Trouble Connecting? Lag? Click Here for More Info!

[Lighthouse_NA]

Are you having difficulty connecting and playing City of Heroes or City of Villains? Below you will find some helpful links to our Support Website Knowledge Base.


I have a problem with my connection to CoH or CoV:
Click Here for a complete walkthrough on troubleshooting lag and connectivity issues.


I'm Lagging!
If you are "lagging" when playing City of Heroes or City of Villains, then you should visit this Knowledge Base walkthrough to help troubleshoot the cause of your "lag."


The Network Information Tool:
We have a small utility that will run traceroutes, pathpings, and port tests to our servers to collect data for our technical support team to use in helping with your connection issue. Click here to view the instructions on using the Network Information Tool.


Firewall Configuration Information:
For assistance in configuring your firewall, click here.


Router and Port Configuration Information:
For assistance in configuring your Router, click here.


How do I contact Tech Support?
There are several ways to reach Technical Support. Find out more at the Support Website.

[MageAsh]

I poked through these pages and they're pretty darn helpful.
The 'lag' walkthrough helped me with even more stuff than just lag.

[Bonehead]

I really appreciate lag being in quotes up there.

[woodone]

On a note to the lag, if it's simple lag people may want to make sure supress other player effects is on. Mine reset and I didn't realize it for a couple of days.

[Stele]

Thanks Lighthouse. Looking forward to trying that Network Info Tool tonight. I get great connection from my apartment, but from my fiance's apartment, it's laggy as can be. Going to try to track that down.

[Havoc_X]

Hmmm, Poking through the links quickly, it seems they all point to issues with the client not the servers. I am sorry being in IT I know for a fact that servers have issues as well. Especially after updating when it seems most of the problems re-emerge.
Sorry not buying it.

[galadiman]

Of course, friend, but they can only do so much on their end. It behooves us all for users to make sure their systems are not causing their own 'lag', to save the devs time troubleshooting what may be the client side problem.

Then if the problem is actually server side, it's more reliably recognizable.

That's why I have a big sign on my monitor that says, "Before you call tech support to ask them why the computer isn't working, check to see if it is PLUGGED IN, YOU (&^*()&%(!!!"

People are always asking me about that. I have no idea why.

[WokkaWokka]

Hmmm, Poking through the links quickly, it seems they all point to issues with the client not the servers. I am sorry being in IT I know for a fact that servers have issues as well. Especially after updating when it seems most of the problems re-emerge.
Sorry not buying it.

But being in IT you would also know that if 99% of your users are online without problems, then the 1% having problems will not be caused by server problems or misconfiguration on the server side.

[ilovetheusers]

Thanks!! Good list of stuff.

About lag though, just to rib the dev's a bit, honestly, can't we make this the minimum system requirement what is listed as what is recommended? Really, the game's so intensive now that a dual core, physx card, 2gb of ram and a 7900gt can barely keep the game up above 20-40fps (fighting on team). I'm getting tired of telling people that their athlon 3000 and 6800 and 1gb of ram is the reason they get frame rate lag.

Recommended New Minimum System Specs for City of Villains:

* Operating system: Windows XP/2000
* Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 2000+
* Memory: 1 GB RAM
* Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 6200

I know the above set up plays with acceptable framerates with all settings on bare minimum at 1024x768.

In all seriousness, I can't imagine the game working at all on the present minimum:

* Operating system: Windows® XP/2000/ME/98
* Processor: Intel® Pentium® III 800 MHz or AMD™ Athlon® 800 MHz
* Memory: 256 MB RAM
* Video card: NVIDIA® GeForce 2 Series, ATI™ Radeon® 8500 Series or Intel i865G and above
* 16-bit Sound Card

Again, I hope I'm not coming off as complaining, I'd just like to see that revised to save a lot of folks a lot of time.

[ilovetheusers]

But being in IT you would also know that if 99% of your users are online without problems, then the 1% having problems will not be caused by server problems or misconfiguration on the server side.

Actually, whenever there is a new patch, the weeks after are plagued with a lot of lag. After a month or two the lage ceases until the very next patch. The difference is the # of players on the server. I'm not sure if where the lag comes form (no particular issue jumps out) but lag does increase a great deal with each and every patch immediately after the patch and then tapers off as people stop playing.

So, apart from framerate lag, there is some kind of issue with the servers or the code, or something generating extra lag. I know that sounds goofy but if you've been playing long enough to remember i1 then you remember a lot less lag from the game overall even with a big load of players.

