This game's computer requirements have changed quite a bit over the years, as the devs continue to make the game keep up with the graphics of newer games. A while back I dug out my vintage 2004 CoH box and posted the "old" and "new" requirements here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...6&postcount=13 To quote someone else in that thread, "You can't think of this as a seven year old game. It is indeed seven years, but the game has gone through significant changes, and that apparently includes what minimum hardware you can get away with using."
As far as technical help goes, this link to "Guide: Asking for Help on the Technical Forums" will give you (and the technically inclined members here) more information on the internal specifics of your new laptop: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=231628 While I personally can't read through a CoH Helper or Hijack This log and instantly see the problem, there are plenty of people here who CAN, and who can hopefully help with your framerate issue if you give them the information they need!
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30 level 50's: 12 scrappers, 7 other random melee types, 11 blaster/blapper/support squishies, two accounts, and a TON of altitis since 4/28/04
1 - The folks that haunt "Gameplay and Technical Issues/Bugs" forum can probably help you more than most of us here in Player Qs - we are morenon-technical help.
2 - What Drivers do you have? Catalyst drivers 11.5-11.8 and 11.10+ don't like city of heroes. At least, last I checked 11.9 was the highest that does like it.
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My thoughts are that the laptop you received is not for gaming. In my most humble, experienced but not Expert opinion, most laptop video cards have 2 issues:
1) shared system memory. Due to space restrictions and to keep costs down, no separate memory is dedicated to the video card. Memory is set aside for use for the video card, sometimes this value can be changed in the bios and sometimes within display settings. Then the system gets to use the remaining memory. The game needs (wants a lot of) both system memory and video memory.
2) they are not as robust as the same version in an add-on card for a desktop computer. Again space is usually an issue in regards to heat dissipation. So the laptop video cards can have some features that get down-graded- not even close to the max specs. Desktop add-on cards can get big honking heatsinks and huge fans which allow the manufacturers to reach upper, maximum specs and then overclock to push the limitations of the video card.
In conclusion, newest working drivers and more memory if possible are always advantages for any system. Perhaps the gurus in the Technical Forum can add better advice then spending money on more memory. Good Luck.
Quote:
Eldorado has given you the links you need to help us get going. If you can drop the information you generate from the HOWTO into a thread in the technical issues forum, that'll help us get going.|
Originally Posted by WarCold
This Xmas I received a laptop with these specs:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2330M CPU @ 2.20GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.2GHz Memory: 4096MB RAM Radeon HD 6490m Display Memory: 2838 MB Dedicated Memory: 1072 MB Shared Memory: 1765 MB I turned the settings all the way down to low and I get only around 15-20 fps anywhere in the game. During combat it's worse. On a game this old, this isn't right is it? |
While the game itself has been out a while, as noted, it's had several graphical updates and a couple zones have created and/or reworked to take advantage of these updates. The latest of which is the tutorial and Atlas Park.
Also, this game has lots of "visual spam" in it from a diverse array of individual power effects. Even really REALLY strong cards can be made to weep with despair in things like zone events and raids where you have dozens or hundreds of effects happening simultaneously.
Also, this game runs on OpenGL. This helps the game to be cross-platform in a way DirectX games cannot be. But, the drivers for OGL see less development and refinement than DirectX driversets do. And OGL's rendering model tends to place fiercer demands on hardware than DirectX does. As such, systems that scream through DirectX content post nowhere near the same framerate numbers in OGL-based games.
On top of that, you're running a Radeon-based card. While they're not "bad" with the game, there are numerous technical issues plaguing people who sport Radeon-based cards. Some of this can be worked around by staying away from certain driver revisions. But it doesn't eliminate the issues. And at the end of the day it's all a giant shill game.
And to put snow on the mountain, you're dealing with an entry-level mobile integrated solution. Mobile solutions tend to be less powerful than equivalently numbered devices in the desktop/workstation space due to thermal and power envelope concerns.
And while your video accelerator has dedicated memory, it's still going to try and "share" (see "steal") system memory too.
I don't want to discourage you. It may be that we can find some way of alleviating your performance problems. I just want to make sure you have all the "bad news" up front and are realistic about what can be done.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
What resolution are you trying to play at? Try something like 1280x720 if you are trying to play at 1920x1080 or 1600x800.
Also the HD 6490M isn't a really powerful GPU (160SP). Unless we find out a bit more about your game settings and driver version, we can only guess.
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This Xmas I received a laptop with these specs:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2330M CPU @ 2.20GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Radeon HD 6490m
Display Memory: 2838 MB
Dedicated Memory: 1072 MB
Shared Memory: 1765 MB
I turned the settings all the way down to low and I get only around 15-20 fps anywhere in the game. During combat it's worse. On a game this old, this isn't right is it?