Age of Conan: Technical Support and Tweaking

Swat wrote:

Could be. I have a 7950GTX with the latest Nvidia drivers, maybe i'll play around a bit more until I can get 2.0 working with the effects. It really doesn't make sense and sounds bug like not to be able to see them.

I'm not sure it's going to matter long term, I have a sneaky suspicion that a lot of people will be turning down the eye candy when the PvP gets a lot more chaotic. FPS is king!

Bear wrote:
Swat wrote:

Could be. I have a 7950GTX with the latest Nvidia drivers, maybe i'll play around a bit more until I can get 2.0 working with the effects. It really doesn't make sense and sounds bug like not to be able to see them.

I'm not sure it's going to matter long term, I have a sneaky suspicion that a lot of people will be turning down the eye candy when the PvP gets a lot more chaotic. FPS is king!

Yup it is true, but there's a lot less holy sh*t moments when it's off. But those holy sh*t moments drop me to about 10fps now. Hah.

Swat wrote:

I leave AA at 2x but I'm running 1920x1200 on a 17" screen so I can get away with it more. AF I've left at 3x.

I finally realized tonight why my cool spell effects and others weren't working. Shader 2.0 disables the really cool effects. But going to 3.0 takes a double hit on my performance. Speed versus beauty.

There is a thread here that might help?

maxox wrote:
Swat wrote:

I leave AA at 2x but I'm running 1920x1200 on a 17" screen so I can get away with it more. AF I've left at 3x.

I finally realized tonight why my cool spell effects and others weren't working. Shader 2.0 disables the really cool effects. But going to 3.0 takes a double hit on my performance. Speed versus beauty.

There is a thread here that might help?

I finally was able to log into the forums and that was the first post I checked out. I'll try a few more driver installs and see what sticks.

I've got a dual core Intel 6700 @ 2.66 GHz, 8800 GTS, and 2G RAM. Running on high things slow right down for me. I'm going to try to tweak it later on tonight, but any comments on what my weakest link may be would be appreciated.

Strekos wrote:

If you can't ever get past the opening sequence to see the settings/login screen, try this:

Find your Conan prefs folder, should be under Documents and Settings[username]Local SettingsApplication DataFuncomConanPrefs.

You should have a prefs file there. In it, you can manually set shader model 2.0. From looking at my own settings, you want:

<Value name="RenderSetting_ShaderModel" value="-1" />

to get SM2. SM3 is value="1".

OK, I'm trying this and downloading the patch. We'll see if that works. After looking at the screenshot thread I really hope it does.

crunchy wrote:

I've got a dual core Intel 6700 @ 2.66 GHz, 8800 GTS, and 2G RAM. Running on high things slow right down for me. I'm going to try to tweak it later on tonight, but any comments on what my weakest link may be would be appreciated.

Generally speaking, dynamic shadows take up massive amounts of resources. Decrease your shadow detail and see if that helps.

Well after running flawlessly all day yesterday, I am hard locking every 10-15 minutes with the new path. And just in time for launch day!

TrashiDawa wrote:

Well after running flawlessly all day yesterday, I am hard locking every 10-15 minutes with the new path. And just in time for launch day!

So was WesWilson. I'm not sure what the deal is there. All i can say is make sure you're on the latest greatest drivers for your video card. Or if you are on the latest greatest see if you can roll back a version and see if that helps.

ranalin wrote:
TrashiDawa wrote:

Well after running flawlessly all day yesterday, I am hard locking every 10-15 minutes with the new path. And just in time for launch day!

So was WesWilson. I'm not sure what the deal is there. All i can say is make sure you're on the latest greatest drivers for your video card. Or if you are on the latest greatest see if you can roll back a version and see if that helps.

Lots of people on the forums are reporting problems post-patch. It looks to be mostly an AMD and Nvidia 8xxx series problem.

maxox wrote:
ranalin wrote:
TrashiDawa wrote:

Well after running flawlessly all day yesterday, I am hard locking every 10-15 minutes with the new path. And just in time for launch day!

So was WesWilson. I'm not sure what the deal is there. All i can say is make sure you're on the latest greatest drivers for your video card. Or if you are on the latest greatest see if you can roll back a version and see if that helps.

Lots of people on the forums are reporting problems post-patch. It looks to be mostly an AMD and Nvidia 8xxx series problem.

That matches my hardware. Hope they are addressing the issue.

TrashiDawa wrote:

That matches my hardware. Hope they are addressing the issue.

Check their latest announcement... Main reason for this last shut down before launch.

Strekos! It worked! You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar! Also let this be a lesson to any of you guys in software development; if you're going to make your product compatible with older systems, don't hide those options behind a barrier that can only be crossed by newer systems!

I set everything to medium and my old rig handled it surprisingly well. Naturally it's not as pretty as it looks in the screenshot threads but it's on par with a game like Guild Wars (and that's not to say it looks like it's really old as Guild Wars has always been a remarkably good-looking MMO). Action was generally smooth with only a few hiccoughs when it seemed to be loading something and handling hectic combat at the same time. Environmental shadows did seem to be glitchy and distracting but remember that this is the closed beta client so it's bound to have some problems and turning off those shadows helped a lot (though it made it a little harder to figure out where my ranger could effectively hide).

I'm not going to turn this into an impressions thread but one concern I had was the loot; lots of different appearances for basic clothing but it didn't seem to be as random and varied as the stuff in, say, Diablo or WoW. In games like this, if the loot bug doesn't bite I don't play for long. On the other hand the part I played (just the beginning, before work), seemed a little scripted in order to give me drops in the proper order for me to learn how to use them so could someone tell me if it gets a little more, uh... slot-machiney?

