Age of conan, Open beta: May 1st 2008.

[Murgos]

But i am running XP pro 32bit. I intend to upgrade in the future...but. Does this mean my CPU and Ram are not being fully utilized?

Yes and no.

If so, how can i correct this short of a 64 bit OS?

2^32 = 4,294,967,296 = 4 GB, yes, each and every bit of ram is addressable independently (not really).  Which means you cannot address more than 4 GB of ram without a 64 bit OS.  Windows XP only actually has access to 3.5 GB of ram as the last 512 MB is used for I/O devices, also you can only really access 3GB of ram for your programs because another 512 mb is used by the OS to do OS things.

You are 'fully utilizing' your memory, it's just that you do not get to decide how it's used.

[Signe]

Do you have Comcast?  Evidently you get a free subscription to Fileplanet and Founder's Club if you do.

Could you have mentioned that a little earlier?

Oh well, since it worked it'll still be useful for other games.

I didn't know until recently.  I've had a sub to FP for ages and was PAYING for it.  People can still get keys, though.  They seem to be never ending.  I might give it a few days. 

Also, nipples sticking through your clothing is simply awesome.

[Evildrider]

So I am not a Fileplanet subscriber these days and somehow managed to get an open beta key, so I guess it is truly open. I thought I saw someone mention earlier that it wasn't. Or maybe I'm just lucky. I am lacking sleep, so this post is a rambling mess.

Did you get in through fileplanet? because it keeps taking me to the subscribe page when i click on it.

Yes. I just clicked the open beta link on the front page and then logged in. Perhaps because I used to subscribe? I have no clue.

Do you have Comcast?  Evidently you get a free subscription to Fileplanet and Founder's Club if you do.

What what what?  How do I do that? lol   

[sam, an eggplant]

If you ever joined the technical beta for stress tests, PvP weekends or whatever you'll be getting into the unrestricted closed beta today or tomorrow. Basically this is everybody who applied.

Also the NDA has been relaxed for closed beta testers, but only up to level 13. Not sure how effective that limitation is going to be.

My short review: AoC is unpolished as hell but the basic gameplay is in solid diku territory and quite fun. The client crashes all the time, your character falls through bridges, there are backend server lag issues, and it requires a hefty sunny-D type computer to play. Given past discussion in this thread and elsewhere I doubt anyone is surprised by this.

[Sir T]

I
Funcom thought of this when developing AOC. Their solution was and still is to simply have your computer hold the results of every compilation in memory -so that this stuttering would be a one-time thing as long- as you are standing in that 1 small space or area (let's say the area of thirsty dog inn). When you log off and exit AOC, the AOC client is supposed to write down those results from memory into a file on your harddisk so that all compilation results don't have to be done all over again next time. Upon a clean client exit (which never happens because AOC crashes all the time currently and therefore loses it's compiled shaders) it saves all these changes into a file in the general beta folder and that file is called "shader.cache.local"
As the result is calculated it's kept into memory as long as it's needed which means that if you leave the area to go and find new "previously unknown shaders" your current ones will be lost from memory and replaced by new ones which means you'll have the stuttering again. Also, after every crash you lost your compilations before your computer had the chance to write them down so you'll have the same stuttering upon next logon...

Q:So what's the magic trick then to get rid of the stuttering ?

Basically whenever your computer has compiled new shaders you want to immediately save those results to disk so your computer gets them from there next time instead of having to do it all over. That way you'll have no or almost no stuttering since it's much faster reading out the results than recompiling them. There's a button in the game that you can press to instantly save the current results of a shader compilation into the shader.cache.local file (you will actually see it grow in size when you do) and you want to do this RIGHT AFTER YOU FORCED/EXPERIENCED SOME STUTTERING because of new shaders being compiled.

I predict massive traffic as people sell real/fake compleated shader files on ebay

[Velorath]

Also the NDA has been relaxed for closed beta testers, but only up to level 13. Not sure how effective that limitation is going to be.

Because after getting suckers to subscribe to FP for the open beta, it turns out lv. 13 is the max level they're allowed to get to.

[sam, an eggplant]

Yes I understand the rationale but I just don't anticipate it being all that successful. Either you have a NDA or you don't; relying upon joe public to self-censor is unlikely to be productive.

[Draegan]

If you ever joined the technical beta for stress tests, PvP weekends or whatever you'll be getting into the unrestricted closed beta today or tomorrow. Basically this is everybody who applied.

Also the NDA has been relaxed for closed beta testers, but only up to level 13. Not sure how effective that limitation is going to be.

