Video Card

Under Control Panel / System / Advanced Tab / Performance Options / Advanced Tab / Virtual Memory

City of Heroes gets bigger the longer it runs.
I've seen mine over 400MB of memory.

If you let windows manage your swap file, it starts off small, and windows has to add to it as it needs more memory. Set it to about 1.5 times your physical memory as a Initial Size and double that for Maximum size. With 1 GB of RAM, mine is set to 1536 and 3072.

Also, make sure that CoH is the only program running.
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Ms Mystic - Kinetics / Psychic Defender
Shrike - Energy / Energy Blaster
Red Razorback - Spines / Regeneration Scrapper
American Dreams - Martial Arts / Invuln Scrapper

Yesterday I had to go to a surprise party for my wife's boss (who has never once sent out an email) and the discussion about computers came up. My wife and the people she works with seem to think I am really great with computers, and my response to this was that I have always learned just enough to allow me to play.

That was evident today when I installed the new video card. For those not aware, I got a Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB. I guess my other card, even though it was only 64MB was pretty good.

The first thing I did after getting it installed and all the software set was to log onto CoH. I didn't really see much difference between the old and the new.

I can now play in desktop mode, and the shading and lighting are now obvious and noticable. Otherwise, I didn't see much difference graphically except my avatar now seems to have a more "cartoony" feeling to it. Frosty's hair looks kinda like a solid helmet on his head and not consisting of individual hairs.

Where I really noticed a difference was just in the overall gameplay. The game now has a smooth flow to it that I don't remember experiencing before. I am going to have to get used to it, but I definitely think it is for the better.

The one real problem I was having with the old card involved getting a message from windows telling me my virtual memory was low. I thought that getting a new card with more memory would help this, but it wasn't so. After playing for over an hour, I logged off and the same message was there for me.

Anyone got any clues for getting my xp home edition to not do this?
Frosty
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Herodotus Frost-- Magic/Blaster; Electric/Cold
Creon-- Natural/Scrapper; Darkness/Super Reflexes

Read over your Getting Started Guide:

http://www.ati.com/support/manualpdf/Getting_Started.pdf

Its fairly straight-forward. Looking at the guide only the 9500, 9700, and 9800 have an extra power connection, nothing in the guide is mentioend regarding the 9600 having extra connections, but double check the guide that comes with the card to be certain (PDFs on sites can often be early doc versions or not take revisions into account).

Static is not as much an issue as it used to be, but if they provide a static band, using it won't hurt. These days most PC chassis already ground the motherboard so you're not at risk there as much as you used to be.

Remember to disconnect all cables from your chassis, not just power, but anything that carries any type of signal, phone, cable, network, mouse, kbd, etc. This is just precautionary.

When you drop a screw down onto your motherboard (notice I say when, not if) safer to turn your unit upside down and let it drop on the floor rather than picking it out with tweasers, pliers or your fingers.

Leave your soda in the kitchen.

Don't sweat the chipset driver thing they talk about in the manual. Chances are you already have one installed, and you can always upgrade it later on. Its not required to do before the card is installed. They're just beeing weenies about it.
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Circeus, Friendly/Neighborhood/Site/Admin
Starmaster, Mutant/Blaster/Energy/Fire
Mighty Quinn, Magic/Tanker/Invuln/Stone
Maddest Cow, Science/Scrapper/MA/Reflexes

Thanks guys! I wasn't sure if I had to plug somehting directly into the powersupply or what have you. I pretty good about following instructions and what not, so I am confident this will go smoothly.

The eBay fiasco ended up going my way. I stayed calm and persistent and kept telling him the same things while reporting verbatim to eBay what was happening and I reported him for about 3 infractions. I was about ready to contact his ISP because he kept harassing me daily abou the issue when he suddenly stopped. A few days later his wife got involved and then he changed his tune and became very agreeable and understood my concerns. Between him and his wife they admitted that they had screwed up in more than a few areas and paid to have the item shipped back to them, which I did.

All in all, I still think he was a young guy that blew his top and reacted without thinking. It also didn't help that the first letter I wrote was a bit vague about my intentions, but in the end we were both civil and agreeable and I worked with him to show him the ropes to selling and buying on eBay, which he appreciated. I will also probably leave him positive feedback because I think he learned well how to handle these situations in the future.

If I don't go and see Lemony Snickets tonight, I will see everyone later on.

Thanks for the advice guys,

Chuck

Frosty
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Herodotus Frost-- Magic/Blaster; Electric/Cold
Creon-- Natural/Scrapper; Darkness/Super Reflexes

Sounds like a good deal.

How'd the eBay fiasco work out?

And the card you got for Gralor, while not a performer by any means, will run the game, though I'd not set textures to high and minimize particle counts to be sure. It's the card I originally ran with, before I got my new system back in February.
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Circeus, Friendly/Neighborhood/Site/Admin
Starmaster, Mutant/Blaster/Energy/Fire
Mighty Quinn, Magic/Tanker/Invuln/Stone
Maddest Cow, Science/Scrapper/MA/Reflexes

PLug the card in. Download/install the drivers. Reboot. Q.E.D.

