64-bit Client Beta FAQ

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Posted by: Gaile Gray

Gaile Gray

ArenaNet Communications Manager

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We’ve introduced a beta version of a 64-bit client for Guild Wars 2. Please review the following FAQ for more information:

What is the 64-bit client?
It is an alternative to the 32-bit client currently used to play the game. Aside from some technical details, the two are identical in functionality.

What does it mean that the client is 64-bit?
Modern computers generally have one of two types of processors: 32-bit, or 64-bit. 32-bit processors can only execute 32-bit applications, while 64-bit processors can execute both 32-bit and 64-bit applications. The fact that the client is 64-bit means that it is intended to be executed on 64-bit processors.

What are the benefits over the 32-bit client?
64-bit applications have a significantly higher limit on how much memory they are able to use compared to 32-bit applications. Due to this, the main benefit is significantly less “out of memory” crashes.

What are the requirements of using the 64-bit client?
Your computer needs to have a 64-bit processor, and your operating system must also be 64-bit. To find out whether you fulfill these requirements, please refer to Microsoft’s Knowledge Base. If you are using Windows 10 you may follow the steps for Windows 8, and replace the first step with simply clicking the search button in the task bar.
Please note that we do not support 64-bit Windows XP.

How do I get the 64-bit client?
Log in to account.arena.net and go to the Game Content page. Under “Other Clients” you will find a button that says “Windows 64-bit [Beta]”. Press that button and then follow the instructions in the next paragraph for installing the executable. Installing the 64-bit client is a manual process and is recommended only for people familiar with Windows folder management.

I already have the 32-bit client; will I have to completely download the game again?
No. The 64-bit client uses the same data as the 32-bit client. If you already have the game installed, you can follow these instructions to avoid needing to reinstall the game:

  • Download the 64-bit client.
  • Copy the downloaded program into your Guild Wars 2 game folder.
  • Update any shortcuts to the game to point to the new file instead.
    This process will be automatic once we get out of beta.

Are the two clients mutually exclusive?
No. If you have both installed (or copied to the same folder as outlined in “I already have the 32-bit client; will I have to completely download the game again?”), you may launch either client as you see fit.

Does the 64-bit client only benefit players with more than 4 GB of system memory?
No. It is true that the 32-bit client in theory can access up to 4 GB of memory. In practice however this is almost never the case, due to gaps in the address space that slowly build up over time (known as fragmentation). Most players crashing today due to being “out of memory” are actually only using between 3 and 3.5 GB of their system memory.

In addition to this, modern operating systems use something known as “virtual memory” to extend the available memory beyond what the system has physically. The 64-bit client will allow you to benefit from the increased address space by making gaps largely irrelevant, and will allow the client to use more memory than it could otherwise rather than crashing.

Are there any performance differences between the 64-bit and 32-bit client?
There may be some very slight differences in favor of either client depending on your computer’s configuration. In the vast majority of cases it should be negligible.

Why is the 64-bit client using more memory than the 32-bit client?
Due to the technical differences between the two platforms the memory usage will never be directly comparable.

Is there a 64-bit Mac client?
Unfortunately, a 64-bit Mac client is not available at this time. We are hoping to be able to provide one in the future, but have no timeline to provide it.

Gaile Gray
Communications Manager
Guild & Fansite Relations; In-Game Events
ArenaNet

(edited by Gaile Gray.6029)

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Posted by: MithranArkanere.8957

MithranArkanere.8957

Are the any differences between the command line arguments accepted by either client?

SUGGEST-A-TRON says:
PAY—ONCE—UNLOCKS—ARE—ALWAYS—BETTER.
No exceptions!

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Posted by: LtSideSnipe.1475

LtSideSnipe.1475

I’m currently having pretty bad fps on the 64-bit client with the same quality options I had on the old client. I do have both a 64-bit Windows 10 version and a 64-bit processor. What am I doing wrong here?

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Posted by: Roguefire.8174

Roguefire.8174

I started downloading before I copied the 64 bit into the existing folder. Where do I find the files I downloaded from the 64 bit to clear up that space?

