The other advice for those new to Variable Sync or AMD Freesync/Nvidia GSync compatible displays (like I am): for your display, be sure "Game Mode", "Freesync", "GSync" or "High Refresh" is turned on. (Language may vary.) The option should be somewhere in the monitor's OSD (On Screen Display, visible when you press MENU on the display, or press the buttons to find a settings panel on those with a 4-way button and "OK"/"Back" buttons instead of a menu.) If there's more than one, check the manual (in the box or online, most sites will load it with a Model number typed in to Support search.) Most displays advertise the refresh rate, but don't have the mode enabled by default because customers realize more Power Savings if someone never turns it on. (Compared to a CRT, still far less with High Refresh Rates enabled, just a bit more than the ~12V-30V AC Brick is used to on defaults.) This is absolutely anecdotal. I had Game mode enabled on my displays then realized Freesync was a second option to also turn on along with Game Mode... my 144Hz class displays now push 166Hz with both enabled, so average frame rates in most zones are easily 80-100FPS, if not higher. The classic FPS killer Atlas Park never goes below 45FPS now. Definitely worth checking out.

I'm hating 16x9. I REALLY prefer a taller screen aspect. This is why I have a triple monitor setup with all screens in portrait mode. (Long aspect vertical). Having to deal with it right now as I've had to fall back to a 4K laptop. And I'd have this problem on a 4K TV too. The only thing that makes it MILDLY usable for me is I crank the FOV ALL THE WAY UP to 90 (max). It delivers a very slight "fish eye" look. But for things like ship raids? It's utterly invaluable when I need to zoom all the way out (400) and want to see as much as possible. I've grown so used to it, trying to crash around in default FOV is just that. Nearly un-navigable for me anymore.

Odd posting in a thread my non-GM self posted in. It's like TimeCop. (I'll try not to shake my own hand.) Anyway, Mac Silicon users are in a similar place with Ryzen with on-board graphics, with some key differences: Most Post Processing Effects are disabled. This emulates Intel IGP support, Mac systems with Core i-Series CPUs had the same limitation. Was corrected elsewhere that the Shadow Engine (above the lowest setting representing the dithering shadow engine) and Amb. Occlusion are both post-processing effects. FSAA is limited to 4x max. Regarding the entire M1-M3 lineup, the CPU makes no real difference across all four variants of each chip. (Having 4, 8, 12, or 16 Graphic Cores for the game is negligible when only one is needed to run it well. Better frame rates on the more expensive models, that's basically it.) Refresh rate doesn't appear because I'm using Borderless windowed mode. I've also favored water effects over shadows because the weird 'clock warp' when a zone load in happens and seems a bit Breaking Bad-ish to me, so in the old Shadow engine, it's a lot less pronounced. Ambient Occlusion makes little sense without the new shadow engine, so that's off too. Finally I also prefer high FPS performance over pretty. As such, Vertical Sync is disabled. This is because I have a monitor that is made for gaming use, so screen tearing is handled in the Monitor Hardware itself suitably well not to worry about it (AMD Freesync certified, but still works on Apple). If you're on a 60FPS or sub-60FPS display, really consider leaving that feature on unless you like seeing "tears" in the graphics when you spin left and right quickly.

I recently built a small form factor computer and wanted to share my experience. I hadn't originally planned to put any games on it, but I play several older games and when I saw how light the CPU/GPU usage was for these games on my main gaming computer (the one that is the focus of my previous post above), I decided to migrate them to the SFF build. This includes stuff like Project 1999, Icewind Dale, Forgotten Hope 2, and I decided to try out City of Heroes on there as well. This SFF computer has a Ryzen 5 5600G with 16 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM (4 GB of which I allocated to the iGPU), and no discrete GPU. I'm using the same monitor as above (1080p, 144 Hz), but the motherboard is limited to 120 Hz output so 120 FPS is the best I could hope for. Note that the numbers below are just general observations, and not the result of rigorous testing/data collection. I mostly wanted to get a general feel for how this hardware would do with City of Heroes. I initially tried the same settings I mentioned above, which are approaching Ultra settings, and it performed at the lower end of playability. I checked Atlas Park, Perez Park, Imperial City, and a few random Paragon City zones. These zones were around 20-30 FPS, which isn't great, but playable. I dialed some of the settings back, and saw significant improvement. I set FSAA to zero, lowered the water effects and shadow quality to low (but not off), and set visscale and lodbias to 2. I consistently saw FPS generally in the 75-85 range, up to 100ish FPS in some zones. I then turned shadows, water effects, environmental reflections, ambient occlusion, and anisotropic filtering to off/zero, and consistently saw FPS in the 90-120 range, with Atlas Park and Praetoria being at the lower end of that range, and all other zones at the higher end. In keeping with the spirit of the thread, I tried to strike a balance of settings to try to get to around 60 FPS, and here's what I came up with: This gave me performance in the 55-65+ FPS range, except in Perez Park where it was about 10 FPS lower. I don't intend to use this computer for normal CoH play, but I fully intend to keep CoH on there and use it when I am testing or just gathering data (which I do quite often). Overall I was really pleased with what the R5 5600G was able to do. For someone who just wants to play CoH in 1080p on a small budget and is willing to dial the settings back a little, it might be worth consideration. My particular build was a little more expensive since I went with a super small ITX form factor build, but tinkering around on PC PartPicker I could put together a decent mATX/ATX parts list (except monitor) for $350-$400.

