Why is the NCSoft Launcher such a turd?
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2011-12-09 15:25 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
It runs in the background?
I always close it once the game has been launched.
Why not set the Launcher to close once the game launches, am I missing something? Leaving it running seems to me a zero-upside proposition.
Later on,
Gate
EDIT: well ninjaed, sir 
@Generator
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Go to File-Settings
There's a setting at the botton: 'After launching a game....' and select 'Exit Launcher'.
That may solve your problem since it crashes during the game.
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Originally Posted by Kioshi
Go to File-Settings
There's a setting at the botton: 'After launching a game....' and select 'Exit Launcher'. That may solve your problem since it crashes during the game. |
Thanks that's kind of useful... but I find the game generally so crashy that to relaunch then involves relaunching the launcher, then launching the game. It just seems this is an extra bit of badly coded junk we gotta use to play the game.
Thelonious Monk
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That's why I have a shortcut of CoH on my desktop. That launches the game via the launcher, which exits as soon as the loading bar comes up. If the game crashes, just double-click on the CoH icon again. Simple!|
Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
Thanks that's kind of useful... but I find the game generally so crashy that to relaunch then involves relaunching the launcher, then launching the game. It just seems this is an extra bit of badly coded junk we gotta use to play the game.
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Well, unless you have to reset the computer first, I guess.
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It's been fairly well known that the Launcher is a memory hog (some say leak). If you are leaving it up while playing, I wouldn't be surprised if it is a contributing factor to your frequent crashes. |
Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
Thanks that's kind of useful... but I find the game generally so crashy that to relaunch then involves relaunching the launcher, then launching the game. It just seems this is an extra bit of badly coded junk we gotta use to play the game.
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You don't need to have it running while you PLAY the game... the game doesn't need it to run, just to launch. Try the "close after launch" setting... it might actually cut down on your crashes.
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So we're back to my first question: Why is the NCSoft Launcher such a turd? It provides ZERO customer benefit. It's crashy - I didn't know about the memory leak but it makes sense. This is a corporate decision that actually hinders the customer rather than providing an "improved customer experience"
Thelonious Monk
The new launcher is used for PlayNC's file distribution system. It may have its drawbacks, but I never experienced it trying to connect for minutes (and sometimes even hours) to a patch server to get the newest patch, like the old launcher was prone to do.
10joy
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I've found that the NCsoft Launcher is slower than the old updater.
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Originally Posted by Tenjoy
The new launcher is used for PlayNC's file distribution system. It may have its drawbacks, but I never experienced it trying to connect for minutes (and sometimes even hours) to a patch server to get the newest patch, like the old launcher was prone to do.
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i've had the launcher set to close after launching CoH since it was implemented, and in every way it performs better than the old launcher did for me. It does what i need it to without fuss or difficulty and apparently i lack the relevant experience with other game launchers (other than the old CoH launcher, which was definitely worse) to compare it to in order to realize it's a "turd".
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Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
So we're back to my first question: Why is the NCSoft Launcher such a turd? It provides ZERO customer benefit. It's crashy - I didn't know about the memory leak but it makes sense. This is a corporate decision that actually hinders the customer rather than providing an "improved customer experience"
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I'm actually surprised with the new launcher. Few things reach my max download speed when I get a file from a website or whatnot, the nclauncher does when updating the game. I only get similar download speeds from torrents with a lot of seeders, both in the mac and windows launchers. And I'm in South America.|
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
I've found that the NCsoft Launcher is slower than the old updater.
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(the old updater was quite slow, was another computer but same internet connection, I got about 1/5 of my max download speed)
Haven't had memory issues but my computer is new and I kinda went overboard on RAM. Anyway my client and the launcher basically never crash so I have nothing against them (ok I hate the Mac client with a passion even with lower gfx settings, it locks up once per hour and the windows one on the same computer can stay on 12 hours in a row without a crash).
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Which is odd because I've found it to be at least an order of magnitude faster. I guess it may vary by ISP or geographic location. Maybe the old updater was particularly slow from my location in the UK.|
Originally Posted by Snow Globe
I've found that the NCsoft Launcher is slower than the old updater.
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I also set the updater to close on launch, but then I don't remember the last time the game or the updater crashed on me.
I have never, ever had this issue with the NCSoft Launcher and I must assume then that it is something with your computer.
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Originally Posted by Tenjoy
The new launcher is used for PlayNC's file distribution system. It may have its drawbacks, but I never experienced it trying to connect for minutes (and sometimes even hours) to a patch server to get the newest patch, like the old launcher was prone to do.
10joy |
My experience was very different.