My short review: AoC is unpolished as hell but the basic gameplay is in solid diku territory and quite fun. The client crashes all the time, your character falls through bridges, there are backend server lag issues, and it requires a hefty sunny-D type computer to play. Given past discussion in this thread and elsewhere I doubt anyone is surprised by this.

I actually never fell through a bridge, and I've only crashed 3-4 times in a few weeks of play.  I've never had any lag issues, my latency has always been great.  But the texture loading etc is brutal.

[Morfiend]

I only crashed a few times, but I got Lost Connection a lot. As to the falling through bridges, the game is very very unpolished. There are hundreds of little glitches everywhere you look and I only got to level 12 or so, in the newbie area, which according to other testers is by far the most polished area of the game.

[Signe]

So I am not a Fileplanet subscriber these days and somehow managed to get an open beta key, so I guess it is truly open. I thought I saw someone mention earlier that it wasn't. Or maybe I'm just lucky. I am lacking sleep, so this post is a rambling mess.

Did you get in through fileplanet? because it keeps taking me to the subscribe page when i click on it.

Yes. I just clicked the open beta link on the front page and then logged in. Perhaps because I used to subscribe? I have no clue.

Do you have Comcast?  Evidently you get a free subscription to Fileplanet and Founder's Club if you do.

What what what?  How do I do that? lol   

It's that Game Invasion thingy.  http://gameinvasion.comcast.net/gameinvasion/setup/

[Evildrider]

Thanks Signe.. now if it will only work.

[Mrbloodworth]

Some of that article Draegan makes me scared. Given funcoms history, makes me really scared. But, i see the edits made to each section and it makes it seem like they are on top of it, even if it wont be 100%.

I have really tried to keep my expectations somewhat in check about this game, mostly because i wanted it to be something that took me and friends away from Wow... It may in the end turn out, this wont be the case. But i do hear the combat is really FUN, so perhaps.. Fun it seems is sometimes harder to achieve then performance, lol. Some of that does read thats it just over the top demanding, not because of the techniques they are using, but simply because of the programs and potential sloppiness. Then again, this also reminds me the time before eq2.

Time will tell, and that time is getting closer all the time.

Ah yes. Surprising people with untested core combat systems at launch. Time has already told us what happens. Dozens of times.

Too bad the fanboys never, ever listen.

"surprising the fans" was not my words, that was from the Devs...perhaps i should have made it green. 

[Signe]

So far this beta event is completely useless.  My computer is frozen in time.

Well, my computer woke up but and the game runs okay EXCEPT loading is incredibly slow.  I don't think I'll bother.

[Xilren's Twin]

Thanks Signe.. now if it will only work.

Are you getting to the point where you click on a download server, then get a pop up window that just has a part of the beta page in it?

Cause that's as far as im getting in both IE and Firefox.  Can't imagine why people dont like this fileplanet thing...  

[Numtini]

I got blank screens on the cinematic. I escaped to character creation, then got more blank screens.

8800GTS/320, Dual Core 6750, P35 chipset motherboard, 4gb ram - with boot flag to allocate extra memory, latest drivers, fresh install less than a month ago. I don't want to be too arrogant about my system, but there's just no excuse for it not to work.

[KallDrexx]

Just FYI (with experience only on the first city and areas) I get a good constant 40fps on my laptop with a 2.1Ghz Core 2 Duo (T8100), 512mb 8600M GT, 3gb DDR2 and a 5400 RPM hard drive. 

Loading is a bit slow (but I wouldn't be surprised if that was mostly cause of my hd speed) but other then that it works pretty well.  This is on Medium and it still looks pretty good imo.  I'm happy so far.

Take from that what you will. 

*edit* if you get a blank screen (known bug) you have to exit, run simpleconfig.exe and lower the resolution.  Then raise it up again once in game.

*edit2* and btw, turning bloom off == very big increase in fps.

[Hellinar]

Are you getting to the point where you click on a download server, then get a pop up window that just has a part of the beta page in it?

Cause that's as far as im getting in both IE and Firefox.  Can't imagine why people dont like this fileplanet thing... 

To get Fileplanet to work I find I need to use IE, and turn off any kind of protection I have on ZoneAlarm. Even stuff like web bugs and private headers, which most websites function fine without, seem essential to making Fileplanet work. They do seem to have a lock on MMOG betas, so I just turn it all off for while. Once the download starts, I turn it all back on.

[Signe]

I had the blank screen at first, too.  I didn't do anything except exit and log back in once and it never happened again.

[Venkman]

Someone said the NDA dropped right?

CPU:  Dual Core E6600
RAM:  2gb
GPU: Geforce8800 640mb
HD:  7200rpm

Runs awesome on my machine. It helps that I'm a nut for defragging. There's a LOT to load. Load times are a bit long due to the 7200rpm thing, but no worse than EQ1 ever was.

