Texas Justice

One way you can get a simple test on the Southbridge is to run until it locks up (with the case open) and then immediately reach in and carefully touch the Southbridge heatsink. If it is extremely hot so that you don't dare leave your finger on it, I'd suspect that may be the issue. If it's hot but not unbearably so, it may not be but could still be an issue.

As for the RAM, one of the memory testing tools should show if it's the source of the problem.

Bah. I hate when OEM's do things like this. I just looked at the files in that driver package. Even though eMachine lists the driver date as 9/2009, the files themselves are dated 1/2009 so it's the same drivers as what you already had.

That's one of the reasons I asked you to post the fresh CoH Helper, to point out problems like this. In this case, it made me download and unzip the files then start looking at dates on the files.

OK. That was a bust then.

Did you try running the Intel Driver Update Utility that I linked in the earlier post? I don't know if it will do any good, but it never hurts to try.

Memory would be the easiest to test. You can find a reviews and links to a few free memory testing tools on this page. Most can be burned as an ISO file and then you can create a bootable CD to run the test.

You could have a problem on the motherboard that is heat related. As the components heat up they expand slightly and may be causing a break in a circuit or trace. I've not used that particular Gigabyte board but we had several Gigabyte boards at work that had problems with the Southbridge chip causing problems once the computer had been running for a bit with any load on it. The Southbridge chip had a heatsink only on it and wasn't dissipating enough heat so it was causing lockups when it got too hot. One of our techs was spending a lot of time removing the heatsinks and adding on a fan instead to keep the Southbridge chip cool. That resolved our problems.

Good luck. Once you get to this point it's more and more difficult to determine the cause of the problems.

You may want to load up the Test server and help test whether their solution for that is working and give them feedback.

Ok. Your video drivers are over a year old so those need to be updated. I'm not certain that this link will work to get the drivers, but you can try it. Save it to the desktop and skip the next paragraph, then follow the instructions in the following paragraphs.

If it doesn't link straight to the download, go to this page and click on Desktop in the box, click on EL Series in the box, click on EL 1600 in the box. When the listing appears, right under the boxes click the down arrow next to Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic x32 and select Microsoft Windows XP Home x32. Click the green circle/down arrow next to VGA to start the download. Save the file to your desktop so you can find it easily. Unzip the file to a folder on your desktop.

Go to Add/Remove programs and remove any listings for Intel Graphics or Display that you find. DON'T remove any other Intel listings unless you know for certain that they are for the graphics chipset only. Reboot the computer once it's finished. When Windows starts loading again, cancel any Found New Hardware wizards. Once everything is fully loaded and no more Hardware wizards are coming up (your graphics may look pretty bad at this point, don't worry, they'll look better soon) open the folder where you unzipped the driver file to earlier and run the Setup program. Let it install the drivers and software and reboot when prompted.

Rerun the CoH Helper and post the results here.

The newest drivers avaiable from eMachine are from 9/2009, but they are newer than the ones you have currently.

Unfortunately, when I try the Intel site it doesn't even list drivers that new for that chipset. Not sure what's going on there but you can try using the Intel Driver Update Utility to see if it has a newer driver to offer. If it does, download it and follow the same instructions listed above.

You are still going to be limited by 3 factors. The current problems they are having with Intel chipsets, especially older chipsets like the 945G. The Atom processor. Only having 1 Gb of memory.

Well, you aren't going to like my suggestion because I'm going to ask you to adjust settings.

Turn Ambient Occlusion to OFF. Turn FSAA to 2x instead of Off. The 8600 isn't going to run UM full on with no problems as you already know, but I think AO may be part of your problem. Along those lines, people with lower end cards have been reporting better results with FSAA set to either 2x or 4x rather than Off. Of course, since AO and FSAA don't play well together it's better to turn AO off.

Also, what options do you have set on the Compatibility tab for your CoH shortcut?

Right-click the shortcut and select Properties. Select the Compatibility tab. What is checked here?

Glad you were able to eliminate it being the slot. Sorry it turns out to be the card. I'd still call the card manufacturer as it may be a fault they have become aware of and may replace it. This is one of the reason's I prefer buying XFX cards. Their warranty would have replaced the card anyway.

Well, at this point, I'm calling it a night.

It's well past this old man's bedtime and I have a full day of laundry and mowing to do tomorrow.

Well, I know my nephew had a problem with one of the slots on his motherboard and it wasn't allowing his graphics card to work right. That's why I thought of trying the other slot.

No winkies this time. I promise.

Ah, okay, I hadn't heard that issue. I'd only heard of not being able to claim items bought, not that stacks were involved.

Market reports don't interest me much so I just skim them usually.

Okay, that just eliminated one of the troubleshooting steps.

I'd suggest contacting nVidia and the card manufacturer about those readings then. You may indeed have a defective card.

I'll not ask that you remove the motherboard from the case so that you can fit the card in the slot to see if that's the problem. (The technical support people for the card may insist on it however to make sure it isn't a slot problem.)

However, if it were my system it's what I'd do and have done in the past.

Didn't show up on Test. Didn't show up until it hit the Live servers and the greater load that the market server has on it here. They can simulate load all they want on the Test server, but it doesn't always show these types of problems.

Basically, if you bought a recipe or whatever you couldn't claim it. It simply wouldn't allow you to retrieve the item or items. Some players had several slots with bought items they couldn't claim filling their slots so that they couldn't buy more or sell something.