The free upgrade is complete. it is now intel i9 12900k ROG STRIX Z690-e Gaming Wifi Motherboard AORUS Waterforce X 360 (i hate gigabyte but it was free) 32Gb DDR5 Trident Z 6000Mhz RTX 4090 MSI gaming x Trio He also left me a 2Tb Samsung NVME Gen 4 drive on the board. that is now my boot drive. Since I no longer have Corsair ram, I decided to give Signal RGB a go, it did quite well. only missing my razer tartarus chroma and the lcd panel on my cooler. I now have a complete 10900k to upgrade Ael's machine with, including my old gen4 nvme boot drive, MUCH faster than her old samsung 840 128Gb ssd. since she is still running a 3770k that's quite the upgrade. That thing works so hard on some new stuff lately the whole case gets hot to touch, especially with baldur's gate or hosting a palworld server. I will say though, those old intels, they still hammer.

Considering all the issues with 13X and 14X, that's a nice, solid upgrade. Depending on the unit, you might need to get newer mounting hardware. https://www.gigabyte.com/CPU-Cooler/AORUS-WATERFORCE-360/sp#sp Check your socket type vs the specs listed above.

Friend of mine updating is rig, giving me his 'old' components, a 12900k, Z690 motherboard and 32Gb DDR 5 Trident Z memory. nice upgrade from my 10900k. my question now is if my Aorus waterforce 360 aio will fit that different socket.

At first blush, my A770 seems to run okay at 1440p. Only tested in Outbreak and getting into Atlas Park so far. Not all the settings are maxed out... yet. 😎

After further testing, it turns out some of the bugs I was experiencing were related to running at 4K resolution, not the graphics card or drivers.

Lodbias!!! i didn't know that was a thing, definitely going to do that next reboot. Already love running Viscale at 4 or higher, seeing the distant trees show up in the fog is a treat. I just wish the game had better resolution textures

Regardless of Graphics, FPS drops are common in the following places: Kallisti Wharf, Praetorian Maps, and First/Night Ward (and any other new city map from/since Going Rogue. Pretty new buildings? More FPS weight.) Echo Plaza (see above) Larger Shadow Shard maps (Cathedral of Storms easily strains a client at 4GB RAM or less, even during live play.) Rikti War Zone ...and the ever-FPS killing Atlas Park: if you doubt this, remember that City Hall has a mirror-flipped copy of the center rotunda directly beneath the floor. It's... not an environment reflection. It also has at least eight public doors to enter sub-maps beneath the zone: x4 from the training arcs with Habashy, Fields/Costel, and Thierry, one each for the PD station, hospital, Icon Building, and one for the new Fort Trident/FC Building. Now add the new assets from GR on top. For the most part, if its not size of the map in the game engine, map complexity can cause the lag. And mission maps with a defined ceiling will always do much better on FPS than open instances (caves, warehouses and offices always beat forests and shorelines) because the radical map size needed to permit the sky/ground horizon isn't a factor. And player population. Echo Plaza unoccupied vs. during an HC Event will also be a fair comparison point. With all of the above in consideration, those zones are the stress-test of how well a configuration works, but not the be-all-end-all of how well the game can play in any zone. Most places have a few of those factors. TL;DR: anyone who claims they have a minimum of 60FPS+ throughout in Atlas Park, even on top-end equipment, I treat with a touch of skepticism. (They may be right and incredibly lucky, but not paying attention or lying is also a possibility.) Your system appears to be running just fine. 🙂

ASUS in with the save! https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/19/23800006/intel-nuc-computers-asus-license-support -- Any Intel machines ASUS is honoring active warranties for new and prior systems still under coverage. -- Non-exclusive. Intel can license NUCs with another manufacturer if they like.