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Posted by: luposz.6291

luposz.6291

I got a +5 FPS performance.
Not crashes yet.
Using Windows 7

Edit: It crashes if I minimize and restore the game

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Posted by: Raven Lord.3407

Raven Lord.3407

Hi where should we post feedback on the 64-bit client? I’ll post here until someone states otherwise.

For the first time ever today after launching the 64-bit my security software flagged some guild wars 2 files for keylogging. It happened to be during a gem purchase through paypal. I blocked the function through the securities software but I thought it was odd since it has never happened before.

Edit: here is the log,

“Details:
Process: C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2\Gw2-64.exe
Action: Record keyboard operation
Path:
Suspicious file: C\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2\Gw2-64.tmp”

(edited by Raven Lord.3407)

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Posted by: Feniks.6842

Feniks.6842

Question: is this FAQ the official response to people crashing with OoM errors?
More specifically: is Anet’s response to the OoM crashes “it’s your client + os”, or is Anet admitting that something changed significantly with HoT with regards to memory-usage?

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Posted by: pants.1379

pants.1379

this is big news, why are you keeping it low key ?

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Posted by: Jemikwa.2571

Jemikwa.2571

I’ll have to test this on my Windows machine. It’s a shame there isn’t any updates for Mac users though. Crashes and errors have been through the roof this past weekend (usually once every hour or two), even on the most basic of graphical settings. I wish my Windows machine wasn’t worse than my Mac, otherwise I wouldn’t play on my Mac :<

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Posted by: khani.4786

khani.4786

this is big news, why are you keeping it low key ?

Probably a “soft launch” since it is beta and they want folks who are willing to try the Beta version to test it out and see if there are any problems before going whole hog and pushing it out to everyone.

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Posted by: Zaron.1987

Zaron.1987

One of the best updates.
Even the beta one should be announced as a big feature ath the hp at my opinion.
but i can understand you dont do it cause of beta status

ty again for providing us the new client. great job

(edited by Zaron.1987)

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Posted by: pants.1379

pants.1379

this is big news, why are you keeping it low key ?

Probably a “soft launch” since it is beta and they want folks who are willing to try the Beta version to test it out and see if there are any problems before going whole hog and pushing it out to everyone.

Exactly my point fella, the more people that use this client the better the bug feed back will be

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Posted by: Honeymonster.7154

Honeymonster.7154

I’m crashing when I try to load into Fractals, works fine when I go back to 32 bit. Have 8gb of Ram on Win 7 64bit.

Gw1 ~ Gwamm, 50/50 HoM.
Gw2 ~ Engi main, with many… many alts.
Kitten World Domination [Meww] :3

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Posted by: Menadena.7482

Menadena.7482

No mac version? I has a sad.

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Posted by: Raikidd.5803

Raikidd.5803

I’m currently having pretty bad fps on the 64-bit client with the same quality options I had on the old client. I do have both a 64-bit Windows 10 version and a 64-bit processor. What am I doing wrong here?

I got the same problem on my windows 10 x64 laptop with i7 4720, gtx960m 4gb, 8gb ram and ssd. In LA on x32 i have ~40fps on x64 i have ~13fps.

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Posted by: Xia.3485

Xia.3485

Can a future revision utilize more ram for caching to speed up map loading?

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Posted by: Nageth.5648

Nageth.5648

No mac version? I has a sad.

It isn’t unexpected that a beta client would not be tested on the Mac. It happens all the time (even Blizzard games don’t beta for Mac unless it is close to launch unless it is a WoW expansion). What is disappointing is that the best we get is essentially “we hope to have a timeline someday”. At least they mentioned us in the FAQ, I guess.

(edited by Nageth.5648)

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Posted by: Johan Skold

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Johan Skold

Lead Engine Programmer

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Are the any differences between the command line arguments accepted by either client?

Nope.

I’m currently having pretty bad fps on the 64-bit client with the same quality options I had on the old client. I do have both a 64-bit Windows 10 version and a 64-bit processor. What am I doing wrong here?

