Guild Wars 2

(I could not find another existing merged thread for this topic. However, if there is one please feel free to merge my post to that thread, and close this one. Thank you.)

Hello,

The Issue:

My load times between zones have exponentially increased since the launch of GW2. This situation occurs every log in no matter the time, and circumstance. A few patches ago is when I first started to notice it (the biggest patch towards the beginning of Sept). My load times went from 15 – 30secs, to now 30secs (if I’m lucky) – 1min+!

(It’s obviously not that big of a deal to wait considering there seems to be people still unable to play. Yet, this could be a sign of other problems with this game, and should be brought to the attention of ArenaNet.)

Before posting my computer / specs please remember before you comment – load times were absolutely fine playing with this computer at launch. Also other games work totally fine (except for Skyrim… those load times are kinda crappy too).

I have incredibly long load times too, I am searching for a solution, GW2 is running on a defragmented 7200RPM HDD.

My load times into and out of cities are timed at 45-60 seconds which is quite a while to wait.

Please help, is there a way to lower these? Is something else wrong?

I’m not looking for an answer along the lines of “get an SSD” . These load times feel too long, even for a spinning disk.

Try deleting the GuildWars2 folder inside My Documents. You’ll have to re-login, but it’s possible something inside the local cache is causing issues.

You may also want to run the game with the -repair option, and try defragging, though the latter is probably not the issue.

Thanks for the troubleshooting Hickeroar, and I’ll be sure to try these out. I’m concerned they may not do the trick considering pretty much all of my friends are having the same issue.

Still, I’ll update this post after I do some computer cleaning.

Same situation here with my client, used to load pretty fast, now Lion’s Arch especially takes 1+ minutes now and after I load the map it takes a good 30-40 seconds before any NPCs or players show up. Once loaded it runs fine, but the wait can be annoying.

One problem is the HDD you are using.
Also your ISP upload speeds might be slow, coupled with a bad Nic/router or wireless connection.

I will try the cache trick.

Kalec – Can you clarify what you mean where you say the HDD is the problem? Is it something specific to the model or do you just mean that an SSD is faster?

Obviously an SSD is faster but 45-60 seconds, or more, of load time seems far too long, even for a spinning disk.

In terms of uploads, I upload at 120 KB/s, while by no means exceptional this is pretty standard stuff.

As far as I can tell, the loading screens are effected by two things;

1) HDD / SSD speed.

2) Connection speed & quality.

So, make sure your HDD (Not SSD!) is defragmented (best thing to do would be to download defraggler, where you can specifically tell it to defrag the Guild Wars 2 folder.)

Next, delete the Guild Wars 2 folder from My Documents as suggested above.

If that doesn’t fix it, give your router a good power cycle (turn it off for 30 seconds before turning it back on).

See if that helps.

Just to note, do NOT defrag if you are using an SSD, this will be of no benifit to the game and will only serve to decrease your drives lifespan.

Did you ever fix this problem? I have long load times in gw2 as well, and was wondering what the fix is. It didn’t used to be quite so long in the first betas.

If you are facing HDD loading issues with games, it’s probably a good idea to check the SMART data of your drive, make sure seek time, spin up time etc are in not hugely different from the optimal values. If you have been using your HDD for 2-3 years, I would consider buying a new one. You also want to disable as much junk as possible from startup and services, you can use gamebooster’s built in tweak system as a start.

This is a problem that happens on several computers; 5yo ones, 6month old ones. Its also a reason why some friends barely play the game now. No app should require that you buy a new HDD every 6 months as some suggest, as a ST500DM0 02-1BC142 SATA should be more than enough for this game.

Hopefully im loaded in game now.

I really don’t think it’s my hard drive— if anything it might be my internet as my connection is kind of slow. It’s just strange because in bw1 the times were much shorter and it seemed like every weekend added time to my loading screens.

Like I said bw1 it was fairly fast. Other games I have no problem at all. In LoL for instance, I’m almost always the first to load the map.

I have to say I’ve got at least a decent computer by the current standards (should hope so, it’s not even a full year old) and it’s in pretty much the same shape as it was when I got it. It’s even got a few upgrades since then. With recent patches my load times almost everywhere have been going up, not by a lot but still they have been going up, probably about 30~40 seconds when it used to be about 10~30. Also I’ve started to get lag/fps problems in the past week or two when my settings haven’t changed since I started playing the game. Since so many people seem to be having similar problems I’m starting to think that it might be due to some poor optimization issues on Anet’s part.

Ditto to the OP. Load times are absurd.

There is another thread here about this but this only started happening to me after the game patch yesterday. And so far it only pertains to sPvP since that all I’ve been doing since the patch.

It usually lasts up until either the match ends and goes to a different map OR I force close the game. Then it’s fine for a couple hours, although the times seem very random.

I’d imagine it could still be internet related. While I’ve loaded zones quickly, when the servers were busy after a patch, I could see a noticable difference from the zone image appearing for preloading and my zone stats appearing almost instantly to a several second delay. If you’re seeing the zone image for awhile but don’t see your PoI, Vistas, etc. icons appear soon after, it could be just a delay in communicating to the server.

Ok for me after turning my computer on 1st time 2day, reading through forums, then seeing this.. i turned on guildwars and logged into my character in Lions arch.. took about 17 seconds to loadup.
So it isnt somthing on Anets side.

3 things i think can be you problem.
1) Slow CPU
2) Slow HDD
3) Slow Internet connection.

If you have a CPU that runs under 3ghz, try OC;ing it.
If you have a SSD, move GW 2 to your SSD.. it helps.
If your Internet is slow ..well you cant really do much but upgrade if its available to you.

Same goes for me, it’s taking like 4 minutes to launch the game and then it takes 3 more minutes to enter the game. I have played since august and the loading time for me in total was like 2 minutes then…

And then I still get ~2 disconnects daily… wtf?