Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure how many other people are affected by this, but after many issues with both the 32- and 64-bit clients – and after unsuccessfully trying out pretty much every reasonable resolution suggested on the forum – I went with a gut feeling, and so far it appears to have fixed things.

It was after one of the less malignant crashes that I checked out the extra details on the error reporter and noticed that (like some people have suggested) the accessible memory (mine is 16Gb) was doing weird things and not being sufficient, even with the 64-bit client. So I opened up my computer and realigned my RAM. It was in a dual-channel configuration (8Gb in two slots – A1 and B1), so I removed the B1 stick and stuck it in A2. Started the computer back up. Not a single crash since!

Not sure if dual-channel memory setups are known issues by the devs; I haven’t seen any information about it being an issue on the forums. It’s certainly worked so far for me (two days without crashing after three weeks of very frequent and regular crashes).

You might suggest that my B1 RAM slot, or my RAM itself was faulty, but again – this error and these crashes have only happened with Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. Ever.

I sincerely hope that this can help other people who also have the issue. It will slow down your computer’s RAM access slightly, but if it works for you it will save you a thousand hours of restarting GW2 and searching for fixes.

Edit: Seriously, I’m not looking for people to suggest fixes for me. I already tried all the fixes on the forum, including remounting, checking manuals, testing RAM, etc. I’m competent with this, and I know my computer. I spent a month building and customizing the thing and it’s worked perfectly for more than a year. I wouldn’t be posting this fix if I hadn’t tried every other option and found them unhelpful – so if you’re just here to tell me that I’ve done something wrong… this isn’t the thread for you.

Shouldn’t it have been in the A2 slot from the beginning? You only use B1 when you have 3 or more RAM sticks to integrate into the system. Anyways, the order to use them in is normally color coded on most motherboards. You start with the same color, and then after you have more than 2, you then use the other color slots.

Loli Ruri.8307:

Shouldn’t it have been in the A2 slot from the beginning? You only use B1 when you have 3 or more RAM sticks to integrate into the system. Anyways, the order to use them in is normally color coded on most motherboards. You start with the same color, and then after you have more than 2, you then use the other color slots.

Nope, not if you’re dual-channeling your RAM and only have two sticks. And as I mentioned in my post, the setup was working beautifully in every game/program except Guild Wars 2. Note that my RAM speed has slowed down now that I’m using A1/A2 instead of A1/B1. CPU-Z also shows me that I’m no longer using a dual-channel config.

If you have color-coded RAM ports, you will notice that A1 and B1 are the same color and A2 and B2 are the same color. I believe the reason behind this logic for dual-channel setups is that A1/2 and B1/2 both have separate connectors for power/data, so if you have only two sticks and put them in A1 and B1, the data has access to more RAM without the choke point of a single connector.

Re-seating the RAM was what fixed the issue – or your motherboard has a defective slot.

abomally.2694:

Re-seating the RAM was what fixed the issue – or your motherboard has a defective slot.

Not sure why people aren’t reading the original post… this is the ONLY game this issue has happened with, and it started with HoT. I’ve played other memory-intense games without error (including during the past few days). But the main issue is that something in GW2 HoT’s coding appears to be conflicting with the dual-channel config.

If you aren’t having crash issues, I’m not exactly sure why you’re reading this.

If you are having crash issues, and this simply hasn’t worked for you, I’m sorry it didn’t help you. You might need to check for other options.

The game coding has absolutely no effect on (nor does it care about) the memory configuration on your motherboard. Your issue was hardware related. Sometimes, merely removing RAM and placing it back in the slots solves memory crash related problems.

Try dual channel mode again – this time, use the other two slots instead of the original two.

abomally.2694:

The game coding has absolutely no effect on (nor does it care about) the memory configuration on your motherboard. Your issue was hardware related. Sometimes, merely removing RAM and placing it back in the slots solves memory crash related problems.

Try dual channel mode again – this time, use the other two slots instead of the original two.

In that case, all the other games are just happy to work perfectly (and faster) without worrying about the hardware fault. But thanks for the suggestion. My suggestion is for those people who, like me, have gone through all issues and still haven’t found a fix. If re-seating works for them, great, but otherwise they can try what I have.

Cheers for the feedback.

First, you should refer to your motherboard manual to determine which slots you should be using for optimal performance. You may also want to update the BIOS and manually configure the memory based on what is recommended by the manufacturer.

