Guild Wars 2

So it appears the removal of culling melted my graphics card. It just spontaneously combusted last night after several massive zerg fights.

For the record, it was a decent card on a decent system*, was only a year old, and when I went into WvW I turned my settings low and got rid of shadows. But apparently the new changes were too much for it, alas.

Anyone else in mourning?

*system: quad, 8gigs ram, 6970 card, liquid cool

Wow that sucks man, there will probably be a lot of burned out power supplies too.

Maybe ArenaNet is getting into the business of selling graphics cards and this is how they create a market

/just kidding

Jayne.9251:

So it appears the removal of culling melted my graphics card. It just spontaneously combusted last night after several massive zerg fights.

For the record, it was a decent card on a decent system*, was only a year old, and when I went into WvW I turned my settings low and got rid of shadows. But apparently the new changes were too much for it, alas.

Anyone else in mourning?

*system: quad, 8gigs ram, 6970 card, liquid cool

I feel your pain. I will be able to WvW in 3-5 business days. lol

im not computer savy but, arent there any signs or simptoms that could have alerted the guy? Like crashes or slow-downs?

I cant imagine a guy just playing the game fine with no issues and the card melting a second later…

Mine died too on my laptop (Clevo P150HM with a 6990m) sunday, but the warranty is still on. The problem is that i play at work and while i wait for a new one, i can’t play anymore

I wish mine would melt so I could get anew one lol

I to had some issues with lockups in WvW right after the culling patch. I used to run on the highest graphics settings available before the patch. Now i’m down to the lowest settings and its working OK so far.

It would be good if Anet would post some info on what they did so users could better deal with how to update their setup.

JakobGW.5730:

Jayne.9251:

So it appears the removal of culling melted my graphics card. It just spontaneously combusted last night after several massive zerg fights.

For the record, it was a decent card on a decent system*, was only a year old, and when I went into WvW I turned my settings low and got rid of shadows. But apparently the new changes were too much for it, alas.

Anyone else in mourning?

*system: quad, 8gigs ram, 6970 card, liquid cool

I feel your pain. I will be able to WvW in 3-5 business days. lol

Pretty sure your card melted because you killed too many DIRPS!!!

My fps actually seem to be higher after the patch.

I have no idea if you had a Radeon HD 6970, how yours would melt due to the culling being removed. I have a GTX 480 with stock cooling, and OCed for stock specs. Your card is only 2 steps below mine in benchmarks. I run on all high/ultra settings with FPS from 50-80 at all times and my card barely reaches over 70 degrees, and its a card KNOWN to run hot. Sounds more like something was wrong with your card in general, or your cooling failed to me.

I run 2 7850s they never get hot :-)

I thought wvw had blown my speakers for a bit, but it seems they just temporarily overdosed on the treble.

I recently got a NVidia 650Ti. By default the fan speed is set to 21%, but playing games it doesnt change, it’s still stuck on 21% and temps go over 50C

Installed Nvidia’s System Tools and set profiles, but the profiles dont always work. So every time play GW2, only game I play atm, I first start the System Tools and change the fan speed manually to 50%. This make sure the temp doesnt exceed 50%

I really thought drivers and software would do this automatically; imagine if you had to do this with your CPU! It’s a shame the profiles dont work for some reason. They did use to work, but then they didnt for me, hence why do t manually to make sure my card doesnt run hot.

IF you dont have this for your nvidia car I recommend you try it, or use msi afterburner which has similar features I beleive and works with ati cards as well.

Okaishi.8320:

My fps actually seem to be higher after the patch.

This has been my experience as well.
My computer is 6 years old (e6600/8800GTS) and performance has been noticeably better on the low setting.

Probably overheated from something other than GW2. Bet you OC too…WvW without culling runs max settings just fine on my GTX660.

nikkistar.1409:

I have no idea if you had a Radeon HD 6970, how yours would melt due to the culling being removed. I have a GTX 480 with stock cooling, and OCed for stock specs. Your card is only 2 steps below mine in benchmarks. I run on all high/ultra settings with FPS from 50-80 at all times and my card barely reaches over 70 degrees, and its a card KNOWN to run hot. Sounds more like something was wrong with your card in general, or your cooling failed to me.

