I dont even notice anymore.
I still want to cram more parts into my mechanised minion to crank everything up to full 
damn you, money...
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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I was fortunate enough to be able to decently crank up my settings shortly after UM went live. Then a while after that, I got my new video card (hooray for justifying it as a business expense), and now run the game with ALL the settings completely maxed out (and still getting a great frame rate). My videos look so much prettier now. |
Originally Posted by Steel_Shaman
Yes, yes I know I'm late. Ultra mode has been in the game for some time.
But you see, until yesterday I didn't have a system capable of actually making use of it without coming to a screeching halt. Yesterday my first new PC in three years (hereafter referred to as The Beast) arrived. So after getting CoH set up, despite the very best efforts of the NCSoft Launcher (grr), I cranked up the video settings. "You must restart the game." Fine fine, just DO IT. I wanna see! And boy have I seen. Having seen Ultra Mode firsthand for the very first time I am quite impressed. Excellent job Devs. The game looks absolutely wonderful. At one point I found myself just standing in front of a mission door in St. Martial because I was entranced by the shadows of the trees behind me falling across it. I have a feeling this is going to slow down leveling my Bane Spider quite a bit, because of all the pausing to admire the scenery. Good thing he has stealth. Ah well. Come along Beast! We have heroes to defeat and banks to rob! |
St. Martial is gorgeous with UM on... I'd also recommend wandering around Cimerora, Eden, the Hollows, and above all...
... Praetoria.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)
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Originally Posted by Steel_Shaman
Yes, yes I know I'm late. Ultra mode has been in the game for some time.
But you see, until yesterday I didn't have a system capable of actually making use of it without coming to a screeching halt. Yesterday my first new PC in three years (hereafter referred to as The Beast) arrived. So after getting CoH set up, despite the very best efforts of the NCSoft Launcher (grr), I cranked up the video settings. "You must restart the game." Fine fine, just DO IT. I wanna see! And boy have I seen. Having seen Ultra Mode firsthand for the very first time I am quite impressed. Excellent job Devs. The game looks absolutely wonderful. At one point I found myself just standing in front of a mission door in St. Martial because I was entranced by the shadows of the trees behind me falling across it. I have a feeling this is going to slow down leveling my Bane Spider quite a bit, because of all the pausing to admire the scenery. Good thing he has stealth. Ah well. Come along Beast! We have heroes to defeat and banks to rob! |
Oh Yeah! it's all that! it's what makes me enjoy the game that much more!
The new vid card made that happen.
Prometheus: ... so what I told you was true, from a certain point of view.
Me: From a certain point of view?
Prometheus: You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on your point of view.
Me: You're right about that. Power Blast is very pretty from a certain point of view. But that point of view is not head-on. <Kaboom> - Arcanaville.
I'd likely have to buy a completely new PSU before I got a new video card, as apparently the current one only has enough oomph for the current video card and quad-core. In any case, the medium settings are decent enough to keep me pleased, so no hurry.
If you ask me, the coolest bit of Ultra Mode is seeing your character's shadow on the ground when you fly. It's not so much the big details as it is all the little details coming together to make things look more real.
@Demobot
Also on Steam
The most disturbing feature has to be reflective water in sewers. It's so clean and shiny looking, but with just a touch of green tint to scare off the thirsty super hero.
The Bacon Compels You.
There's no question that Ultra Mode looks great, and there are a few things you can tweak to get reasonable goodies with acceptable performance. However, it still bugs me that it taxes my system by this much. Sure, it's not top-of-the-line amazing, but I have a GeForce GTX 285, an I7 processor and 8GB of RAM, and the thing still chugs down to below 30 FPS in a lot of places, and that's without Ambient Occlusion, Depth of Field or Bloom, and with the other Ultra Mode settings at about half-and-half.