If you’re using Windows 7 or higher, search the control panel for “memory” and run the memory diagnostics tool. Alternatively, download and boot memtest86.

Healix.5819:

First, you should refer to your motherboard manual to determine which slots you should be using for optimal performance. You may also want to update the BIOS and manually configure the memory based on what is recommended by the manufacturer.

If you’re using Windows 7 or higher, search the control panel for “memory” and run the memory diagnostics tool. Alternatively, download and boot memtest86.

I’m confused… what are you suggesting this for? I’m not facing a RAM issue. Everything’s working perfectly here. Seriously… if you’re going to reply, please read the post first.

Swift.1930:

Healix.5819:

First, you should refer to your motherboard manual to determine which slots you should be using for optimal performance. You may also want to update the BIOS and manually configure the memory based on what is recommended by the manufacturer.

If you’re using Windows 7 or higher, search the control panel for “memory” and run the memory diagnostics tool. Alternatively, download and boot memtest86.

I’m confused… what are you suggesting this for? I’m not facing a RAM issue. Everything’s working perfectly here. Seriously… if you’re going to reply, please read the post first.

I’m guessing they all read it and are just trying to help more. There is a difference between just working and working optimally.

Swift.1930:

Healix.5819:

First, you should refer to your motherboard manual to determine which slots you should be using for optimal performance. You may also want to update the BIOS and manually configure the memory based on what is recommended by the manufacturer.

If you’re using Windows 7 or higher, search the control panel for “memory” and run the memory diagnostics tool. Alternatively, download and boot memtest86.

I’m confused… what are you suggesting this for? I’m not facing a RAM issue. Everything’s working perfectly here. Seriously… if you’re going to reply, please read the post first.

Chances are there is a Motherboard issue with Dual channel setup. The Fact that GW2 causes your system to crash and ‘other’ programs don’t just means GW2 is hitting your ram faster and more often then those other programs.

What you should do is put the ram back to its optimal config (dual channel) and then run Memtest86+ on it for 24-48hours and see if there are any reported memory errors. If so, then you know what the issue is. Follow the errors down to what channel and bank they happened on and replace the defective memory module. If errors happen on both banks, then its probably the system board at fault (unlikely that both sticks would go bad).

sirsquishy.8531:

Chances are there is a Motherboard issue with Dual channel setup. The Fact that GW2 causes your system to crash and ‘other’ programs don’t just means GW2 is hitting your ram faster and more often then those other programs.

What you should do is put the ram back to its optimal config (dual channel) and then run Memtest86+ on it for 24-48hours and see if there are any reported memory errors. If so, then you know what the issue is. Follow the errors down to what channel and bank they happened on and replace the defective memory module. If errors happen on both banks, then its probably the system board at fault (unlikely that both sticks would go bad).

Viable options. Might try that when I’ve got time. The main point of this post, though, was to suggest another option for people who are continually encountering crashes. A lot of the people I’ve seen having the same crashes as me had nice rig specs, some better than my own. But all of the posts I’ve seen have had one thing in common – high RAM pools – which usually means dual-channel configs.

Also, it’s unlikely that either stick is broken, as I’ve not had any problems since swapping to a single-channel setup.

Are you saying that a system-intense game like The Witcher 3 wouldn’t run into the same memory issues as Guild Wars 2 – a game with pretty average intensity? If so, then we’re definitely talking about a software issue. I believe I mentioned earlier that no other game has had this crash, so if Guild Wars 2 is the only one, it’s not my motherboard. If it was the motherboard, the only explanation would be that every other game includes some line of code that compensates for that. Again, that comes down to a software fault, because Guild Wars 2 must have had that until Heart of Thorns came out.

“But all of the posts I’ve seen have had one thing in common – high RAM pools – which usually means dual-channel configs.”

No, high RAM usage has nothing to do with memory modes that a mobo is configured for. Single channel or dual channel is only a (low level) hardware configuration – it has nothing to do with memory usage. The modes only have to do with how the memory is accessed by the hardware, not the software.

“Are you saying that a system-intense game like The Witcher 3 wouldn’t run into the same memory issues as Guild Wars 2…”

Certainly. TW3 has a different engine and manages memory differently. It’s entirely possible that TW3 never accessed the same RAM location(s) that caused GW2 to crash for you.

“…If it was the motherboard, the only explanation would be that every other game includes some line of code that compensates for that.”