How much slower are we talking about? It would be great to see your dxdiag output.

1. Run dxdiag.
2. Click “Save All Information…” and save it somewhere.
3. Open the saved file, mask out anything you would not be comfortable sharing (if any), and re-save it.
4. Attach the saved file.

For the first time ever today after launching the 64-bit my security software flagged some guild wars 2 files for keylogging. It happened to be during a gem purchase through paypal. I blocked the function through the securities software but I thought it was odd since it has never happened before.

Interesting. What security software is that? Could you ensure that the executable is signed by us?

1. Right click the “Gw2-64.exe” file. If you don’t see the “.exe” part, that’s fine. It’s the file with the GW2 icon.
2. Click the “Digital Signatures” tab.
3. “ArenaNet Inc.” should be in the list of that tab.
4. If you select “ArenaNet Inc.” and click “Details”, it should say “This digital signature is OK.”

If all of the above is true, you can rest assure that it’s a false positive.

Question: is this FAQ the official response to people crashing with OoM errors?
More specifically: is Anet’s response to the OoM crashes “it’s your client + os”, or is Anet admitting that something changed significantly with HoT with regards to memory-usage?

This is the initial solution (though it’s been in the works for quite some time). Something did indeed change with HoT memory-wise though: Mainly, the new features require more of it, to the point where the extra usage causes a lot of pressure that wasn’t there before. It’s getting increasingly difficult to stay within the limited address space (not necessarily memory constraints) of 32-bit processes.

That said, we’re still dedicated to supporting the 32-bit client for as long as necessary. Necessary fixes for it will take a bit longer to develop however.

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Posted by: shiven.1892

shiven.1892

I’ve been crashing a lot the last couple of days especially in Lion’s Arch where I usually would load in to the game and crash within a minute. I was also playing on medium and low graphic settings. I just tried the new client and haven’t crashed yet on high/highest settings and my load times seem to be a little bit faster as well. It could just be a coincidence, but hopefully it continues to perform well for me.

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Posted by: Hvaran.6327

Hvaran.6327

razer cortex doesn’t work with it, w/e testing…

Handarand – Handacooon – Handa Panda – Handa Genie

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Posted by: DarkAnubis.9304

DarkAnubis.9304

So on 32 bit had ~80FPS on 64 had ~15FPS

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Posted by: Johan Skold

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Johan Skold

Lead Engine Programmer

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So for everyone with terrible FPS, are you on laptops?

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Posted by: Raikidd.5803

Raikidd.5803

So for everyone with terrible FPS, are you on laptops?

I am.

EDIT: I just did this https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3ripme/64bit_client_feedback_bugs_and_more/cwof6y7 and is working good, maybe better that x32 ,I need to do more tests.

Attachments:

(edited by Raikidd.5803)

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Posted by: MomentofWeakness.1246

MomentofWeakness.1246

Thank you guys for doing this, OOM: Heap Bytes error has plagued my system in WvW for 3 years, yet my system has 32GB of DDR3 haha.

Its Choo – 250,000 Kills in WvW and Counting…
WvW Commander – NA PST
Sexiest Level 80 Charr Guardian In The Game

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Posted by: Mizumelon.8412

Mizumelon.8412

Graphics on Best Appearance on Character Select screen on 32bit = 63fps locked.
Graphics on Best Performance on Character Select screen on 64bit = 30fps with a lot of stuttering.

MSi GE62 2QF laptop on Windows 10 Home 64-bit, i7-5700HQ, 8gb ram, GW2 on SSD, GTX 970M.

I hear some people are getting amazing fps increases on map chat.

Not sure what’s going on. I’m guessing windows 10? or laptop CPU and GPU? I got no idea.

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Posted by: DarkAnubis.9304

DarkAnubis.9304

So for everyone with terrible FPS, are you on laptops?

