I'm sick of Arc

foxyperson

Ever since you implemented that "software" I miss two out of every three alerts because the game boots me out in zoning, and the same thing happens whenever I switch characters. It has been weeks of this already and it's sucking all the fun of playing this game. I'm already considering voting with my money if something is not done about it and soon.

To top it off, Arc is not even a real thing, it's not an integrated solution for PWE's games, just a de-facto patch that still uses the old installers. It's a middle man that does nothing to improve gamers' quality of life and just adds to the number of gates the end user must go through.

Get rid of it or come up with a real unified installer/manager. I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem.

sistersilicon

Do you get the same problems when you run the CO launcher directly, without running Arc?

foxyperson

Yes I do, which might be due to the subtle modifications on the CO installer. CO is the only Cryptic game I play, and other online games I play don't suffer from this problem.

flyingfinn

come up with a real unified installer/manager

That's what ARC is. If it wasn't still in beta.

jonsills

If you're getting the same thing no matter whether you use the standalone launcher or Arc, the blame is almost certainly to do with your pathing, rather than the software. At least, if there have been any "subtle modifications" in the CO launcher, I certainly haven't run across them - and I can't use the Arc launcher because it drops my FPS into the single digits, rendering the game unplayable for me.

kojirohellfire

Sounds like a problem on your computer.

hyperstrikecoh

All Arc is, is a glorified installer/launcher launcher.

If your system's unstable even when not running it, the problem is something in your system (hardware, application software or OS). Maybe try a clean install of the game and driver updates to see if that helps.

As for it killing FPS, that's a FUBAR with Arc. What Arc should be doing is starting up, launching the game and then exiting out. But, like most of these multi-game launcher hacks, I'm betting that it's still sitting there, vulture-like, in the background. And, if it's anything like the old NCSoft unified launcher, Arc is probably violently unstable, leading to it eating pointless CPU cycles and leaking memory like nobody's business.

At this point, I'm still refusing to install Arc. So I can't tell if there's a way around this.
But check to see if the program has an options menu/interface. If it does, see if there's a checkbox or something to tell it to shut down after launching a game.

grengras

Arc 'does' sit in the background even after your game launches.

But there's a fix for that.

Launch Arc. Click Play button on Arc. Wait for the Champions installer to login using Arc. As soon as it does use Windows Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del then choose Task Manager). Click on Processes tab. Left click / highlight Arc.exe then End process.

When Arc closes in this way it also closes the ArcOSBrowser.exe but the Champions installer stays up.

Doing these steps saves roughly 200k resources otherwise used up by Arc. xD

Warning... if you click Play button on the CO installer / launcher it will instantly lock Arc.exe and the browser from being unable to be shut down until you close the game client. So make sure you shut them down first.

thatcursedwolf

Arc can co-exist with Steam, it will actually run the games from the Steam installed files so it won't need to download anything. Launching with Steam is not affected (*standard Arc tinfoil hat disclaimer).

The only problem I've had with Arc is it occasionally decides that it needs a game started twice to actually work. That's why I still mostly use Steam. Also Steam has a much quicker process to buy Zen.

About the only time I get booted on zoning is leaving an instance while partied in NW, which I only play from the Steam launcher.

decorumfriends

grengras adjusts:

Arc 'does' sit in the background even after your game launches.

But there's a fix for that.

Launch Arc. Click Play button on Arc. Wait for the Champions installer to login using Arc. As soon as it does use Windows Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del then choose Task Manager). Click on Processes tab. Left click / highlight Arc.exe then End process.

When Arc closes in this way it also closes the ArcOSBrowser.exe but the Champions installer stays up.

Doing these steps saves roughly 200k resources otherwise used up by Arc. xD

Warning... if you click Play button on the CO installer / launcher it will instantly lock Arc.exe and the browser from being unable to be shut down until you close the game client. So make sure you shut them down first.

Thanks, this will be most helpful once I'm forced to use it on my weak home machine (currently don't have to, but I'm sure that won't last).

nepht

thatcursedwolf wrote: »

Arc can co-exist with Steam, it will actually run the games from the Steam installed files so it won't need to download anything. Launching with Steam is not affected (*standard Arc tinfoil hat disclaimer).

The only problem I've had with Arc is it occasionally decides that it needs a game started twice to actually work. That's why I still mostly use Steam. Also Steam has a much quicker process to buy Zen.

About the only time I get booted on zoning is leaving an instance while partied in NW, which I only play from the Steam launcher.

^ This.

For those that dont want to use arc I advise them to take this guys advice and use steam.

hyperstrikecoh

nepht wrote: »

^ This.

For those that dont want to use arc I advise them to take this guys advice and use steam.

I agree with this sentiment.

I'm not a big FAN of Steam. But I think Valve's put a LOT more time, money and engineering into their multi-game launcher than anyone else. And I'm willing to trust it to be more stable and well-behaved on a system than some hack job.

sistersilicon

hyperstrikecoh wrote: »

I agree with this sentiment.

I'm not a big FAN of Steam. But I think Valve's put a LOT more time, money and engineering into their multi-game launcher than anyone else. And I'm willing to trust it to be more stable and well-behaved on a system than some hack job.

I would certainly hope so. Steam only has a 10-year head start, which might as well be a century in the software industry.