I do get the audio stuttering in the opening cinematic. Don't really care.

In fact, I'm wildly ambivalent (heh) about the whole thing. Graphically awesome game. Combat is either me melting faces or dying and not really knowing why. It's all stats but the required info is not conveyed in the WoW-way.

It's not AO by any stretch, though some people will think so because their computers aren't the perfect configuration for the game.

[Evildrider]

Thanks Signe.. now if it will only work.

Are you getting to the point where you click on a download server, then get a pop up window that just has a part of the beta page in it?

Cause that's as far as im getting in both IE and Firefox.  Can't imagine why people dont like this fileplanet thing...  

Well I got my code and stuff, but I'll be downloading for like 48 hours it seems.  After that, i guess the real fun begins.   

[Signe]

Runs okay on my crappier than Darniaq's machine.  WAY crappier.  Although I do have 2 GB RAM.  Really cheap RAM.  It's loading better now, too.  I still haven't found my way out of the tutorial.  NDA is dropped only for level 13 and under, I think, which is stupid.  Yay for Evildrider.  Everyone with Comcast should subscribe to Fileplanet and yell HA! for getting all their downloads and subscriber betas and demos and not paying for them.  HA!  My fingers  hurt.

I feel disjointed tonight.

Also, debuggery.  Dammit.

[Engels]

Also, debuggery.  Dammit.

Hey, good to know that AoC is progressive and not simply catering to heterosexual fantasies.

[Merusk]

Are you getting to the point where you click on a download server, then get a pop up window that just has a part of the beta page in it?

Cause that's as far as im getting in both IE and Firefox.  Can't imagine why people dont like this fileplanet thing... 

To get Fileplanet to work I find I need to use IE, and turn off any kind of protection I have on ZoneAlarm. Even stuff like web bugs and private headers, which most websites function fine without, seem essential to making Fileplanet work. They do seem to have a lock on MMOG betas, so I just turn it all off for while. Once the download starts, I turn it all back on.

I just said fuck it and installed FP's download manager ages ago.  This was after I tried straight downloads on two demos, and both came up as "corrupted, please download again." after very long DL times. I haven't had that problem with the DL manager.  Also, it's letting me get the AoC client in 11H not the 48 hours poor ED is going through.

[Simond]

Something for the PvP fans - you lose at least three times more pvp xp on a pvp death than you gain from a pvp kill. So you need to have a greater than 3:1 K:D ratio (!!!) to progress.


 

[Numtini]

This was after I tried straight downloads on two demos, and both came up as "corrupted, please download again."

I just installed the D/L manager as well. But the corrupted archives are just so weird ass version of zip. I found some message on a board that pointed me at a client that worked, but lost it during some or another reinstall and never did find it again.

[UnSub]

I'd just like to say I've been in the Technical beta for at least 2 months and haven't yet played a moment of it because the stress tests were held only one day a week for 3 hours when I need to be asleep (due to time differences).

Also, it's been a long, long time since I've seen a downloading system as ugly as the one I saw for AoC. Download a setup file, then 10 .dat files for a total of over 14 GB? THEN patch another couple of gigs? I know I'm a bit backwards here in Australia (my monthly plan is 20GB download limit) but damn that was harsh.

In all reality, AoC has warning sirens going off everywhere to me.

[Slayerik]

Remember AO's ranking system? Was fucking TOUGH to get a good title. Worse than 3 to 1...IIRC. They must be sitting around saying "Damn, these guys got it easy!!!"

That was just for a title, though. There was something sweet about it though...when you saw a high rank dude you were like....cool There is a real deal ganker.

[waylander]

There seems to be a lot of horror stories about mid range systems getting crappy FPS again along with people with 5 year old computers saying the game runs fine. Seems the GF 8 cards aren't running the game too well from most of the comments I've seen, and they say its due to some recent patch that has some driver issues.

How are you guys doing on the performance side?

[ShenMolo]

Performance:
I'm right between the minimum and recommended specs. Running it in Full Screen mode on Low Video settings

FPS: 25-40 in most outdoor areas, with frequent slow downs to single digits as I get into new areas or have multiple players around me. In Tortage ill grind to a halt frequently and lock up frequently, requiring a hard restart.

Loading/Zoning: This is where the pure hell starts. Loading screens can take anywhere from 5 seconds (very rare) to 5+ minutes (the usual). The first time I zone into a new area my machine usually freezes up, requiring a hard restart. As there is frequent zoning to get anywhere in the game, I spent more time looking at the loading screen than actually playing last night and this morning (once I got to Tortage). So for now I am playing a bunch of classes to level 5 and stopping outside Tortage till I can upgrade my system.

