1/18/2011
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OK, I see one thing, update drivers. Which version because I see some comments there are problems with the newer ones.

5770 is a good card but its not going to run full out Ultra mode.

Scale a few things back and your fine.

Bloom and Ambient Occlusion should be off. I have a 5770 and it does quite well with ultra mode.

Thank you. I wasn't sure about those. They're on on the other computer but wasn't sure how much trouble they caused.

Another thing is to use a Driver Uninstall tool to clean the old ones off prior to putting the new ones on - the older drivers can cause various issues and can affect performance.

the 5770 should be able to run ulta mode maxed out.

first things first.

do a good cleaning of the system and remove all the bloatware.

loose any of the HP and norton background apps (the best video card in the world wont help if your CPU/memory pipelines are choked down with useless junk.

load the latest ati drivers

"I uninstalled Norton and some of the HP stuff. Is there something you recommend for removing this stuff? "

I have heard good things about this software for finding and giving you a list of programs to remove.

http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/home

if your wondering yes, a 5770 can run CoH Ultra mode maxed out. Of course your FPS might not be at a "playable" level.

You'll have to find a happy medium of chrome/speed.

Yes, I own a 5770 video card and I don't consider maxed out settings playable. YMMV

On the topic of ATI drivers,
I use Windows Vista and the HD5770 card. After updating drivers beyond 10.9, I saw an increased number of crashes per day with the game client - the screen stopped updating while trying to start an Ouro arc (almost always) and opening detailed info (occasionally). This caused Windows to reset the drivers and crash the game. Also, any "still photos" of contacts sometimes appeared glitchy or pixelated. I put up with the problem for about a month, trying several things to fix it. I finally reverted the drivers to 10.9 and have had no further trouble for over a week. ^_^

My experience with settings is similar to newchemicals'. I do not use bloom or ambient occulusion, since both have a more negative effect on framerate and gameplay than any graphical benefit they provide for me.

Thank you for the suggestions. Implementing as much as I can now and if I finish early enough I'll jump into the game. If not, I'll go tomorrow and let everyone know how I fare.


I deleted most of the bloat but I am getting nowhere on updating the drivers. Catalyst, the ATI drivers program, keeps telling me my drivers are up to date but it's stuck at version 8.77 when I've downloaded v. 10.9 to install. I've tried uninstalling the drivers but it only succeeds in uninstalling the card, and reinstalling the card only gets me back to the old drivers. I know it is probably something very simple but I just can't get the drivers to update. What am I doing wrong?

Sorry, when someone is complaining about "low" FPS the first things I suggest are the biggest FPS killers. Sure, other FPS savers are depth of field and vertical sync help too. FPS matters alot depending on which zone you are in and server and when you are playing. If there is a MS raid or Hamidon Raid going on, you may experience lag related to that. Masterminds, Electric armor/powers, and fiery aura can also kill FPS rather quickly. Grandville too. There are two ways to balance it, start wit minimal Ultra settings go to the laggiest places in the game like Grandville or Talos Wentworths and then start adding settings until you get enough lag or start with maxed settings and work your way down.

Also resolution makes a big difference. OP was playing the game at 1920x1200.

Stick with 10.9 it seems to have less issues than 10.10 or 10.11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master-Blade I agree that the 5770 can run Ultra on full, but as you mentioned, the FPS will be only like 10-15. That's playable for some people. Personally I don't consider it very good at all and would turn down some settings if that was the case... but I still don't disable the Bloom or Occlusion you mentioned. Keeping those options at minimum (and everything else on full) still gives me all the nice effects of Ultra mode and my fps is still up around 50-60 consistently. The OP has a better processor and overall system than mine, so if I can run my 5770 at maxed FPS with all the options turned on, they should be able to as well.

Not everyone would consider your settings "Maxed"

Thank you everyone. I tweaked the settings (most significantly World Detail 175%) and still get 28 fps looking the "wrong" way in Grandville and 50 fps everywhere else.