CPU Usage for CoH is VERY high

Hey all

Been noticing my system runs Coh with very high CPU Usage recently. It's usually pushing around the 89-90% mark in my Task Manager and often shoots higher during big fights and stuff, causing the ame to get very sluggish and freeze for a seconds, usually leaving me dead in the process

I'm not on the most powerful of beasts anymore, Core2Due running at 6600 and a 9800GT graphics cards, so probably need to upgrade, but it used to run the game fine until recently, and that's after a reformat a couple of weeks ago as well.

I remember reading in thread about the graphics for Ultra Mode a while back that the shadows use a lot of CPU power, is that right or am I misremembering? And is there any other settings I can change to help bring the CPU usage down?

Also, I only have 2 gig of memory in my system, will moving up to 4 gig make a big difference?

Any advice, greatly received

Nope, it's not that, it's even when doing something as simple as turning round.

Simply, it's always a high CPU for Coh, around 80-90%. I go in some zones, namely Preatorian ones, and move around ajnd the game gets very juddery for a few seconds, then catches up with itself. I move again and the same thing happens.

It's not drastic or damaging, just, annoying. I'm not sure if it's lack of memory, my PCU working harder due to Ultra Mode settings, or even my GPU dieing on me

It's likely I'll improve things with a processor upgrade, or a new graphics card. Lowering the settings in game a little has helped, I've turned the shadows down a notch or two, turned anti-aliasing down to 4, and lowered a couple of other things and it's helped with the sluggishness, but CPU is still high, constantly.

Short of upgrading my PC, windows, CPU, Graphics Card, more memory (might as well buy a new machine for that!) it seems this is all I can do.

Bizarrely, I can run games like Crysis 2 demo, Arkham Asylum, even DCUO perfectly fine with no graphical problems, it's only the 7 yr old CoH that does this.

That, to me, sounds like you're low on memory (i.e. you're swapping). When it starts jittering, do you notice the HD activity light going wild at the same time? If you use /unloadgfx is there any sort of difference in the jittering after you do it (both immediately, and after a few seconds)?

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Try putting CoH in your virus exceptions list first.

I have the same problem. You can hear the poor thing whine all the time i have CoH up. My comps about 5 years old, I run on almost minimal graphics, and it starts as soon as I launch CoH. Thats right, when I hit the new launcher.... Just wish I could remember if it was doing it before I installed that thing a week or two ago. I know it was not acting like this all the last 4 years I've had the game anyways. Just recently it started. Anyways, now, as soon as I hit launch CoH from my desktop my comp starts acting like a 100 year old running a marathon.

Someone mention add CoH to safe programs or something. I am unsure how to do it, but the concept sounds good. i run Norton antivirus if anybody's got a tip....

I'm going to bump this back to the top of the list.

I'm having the same problem. My CPU and Mem usage tends to sit around 60% with COH running. My computer is less than a year old and has plenty of memory, a dual core and 2 GPUs. I've had absolutely no problems running any other high end MMO. Why would this happen?

You do know that high CPU/Memory usage isn't inherently a bad thing, assuming that it's not sitting at 100% all the time? What's bad is CPU/memory contention, where you haven't got enough resources to go around.

My CPU sits at around 90% while playing CoH, but that's not an issue unless I suddenly decide I'd like to encode some video at the same time. Having some overhead is always nice, but trying to get your CPU/Memory usage down to some arbitrary value isn't going to achieve anything.

one thing to try is check out usage with Ultra mode on , then check it turned off. I remember a thread where some computer graphics experts were saying that Ultra mode in COH was a "brute force" method that might be why in part of the high usage.

If you noticed the CPU bump post i20 its probably because the game now utilizes "multicore" systems, so if you have a dual/quad/hex core processor the game can tap into them now.

I have a dualcore and noticed the spike in cpu usage right away after launching i20 coh, I kinda wish I could turn it off, my computer is 5+ years old, and after a few hours of playing will sometimes die(turn itself off with no error) now. I'm not the best with processor&ram info, but the high cpu seems to cause coh's ram usage to rise too, making me run with less things open to prevent pcdeath lately lol. /unloadgfx used to help sometimes, but now I try it so often my ram use goes down 5-10% when I hit enter, then climbs right back to where it was as it re-renders everything in view.

10 50's To Date! Check out Titan Sentinel; it got my CoH presence synced online

The other important factor to consider here is what OS you are running

One of the changes made with Vista and continued with Win7 was that CPU useage would be maximised. i.e. It WAI for those OSs to operate at 100% CPU utilisation.