Today I am going to buy and install and additional 2 gigs of RAM and and additional 80GB HD, as well as do a fresh install of WinXP. Hopefully this will help, and I can kinda justify it as it will help with all my gaming and not just AoC heh.

This is not a crappy system, and is basically only 18 months old. Designing a game for a small percentage of high end systems is a dumb business plan IMHO. My guess is that someone with the Minimum Specs listed will not be able to play the game at all.

My machine:
AMD 4200+ Dual Core
2 GB RAM
WinXP Pro
Geforce 7900 GT 256MB
80GB 7200 HD
ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe

[Ixxit]

How are you guys doing on the performance side?

Once all the textures and shaders are cached it runs fine on my computer, but the long pauses when the shaders are cacheing are unbearable.  At first I thought my computer had frozen.  This is an absolute game breaker for me and I am really perplexed why this is even happening with the game so close to release.  I am seriously considering cancelling my pre order.

So far I have only played the starting area (which I assume is just you and the AI, as I haven't seen another player).  I can just imagine what it will be like in the real world when you are constantly loading unique character data as the general population comes  into view.

My specs:

AMD 3800 Dual Core
Nvidia 7600 GT
2 gigs of ram.


If these problems aren't  fixed asap, this game is going to end up alongside Vanguard on the Sony All Access pass. 
which is a shame considering that Conan is my all-time favourite fantasy franchise.

[Mrbloodworth]

Hello Everyone!

First off! Thank you very much for your great input and terrific feedback so far, it really helps us to identify issues and make the game much better for launch. Due to the incredible push we have seen the last hours I wanted to inform you about the biggest annoyances some of you have experienced so far – and what we are doing about them.

I want to say that it seems to me that most people are really enjoying the gameplay despite some technical issues. This is great news to me, but this is not the focus for this update, rather I just want to say “We see, we learn, we hear and we are fixing issues!”


Stalling

Some people call it “lagging”. Some people call it “hanging”. We have named it “stalling” internally, so that is what I am going to call it. This is the experience where the client hangs for some fraction of a second up to some seconds. This is, almost without exception, run-time compilation of shaders (a shader is “slang” for code running on the graphics card). This is a known issue, we have identified where we need to fix things, and we are working on a solution.

The best way to minimize these stalls is to set the rendering options to one of the “presets” (low, medium or high). Tweaking the rendering settings manually, increase the chance of stalls. Our recommended low, medium and high have some more previously compiled shaders, so it should be better. It won’t be stall-free though, not until the final version is out! If you have a worse experience in Tortage Day, than Tortage Night – this is most likely the case.

If you struggle with performance generally, turn on LOW settings. This includes Shader model 2 shaders, disabling “bloom” and has a short viewdistance. This helps a lot. Turn the viewdistance up again in the settings if you want to see more of the world after you do this…

If you experience stalls remember that you are testing beta-code. Getting data from you is our way to make the launch experience so much better for everyone.


Zoning or loading times

Differently from the stalls, this issue does not happening to everyone. This issue is actually new to Open beta. It does not happen on the closed beta. We are patching closed beta with the exact same code / data as we speak, so we can try to find the reason. Be patient and we shall prevail here too


Memory leaks

Your client running out of memory happens gradually, especially from zoning. By restarting the client, you should be fine for some time depending on your system. We have a host of fixes for this on its way to you, and we aim to update this in a day or two. Every time the client crashes, we get a message that helps us better understand the issue. What you are doing is terrific work that will enable us to fix this!

And then again, some are not experiencing any of this at all.

On behalf of the whole Funcom Conan Development team working around the clock,

Gaute Godager

Linky

[waylander]

I'm running

Core2 Duo E6700 (2.66ghz)
4 Gigs Ram (800mhz)
GF 8800 GT (512mb)

So far people running those specs seem to be doing ok, but I worry about the guys complaining about the GF8 cards having issues.

[kaid]

From reading their boards it looks like there are some driver issues with certain of the nvidia drivers for the 8k series. Looks like there are work arounds for most of it but here is hoping they can nail it down a bit better before release. A lot of the fixes seem pretty simple such as toggling full screen off then loading into the game and turning full screen back on and goofy stuff like that.

[Ixxit]

If you experience stalls remember that you are testing beta-code. Getting data from you is our way to make the launch experience so much better for everyone.

  Oh ho ho ho.  Realllly?

[slog]

If you experience stalls remember that you are testing beta-code. Getting data from you is our way to make the launch experience so much better for everyone.

  Oh ho ho ho.  Realllly?

Maybe 6 years ago you could get away with something like that.  Now?