Guild Wars 2

Windows 8 reported that my computer is low on memory and I need to close Guild Wars 2.

This happens every time I play the game for 2+ hours or more.
or
the client just stop responding if I exit the game and hangs. Have to bring up Task Manager and kill it.
or
if I play for less than 2 hours or more than 2 hours +, exiting to desktop my computer lags for a few minutes trying to clear Guild Wars 2 from memory.

On some occasions the game just crash.

I have not seen this kind of problem with my other games, Skyrim, Borderlands 2…etc I am running all these games at MAX Video settings.

my system specs
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300
4 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 1GB DDR5 (Latest GeForce drivers)
Windows 8 PRO (all latest updates)

I have issues with my game crashing since I don’t when. My computer is a Core 2 Quad Q8200, 4 Gb RAM, GeForce GTX 560, Windows 7 Ultimate. Today my game crashed around 15 times in 6h. I am running a background monitor for my memory to check and clean from time to time. Didn’t seemed it was my RAM the issue, and even so, nothing helps anymore. The minimun requirements for the game are not that one from a year ago. And what I feel is that I will just need to quit playing because my computer is not enough anymore and I can’t afford a new one :/ (I’m not having any problems with other heavy games I play max graphics in my computer, tho).

Gw2 is a very intense game and you can hardly compare it to any of those games listed.

With your specs (both peeps), you should NOT be running the game at max. If you are running a 32 bit windows version, you should definitely make sure there are no extraneous programs running in the background. (gw2 uses almost half of your available memory by default, sometimes more… Plus your os uses over .5gb sometimes)

Also, if you are crashing a lot, you should be posting an exported .txt file of your crash reports (or arenanet.log file under my documents/guild wars 2), you can attach it using more posting & formatting options below.

Kyllaa.1385:

Gw2 is a very intense game and you can hardly compare it to any of those games listed.

With your specs (both peeps), you should NOT be running the game at max. If you are running a 32 bit windows version, you should definitely make sure there are no extraneous programs running in the background. (gw2 uses almost half of your available memory by default, sometimes more… Plus your os uses over .5gb sometimes)

Also, if you are crashing a lot, you should be posting an exported .txt file of your crash reports (or arenanet.log file under my documents/guild wars 2), you can attach it using more posting & formatting options below.

Ok, understood.

However, just to mention, I am not running Guild Wars 2 at MAX, I am running at the recommended setting set by the client. I did not set anything by myself. The only time I went into the setting was to set my keybinds and the AoE looting. That is all.
And I ran GW2 without anything running in the background. As do other games.

And guess what? Only GW2 caused my Windows 8 Pro to prompt running out of memory and need to close.

Tell me, isn’t this a sign of memory leaking?

I play Skyrim at MAX settings (again, no background programs running) and I played 6 hours straight and when I quit for the day, Windows 8 Pro did not pushed the panic button and tell me I have to kill Skyrim to free up memory!

My opinion is that GW2 client has a memory leak somewhere, and it needs to be fix or address or something and not just blame “Oh, your computer can’t handle max settings for GW2” or “You can’t compare Skyrim to GW2 because GW2 is more intensive”…etc

In fact, before I got my Nvidia card, I was playing at very low settings on my budget graphic card, and even then, the game lags like hell, but that is because of the bottleneck my old graphic card is causing. With my new graphic card, I let the client set the setting for me. I did not even set any setting for my graphic card and it plays smoothly. Which I did not think it is the issue here.

My problem that I mention is Windows reporting low on memory because of GW2 everytime I play more than 2 hours.

Edit : I will dump all the debug files or whatever here later when I get back home from work. Even the Windows 8 debug file, if I can find it. Because everytime windows just asked me to sent it to their servers, which I did.

I’m not saying there isn’t a memory leak in GW2, but I haven’t had an issue with it so far.

Have you checked your virtual memory size (page file)?

What I do is set it (min and max) to 1 or 1.5 X the amount of RAM – never less. Could be worth a shot.

It still doesn’t solve the underlying problem. It will still memory leak. even if you increase that amount of virtual memory.
My pagefile size is set to 1x the amount of RAM, and still, I only have GW2 causing low on memory.
Again, that is not going to solve the issue if I play for long hours. And don’t tell me to stop then continue playing, that is still not solving it. What if I am in a multiple dungeon run and suddenly I have to tell my guild “Hey, I need to reboot my com, if not I am going to crash soon.”
That is not going to work.