I am on a laptop

Attachments:

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Posted by: Sina.9208

Sina.9208

It annoyed me to no end how on my brand new computer with 16 gigs of ram I had stuttering at times when the client needed to load new models & such from the ssd, that seems to be gone for me :-)

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Posted by: Nick.8256

Nick.8256

Massive diff here and no crashes at Teq with everything maxed @1600p and LOD unchecked. Amazing is all i can say

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Posted by: DarkAnubis.9304

DarkAnubis.9304

I just noticed that when i play its not switching over to my higher graphics card so that may be the issue

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Posted by: Luvok.5697

Luvok.5697

I’m getting noticeably lower FPS on the 64-bit client compared to the 32. Any suggestions?

Windows 8.1, Geforce 760, 12 GIGs of RAM.

(not a laptop)

(edited by Luvok.5697)

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Posted by: Mizumelon.8412

Mizumelon.8412

I just noticed that when i play its not switching over to my higher graphics card so that may be the issue

You might actually hit the mark. I tried forcing gw2 to run with a dedicated graphics card under that suspicion. But it had no positive effect. It might be that the client doesn’t detect mobile gpus.

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Posted by: SirJack.4760

SirJack.4760

I downloaded the 64 bit client, which in turn caused the game to download some extra files. However, my FPS dropped from 70-80 to 5-10 (on Best Performance settings), which is unplayable.

Going back to the 32-bit client doesn’t seem to be an option, as the client now states it can no longer detect a valid .dat file in the directory. Guess I’ll have to look up my backup and redownload the past few months…

For info, W7 64-bit version with 8 GB Ram.

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Posted by: DarkAnubis.9304

DarkAnubis.9304

Yeah just determined my issue was my pc selecting the wrong graphics card to run the 64 bit client

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Posted by: DarkAnubis.9304

DarkAnubis.9304

I just noticed that when i play its not switching over to my higher graphics card so that may be the issue

You might actually hit the mark. I tried forcing gw2 to run with a dedicated graphics card under that suspicion. But it had no positive effect. It might be that the client doesn’t detect mobile gpus.

I forced my global settings to run on my 970m and fixed it

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Posted by: Diruuo.6314

Diruuo.6314

If you are on laptops please make sure the executable (Gw2-64.exe) is running on your dedicated Graphics Card. Nvidia does not automatically recognize it as a game and recommends Integrated graphics for it.

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Posted by: neostorm.7645

neostorm.7645

Hey, is SLI supported on the 64bit client ?

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Posted by: Mizumelon.8412

Mizumelon.8412

If you are on laptops please make sure the executable (Gw2-64.exe) is running on your dedicated Graphics Card. Nvidia does not automatically recognize it as a game and recommends Integrated graphics for it.

That did the trick. For people with NVidia GPUs:
1. Right Click on desktop, Select NVIDIA Control Panel.
2. Go to Manage 3D Settings, go to Program Settings.
3. Press Add, and select your GW2-64bit executable client.
By now, it should tell you that it auto selected your Integrated Graphics
4. Change that to High-performance NVIDIA processor.

Try run the 64bit client.

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Posted by: WesleySnipes.3917

WesleySnipes.3917

No mac version? I has a sad.

i cry after every patch when i find out nothing changed

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Posted by: PinkFluff.6084

PinkFluff.6084

To save time on downlaods and not having multiple dat files if I don’t need them. I’m curious if the gw2 dat file is the same for both 32 and 64 version. If I can just copy/past the 32 bit version… it’ll save some time.

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Posted by: NYAN.7356

NYAN.7356

I have sli currently doing the dl so ill post when I find out

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Posted by: Zack Love.6324

Zack Love.6324

I got a 20 FPS increase with the 64bit client. Neat.

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Posted by: Johan Skold

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Johan Skold

Lead Engine Programmer

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I just noticed that when i play its not switching over to my higher graphics card so that may be the issue

Yes, that appears to be the main problem people are having. For now, following the steps in this answer should do it.

I’m getting noticeably lower FPS on the 64-bit client compared to the 32. Any suggestions?

Windows 8.1, Geforce 760, 12 GIGs of RAM.

(not a laptop)

Could you please post your dxdiag by following the directions in one of my previous responses?