Yeah it was a beautiful card, ergo the (semi-serious) mourning. I could run pve on high settings flawlessly. I always reduced the settings when I went into WvW just to be “safe” lol. Oy. My best guess is that I was in there too long (12 hour days typically), with too many massive zergs and the card said “ack, sputter, kaboom.”

I am probably going to get a 660 next, but now I’m afraid to WvW lol. And no, I didn’t OC.

If its under warranty, I would really look into that. Your card should not have failed at all, by any means. But then again, you did put aftermarket cooling on it, and that usually negates the warranty. I have a sinking suspicion that your cooling failed at some point, which caused your card to go “KABOOM!”. And that, plain sucks.

On the upside, from the looks of it, you can get yourself a spiffy “new” 670 on ebay for 335. lol

Were you monitoring temperature? Video cards have very high temperature threshold, more-so than CPUs. You must have been cooking that thing or it was defective to begin with in some way.

I run my GTX 580 and CPU on water, does wonders in the summer when temps are above 100F daily.

I wish my video card would explode all over the place, would allow me to drop 300+ bucks on a new one, BUT NOOOO. STUPID LITTLE 240GT STILL GOING.

I should try cooking some bacon on it.

This gives me a reason to buy a portable AC to cool down my computer during hot days despite having liquid cooler already.

Jayne.9251:

So it appears the removal of culling melted my graphics card. It just spontaneously combusted last night after several massive zerg fights.

For the record, it was a decent card on a decent system*, was only a year old, and when I went into WvW I turned my settings low and got rid of shadows. But apparently the new changes were too much for it, alas.

Anyone else in mourning?

*system: quad, 8gigs ram, 6970 card, liquid cool

That’s what happens when you use AMD cards.

wow you were watercooled too?

Waffler.1257:

Jayne.9251:

So it appears the removal of culling melted my graphics card. It just spontaneously combusted last night after several massive zerg fights.

For the record, it was a decent card on a decent system*, was only a year old, and when I went into WvW I turned my settings low and got rid of shadows. But apparently the new changes were too much for it, alas.

Anyone else in mourning?

*system: quad, 8gigs ram, 6970 card, liquid cool

That’s what happens when you use AMD cards.

lol, I know right.
AMD card can’t handle intense graphic better than Nvidia card can.
My new computer with AMD is only 5 month olds, but it already started acting up just a few weeks after I purchased it >_<;;;

My Nvidia card before started acting up after 3-4 years of intense gaming usage.

saiyr.3071:

JakobGW.5730:

I feel your pain. I will be able to WvW in 3-5 business days. lol

Pretty sure your card melted because you killed too many DIRPS!!!

Lol. Now I know I’m good at this when you guys start stalking me in other threads. Too funny.

crystalpink.2487:

lol, I know right.
AMD card can’t handle intense graphic better than Nvidia card can.
My new computer with AMD is only 5 month olds, but it already started acting up just a few weeks after I purchased it >_<;;;

My Nvidia card before started acting up after 3-4 years of intense gaming usage.

…I am without words.

Xirin.8593:

…I am without words.

But then, you just did 4 words there, or maybe 5 if the dots are counted as one word.

crystalpink.2487:

Waffler.1257:

Jayne.9251:

So it appears the removal of culling melted my graphics card. It just spontaneously combusted last night after several massive zerg fights.

For the record, it was a decent card on a decent system*, was only a year old, and when I went into WvW I turned my settings low and got rid of shadows. But apparently the new changes were too much for it, alas.

Anyone else in mourning?

*system: quad, 8gigs ram, 6970 card, liquid cool

That’s what happens when you use AMD cards.

lol, I know right.
AMD card can’t handle intense graphic better than Nvidia card can.
My new computer with AMD is only 5 month olds, but it already started acting up just a few weeks after I purchased it >_<;;;

My Nvidia card before started acting up after 3-4 years of intense gaming usage.

Both AMD and Nvidia are perfectly fine. Both last about the same amount of time. Much of that is in direct relation to how much the card is used and how heavily it is used. Each one is slightly better than the other in certain areas.