SirDrygan.1823:

It still doesn’t solve the underlying problem. It will still memory leak. even if you increase that amount of virtual memory.
My pagefile size is set to 1x the amount of RAM, and still, I only have GW2 causing low on memory.
Again, that is not going to solve the issue if I play for long hours. And don’t tell me to stop then continue playing, that is still not solving it. What if I am in a multiple dungeon run and suddenly I have to tell my guild “Hey, I need to reboot my com, if not I am going to crash soon.”
That is not going to work.

First of all you don’t even gotta reboot, just closing the client then reopening it will suffice. Secondly, Windows 8 even 8.1 is still considered to be in it’s infancy when it comes to compatibility there for memory leaks and the like should be expected. The thread scheduler which also controls your memory usage btw, works completely different in contrast to older Windows versions. Third, DDR2 which is most likely what that Core 2 uses is kitten cheap now. Lastly, GW2 is very CPU intensive there for it’s workload for framerate and other factors is entirely CPU driven, not graphics driven. Seeing what you’ve put into your system, you intentionally skimped on the cpu. Even the old second gen Core i3 series processors outperform the old Core 2’s. Heck even most of the sub $100 AMD’s do too.

Mikikira.1574:

SirDrygan.1823:

It still doesn’t solve the underlying problem. It will still memory leak. even if you increase that amount of virtual memory.
My pagefile size is set to 1x the amount of RAM, and still, I only have GW2 causing low on memory.
Again, that is not going to solve the issue if I play for long hours. And don’t tell me to stop then continue playing, that is still not solving it. What if I am in a multiple dungeon run and suddenly I have to tell my guild “Hey, I need to reboot my com, if not I am going to crash soon.”
That is not going to work.

First of all you don’t even gotta reboot, just closing the client then reopening it will suffice. Secondly, Windows 8 even 8.1 is still considered to be in it’s infancy when it comes to compatibility there for memory leaks and the like should be expected. The thread scheduler which also controls your memory usage btw, works completely different in contrast to older Windows versions. Third, DDR2 which is most likely what that Core 2 uses is kitten cheap now. Lastly, GW2 is very CPU intensive there for it’s workload for framerate and other factors is entirely CPU driven, not graphics driven. Seeing what you’ve put into your system, you intentionally skimped on the cpu. Even the old second gen Core i3 series processors outperform the old Core 2’s. Heck even most of the sub $100 AMD’s do too.

I did not intentionally skimp on the CPU, I had the CPU long before I got the better graphic card. And why are you all blaming it on my CPU? GPU..etc? If other games and software are not giving me “out of memory” prompts, there is bound to be GW2 client leaking memory or some problems we don’t know about. You are even blaming it on Windows 8 and even mention 8.1, which it not even out yet only the preview version.

And I thought Fanboys only defend the in-game thing, didn’t know fanboys also defend the system requirements.

Come now, GW2 is not the God of MMOs, even if you think this is one such instance that you should defend it to death, I really have nothing else to say, since it is your right.

Just get this, there is a problem. And like I said, there is nothing wrong with my system. I have played many games and all runs SMOOTHLY except GW2.

Don’t get me wrong, in-game, apart from the lag that everyone is experiencing, there is nothing wrong with it, BUT there is definitely something wrong happening in the background or the client.

Lastly, the message I am getting is this “Get the ultimate CPU and GPU in the market or stop playing GW2, you casual gamers types just don’t get it, this is the game for gods not peasants!”

If you all still insist that my CPU is the problem, then so be it. I have nothing else more to say to you all.

I am posting this to ask the Devs to at least have a look at the memory leaking which is pretty obvious. Please stop blaming on everything including the kitchen sink but not the GW2 client.

I will post the debugs/dumps/whatever diagnostic files later tonight including those sent to Microsoft, if I know where the dump/debug files are located (for the Microsoft ones).

SirDrygan.1823

Come now, GW2 is not the God of MMOs, even if you think this is one such instance that you should defend it to death, I really have nothing else to say, since it is your right.

Just get this, there is a problem. And like I said, there is nothing wrong with my system. I have played many games and all runs SMOOTHLY except GW2.

Don’t get me wrong, in-game, apart from the lag that everyone is experiencing, there is nothing wrong with it, BUT there is definitely something wrong happening in the background or the client.

Not to take sides, I will simply throw out this nugget. Anytime you want to try and resolve a computer\game problem. You should always keep an open mind that the problem can be anywhere in the system.

My wife plays on a Core 2 duo system with 4GB of ram (was actually running Win7-32 bit so she didn’t get the full 4GB), and she’s the type that has the client run for 5-6 hours at a time. She might get bored, tab out and watch hulu and forget the game was running. Never had any issues with running out of memory.