Going back to the 32-bit client doesn’t seem to be an option, as the client now states it can no longer detect a valid .dat file in the directory. Guess I’ll have to look up my backup and redownload the past few months…

Sorry that happened to you. We’ve tested going back and forth internally and never encountered that issue. Could you try repairing your files?

To save time on downlaods and not having multiple dat files if I don’t need them. I’m curious if the gw2 dat file is the same for both 32 and 64 version. If I can just copy/past the 32 bit version… it’ll save some time.

Yes, please follow the instructions in the FAQ.

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Posted by: Beldin.5498

Beldin.5498

To save time on downlaods and not having multiple dat files if I don’t need them. I’m curious if the gw2 dat file is the same for both 32 and 64 version. If I can just copy/past the 32 bit version… it’ll save some time.

Just drop the new exe in your GW2 directory and start it..

But .. bad news .. got a crash in the character select screen .. after that already before
when i restart it. I guess it could have been TS3-Overlay .. will now try it without

—> Crash <—
Exception: c0000005
Memory at address ffffffff`ffffffff could not be read
App: Gw2-64.exe
Pid: 21680
Cmdline: -autologin -maploadinfo
BaseAddr: 00007FF7BD7A0000
ProgramId: 101
Build: 54869
When: 2015-11-04T19:36:48Z 2015-11-04T20:36:48+01:00
Uptime: 0 days 0:10:40
Flags: 0

—> System <—
Name: DESKTOP-402MECB
IpAddr: 192.168.2.100
Processors: 4 [GenuineIntel:6:10:7]
OSVersion: Windows 6.2 (64 bit)

—> System Memory <—
Physical: 3853MB/ 8175MB 47%
Paged: 3868MB/ 9455MB 40%
Virtual: 134215343MB/134217727MB 3%
Load: 52%
CommitTotal: 5586MB
CommitLimit: 9455MB
CommitPeak: 6419MB
SystemCache: 4047MB
HandleCount: 33768
ProcessCount: 71
ThreadCount: 1315

—> Process Memory <—
Private: 2116MB
WorkingSet: 1550MB
PeakWorkingSet: 1550MB
PageFaults: 1563426

EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.

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Posted by: PinkFluff.6084

PinkFluff.6084

Thanks John, I somehow missed that little instruction section

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Posted by: GM Kveldulf.4790

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GM Kveldulf.4790

Lead Game Master

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@Beldin.5498.

Exception: c0000005 is a fun one, and there are a lot of possible root causes unrelated to the 64-bit client. I recommend submitting a support ticket about it, and we’ll run through some troubleshooting with you.

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Posted by: deltaconnected.4859

deltaconnected.4859

FYI for SLI/surround users (might apply to xfire too): make sure you rename the 32bit client if you wish to keep it, and drop the 64bit one as ‘Gw2.exe’. Or change the exe name for the profile in nvidiainspector or something.

(edited by deltaconnected.4859)

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Posted by: Otaur.9268

Otaur.9268

So for everyone with terrible FPS, are you on laptops?

On laptop and yes, cut fps in half, going to try and look at Nvidia control panel…

Blackfang’s Demon Alliance [BfDA]

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Posted by: Luvok.5697

Luvok.5697

Sorry, I missed the dxdiag instruction. I’ve attached the file now. Again, it seems I’m losing about 20FPS or so when using the 64-bit client.

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Posted by: Chaba.5410

Chaba.5410

No crashes for me yet, but Windows Task manager shows the new client going from ~3.3gb to now ~4.5gb of RAM usage on my system from mostly just idling in-game. Hehe. Slowly ticking upwards…

Chaba Tangnu
Founding member of [NERF] Fort Engineer and driver for [TLC] The Legion of Charrs
RIP [SIC] Strident Iconoclast

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Posted by: BlankHearts.8216

BlankHearts.8216

Not sure I correctly followed the instructions. I downloaded the GW2 64 bit beta client and dropped it into my GW2 data folder and started the application. But its downloading the entire game again. I’m not sure how to ‘’Update any shortcuts to the game to point to the new file instead.’’

(edited by BlankHearts.8216)