Stuttering and mouse capture issues

Hello all,

I am currently have a couple of problems with CoH freedom. First of is stuttering and a terrible performance at the recommended settings for my system. I have had to turn down almost all settings to get a semblance of smooth gameplay. Even settings that state they are for DX10 or DX9 cards I have either had to disable or turn down to lowest settings. While my computer is several years old it should be capable of better peformance in this title imo.

Secondly is that the game will not capture my mouse pointer correctly, resulting in the mouse going offscreen and to my second display. This means that if I click on or near to the edge of the display for the 2nd screen the game with return to desktop. This means at times I have major performance problems as the system dumps the game from fullscreen to desktop but the game then continues to be displayed on top of my desktop. Effectively the game is "alt-tabbing" when this occurs.


My system is well maintained and I currently am NOT using the AMD 12.6 drivers because of a number of problems with this driver in other game titles. However I did test the game on this set and the above problems were also apparent, so its not a graphics driver issue. I am using 12.4 as this is the most stable set in recent months for my rig. I would post a dxdiag but the forums here wont allow it due to characters per post limitations. Graphics card is a HD 3870 512mb GDDR4 btw, as the helper file does not note this.

CoH Helper file below;



---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---

DxDiag gathered at August 7, 2012 18:34 (+01:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120503-2030)
System Manufacturer: GBT___
System Model: NVDAACPI
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+ (2 CPUs), ~2.1GHz
Memory: 2048MB
.Net Memory Report: 1216MB out of 2047MB available
Page File: 1970MB (1732MB currently in use)
C Drive: (ST332061 3AS SCSI Disk Device) 80636MB out of 305242MB (26%) free
D Drive: (ST360020A ATA Device) 55668MB out of 57231MB (97%) free
E Drive: (ST332062 0AS SCSI Disk Device) 184409MB out of 305242MB (60%) free
F Drive: (_NEC DVD_RW ND-3540A ATA Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7601.17514 (64-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x9501)
Video Memory: 1275 MB
Driver Version: 8.961.0.0
Driver Date: 04/06/2012 03:20:04
Driver Language: English

Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x9501)
Video Memory: 1275 MB
Driver Version: 8.961.0.0
Driver Date: 04/06/2012 03:20:04
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (2- SB Audigy)
Driver File: P17.sys
Driver Version: 5.12.0001.2020
Driver Date: 01/01/0001 00:00:00

Sound Device Description: Digital Audio Interface (2- SB Audigy)
Driver File: P17.sys
Driver Version: 5.12.0001.2020
Driver Date: 01/01/0001 00:00:00


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: M57SLI-S4
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: Award Software International, Inc.
BIOS Name: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: GBT - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20070809000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 12800x10240
3D Resolution: 12800x10240 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: No
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 25, -134
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: No


Physics Quality: Unknown (2147483647)
Maximum Particles: 9300
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No


Anti-aliasing: Unknown (2147483647)
Anisotropic Filtering: Unknown (2147483647)
Texture LOD Bias: Unknown (25)
Water Effects: Unknown (2147483647)
Bloom: Unknown (turned off)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: No
Shader Detail: Unknown (25)


World Texture Level: Unknown (2147483647)
Character Texture Level: Unknown (2147483647)
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 0.798
Entity Detail Level: Unknown
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Unknown (2147483647)
Shadow Map Shader: Unknown (2147483647)
Environmental Reflections: Unknonwn (2147483647)
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: Off
Occlusion Strength: Unknonwn (2147483647)
Blur: Unknonwn (2147483647)
Ambient Resolution: Unknonwn (2147483647)


Gamma Correction: Unknown
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: No
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: Unknown
Music Sound Volume: Unknown

Show Advanced Graphics Options: No
Overall Graphics Quality: Unknown
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: Unknown bytes/second
Current Game Version: ?
Installation Directory: E:\My Games\NCSOFT\City of Heroes\GAMEDATA

Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found

I got nuthin' on the mouse problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lexandro First of is stuttering and a terrible performance at the recommended settings for my system.

Recommended by whom? If you're talking about the FAQ on NCSoft's web site, it's full of wishful thinking. Try turning the settings down, maybe by a lot. If the problem goes away, that means your system is underpowered.

That's an awfully low-end graphics card for this game. Also, you really need more RAM. You're running a 64-bit version of Win7 and you have 2GB? This game can take around 1.3GB all by itself.

The 3800 series is not that great of a graphics card. The 4850 to 4870 is able to run "some" Ultra mode settings without issue but even beefier cards have problems with some settings such as Ambient Occlusion. That's a real resource hog. The 3800 series won't run the as well with the same settings as a 4850 can handle easily.

Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what your in-game settings are since the CoH Helper report is showing most of the settings asUnknown (2147483647).

There are generally two conditions that will cause it to report this way.

The first is that CoH Helper isn't being run with elevated priveleges (Right-click the CoH Helper and select Run as Administrator).

The other is generally due to software on the computer blocking access to the registry. Firewall programs, Security Suites, Anti-Virus and other programs can often block other programs from reading the registry entries correctly.