Also, you can play Skyrim for 8 hours a day with no problems, another game that doesn’t even have to tax the system as hard and run into a overheating problem. It’s not always purely the game, it’s a combination of things. GW2, running on Windows 8, using video driver XYZ, with feature X turned on runs out of memory (X turned off and works fine). It’s not the game client, it’s the video card driver that’s doing it, GW2 just runs into a problem and gets blamed. That’s were logs tend to help, they (GW2) can see if they were requesting abnormal amounts of ram or if they were using normal amounts and got denied on request for more.

As always, check out the drivers for your various components, Sometimes people go back to a previous driver to resolve a issue. Maybe play around with various graphic settings to see if something like turning shadows off makes a difference.

Of course, it could be a GW2 problem when running on X, using Y will cause Z to happen.

Ok, here is the log file.

I will let the devs answer this, not going to blame you, me or my cats, lets just solve this.

SirDrygan.1823:

Ok, here is the log file.

I will let the devs answer this, not going to blame you, me or my cats, lets just solve this.

I find it interesting that your RAM usage is really low when the crash report is generated, and you’re using virtually none of your page file either. Something might be wrong with Windows since normally just the operating system takes more than 114MB of RAM and 5MB of page file…

I’m not really sure what to check here, it might be the RAM as the culprit, but then I would expect your page file to be excessively used, which it is not. If I were in your shoes, I would try installing Windows 8 again. Something just seems off, maybe your RAM was polled for measurement right after it released everything from Guild Wars 2 and didn’t have time to populate the operating system stuff in it again. However, I checked the first entry from back in 2012 and it shows the same thing, low memory usage.

Before Wiping and re-installing Windows, I’d try a fair amount of other things first. Since you say you can play Skyrim on Max settings and not have a issue, I don’t believe we can just call it a Windows problem and be done.

I’d start with either updating or downgrading my video drivers. I’d go into the nvida control panel and set the power management to best performance. I’d go into the game’s graphics settings and move it to low and give it a try.

Personally, if setting the graphic settings to low doesn’t at least stop the crashing I’ll be surprise. From there we can start ticking the settings back up to see if it’s 1 setting that’s causing the problem. You could have something like corrupted textures being loaded and maybe you’ll have to re-install GW2.

I’d say maybe a good side test is to go download Prime95 (64 version) and run it. There is a option when you go to run torture test to pick how much ram to use, tell it to use 4096 and let it run for a while. If you have a bad memory stick, Prime95 should catch it for you

That log file is useless if the specs you state in your first post are true.

That log shows:

-Geforce 8400GS GPU
-Windows 6.1 = Windows 7

In addition to that, the log does NOT show you running out of memory. It sure looks like RAM errors are to blame because of the variety of different crashes, but it doesn’t show you being low on memory.

abomally.2694:

That log file is useless if the specs you state in your first post are true.

That log shows:

-Geforce 8400GS GPU
-Windows 6.1 = Windows 7

Scroll down more, you should see

Version = 9.18.0013.1422
Description = NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460
Compat = 0×00100000
VidMem = 2770 MB

and

Processors: 4 [GenuineIntel:6:7:7]
OSVersion: Windows 6.2 (64 bit)

I’m looking at

Physical: 1026MB/ 4095MB 25%
Paged: 2828MB/ 6972MB 40%
Virtual: 1561MB/ 4095MB 38%
Load: 74%
CommitTotal: 4144MB
CommitLimit: 6972MB
CommitPeak: 7673MB
SystemCache: 1439MB
HandleCount: 27094
ProcessCount: 59
ThreadCount: 805

—> Process Memory <—
Private: 1722MB
WorkingSet: 1563MB
PeakWorkingSet: 1820MB
PageFaults: 36135404

And what seems odd to me that the pagefile would be 40% in use, but the Physical ram is showing 25% in use, of course, if the memory is released when it crashes that might explain that.

I’m not that clear on how to read some of this data, but the CommitTotal of 4144MB makes me thinks he is hitting the 4GB of physical memory that he has. If that’s true, I woudl think adding another 4Gb would be the simple fix.

I stand corrected – I didn’t scroll down that far.

What you posted (and what I saw in the log) sure looks like a bad memory stick (or socket).