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Fuzun, Mutation/Tanker/Invulnerability/Energy Melee
Atomic Annie, Science Defender/Rad/Rad/Stealth/Speed
SilverCenturion, Techology/Blaster/Energy/Energy Control
Nyte Shade, Magic/Scrapper/Dark Melee

Well, I finally got a card and it arrived yesterday. I ended up getting a Radeon 9600 Pro 8x AGP 256 MB for about $118. How did I do? Also, I am planning on installing it in the next few days but I have never installed a video card before. Any tips or advice?

Also, I got Gralor a new card. I got him a GeForce 440MX 128 MB card, which should get him playing by the middle of January!!

Frosty
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Herodotus Frost-- Magic/Blaster; Electric/Cold
Creon-- Natural/Scrapper; Darkness/Super Reflexes

Here's my card. I like it... but sometimes it seems like it SHOULD be faster. I have no issues with the games but sometimes it'll just hang when I try to open a folder on my computer or I get the flashlight looking for something icon.

NVIDIA GeFORCE FX 5200 128 Megs

<br><hr>
The Terrific Wired Tech Know - 34.0 Electrical Blaster / Devices / SuperSpeed/Leaping
R Tech 21.2 Ice/Empathy Controller

First off, sorry to hear about all the issues you've been havin.g Hopefully they get resolved quickly.

But!

A PCI video card?

Ouch (unless is was PCI Express, then it's OK).

Probably too late for this reply, but the core chip on the 5200s is an older chip. If you do a search for benchmarks on this line of cards, you'll find that time and again it gets beat (and beat handily) by card with less memory and running at a slower clock speed.

Give ebay an update and ask them.

Personally I would pay the shipping to return the item. Also when you ship make sure you get insurance and a signature confirmation.

Cheryl

Thanks for the comments guys. As for an update, I already had contacted eBay's SafeHarbor department and informed them of everything in detail.

Since then, the guy has emailed me telling me that he will now accept payment for the item after telling me he wouldn't. Based just on his ridiculous way of telling me to pay up, then not pay up, then to pay up again there is absolutely no way I will honor this auction. I don't trust this guy and he isn't making any efforts to be civil or to try and work out a solution. His last email even ended with him telling me that he "wins"! Obvious proof that he has been playing games all along.

Also, since he sent me this card without insurance and before payment, I think it's his responsibility to pay to have it shipped back to him. I know it's minor, but after all his harassing comments and statements, I am not going to do anything unless I am legally required to do so.

Either way, it will be interesting to see how this plays out and in the long run, I am sure I will get a long laugh out of this.

Frosty
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Herodotus Frost-- Magic/Blaster; Electric/Cold
Creon-- Natural/Scrapper; Darkness/Super Reflexes
Green Succubus--Magic/Defender; Storm/Radiation

Its also important to know here Frosty that the seller has violated eBays terms of selling. This is why you should contact eBay as a CYA. You can btw, if I follow correctly, still keep the card as long as you do send payment. And Cheryl is right, do not use paypal at this point, or he can dispute the payment amount and request more and all sorts of other things. Paypal is not buyer friendly when it comes to these sorts of matters.
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Circeus, Friendly/Neighborhood/Site/Admin
Starmaster, Mutant/Blaster/Energy/Fire
Mighty Quinn, Magic/Tanker/Invuln/Stone
Maddest Cow, Science/Scrapper/MA/Reflexes

Contact Ebay Immediately
http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_inline/index.html

go to the forums too:
http://answercenter.ebay.com/forum.jsp?forum=1

or
http://answercenter.ebay.com/forum.jsp?forum=2

If you are going to pay him: send him a money order
DO not paypal him.

-Cheryl

Well, this has become one giant ordeal. I bought a PCI card for Gralor from eBay and the seller has been a total loon the entire time.

I paid for the item as soon as it ended and then two days later he sends me an email asking me to repay him at a different email address though paypal. He also says that he already shipped the item even though he hasn't gotten paid yet and that I should retract my original payment and send him my email address so he can request a new payment.

I retracted my payment, but before I could respond to anything, I get a package delivered to me. It is the video card, shipped to me without the insurance protection I paid extra for, and he didn't package the card in any box other than the display box it comes in. Inside there was no additional packaging, bubble wrap or protection of any kind. The box was also smashed up a bit too. Lastly, he proceeded to afix the shipping label right to the outside of the display box.

At this point, I am sure that I am in the process of being ripped off, so I send him an email telling him how I felt about his packaging and protection and that I wanted to test out the card before I did anything else. This bozo then goes and starts sending me harassing emails about lawsuits, theft accussations, and veiled threats of using my address information to come "hunt me down" if I don't immediately pay for the item. Then, he tells me not to pay, that he won't accept payment, and that I have to pay to ship the item back to him within 24 hours or the original threats will be enforced.