It's kind of late for me to pre-order and get some goodies so I think I might hold off on this one a while and pick it up once all the kinks have been worked out and some goodies have been added. That said, could any of you guys with the collector's edition send one of those trial thingies my way? I'd love to give the final client a more thorough look now that I've seen that my computer can handle it.

ranalin wrote:
TrashiDawa wrote:

That matches my hardware. Hope they are addressing the issue.

Check their latest announcement... Main reason for this last shut down before launch.

Fired it up this morning before work. All good...I'm just jealous of all the guys playing right now as I head off to toil away all day in the salt mines.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I'd love to give the final client a more thorough look now that I've seen that my computer can handle it.

PM me if you still need one. I've earmarked one for you though the keys aren't available yet.

I've added a thread here on friend keys:

http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/3...

I'm running a 7600gt. I'm hard-locking every 6-10 minutes. I can sometimes get a stutter or something a minute or so beforehand... but usually it's just an instantaneous thing.

What's really weird is that I retained mouse control, but could not get any response from a cntrl-alt-delete. All I had was a dead conan screen.

Is there a 64bit client? I see "AgeOfConan.exe *32" in Task Mangler. It's not even being much of a pig (1.2GB mem).

I guess the DirectX 10 selection is fake? Game seems to think it's DX10 SM3.0 right now... looks perty.

You have to separately create forum login info within your account.

Not really sure if this belongs here but I just picked the game up at lunch added the registration key to my account to upgrade it and it said all was done successfully. However when I try to log into the forums it says I dont have access to them but not only that they haven't charged my card for the sub yet. This concerns me as I don't know if I will be able to get into the game when I get home. Anyone else in this same situation and able to log in?

edit: on a side note..no it's not DX10, you're right its a fake. Also they don't have a 64bit client for it...cross your fingers that they actually come through with one, because the way it stands it might not happen as they removed the 64bit advertisement from the back of the offcial box.

DevilStick wrote:

You have to separately create forum login info within your account.

I did...multiple times heh. I guess i can give it another go for good measure though.

I broke down and ordered a second 8800 gts today for sli. I really want the pretty and antialiasing and right now I can't get both. Definately not CPU constrained.

CrashedHardrive wrote:
DevilStick wrote:

You have to separately create forum login info within your account.

I did...multiple times heh. I guess i can give it another go for good measure though.

Did you wait thirty minutes after setting your forum info? There can be a delay in updating the forum servers.

I broke down and ordered a second 8800 gts today for sli. I really want the pretty and antialiasing and right now I can't get both. Definately not CPU constrained.

I totally forgot I bought my motherboard specifically for this, I wonder...

rabbit wrote:

I broke down and ordered a second 8800 gts today for sli. I really want the pretty and antialiasing and right now I can't get both. Definately not CPU constrained.

I am envious! This is the first game in quite a while where I've wanted to upgrade my rig, so I think I'm going to plan something nice the next couple of months. It seems like the best way so far is to go 8800GTS in SLI, it's on par with the 9800GX2 or something I take it? (But a good deal cheaper)

Swat wrote:

I am envious! This is the first game in quite a while where I've wanted to upgrade my rig, so I think I'm going to plan something nice the next couple of months. It seems like the best way so far is to go 8800GTS in SLI, it's on par with the 9800GX2 or something I take it? (But a good deal cheaper)

And just think, 10 years ago we were all talking about how amazingly powerful 2 Voodoo cards in SLI would be

Drat, I cannot connect to the authentication server. I click login, after a few seconds see some useless progress looking bar, then it eventually times out and says "Unable to connect to authentication server" or some such thing.

I opened the ports they specified, although I've never seen an MMO that required open ports and that did nothing. I'm sure it will get ironed out but it's still disappointing.

Deepsea! Add Lafayette LA to the cities where AOC is not allowed!

Bear wrote:

And just think, 10 years ago we were all talking about how amazingly powerful 2 Voodoo cards in SLI would be :)

Dude... if you buy a second Voodoo card you can run Everquest WITH TEXTURES !

Well after seeing the way the game LOOKs with all the settings on the highest, at 3 frames per second. I dropped the dough to ensure it runs great at that level of detail. $300 later I have a 8800gt and 4gb of ram on the way

Cant wait to climb the path to the yeti again, but this time have the draw distance maxed with all the shineys enabled.

polypusher wrote:

Well after seeing the way the game LOOKs with all the settings on the highest, at 3 frames per second. I dropped the dough to ensure it runs great at that level of detail. $300 later I have a 8800gt and 4gb of ram on the way

Cant wait to climb the path to the yeti again, but this time have the draw distance maxed with all the shineys enabled.

Man, after seeing Conall's Valley for the first time with maximum draw distance enabled, it really made me want to see it at a full 1920x1200, 60FPS, with every bell and whistle (and blade of grass) blowing. I could have skipped questing just to take screenshots.

Swat wrote:

Man, after seeing Conall's Valley for the first time with maximum draw distance enabled, it really made me want to see it at a full 1920x1200, 60FPS, with every bell and whistle (and blade of grass) blowing. I could have skipped questing just to take screenshots.

Totally worth it to see your team mates stalk up a hill through the waving grass and brush to take out a Vanir camp. Very cinematic.

It looks like my authentication issues were temporary. I reset the router and was able to log in. I think it was probably just coincidence though, heavy server load probably had more to do with it.

New problem appeared late last night though. I played for a couple of hours without issue then started getting lock ups. It would lock, drop me to the desktop, then give me a vista message about the nvidia driver not responding. It would always recover on its own (though it did get me killed a few times). I don't know if my card was overheating or if it was a game issue. Time to wade through the hell that is the official forums.

I enjoyed what I saw of the game immensely though and being on Ventrilo with Certis, Ely, Rabbit and Gaald made me feel like I was making a podcast