Guild Wars 2

I’ve just come back to playing the game after a long break, and after logging in every character model looks incredibly low-res, including my own. I saw posts saying there’s hard-enforced limits on character model textures for other characters than your own if you’re using a 32 bit cpu, but I’m using a 64-bit processor, and it seems to apply to all textures, no matter where i am (even in char creation or select screen, they look terrible..).
Here’s an imgur’d screenshot I found of when I played ages ago, perfectly acceptable character model: Guardian Then
And here’s the same character, same armour, just 30 seconds ago: Guardian Now

As you can see, the texture in the second one is…basic. No metal effects, can’t see embossed, or chain links, helmet looks like it’s made out of blue plastic..
Weird thing is a) I’ve got settings up to max, as seen in the graphics options of the second shot
b) nothing’s changed in my system which should affect this- still using all the same hardware components, same OS etc.

Please help…I enjoy the game, but my character looking like he’s wearing armour made of plastic and silly putty is really distracting from the game experience. Hell, my new thief looks like she’s wearing a sack.. =(
(Attached DXDiag for reference, not sure if it’ll help)

While your dxdiag suggests your windows is 64 bit, the High res character textures option is greyed out which only happens on 32 bit windows. Maybe something is wrong with your graphics card driver?

You’re also comparing a screenshot of the preview window which has optimum lighting and often looks better than in game, and a night time shot with no lighting or light effects.

Sure, but it’s not lighting that’s the issue. Lighting wouldn’t change the textures so drastically, would just add reflection/shadow effects and change the brightness slightly.
And yes, I noticed that the option is greyed out, which was confusing me hence the comment about 32bit above. Using the latest version of drivers according to AMD’s Catalyst system.