Pardon my french, but what a *&%*^!@ loon!!! I don't think I will be buying computer parts on eBay anytime soon after dealing with this guy. I made every attempt to purchase this thing legitimately and he starts changing things and tells me to retract my payment and sends out the item without getting paid!

So now I am sitting here with the money for the item as well as the item itself and a bunch of nasty threatening emails from this kid telling me that he has "won" and I should do as he says???

I don't know what all the legal rammifications are, but unless I am threatened with a lawsuit or arrest, I am not in the mind to pay shipping charges for something I didn't pay to have shipped to me in the first place.

When this is done, I think I am going to take some nice pictures of this and create a website about this funny little story because this kid is real zero. You will have to see his emails and my crafted responses and digs at his accussations against me.

Anyone else had a horrow story like this?

Frosty
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Herodotus Frost-- Magic/Blaster; Electric/Cold
Creon-- Natural/Scrapper; Darkness/Super Reflexes
Green Succubus--Magic/Defender; Storm/Radiation

My Other idea is a computer show.
I found one in the Chicago area: http://www.giantcomputershow.com/

Also found one more place
NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=0

Here are some links for other than ebay I noticed good prices too.

http://www.chumbo.com/FeaturedMfr.aspx?id=5874&ptr=BFG

http://www.bfgtech.com/buy_redux.html

http://www.pny.com/whereToBuy/view.asp?prod=verto

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_slc.asp?page=2&CatId=1087

He just means its a lower end card. Which it is. Its also, based on how quickly NVIDIA phases chips out of the market probably only got a 6 month shelf life left at best. You want a better performer from NVIDIA you should be at least 5700 or better. And defintely Ultra if you can. In fact Ultra on a 128MB card will just about make up the diff to a non-ultra 256MB card.
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Circeus, Friendly/Neighborhood/Site/Admin
Starmaster, MutanBlaster/Energy/Fire
Mighty Quinn, Magic/Tanker/Invuln/Stone
Maddest Cow, Science/Scrapper/MA/Reflexes

Why do you say they are underperformers? Not that I am doubting you, but getting 256MB for under the $100 limit my wife set is going to be hard.

For that matter, what do you guys recommend for $100? Is there a ranking of cards that would help me when determining this?

Frosty
_____________________________________________________________________
Herodotus Frost-- Magic/Blaster; Electric/Cold
Creon-- Natural/Scrapper; Darkness/Super Reflexes
Green Succubus--Magic/Defender; Storm/Radiation

Gralor isn't getting that old card. I am not sure what my intentions are for it at this time. I might just keep it and try builinding a second machine.

Gralor is getting a different card for Christmas as I actually drew his name out of the family grab bag. Specifically, he is getting this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5143154842&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT

It's not as nice as the one I will get, but we have put a $50 limit on grab bag gifts, so that's about the best he is going to get. I know the seller has a low history, but it's all positive and I am willing to take the gamble since I have buyer protection with paypal and I will be refunded should I get hosed in any way. That being said, I think we can expect to see Gralor's grumpy butt sometime mid January. Just wait until HE gets to set off proximity bombs!!!

And thanks for chiming in guys. I know so little about cards that it is hard for me to compare them against each other in quality when all things are basically equal. And, this isn't being done specifically for CoH. Technically, my system runs fine on the little 32 MB card I have, but I REALLY want to be competitive with newer titles and games. PLUS, Doom3!! I gotta have that!

Frosty
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Herodotus Frost-- Magic/Blaster; Electric/Cold
Creon-- Natural/Scrapper; Darkness/Super Reflexes
Green Succubus--Magic/Defender; Storm/Radiation

Right, not trying to knock #4 and #5, just that I believe that if you're targeting your game system for a particular game you get the same hardware as the designers.
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Circeus, Friendly/Neighborhood/Site/Admin
Starmaster, Mutant/Blaster/Energy/Fire
Mighty Quinn, Magic/Tanker/Invuln/Stone
Maddest Cow, Science/Scrapper/MA/Reflexes

Agreed, although I do have #4 and it works just fine.

Try and avoid the 5200 FX's if at all possible. They are quite the underperformers.

Ah so Gralor will get your old vid card?

If you are getting this card mostly for CoH then don't bother witht he ATI cards. The game engine, while it works on an ATI card, is designed with NVIDIA in mind. Its the target graphic card chip manufacturer. That means ignore #4 and #5.

If you can snag it #3 would be my pick. Its generally a better card, and because its Ultra has a faster pipeline.
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Circeus, Friendly/Neighborhood/Site/Admin
Starmaster, Mutant/Blaster/Energy/Fire
Mighty Quinn, Magic/Tanker/Invuln/Stone
Maddest Cow, Science/Scrapper/MA/Reflexes