I do admit that patches seem to be significantly quicker - but that's relatively small beer compared to overall stability
Thelonious Monk
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It downloads faster, patches faster and fails to connect far less often than the old CohLauncher.exe. That's pretty much enough for me.
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Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
Why is the NCSoft Launcher such a turd?
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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 even crashes faster!|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
It downloads faster, patches faster and fails to connect far less often than the old CohLauncher.exe. That's pretty much enough for me.
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Seriously, at least the old patcher was tough as nails and never crapped out mid-patch like this one sometimes does.
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Yeah I have found the new launcher more efficent to be honest, though I always have it close once CoH loads up so I never get hit with the memory leak. But last patch came through at roughly 5 megabytes a second, speeds I wasn't getting ANYWHERE near on the old launcher. Even still, I agree that it shouldn't be needed, its just wasted code for me, I have no intention of purchasing any other ncsoft games in the near future.
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
It downloads faster, patches faster and fails to connect far less often than the old CohLauncher.exe. That's pretty much enough for me.
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I never found that. It's a bit faster, but nowhere near enough to justify the grief it gives me
Thelonious Monk
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I've found it to be significantly faster. And I've never had it crash. ever.
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Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
I never found that. It's a bit faster, but nowhere near enough to justify the grief it gives me
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Set it to close after launching the game and see how it does then.|
Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
I never found that. It's a bit faster, but nowhere near enough to justify the grief it gives me
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It sounds like leaving it running in the background might at least be contributing to the crashes.
In my case it takes the launcher about four seconds to load, so it hardly seems useful to leave it running anyway. Of course having a different system YMMV.
Dr. Todt's theme.
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It's slower downloading for me as it is with Snow Globe. That's my only problem with it. Of course, some of that could be my ISP.
If something happens and the game crashes or I close it and immediately need to get back in, it takes me about the same amount of time to reopen the launcher and get the game going as it did with the old Updater.
It's nice to be able to see if I need to update Beta or Test when I launch the Live game as well.
I keep 4 different Launcher shortcuts on the desktop. One of just the Launcher, one set to launch Live, one set to launch Test and one set to launch Beta. Works out well.
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This.|
Originally Posted by VoodooGirl
I have never, ever had this issue with the NCSoft Launcher and I must assume then that it is something with your computer.
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The fact that you also mention Co* is 'crashy' as well as the launcher only strengthens the argument.
*MY* setup doesn't crash. Period. And it's still Vista Ultimate.
Not a brag, just sayin', if it's crashin' it's your setup somewhere. The Updater, and Co*, work flawlessly, every time, on my machine:
E6750 Core 2 Duo, 4G ram, 32 Bit Vista Ultimate, Evga Nvidia 9600GT 512MB PCIx16, onboard Realtek audio, 3 speed on the tree, and an FM radio in it.
/Perhaps a CoHelper is in order... folks?
//12M DL makes a happy NCSoft launcher when updating, btw.
///bonus for knowin' the reference!
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I concur.|
Originally Posted by houtex
/Perhaps a CoHelper is in order... folks?
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CoH Helper + Hijack This logs, stat!
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I've never had the NCsoft Launcher crash on me, and I started using it pretty much as soon as they offered it. Not while patching, not while downloading, not while starting the game. And I run it on at least three separate machines.|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Seriously, at least the old patcher was tough as nails and never crapped out mid-patch like this one sometimes does.
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Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
I never found that. It's a bit faster, but nowhere near enough to justify the grief it gives me
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Maybe it has a memory leak, maybe it doesn't. I have mine set to self-shut-down once I run City of Heroes. I'd do the same to Steam, but it needs to run to handle the backend of the the games it's running. I've quite literally never had any problem with the Launcher. The old updater used to fail to connect at least a third of the time, especially on patch day, it became bugged to where it wouldn't run on at least two separate occasions and it insisted on opening all my links in Internet Explorer. The Launcher has not failed to load once so far, never become unusable and launches all my links in my default browser.
I'm sticking to it.
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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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I can fire up the launcher when my PC starts. I can start it manually.
It sits there in its tray doing nothing. But, once I play the game, it crashes. Usually it has the courtesy to wait til I'm at a really life or death juncture and I'm reaching for that rarely used power that will just keep me alive... then suddenly "The NCSoft Launcher has crashed and must be restarted" with the "Okay" or "Exit" buttons (seriously? two buttons for the same frikin result?)
Let's face it... the launcher is junk and we were forced into it but it's an unreliable piece of excreta that's clogging up my PC and I LOATHE AND DETEST IT WITH A PASSION!
It's getting to be close to a deal breaker for me
Thelonious Monk