In order to try to fix it, the market server(s) had to be taken offline. For one thing, someone else may buy something while they are working on things and not be able to claim it then they'd have to go back through things again. This gives them a more certain way of working on the database and making sure that all of the issues are corrected at once.

First off, let me apologize. I somehow read your first CoH Helper report as being Windows XP 64-bit. Don't ask me why, it doesn't make sense to me either.

That being said, I see a few things that could be causing some problems. Let's tackle them one at a time and see if things improve and if not, move to the next.

First off, AVG. I love it, but sometimes I hate it especially lately.

Go into the Anti-Virus portion and set the CoH installation directory as being excluded. Do the same for the Firewall portion and set the cohupdater.exe and cityofheroes.exe to be allowed. Sometimes updates to the updater make the firewall think it's a different program so it has to be removed and readded. These AVG components are also "listening" in the background so that could be causing part of it as well.

If that doesn't help, try disabling the Steam Client Service. The next one I'd try disabling is the Andrea ADI Filters Service. This is a service that aids in the reduction of background noise when you use a microphone. It does nothing else. Again, it may be using a "listening" type agent.

Another thing, several people were trying out the 197.44 drivers that have OpenGL 3.3 and OpenGL 4.0 support. You can download them at the bottom of this page if you want to try them. Some said they worked better for them than the 197.45 when they were released. YMMV

EDIT: To clarify, one of the things I hate about the new AVG is that you no longer have an Exit or Quit AVG from the icon in the taskbar. I used to use that to quickly get around software that didn't want to install right with the AV active, but now I have to open it up fully, go into the Resident Shield and turn it off, then remember to turn it back on since it doesn't come back with a reboot.

Maybe a HiJackThis report would be in order then, just to see what is running.

Wonderful, so we'll be getting a lot more of the "but I just bought this" posts?

/e headdesk

Apparently they didn't do a Beta driver on the 197.44 for your OS. Those drivers supported OpenGL 3.3 and some people really liked them.

Since you are resweeping and updating again, post a fresh CoH Helper please.

Thanks.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, are you using a USB or PS/2 keyboard and mouse? Any other devices that might have a "listening" service similar to the ATI HotKey Poller?

Here's a tip. Go to your UserCP. Go to the Contacts & Friends link in the left column. In the box at the bottom, type in TEX and click the Add Contact button. Do the same for GPU. Now you can go there, click their name in the Contacts list and look to find their posts.

Easy peasy.

I use the same trick for Moderator 08's posts since they don't show in the digest. He's sure been doing a lot of Zombie killing of late.

Try running the new and improved Issue 17 compliant version of CoH Helper and paste the results in a reply here.

Maybe someone will be able to spot a problematic setting.

No, I'm saying that the graphical updates and the data being sent are apparently sending more network traffic than previously were being sent. I'm seeing it on a wired Gigabit connection, and seeing spikes in the netgraph that correspond with some really high ping times. And all I said about the netbooks, the Atom processor and the Intel graphics chips is true, they aren't designed to run games. I never said anything derogatyory about computers that "don't cost loads". You can spend 2500 on a computer and if the components in it aren't designed to support gaming, it's gonna run like garbage. Cost isn't the factor here, the components are.

Wireless networks are subject to a lot more interference sources than a wired connection. They also have a smaller pipeline to pump that data through and the buffers used in the router for wireless connections may be overflowing that buffer causing some of the problems people using wireless are reporting. Having worked for a wireless router manufacturer in a technical position I have a bit of an understanding of how they work internally. I did quite a bit of product and throughput testing using both wired connections and wireless connections so I'm used to seeing what those differences are as well.

As far as an optional update, no, Issue 17 isn't optional. The use of the new Ultra Mode settings is optional, but any time you make a change to one of the sub-systems of the game, in this case the graphical sub-system, you have a chance of unintended results on hardware and drivers that simply cannot handle the new instructions correctly. Even if you have disabled those settings, it's quite possible that the servers are sending the data to you anyway and your client settings are determining what of those instructions is used. That could account for the increased bandwidth usage, and possibly even the higher CPU usage some report since it's having to decipher the incoming data and process it against the settings for the game to decide what to send to the GPU to render. Without putting a sniffer on it I can't tell exactly what's in those packets so can't say for certain.

All of the graphics card manufacturer's have a history of problems with the OpenGL support in their drivers mostly because most games use DirectX instead and there are fewer and fewer people that understand OpenGL enough to write the drivers correctly (and part of that may be due to the wages being paid to the people writing the drivers being a bit low). Intel specifically has some really poor OpenGL support in their drivers and that could be causing some of the problems that weren't expected. They've told us that they are working on solutions, and I'm sure they are. It may not be an easy fix however.

We've seen several instances in the past of things that didn't show up the same on the Test server as they do on the Live servers. Some of it is due to server load but there are other factors that can come into it as well.

Having a background and degree in programming also helps me understand some of the problems and how something that "shouldn't" have an effect on something will cause strange occurences in places it doesn't even seem related to or strange occurences due to it's interaction with other software such as drivers. Combining that with my hardware knowledge and experience along with my networking knowledge and experience gives me a bit of insight into how things interact that most people can only try to imagine partially if at all.

I'm one of the lucky ones I guess. Even though I've got an unreliable ISP connection I'm having little to no problems with the game since release. Then again, I replaced my computer last year, added a new hard drive to be able to swap OS's easily when Windows 7 was released, and know how to keep my computer tuned and in good running form.

Great work again Zloth.

Now, if only you could create another version that will read the Test installation settings.