Guild Wars 2

First, my system:
Windows 7 64-bit
AMD FX 4100 at 3.6 Ghz
AMD Radeon HD 6870 (now driver 12.10)

I started the day with no changes from the previous day when all was fine. I then started today (10/26) with a brief log in at about 1:30 pm to check a few things and things seemed fine. I then came back at about 5 pm to discover issues.

These issues happen no matter where I am in-game, it could be the middle of Lion’s Arch or way off in some corner by myself.

First, I notice that my “refresh” issue is back. I have the vertical refresh forced to “Always On” to match my display (a Samsung 42-inch television) and this had reduced the issue to once every few minutes. Now it’s back to every couple seconds. What happens is that my screen flickers and you can catch the vertical refresh (by seeing items at the bottom of the screen at the top and make their way down. Naturally, this only happens in-game.

Next, every few moments (a minute, a couple seconds, random really) the game will just stall. No sound, no movement, nothing. Then it does one of three things: flicker out black and instantly come back again with whatever was happening to me happened (ie I’m still in-world); the screen will black out, my television will show “Searching For Signals” (like the PC has been shut off) for a second, then the game comes back; or the screen will flicker out black but just show an unmovable in-game curser with game sound, Alt-Tab to a Guild Wars 2 prompt telling me “Guild Wars 2 has encountered an unrecoverable graphics driver error and must terminate.”, OK on this and game closes.

So I go looking at my driver. I had 12.8 and update/site tells me 12.10 is available. So I go about removing the current driver and application profiles and installing the new one. I first just installed the new driver package and had the same issues. I then had to reset the forced vertical refresh with the issue persisting. I then installed new application profiles package to see the issue still continue.

The two other guild mates that were on say things are fine for them. So I’d think the issues was on my end, but so far it’s only effecting Guild Wars 2. I’ll also note that when I logged in after 5pm there was no game update, but after the first crash there was. Naturally now I can’t play, so I’ll be open to any and all suggestions.