The important one to look at is the Commit Limit, which should be Physical RAM + the page file, in this case, it would be 11 gig (11067MB):

Physical: 1026MB/ 4095MB 25%
Paged: 2828MB/ 6972MB 40%
Virtual: 1561MB/ 4095MB 38%

However, the log file is showing the Commit Limit to be much less:

CommitTotal: 4144MB <—- this is OK, it’s less than 8191MB
CommitLimit: 6972MB <—- that should read 11067MB
CommitPeak: 7673MB <—- is greater than Commit Limit = out of memory
SystemCache: 1439MB <—- used by OS, it’s fine

So yes, it is running out of memory, but it isn’t a memory leak in GW2:

—> Process Memory <—
Private: 1722MB
WorkingSet: 1563MB
PeakWorkingSet: 1820MB

That shows that GW2 is using 1.8 Gig, which is reasonable for max settings. If it was a memory leak that would probably be a whole lot higher.

Well, there ya’ go OP. Check your RAM, something is pretty strange there.

Edited again to correct simple mistake (paged and virtual are often reversed when being referenced – gets confusing – paged, page and virtual are all different lol)

It’s possible this could be faulty memory or even motherboard. The memory usage displayed is excessively low! (especially for gw2) But there is something of note in the most recent crash… (6/13/13 very last one on file), Load:97% however, it seems during this time the system processes is running higher than previous crashes (78). Cache usage is exceedingly high also (maxed), but it’s not actually using your ram. This is what is most likely generating your out of memory error.

Something is definitely wonky, but I wouldn’t be so fast to blame gw2 since this isn’t happening for others.

Try running an msconfig and disabling all startup programs, then reboot. Test gw2. You can re-enable afterwards. (you were using a program called overwolf at one time and it seemed to cause crashes for you, it’s possible another piece of software is causing these memory problems)

You may want to check your windows event viewer and see if anything correlates with your crashes and system usage.

You may have picked up a nasty virus/Trojan/worm.

Open the chassis and make sure your memory sticks are seated well in their slots. Remove them and replace to be certain. Maybe something to jarred when you swapped vid cards and it took a bit to cause problems.

Perhaps your power supply isn’t good enough now, what wattage is yours?

Another tool that we (or Anet) should have would be a diagnostic test. Append the -diag tag to your repair shortcut (instead of repair) and post the text file here that that generates for you. That will help with troubleshooting this issue too. Do it right after a crash like this without restarting your system.

If you need to restart your comp to fix the mem issue, chances are, it’s not exclusively a gw2 problem.

Lastly, it’s a pretty lame idea to insult and assume fanboy status of the people who are… You know… trying to help YOU. Most of us who have posted have been helping on these forums for some time now and have seen most of these issues (not identically due to the variation of pc setups) and 90% of the time, or more, it’s a hardware issue. We aren’t towing the line, we’re trying to help.

Gw2 is an interesting beast in that it has an uncanny way of finding hardware that is on the verge of failing. This isn’t ideal, but it isn’t a terrible thing. Find another game that runs on an engine like this and compare it… Not Skyrim.

Skim around this forum on the crashing threads most times you will see that it’s resolved by replacing a faulty hardware, sometimes it’s a software conflict though. Or a bum install of windows. It sounds like your system has had faulty memory or motherboard for sometime and it finally kicked it… Your system is trying to compensate by using page files and such. Or your windows install is jacked and has messed up your memory allocation or something like that (don’t use windows much), also check your bios. Then again, maybe it’s a virus. Always keep an open mind when troubleshooting!

Edit:lol just read abomally’s post, I had to walk away while writing this and missed it. So, there it is.

abomally.2694:

I stand corrected – I didn’t scroll down that far.

What you posted (and what I saw in the log) sure looks like a bad memory stick (or socket).

Private: 1722MB
WorkingSet: 1563MB
PeakWorkingSet: 1820MB

That shows that GW2 is using 1.8 Gig, which is reasonable for max settings. If it was a memory leak that would probably be a whole lot higher.

A interesting side test I ran is to have Windows only use 3GB of the 8GB installed. When I did that, I could consistently get a windows error anytime I get GW2.exe to use 1.8GB of ram.

I then up the available amount to 4096 and GW2 didn’t complain at the 1.8GB mark, it even was fine at the 1.9GB mark. But once I opened up a few resources like, Outlook, powerpoint and a couple of IE browsers. Windows 8 again started complaining about GW2.exe not having any memory.

I’ll have to run those test again under Windows 7, but my guess is that as windows is running out of memory, it targets the Application using the most as being the problem. Versus telling me Outlook or IE had a memory shortage problem

Assuming no faulty memory problems, It’s possible you’re hard drive has some sector defects and has it’s thrashing around on the pagefile it hits something that causes the game or system to hiccup. You could try setting the page file to 0, reboot, run a disk defrag and then creating another 2-4GB pagefile. This should make sure the pagefile is not scattered over your disk.