Software will almost never cause your card to break. Software can however put your card under those stressful conditions that it can’t handle because there is something already wrong with it. Most computers cards that burn out and seem like the game caused it are in fact caused by defects. The game just brought that defect to light. When it may have otherwise gone unnoticed for a while longer. There is a reason hardware has warranties. Some manufacturers have minimal or no quality assurance. I don’t know of a manufacturer that has a warranty less than 2-3 years. Honestly that’s about what you should expect out of a card when used for gaming regularly.

I’m still using a GTX285 from 5 years ago. Works absolutely fine. No idea, but it could be that it has a 512bus. Not many cards these days have a wide enough enough highway for their data. THey have awesome clock speeds, but it bottlenecks.

Stats below.
240CUDA Cores1
648MHzGraphics Clock (MHz)
1242MHzMemory Clock
1 GBStandard Memory Config
GDDR3Memory Interface
512-bitMemory Interface Width2

Running a 4 year old Radeon 4870. I run in T2 which has some pretty large zergs, graphics settings on high, and it runs smooth as glass. Since culling was removed the only difference, other than now being able to see everyone, is with character weapons which are now occasionally slow to render.

My OC’d XFX 7870 has never had any issues. Sometimes cards give out after a few years, especially if oc’d or if the power supply is failing. I’ve seen failing failing supplies surge vid cards and take them out.

Also, AMD makes great cards, but you also need to get one from one of the better brands. XFX, MSI, and Asus tend to e the best. The rest are usually cheap for a reason. When it comes to raw power, my 7870 eats 660’s for breakfast, and they over clock like a beast with dual fans.

You guys realise that a game can’t actually blow up a graphics card right?

Jareth.4813:

You guys realise that a game can’t actually blow up a graphics card right?

Games can cause stress that can push cards past there limits of they’re about to go. So while its rare, it’s possible that the stress put on the card can make it…blow.

Playing on laptop and he does fine for multiple 15hours+ sessions :/

And yea, processor/GPU can melt but mostly is because of a production fault.

Jareth.4813:

You guys realise that a game can’t actually blow up a graphics card right?

A game itself can’t, but intensive gaming session under the maximum setting without any proper cooling for the CPU can blow up a graphic card.

Hence, a portable AC placed next to the CPU is a good solution to prevent the card from melting/blowing up.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Maybe I just got a lemon card …. But odd it would take a year for it to show flaws.

And system has liquid cool, not the card. I taught myself how to build pcs from the motherboard up a long time ago, but that was before the whole LC stuff … The rig I have now is store bought.

I’ll put in a new card tomorrow and see how it goes.

Learn to limit your frames people.

I lost my trusty 480gtx last week, 1 day BEFORE the patch

I really loved the old beast. It was still quite fast and nowhere near the end of its life-span. Sometimes stuff just breaks, it sucks.

I replaced it with a lower-mid-range card, radeon 7770 which is way slower but acceptable for gw2 and 1/5 of the price of my old card. It won’t play everything on max settings but it sure is good value for money.

Learn to limit your frames people.

Only necessary if your computer is ill-equipped for temperature control. Understandable if you are on a budget.

If you know how to temp control, proper fans, airflow, heatsink, etc. and the card isn’t defunct (which it sounds like in the OP’s case), you don’t need to limit your frames. That would be like buying a sports car and not driving over 80 MPH (where legal) so you don’t overheat the engine.

I have an ATI Card that is slightly lower than yours and have had no problems.

I also have an 800 Watt power supply and my rig has the maximum fans allowed.

How big is your power supply?

Well taking car of your PC is important.
I blow all the dust out every 3mo.
I even remove the video card and make sure all the dust is out.
It really helps.
I got a GLS250 video card I been running past 4 years.
Settings all on high and no issues at all.

wookie.8934:

Learn to limit your frames people.

this !

my graphics card (ati6970) is able to do the most intense and huge battles without issues, but when i was in an area that had little players or actions, it’s framerate would go into triple diggit numbers, the gpu temp would get alarmingly high and the fans would start scream out loud. i had to limit my framerate to 60 or i think my graphic card would have died.

strange that scenes that didn’t tax the card stressed it way more that the biggest explosions in the paint factory onscreen.

Valik Shin.9027:

I run 2 7850s they never get hot :-)

The 7k series runs MUCH cooler than the 6k series does. I’m running on a single 7950 with triple fan cooling cowl and have no slow downs or heat issues at all.