It doesn’t work that way. Programs don’t code for which memory mode a motherboard uses because it is irrelevant. It makes ZERO difference to software how the hardware accesses the RAM.

What I’m explaining, is that by simply removing that stick of memory and placing it back into the motherboard, the issue is fixed (although you placed it in a different slot which switched the mode to single channel).

If you remove that stick again and place it back in the original slot, the problem will still be gone – unless the motherboard has a problem.

Re-seating RAM is a very common first step I use when troubleshooting crashes that have no obvious explanation – it’s one of the first things I try in those cases. Sometimes it resolves the issue; other times I have discovered bad slots or a bad stick of memory.

BTW, the only crash I’ve ever had with GW2 was when I was trying some game recording software (don’t remember which one) while doing the Arah event. I switched to Open Broadcaster for recording and have no issues.

Both my previous motherboard and my current one use dual-channel memory configurations and (other than the one time above) I’ve never had a crash in GW2.

abomally.2694:

“But all of the posts I’ve seen have had one thing in common – high RAM pools – which usually means dual-channel configs.”

No, high RAM usage has nothing to do with memory modes that a mobo is configured for. Single channel or dual channel is only a (low level) hardware configuration – it has nothing to do with memory usage. The modes only have to do with how the memory is accessed by the hardware, not the software.

“Are you saying that a system-intense game like The Witcher 3 wouldn’t run into the same memory issues as Guild Wars 2…”

Certainly. TW3 has a different engine and manages memory differently. It’s entirely possible that TW3 never accessed the same RAM location(s) that caused GW2 to crash for you.

“…If it was the motherboard, the only explanation would be that every other game includes some line of code that compensates for that.”

It doesn’t work that way. Programs don’t code for which memory mode a motherboard uses because it is irrelevant. It makes ZERO difference to software how the hardware accesses the RAM.

What I’m explaining, is that by simply removing that stick of memory and placing it back into the motherboard, the issue is fixed (although you placed it in a different slot which switched the mode to single channel).

If you remove that stick again and place it back in the original slot, the problem will still be gone – unless the motherboard has a problem.

Re-seating RAM is a very common first step I use when troubleshooting crashes that have no obvious explanation – it’s one of the first things I try in those cases. Sometimes it resolves the issue; other times I have discovered bad slots or a bad stick of memory.

BTW, the only crash I’ve ever had with GW2 was when I was trying some game recording software (don’t remember which one) while doing the Arah event. I switched to Open Broadcaster for recording and have no issues.

Both my previous motherboard and my current one use dual-channel memory configurations and (other than the one time above) I’ve never had a crash in GW2.

Well, the crashes haven’t happened with either single-channel seating, but they’ve persisted with both dual-channel setups. In other words, it isn’t the slots and it isn’t the sticks.
-A1/A2 works fine
-B1/B2 works fine
-A1/B1 crashes
-A2/B2 crashes

As opposed to working perfectly six months ago. So what could have changed if not the coding that is utilizing dual-channel RAM?

You don’t “code” for single/dual/quad channel, that’s entirely hardware between the memory controller on the CPU (nowadays most are on the CPU rather than a motherboard northbridge). What it sounds like that your ram is on the edge of some condition that the memory fetch pattern with this game is causing a problem.

Are you saying that a system-intense game like The Witcher 3 wouldn’t run into the same memory issues as Guild Wars 2

Witcher 3 is not a CPU demanding game, actually. Neither are most single player games. Most current games are bound to GPU power mostly. GW2 (and most MMO’s) is much more CPU demanding, while using not much GPU resources. So if all those other games that didn’t make your system crash are single player games, they’re very different than GW2.

And as people already has said (just to confirm it), dual channel is a low level hardware thing. Only the memory controller is aware of it, it’s 100% transparent to the rest of the system. If dual channel affects stability, there’s a hardware problem somewhere between the RAM sticks and the memory controller.

Yes, sometimes hardware issues only show up in very specific circumstances.

Swift.1930:

Well, the crashes haven’t happened with either single-channel seating, but they’ve persisted with both dual-channel setups. In other words, it isn’t the slots and it isn’t the sticks.
-A1/A2 works fine
-B1/B2 works fine
-A1/B1 crashes
-A2/B2 crashes

As opposed to working perfectly six months ago. So what could have changed if not the coding that is utilizing dual-channel RAM?

mobo bios might be a little stupid. Perhaps?