I just put an ASrock Intel Arc 750 into my son's PC. I just bought it a few days ago at Newegg for $200 and it has the newest drivers. It runs my usual graphics settings (mostly ultra, a few things changed) at 4K resolution 60 FPS without really heating up higher than 60C after 2 hours. I did not notice any DirectX compatibility errors. I am not sure if it is related to the card or my son's PC in general, but I was experiencing some bugs when using the tailor. Specifically, I could not toggle between skin color and costume item color unless the 'colors linked' button was toggled on. I will continue to troubleshoot this on different PCs to see what triggers the bug. I don't know if this would be DirectX related or not.

The Wisconsin Dells

*googles where to find a duck*

They dressed me up like this. And this isn't my nose, it's a false one. (Crap, I do have a wart. I might be in trouble.)

"But how do we Know you're not a witch?"

I can get behind the NUC for one reason. I can use desktop-grade peripherals. Most laptop-grade keyboards SUCK SYPHILITIC DONKEY WANG. (And NO, I will NOT tell you how I REALLY feel.) For prolonged use, I prefer the NUC format. On top of that, its portable nature allows for true single machine continuity.

I'm glad to see this thread has taken off how it has over the years. 🙂 (I stopped calling myself Tahquitz for personal reasons. Look here if you don't believe me.) Sadly, I wound up throwing out the system I mentioned in the very first post a month back as it finally gave up its ghost. And a prebuilt I picked up anticipating that doom also faltered with a critical Mobo fault after the 1 year warranty was up (HP Pavilion, got it for $800 before they ditched AMD for Intel. I know Gamers Nexus already reviewed it terribly.) So I wound up going to the dark side. I play my MMO games on a slightly used Mac Mini myself these days. I may try building one again someday but I find myself with less time than I used to. Still, I love to see the builds you all have come up with and keep 'em coming. If it gives me plenty of ideas, I know it does for others.

Looks like Intel is giving up on NUCs. (Mostly the bottom line, niche market interest as PC sales slump.) Probably just as well as they sit in-between the Laptop and Desktop form factor except in the "wrong" way. SFF's are popular with businesses where space is at a premium or keeping computers out of the way makes sense. But for home use, a Laptop makes SFF computers difficult to consider even if they work well. Ignoring gaming for a sec: Raspberry Pi and other SBCs buck this trend because of the super low cost without terrible performance. The Windows 10 System on a Sticks in the mid 2010s ran worse than Netbooks. Cheap NUCs at that $100 price point do a bit better than that these days. But no Integrated Graphics support past video playback/2D stuff means you're spending $300-500 on one that has Radeon Vega or Intel Xe included. Which returns to "why not just get a cheap laptop at $50-100 more?" (I'm aiming for the low end per the OP topic. Ghost/Beast Canyon NUCs that can slot PCI-Ex 16 cards were never affordable to begin with.) https://www.pcworld.com/article/1989175

I thought about it (because I could have), but it looked ugly, so instead I overspent on an all black custom controller with every layer of grip I could get, that way I wouldn't have to use these adhesive things that keep trying to come off my other console controllers. >.< As for the network, I don't feel like crawling under the house again when it needs upgraded. 😛 I'd rather Over build and have the room to breath. Especially since I'm doing it myself with premade cables. I'm planning on putting one of these under the house (I have a protected outlet under their already) so that I can run a single line down from the router and then split to the major rooms. I found these cables that come in a wide range of lengths that should be perfect for a crawlspace in FL.

So, I'll say right now that I'm mad jealous you've got a Halo Infinite XbSX! I tried every place I could to get that and didn't have any luck. Also tried the controller too - did you snag that?? Also, what the heck could a person use Cat 7 or 8 for? Isn't that for data center specifically?

Well if it's gonna be like That... 😛 My entertainment console currently houses the main i7 Rig (ok, so That's on the floor, but it's connected), my release edition Wii U, my release edition Switch (I kinda want to upgrade, but I don't really play portable), PS5 (w/ 3 layers of storage), and my Halo Edition XBsX (will be getting that 1-2 Tb custom upgrade drive when I can). The 2019 MBP is still here, but I'm prepping the PPC Mac G4 (heavily modded) and the 2012 MBP (also modded) for sale finally. Oh and yes, I will be running Cat7/8 under the house to each room at some point with switches at the jacks so that I can hardwire everything possible. That should free up my Tri-Band wifi a bit.

Based on current offerings, I'd settle for the 7950x, but with the way things are going, it'll be more like a 9750x by the time I can get it. >.<

Update: Upgraded to an Xbox Series X Added a third monitor, 27in 1080p Dell Got another Ducky Mini keyboard And lastly, I wired it up with a Cat5 ethernet cable so it's got much better packet sending and receiving! 😆