nVidia 8800GS Ultra mode settings?
By
Back_Blast,
Posted on: 2010-05-14 05:52 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Without seeing a helper report or anything, I'd lay the blame on your video card. It's not really up to the task of maxing out ultra mode, and it might be below minimum recommended spec to run ultra mode at all. You might have to resign yourself to much lower settings. As far as the ram thing goes, COH uses a gig or more of ram on my machine too, but so what, that's why I have all that ram is for apps to use.
What do you mean helper report? edit: never mind figured it out.
The 8800GS apparently shouldn't be able to run ultra mode at any where close to the setting i have let alone with just choppy in some areas... but it does and lowering settings doesn't really help is the thing which tends to mean it's either a setting I can't figure out or not the card at all.
Also consuming that much RAM, especially if it's not just when Ultra mode is active, is a serious problem considering that CoH has always been consistent about making sure their reqs are pretty low, but good for low end PCs... Eating a gig of RAM on a low end PC will kill it considering a low end PC is likely 32 bit system and likely a far worse vid card than i have... That along with the fact that firefox eats RAM as well... it pretty much means that a lot of the lower spec PCs can't run CoH anymore which is a good portion of their install base.
---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---
DxDiag gathered at May 14, 2010 11:38 (-04:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model: P35-DS3L
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4600 @ 2.40GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 3070MB
.Net Memory Report: 2397MB out of 3070MB available
Page File: 5328MB (651MB currently in use)
C Drive: (WDC WD400EB-75CPF0) 3470MB out of 38154MB (9%) free
D Drive: (WDC WD800JB-00FMA0) 26890MB out of 76308MB (35%) free
G Drive: (WDC WD10EADS-00L5B1) 871497MB out of 953866MB (91%) free
E Drive: (TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203B) zero-size drive
F Drive: (CTGX IFG5Y3W5E SCSI CdRom Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DirectX Diag version: 5.03.2600.2180 (32-bit version)
Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 8800 GS
Video Memory: 384.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0011.9745
Driver Date: 4/3/2010 10:55:32 PM
Driver Language: English
Sound Device Description: Realtek HD Audio output
Driver File: RtkHDAud.sys
Driver Version: 5.10.0000.5567
Driver Date: 2/14/2008 5:04:06 AM
WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: P35-DS3L
Motherboard Version: x.x
BIOS Manufacturer: Award Software International, Inc.
BIOS Name: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Version: GBT - 42302e31
BIOS Release: 20071129000000.000000+000
Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1440x900
3D Resolution: 1440x900 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes
Physics Quality: High
Maximum Particles: 50000
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No
Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 2x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: Ultra quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: Yes
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: Medium?
World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 1.000
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Shadow Mode: Shadow maps
Shadow Map Shader: High quality
Environmental Reflections: Ultra quality
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: Balanced
Occlusion Strength: Medium
Blur: Bilateral
Ambient Resolution: Performance
Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes
Audio Mode: Compatiblity
3D Audio: Yes
FX Sound Volume: 0.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.000
Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.000
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 430199 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1800.201003300904.20T5r
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes
Mod files in the Data directory
.\texture_library\GUI\Icons\Powers has 96 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\static has 34 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 16 files
Sorry for being unclear. When I said "much lower settings" I meant "not using ultra mode." I realize folks are enabling features on lower-than-spec cards and having few issues, but that's not guaranteed to produce a satisfactory experience. If you've tried various settings in ultra mode and gotten no improvement, it might just be too much for your card to run ultra mode at all. Does it run all right on legacy settings?
Doesn't look like anything's too far amiss on the report, other than sound drivers being outdated and your OS needing updates. I don't see those things helping your issue. I don't have any other suggestions; I think your card is just not up to ultra mode 
Ok, the 3GB of system memory thing is due to a limitation of your OS. 32-bit OS's can ony address 4GB of memory. The reason it only reports abut 3GB is because that '4th' GB of address space is being used up by your hardware. So even though you have 4GB worth of memory sticks, the system can only use 3GB worth of them.
I have a decidely better system and I've seen the draw distance issue myself with the advanced shadows. It just seems to be something baked into the shadow system that the nifty shadow maps only render at a certain distance. Why, I've no idea. This was mentioned in the Beta by folks and I can't recall the Devs ever commenting on it. So either they can't increase the draw distance for them or they aren't doing so for some unstated reason.
Any choppiness you see is likely more an artifact of your card not being entirely up to the settings you have the game at. If you still consider it playable then just keep going.
As for memory I expect CoH can subsist on less (with reduced performance) but it likes to have that GB when it can and thus runs better. Excess memory needs would just be paged out on systems with lesser memory amounts.
As for your system I will note you're behind on patches being only at SP2. I'd suggest doing something about that. An audio driver update wouldn't hurt and I see that your C: drive is exceedingly low on space. That can hamper system performance. I'd recommend freeing up some space. I believe Windows doesn't like it much when free space gets below 20%. Otherwise things don't look too bad.
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Yeah I have a nVidia 8800 GS, 3GB (though 4GB in the machine >.>) and 2.40 GHz Dual Core CPU (Intel core2 duo e4600 if your curious)
in various areas it gets choppy and it seems shadows, objects, and such aren't being rendered where at the proper distances... they aren't rendering till much much closer than they used to be causing things to sorta pop into existence rather than render further off...
Let me see if I can get this right...
I have everything at max or 100% (default turned on Ultra mode settings) save for FSAA which is disabled and anitstropic filtering at 2x. And all Ultra mode settings are at max save for advanced occlusion which is disables and whatever occlusion which is set to balanced...
I've tried messing with the settings, tried turning down and up, but the only thing that seems to matter is occlusion and the 2 other things i mentioned.
I also seem to be having CoH eat up like a full Gig of RAM at times where before it barely registered.
What I'd like to know is either good settings... or what is up? is the choppiness and other issues due to the RAM? and if so is it a memory leak or due to the settings?