The game looks amazing for a game of this age, and "good" for current day gaming, but it just hurts my brain every time I see my picture skipping because I looked towards the old town in Cap Au Diable or because I went into a Warehouse large room.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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You using a mac, Sam?|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
There's no question that Ultra Mode looks great, and there are a few things you can tweak to get reasonable goodies with acceptable performance. However, it still bugs me that it taxes my system by this much. Sure, it's not top-of-the-line amazing, but I have a GeForce GTX 285, an I7 processor and 8GB of RAM, and the thing still chugs down to below 30 FPS in a lot of places, and that's without Ambient Occlusion, Depth of Field or Bloom, and with the other Ultra Mode settings at about half-and-half.
The game looks amazing for a game of this age, and "good" for current day gaming, but it just hurts my brain every time I see my picture skipping because I looked towards the old town in Cap Au Diable or because I went into a Warehouse large room. |
I have the same issues but find the game looks 100% more appealing with JUST the shadows turned on. You'd be amazed what those shadows do for visual appeal.
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
I agree with the OP. Ultra Mode and a new computer make a great combo. I got a new computer less than a month ago for my birthday, and last night, I was able to survive my first Rikti Invasion in Atlas Park. It ran a little slower than normal, but not too much; frame rate kept going nicely enough, everything was still smooth and steady, and I had fun for once being able to do something besides spam Healing Aura.
I'm out of signature space! Arcs by Tubbius of Justice are HERE: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=218177
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No, I run it on a Wondows PC. I know Ambient Occlusion with a particularly high Shader setting produces ABYSMAL performance with any amount of Anti-Alising, but I have my Occlusion shut down entirely. It overrides Anti-Alising in generl, producing smooth edges for nearby objects but horrible jaggies for buildings in the distance, which are typically a lot more prone to pixelisation anyway. AO also produces weird coloured for and lighting in some instances (like the Fixadine dens for the Destroyers).|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
You using a mac, Sam?
I have the same issues but find the game looks 100% more appealing with JUST the shadows turned on. You'd be amazed what those shadows do for visual appeal. |
So AO lags, produces jaggies and often looks weird. Not worth running it.
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I've actually found that I can run pretty high-quality shadows as long as I keep them very short-ranged. Right now I have the highest resolution shadow shader with the finest blur on it, running at the shortest distance, and I'm getting very pretty shadows with a fairly solid framerate, outside of Praetoria, of course. Yeah, it's a bit odd that buildings don't cast shadows when you fly above them because you're out of range, but the framerate is worth it. And, yes, Shadows DO make quite a big impact on the game, especially higher-quality shadows.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Exactly. I noticed that when my Bane goes back into Hide, his shadow vanishes. The first time it happened I was like "what the heck?" then I thought "you're invisible, dummy! no shadow!" I was actually impressed the Devs took the time to code something like that as part of the shadow tech.|
Originally Posted by Demobot
If you ask me, the coolest bit of Ultra Mode is seeing your character's shadow on the ground when you fly. It's not so much the big details as it is all the little details coming together to make things look more real.
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I did a Renault SF last night and was very pleased with my system's performance. Even with a full 8 man team and power effects going everywhere it was all smooth as silk. I need to see if any of my characters has a mission on that blasted new warehouse map with the "blue room" and see how that does.
To Sam: I feel your pain. You're in exactly the spot I was until a few days ago. My new system is not top of the line by any means, but its vid card (GTX 470) seems to play very nicely with CoH.
It's the shadows that do it for me. When I'm on less powerful machines than my main desktop, everything else gets turned down except for shadow.
If you need to sacrifice some settings, I suggest:
Bloom: I already think that the game has too much bloom even with Bloom off, so, that never gets turned on.
Depth of Field is really to simulate cinematographic and photographic effects, which aren't really used that much anymore in modern films and photography except when getting very *artsy*. Playing with it on is very *unrealistic* since the human brain compensates for depth of field blurriness that our eyes see and creates a deep sharp depth of field in our mind. Playing with it on makes me think my eyes are going bad.
Occlusion eats up *a lot* of fps with very little visual gain. It's the first setting I shut off for more fps.
