Odd Graphics Question

[Arnabas]

A while back, I bought  a new laptop. It's primarily for work, but several of the reviews I read mentioned that it's "great for gaming." I thought that odd since it's kind of a budget computer, but I figured it would be good for CoH and could serve as a means of playing on the go.

 

When I downloaded and played the game, I was disappointed that it ran ok on the lowest settings, but anything much higher than that had a noticeable decrease in performance. I shrugged and accepted it since it was in line with my original expectation that it probably couldn't handle games, despite what the review said.

 

I went back to one of the reviews and left a comment to the effect that the computer couldn't handle a game nearly 2 decades old, so I didn't see how they thought it was good for gaming. A few months passed and they wrote back saying they were playing modern games without issue. On a whim, I went to Steam and downloaded Red Dead Redemption 2. It played perfectly well and looked almost as good as my good quality desktop.

 

So my question is whether there is some odd setting in CoH that I should be looking at? I can't understand how the laptop could handle RDR2, but not CoH.

 

[Marine X]

The biggest difference between COH and more recent games is that it uses OpenGL. This can often be an issue for newer computers, especially laptops as they seldom have a discrete GPU, it is instead integrated into the Motherboard. You may want to read through Through @Tahquitz Guide as it covers most system requirements.

 

You may also want to go through @WanderingAries install guide.

 

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Marine X

[Captain Fabulous]

If your laptop has an Nvidia secondary GPU for gaming using the Optimus protocol it's likely that Windows isn't using it for CoH because it's not a DirectX game. But you can tell Windows to use it anyway.

Right click your desktop and select Display settings. Then click on Graphics. You should see a list of applications on your computer with things like Let Windows decide (High performance) or Let Windows Decide (Power saving). Chances are likely that City of Heroes is not going to on that list, so at the top of the window where it says "add an app" click Browse. Now navigate to cityofheroes.exe and select it (it's in Homecoming\bin\win64\live). It should now appear on the app list. Click the Options button and then High performance (<name of Nvidia card>), and then save.

Once you've done that run the game and see how it performs.

Edit: it occurred to me that it's possible that Windows is running the game in power saving mode even if you don't have a secondary GPU, so adding the game to the app list and setting it to high performance is still a good idea.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Captain Fabulous

[WanderingAries]

*ears burning*

All of the above, but tossing out the Windows install guide.

 

[Marine X]

OOPs......

[biostem]

9 hours ago, Arnabas said:

A while back, I bought  a new laptop. It's primarily for work, but several of the reviews I read mentioned that it's "great for gaming." I thought that odd since it's kind of a budget computer, but I figured it would be good for CoH and could serve as a means of playing on the go.

Just to be clear, does your laptop have a dedicated GPU or no?  If no, then you're not going to get great performance on any game that expects one.  In that case, try the -usetexenvcombine launch parameter for a smoother gameplay experience.  If it does indeed have a dedicated GPU, then you will need to manually tell windows to use it, due to CoH's age...

[squishy]

One thing I found, eventhough I am using a 2080TI on a desktop, I found the GPU to be under massive usage at all time (90%+).

 

It seems to come from the occlusion and and ambiant occlusion settings.

 

I've added COH to the NVidia profile, and it turns out occlusion is not supported by the current drivers for this game.

 

Turning it off in game lowers the usage to around 60% or with everything else maxed out, and the game now feels a lot smoother since the GPU has some breathing room.

 

I am playing in 4K as well, so a higher usage is pretty normal in my case. I suspect just turning this off on laptops and discrete/integrated cards might help.