Of course, there may be other issues involved but it's hard to tell without seeing a HiJackThis report to see what software is running on the computer that could be causing issues. It would be helpful if you'd run HiJackThis and post the results from that in a reply here.

I do know that CoH at times has problems with multiple monitors. Try disconnecting the second monitor or run the game in Windowed mode but resize the game so that it has about an inch of space between the right-edge of the game window and the edge of the screen.

The 3800 series is quite old and having 2 monitors is not going to help performance.

Note that DxDiag and hence COHHelper only lists the card as an HD 3800 series card, not an exact model number.

Performance wise Tom's hierarchy chart puts the HD 3850/3870 in the same grouping as the GT 240, slower DDR3 memory matching the 3850, the GDDR5 version the 3870.

Until we get a better report with game settings and a resolution that makes sense, I would suggest the middle setting on the graphics slider.

Also the CPU factors into performance somewhat.

The settings reccommended by the GAME not a site. Settings in the menu have info panels that reccomend settings for DX9 /10 and 11 cards. None of the settings I have are above DX9 performance levels even though my card is DX10.1 capable.

I am NOT using Ultra mode in any shape or form, and most of the settings are below what a DX9 card should be capable of. As noted in the rerun below I have Ambient Occusion off as many noted this has a major impact on performance with this version of the game. While some of you might scoff at the graphics card, this very card runs Crysis on THIS rig at above 30fps in DX9 mode all "high" settings. And there is no way in hell that CoH is more intensive than Crysis for DX9 rendering even if this game uses OGL. The issue I have is not a FPS problem, the game runs at 50+fps when its not stuttering. The stuttering occurs if I rotate the camera, or cross zone boundries in a map or If I stay still for a moment and then move once again. In mission zones there are zero problems with performance or stuttering, its only in the city scapes that the stutter occurs.

The card is a 3870 512mb GDDR4 as I noted already, and is capable of better performance than you give it credit. Also dual monitor display has zero impact on performance with this card. The resolution is a standard 4:3 1280x1024 @60hz.

I dont have anything running in the background, the system is pared back to essential services only with no programs running. I fully defragged on all drives and clean the registry weekly.

Re-run of CoH helper as admin;

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---

DxDiag gathered at August 8, 2012 10:00 (+01:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120503-2030)
System Manufacturer: GBT___
System Model: NVDAACPI
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+ (2 CPUs), ~2.1GHz
Memory: 2048MB
.Net Memory Report: 857MB out of 2047MB available
Page File: 2416MB (1678MB currently in use)
C Drive: (ST332061 3AS SCSI Disk Device) 80204MB out of 305242MB (26%) free
D Drive: (ST360020A ATA Device) 55668MB out of 57231MB (97%) free
E Drive: (ST332062 0AS SCSI Disk Device) 184410MB out of 305242MB (60%) free
F Drive: (_NEC DVD_RW ND-3540A ATA Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7601.17514 (64-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x9501)
Video Memory: 1275 MB
Driver Version: 8.961.0.0
Driver Date: 04/06/2012 03:20:04
Driver Language: English

Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x9501)
Video Memory: 1275 MB
Driver Version: 8.961.0.0
Driver Date: 04/06/2012 03:20:04
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (2- SB Audigy)
Driver File: P17.sys
Driver Version: 5.12.0001.2020
Driver Date: 01/01/0001 00:00:00

Sound Device Description: Digital Audio Interface (2- SB Audigy)
Driver File: P17.sys
Driver Version: 5.12.0001.2020
Driver Date: 01/01/0001 00:00:00


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: M57SLI-S4
Motherboard Version:
BIOS Manufacturer: Award Software International, Inc.
BIOS Name: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: GBT - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20070809000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1280x1024
3D Resolution: 1280x1024 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 25, -13
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes


Physics Quality: None
Maximum Particles: 930
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No


Anti-aliasing: 2x
Anisotropic Filtering: None
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: Low quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: Medium?


World Texture Level: High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 0.798
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Stencil shadows
Shadow Map Shader: Unknown (0)
Environmental Reflections: Disabled
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: Off
Occlusion Strength: Off
Blur: Bilateral
Ambient Resolution: Performance


Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: Yes
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 0.498
Music Sound Volume: 1.000

Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.500
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: Unknown bytes/second
Current Game Version: ?
Installation Directory: E:\My Games\NCSOFT\City of Heroes\GAMEDATA

Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found

I don't think your card is that underpowered.

Okay, random suggestion. Defrag your E drive (the game drive). It sounds like you might be stalling when additional textures are being loaded as you travel/pan in a zone. Also AA modes will eat into available video card memory so you would need to reload textures more often.

The game only tells you if you have a card that supports UM and asks if you would like to try that. It asks even if you have the most minimal video card, as long as it has universal shaders (Dx10 class of hardware or better).

I vaguely remember some kind of two monitor issue but I don't remember the exact problem or fix.

Lastly could you post a HiJack This report so we can see if there is something loaded/running that maybe interfering with the game.

Oh and 2GB of system memory can be a bit tight. That could cause an increase in page file access and disk access is like a party of caltrop happy Knives of Artemis at the 100 meter sprint when it comes to slowing a PC to a near halt.