Guild Wars 2

Since yesterday’s update I have purple stones all over the place in the silverwastes… I have visited other areas, desert or otherwise arid. So far only on the silverwastes the problem is shown, I assume its either a bug or something since I have asked and noone else seems to see them around.
Added an image with the issue, maybe not purple but pinkish… Anyone know if thats my graphic cards, and why does it show it only on silverwastes, not even on Dry Top I see them. Only on Silverwastes.

My guess would be either a corrupted texture in the game files, or something caused by your GPU/driver.

Try repairing the game. Make a copy of your game shortcut and edit it to include ‘-repair’ at the end of the Target line. It should look similar to this.
“D:\Games\Guild Wars 2\Gw2.exe” -repair
Running that will force the game to check the .dat file and replace any corrupted files.

If that doesn’t fix it, you can check for GPU driver updates or rollback to a previous version.

ok. Just updated my GPU drivers and error continues. I will follow up with the -repair on the gw2 file.

The repair fixed the problem for like 2 minutes, and then they became pinkish again…

That’s a bit unusual. You could try running a CHKDSK (check disk) on the drive the game is installed on. Though, it is somewhat unlikely for a sector that was bad to have not just been marked as such and ignored during the game’s checking and repairing of its own files.

To run the CHKDSK tool, get to the “My Computer/Computer/This PC” section of Windows Explorer/File Explorer (the names/exact method varies with Windows version).
Right click the drive where the game is installed, and open the Properties window.
Go to the Tools tab, and click the Check button in the Error Checking section of the tab.

You can also (or instead of the CHKDSK) download a HDD check/test utility from the drive manufacturer. If you don’t know the manufacturer, you can usually tell by googling the model number shown in the Hardware tab of drive properties.

Windows also includes Windows Memory Diagnostic, which you can find by typing that into the start menu or taskbar/Cortana search. As with CHKDSK, it will reboot to perform the test or offer to schedule it at the next reboot.

Should I upgrade from Win8 to Win10? I am currently running on Win8. Also will post any update as soon as I run the disk check procedure.

Windows 8 vs 10 is just personal preference, mostly. There are some new features and conveniences, but functionality isn’t really any different. I doubt anything will run better (or worse) on 10 than it does on 8, until games start supporting DirectX 12. It’s worth checking out, but deciding to upgrade is just down to which you like the look and feel of.

I went from 7 to 10, and never touched 8 because I didn’t like the lack of standard start menu and the full-screen ‘metro’ apps. 10 has a hybrid mix of both start menu types.

I actually learn to enjoy win8 so much I don’t know if the upgrade will be something I will like. Anyways…

Did both Check Disk and Windows Memory Diagnostic and both came with negative results on errors. A complete Unqualified Report. I will contact support next then to see if they tell me something new to do… thank you a lot MrStealth for your help.

You’re quite welcome. That’s what the forum is here for.

Good luck with support, hopefully they can figure something out aside from playing whack-a-dredge with different driver versions.

And Windows 10 does leave you the option to revert to the previous version for a month after you upgrade. So if you do decide to try it and don’t like it, you can go back without much trouble. The free upgrade option is also valid till July 2016, so there’s no rush. Windows 8 will also continue to get normal feature updates till 2018, and security patches till 2023.

Update

After the chkdsk and windows memory diagnostic I got a critical error from gw2 and required to repair itself. After the repair the problem seems to have dissipated. Problem is still unknown but at least at the moment it’s fixed.

Perhaps the chkdsk did find a corrupted or bad sector and auto-repaired it(or disabled if physically bad). Your initial game repair could have just re-written the bad file to the same sector without realizing the sector was bad. Detection/repair does happen on-the-fly to a lesser degree, but the drive’s controller could have thought it successfully recovered a sector that should have just been marked as bad and reallocated.

If that’s the case, it’s nothing to worry about unless it happens repeatedly. A bad sector or two cropping up can cause issues themselves (like corrupting your game files), but they are something that can just happen from wear or a minor manufacturing defect and aren’t an immediate sign of hard drive problems.