While you should be able to play with 4GB and let the pagefile handle any overages. You’ll probably find that you’ll have smoother game play and alt tabbing with 6-8GB of ram.

I got out of the discussion and decided to send a ticket to support with all the files I have since the beta. Even installed all the shortcuts to have all diagnostics I could try for them to help me. I will not be able to afford a computer or any computer parts for maybe 41 months (I live in Brazil an this are overtaxed here), so I need to try anything with what I have now. But thank you all for your inputs.

You crash playing the game in the lowest video settings?

fabiane.6027:

I got out of the discussion and decided to send a ticket to support with all the files I have since the beta. . But thank you all for your inputs.

Well, you’re system barring something being bad, should be more than enough to play. Again the wife’s system is a Core 2 Duo, 4GB of ram and a AMD 5870 running Windows 7. She often has a web browser or two open for Pandora and Facebook and she’s able to play for 3-4 hours no problem.

If you’re not having a hardware issue (bad memory, failing hard drive or motherboard) Then I’d guess either a corrupted Game install, Video drivers or something. Have you tried downloading 3DMark11 from Futuremark.com and letting it run and see if it has issues. I’d imagine anything that works the system decently would find your problem if it’s hardware.

SirDrygan.1823:

I did not intentionally skimp on the CPU, I had the CPU long before I got the better graphic card. And why are you all blaming it on my CPU? GPU..etc? If other games and software are not giving me “out of memory” prompts, there is bound to be GW2 client leaking memory or some problems we don’t know about. You are even blaming it on Windows 8 and even mention 8.1, which it not even out yet only the preview version.

And I thought Fanboys only defend the in-game thing, didn’t know fanboys also defend the system requirements.

Come now, GW2 is not the God of MMOs, even if you think this is one such instance that you should defend it to death, I really have nothing else to say, since it is your right.

Just get this, there is a problem. And like I said, there is nothing wrong with my system. I have played many games and all runs SMOOTHLY except GW2.

Don’t get me wrong, in-game, apart from the lag that everyone is experiencing, there is nothing wrong with it, BUT there is definitely something wrong happening in the background or the client.

Lastly, the message I am getting is this “Get the ultimate CPU and GPU in the market or stop playing GW2, you casual gamers types just don’t get it, this is the game for gods not peasants!”

If you all still insist that my CPU is the problem, then so be it. I have nothing else more to say to you all.

I am posting this to ask the Devs to at least have a look at the memory leaking which is pretty obvious. Please stop blaming on everything including the kitchen sink but not the GW2 client.

I will post the debugs/dumps/whatever diagnostic files later tonight including those sent to Microsoft, if I know where the dump/debug files are located (for the Microsoft ones).

First of all, Game A can have lower requirements then that GW2 requires at a minimum, and all may run fine and dandy no memory problem or anything.

Game B in this case GW2, might require a little more out of your CPU, there for it’s stressing it a little more, your putting strain on everything. As of the Core 2’s the memory controller has been moved into the CPU die, there for it now has an Integrated Memory Controller, or more commonly known as an IMC. Now like others have pointed out things don’t match up right in the log files you posted.

Now here’s where it’s gonna get technical. Game A might use say 1GB of your RAM, the way the game is written, it might call to Windows addressing that it requires 1GB of ram. That’s all the more it will allocate, no more no less than 1GB, now Game B, sure it might use 1.8GB to 2GB. But with the way it’s coded, it may tell Windows to allocate all 4GB of your physical RAM to be used, or it may tell Windows to allocate all 4GB of physical RAM and all of your Paging File aka Virtual Memory as well. Thus causing a low memory warning, just opening a web browser or a media player, or even a window for a folder within Windows. May tell Windows “hey I need 987658394563GB of ram to do this function”. If it doesn’t have that RAM there comes that popup or system crash.

Now has CPUs have evolved, gotten new instruction sets, IMCs have become more refined, and has reduced a lot of this overhead for purely wild memory allocations. Your Core 2 is from the first generation of IMCs, they were primitive back then, thus only handling up to DDR2 1033. Which in today’s time is very slow, where common speeds are in excess of 1600 sometimes even 2100 or higher. Your trying to play a modestly demanding game on an aging system, there for your memory allocation may go a little wonky. To compound this your running a new OS on this aging tech too, all your new software is pressing your old CPU to hard, there for either the IMC is erroring by allocating far to much memory at times, or not enough as with your odd Windows kernel memory allocation. Then again as others have suggested it could be a bad DIMM module, or it could be both then again it may be just a bad ram stick. Regardless what way you look at it your gonna be replacing something.