Speeding Through New DA Repeatables || Spreadsheet o' Enhancements || Zombie Skins: better skins for these forums || Guide to Guides
I have an nVidia 330M. It's a monster for a laptop. My absolute favorite thing in UM is watching a shadow pass over you. You look up, and there's someone flying.
******* amazing, man.
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
Speaking of no shadows for the invisible, I find it supremely disappointing that there are no shadows for capes and equivalents. I mean, we see them in real-time reflections, but not in shadows? The result is that my cloaked assassin who normally has a long, flowing cape behind her has a "naked" shadow with huge shoulders because the High Collar Cape collar still casts a shadow but the cape doesn't.
Also, "double shadows" over water are really distracting. As we all know, most bodies of water in the game have a "floor" that's about four feet under the surface to simulate... I'm not sure what. Deep murky water without having to render a bottom and apply effects. The problem is that when anything casts a shadow over water, it casts one shadow on the surface and one on the very obvious floor.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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It's especially good if they're using an alternative fly pose |
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
I have an nVidia 330M. It's a monster for a laptop. My absolute favorite thing in UM is watching a shadow pass over you. You look up, and there's someone flying.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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If I get 30 FPS during most of my gameplay I consider myself lucky for that evening.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
...the thing still chugs down to below 30 FPS in a lot of places...
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Well, there's your problem. Wondows is a cheap Chinese knockoff.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
No, I run it on a Wondows PC.
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Whooooosh!
Just found Ultra mode about a month ago. It's a beautiful thing. Who knew powers looked that good?
*grins*
I remember when I did my Issue 17 trailer, and all I had to do to highlight Ultra Mode was this...
(I kick myself now because at the time, I was still FRAPSing stuff instead of REALLY going all out with demodump/VirtualDub, so it's not as smooth as it could have been, but still...)
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Dark_Respite's Farewell Video: "One Last Day"
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)
Some of my favorites with Ultra Mode:
At the docks
Metallic Soldier
Meditating
Playstation 3 - XBox 360 - Wii - PSP
Remember kids, crack is whack!
Samuel_Tow: Your avatar is... I think I like it
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I do. And still appreciate very much how much more immersive CoH is now than in the past. I still stop and sit under a tree now and then and let the shadows play on me and listen to the wind in the leaves.
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Originally Posted by Darej
I dont even notice anymore.
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I am running the same setup Sam, and have the same problem. I will be upgrading my video card again this year in an attempt to hit full ultra mode potential.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Speaking of no shadows for the invisible, I find it supremely disappointing that there are no shadows for capes and equivalents. I mean, we see them in real-time reflections, but not in shadows? The result is that my cloaked assassin who normally has a long, flowing cape behind her has a "naked" shadow with huge shoulders because the High Collar Cape collar still casts a shadow but the cape doesn't.
Also, "double shadows" over water are really distracting. As we all know, most bodies of water in the game have a "floor" that's about four feet under the surface to simulate... I'm not sure what. Deep murky water without having to render a bottom and apply effects. The problem is that when anything casts a shadow over water, it casts one shadow on the surface and one on the very obvious floor. |
What is really frustrating is I purchased that card because it was what was suggested at the time ultra mode was released.
Types of Swords
My Portfolio
Yes, yes I know I'm late. Ultra mode has been in the game for some time.
But you see, until yesterday I didn't have a system capable of actually making use of it without coming to a screeching halt. Yesterday my first new PC in three years (hereafter referred to as The Beast) arrived.
So after getting CoH set up, despite the very best efforts of the NCSoft Launcher (grr), I cranked up the video settings. "You must restart the game." Fine fine, just DO IT. I wanna see!
And boy have I seen. Having seen Ultra Mode firsthand for the very first time I am quite impressed. Excellent job Devs. The game looks absolutely wonderful. At one point I found myself just standing in front of a mission door in St. Martial because I was entranced by the shadows of the trees behind me falling across it. I have a feeling this is going to slow down leveling my Bane Spider quite a bit, because of all the pausing to admire the scenery. Good thing he has stealth.
Ah well. Come along Beast! We have heroes to defeat and banks to rob!