Having problems re-emerge might be more of patch bugs but the lag is omnipresent for weeks after new patches. It would be nice to hear Dev's chime in about that. It could be lack of bandwidth due to downloads of the patch but I'd hope that the patch would be on separate servers and circuits than the servers we play on. If not then there's your issue, too many IO's. It could be the servers need an update to handle the new code since i7 and CoVeven though the "dots" show green almost all the time on most servers. it could be that the game renders too much and renders player characters no matter their distance on a map which would explain lag outside. I could think of a lot more but until the Dev's or tech support are more forthcoming, we'll never know.

BTW, it's not 1% having issues. It's much much more of this forum would be a dead spot and my entire SG would not continually ask me for tech support. IMO.

[FearDotCom]

Please God help me. I still can't log on. In fact, I can't get the updater to connect at all. I have done nothing to my system and as of yesterday, I can not connect at all. What to do?

[houtex]

Start a new thread. We might can help there, this thread shouldn't be used to ask for help.

In that, you'll want to post a dxdiag, hijack this, and netinfotool log. See the 'read this' link below. The netinfotool can be found in the links in this thread's first post.

Just to point this out, your post did not indicate you've followed the suggestions up in the first post, just that you can't log on. So indicate that as well in the new thread.

[Holy_Kyros]

Hi, ok when issue 11 came out, I click on CoH, and when the updater came on it said "Error opening "C:\Programs\City Of Heroes\CohUpdater.tmp". You may be out of disk space or you may be trying to install to a location where you have insufficient permissions", so i went around and i found that i need to download some code, but it wouldnt go to teh screen, it said time ran out. So i tried the whole "shortcut to CoH". That didnt work either..
And now, when i click on CoH it says "page cannot be displayed". Wut should I do?? Delete my account and start a new one?? And now today it has gone back to the "out of disk room" or w/e.. Maybe I should uninstall and the reinstall?

[Shego]

Recommended New Minimum System Specs for City of Villains:

** Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 6200

Uhhhh, no. A 6600 should be the video MINIMUM requirement for this game by now. If we are trying to be realistic in updating those Specs... let's buck it up and be realistically-realistic. What you have is almost just as bad as those who try to convince others that they are running a 6150 LE in their $399 Dell Laptop and the game plays smooth as silk in CoV. Sheeeyah, right. See ya up in Grandville, Tuff-Guy!

[RaGod]

Ok, i still cant get past the server selection screen, it is fine up to there and it freezes up when i clcik freedom at ANY time

Also i noticed i CAN start it into safe mode but when i click on the costume screen so i can get a new costume on it all frezes up again.

[Hordeprimez]

I am having trouble staying connected in the game.....

And it only does it, while in heros/villians..I logged on to a friends Eq account and just goofed off for a while, and then stayed there for about the same time before I get the warning...and did not go Linkdead...but its been happening alot here with me trying to play..HELP!!!

[houtex]

RaGod, HordePrimez, please start a new thread each where we can help you better. Thank you.

[Giganto]

I`ve been getting lag since the last update. It was fine before that. I have an AMD Athlon X2 4200+, 2gigs Ram. BFG Geforce 8800 GTS OC 320meg - so dont think it will be my pc. Effects etc are no issue, if I turn some of the advanced features off it still lags. Not sure if its my isp either because everything else works fine for me.

Jim

[Kryhavoc]

I've been having a severe lag issue. As I proceed around a zone, my toon spontaneously jumps to another location. Best example, I go to the monorail, just as I go to get on train, my toon is suddenly standing at the bottom of the ramp. This happens 3-4 times in a row before I can get on a train. When I click hover, it takes 5-7 seconds real time before I actually hover.

[Field_Aid]

RE Video cards - my GeForce FX 5500 card usually works just fine in CoH, and just a touch laggy in CoV (common areas) when the zone is crowded. I don't buy that someone with a 6200 or 6600 can't play when my 5500 does OK most of the time. For that matter, I feel much the same about most of the specs involved - I have a gig of ram a nd an AMD 3000+ 1.99 gHz processor, and except for the two weeks after a major patch, the game runs fine (as long as the server isn't crowded). Folks who run higher processors and better RAM claiming they can't play? Something fishy there.

But I just come to expect that for the first week or two after patch, I'm gonna get LCTM'd regularly. That's just how this works, normally. One day, I'll get rich and upgrade my system... but so far, I'm lucky, and the game does a pretty good job.

The only thing I'd really, REALLY like to see is a way to recover timed missions lost due to lag/LCTM/etc. I've lost two or three timed mish's thanks to mapserver disconnects... THAT'S annoying.