Outrageous Ping and Freeze Framing

Ever since I created a few characters last year that possessed a damage PBAoE, I began to encounter problems with the ping rate slowly rising the more and more I played. I was cursing everyone from my modem to my ISP to (shudder) even the developers. As I attempted to seek solace within the community, I found that I was a leper and all alone.

My problem was that as the longer I played, the more and more my computer would "hang" (or "freeze") every time damage from the PBAoE would tick. It got so bad, it was comparable to fighting by screen shot (one frame every two to three seconds). And it was only my character that would do it. Last night after getting to my "fighting by screen shot" mode, my friend was kind enough to log on to see if it would happen when he used his PBAoE. He rounded up two large mobs, I jumped in beside him and he hit his PBAoE. The game was running perfectly smooth...until I hit my PBAoE. By this time (according to netgraph), my ping was over 1,100.

Alas, my poor fire tank and my electric tank were suffering...but from what?

My original computer specs...

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Memory
ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Thermaltake W0116RU 750W Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version SLI Ready CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

I had a 22" widescreen monitor, Fatality sound card and a few other things in there, along with your basic cable company issued Motorola modem and Lynksys broadband router. I thought that I had surfed one too many questionable websites and it was acting as a bot but scan after scan with Microsoft Security Essentials, Spybot and AVG, nothing came back as a definitive clue. Anyway, I wanted to build a new rig since this one was a couple of years old so I went out and bought new parts.

Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor
ASUS P6X58D Premium LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
ASUS EAH5850 DirectCU TOP/2DIS/1GD5 Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ ATI Eyefinity
Thermaltake TR2 TRX-1000M 1000W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

I also bought a new Motorola Surfboard modem (the other one died after six years of faithful service) and an HP 27" LCD monitor (it's nice...it's very nice) hooked up with HDMI. After a fresh install of Windows 7, I copied the updater, downloaded the game and took off running to see if the issue had been resolved.

It hadn't.

For the past few weeks, I've been going crazy trying to figure out what in the heck could be wrong. Then while my mind was wandering in the shower this morning, reviewing the basics of my problem, it suddenly hit me.

Three or four years ago, I had wanted to see what kind of damage my blaster was putting out after Enhancement Diversification (ED) was released. To review them in my own sweet time, I had enabled the chat log.

DING, DING, DING, DING, DING!!!

Yes, for the past couple of years, I had my chat log enabled recording everything that happened in the game...which includes damage given. Imagine your computer trying to constantly update an ever growing text file. This explains why when I start out, it's fine but as it progresses, it slows down and freezes up. After I disabled my chat log, I was able to play for two hours this morning and my ping never got above 150 and no frame freezing.

The size of the chat log last night when I logged off was 5MB. Thanks to CutePDF (awesome FREE program I recommend), I converted it to a PDF. Thankfully, I don't own a printer or else I'd be hip deep in paper right now.

The total length of this file after two hours of play time? 1,336 pages.

So the reason why I am posting this is because there may be another poor unfortunate soul out there that suffered from the same issue I did. I searched the forums (I have poor search-fu, by the way) and didn't find an answer so perhaps my long-winded story can assist them.

If you are experiencing slow down, lag or frame freezing when you use your PBAoE damage aura, then check your settings to see if you have the chat log enabled. Disable it and you should be good to go.

Hope this helps,

R.

I will certainly keep your discovery in mind, however, for a project I have in mind, how would I turn my chat log on and off?

I have made a channel called proc and want to see if and how often each of my special IO's goes off. Just looking for specific graphics does not really work. I wish Hero Stats tracked it, or perhaps it does and I just dont know what the activations are called.

It is machine-based. It's located in your CoH folder:

C:\Program Files (x86)\City of Heroes\logs\game

oooh If this is the same issue as i had (and i love my chat logs by the way) If you are using MSIE (Microsoft Security Essentials), you put the COX directory into its exclusions.

I never *ever* thought that it would be related to chatlogging, but I can see why now

USCI, I've got a curiosity about your hardware setup: what type of hard drive did you have before and what type do you have now?

Hmm...I might try this...

I always have everything logged (I'm like that!)....and looking at my log files; the biggest file I have is 2 MBs....I usually don't play that long (except on Saturdays)...looking back at my old directory where I used to have CoH installed and the biggest log file I have is 5 MBs.

Maybe I can look at my chat tabs and get rid of the combat dmg/activation/tohit rolls or what not....

Thanks


Edit: Although re-reading your first paragraph; my problem is not just when I use PBAoEs but when anyone uses them. Some days/nights it's totally fine and no problems; other nights....it's a screenshot/power point slideshow of frame rate lag....

I'd really like to know if MSE exclusions solve this issue....

I've been working with Support on this for weeks, and nothing that has been suggested or tried has worked.

I got 60+ fps until I get a WHOLE bunch of players on the screen or I get into a league that starts pushing 24+ people... then my framerates can drop below 1FPS.

I'm going to try that MSE exclusion this evening and see if it helps, but since I already have chat logging off, I don't honestly see why it would help.