Guild Wars 2

So a month ago I decided to do a major video card upgrade from a single Radeon HD 6950 to dual GeForce GTX 970s in SLI. Every game has worked flawlessly thus far with my cards – with the exception of Guild Wars 2.

GW2 has faced several issues:
First is I’ve seen posts on this, but no acknowledged “known issue”: Player icons in party windows flicker. Disabling SLI and running on a single GPU fixes this.

Second is MAJOR. GW2 does not know how to handle the shared Video Ram resources. My game crashes constantly with VRAM errors as the game is unable to call some resource. I’ve tried a variety of in game settings, with no change to crash rate. Only SLI settings made a difference:
- Nvidia recommended SLI: Random game crashes
- Forced Alternate Frame Rendering 1: game unplayable with single digit FPS
- Forced Alternate Frame Rendering 2: Random game crashes
- Single GPU/Disabling SLI: No crash issues

I want to be able to run GW2 with SLI – my framerate is more than doubled at max settings (we’re talking 10-30 FPS depending on load to 40-70+). SLI is becoming more and more mainstream, and with Direct X 12 bringing the possibility of completely changing the upgrade landscape to where when you get a new card, you can keep using your old card as well… soon a majority of players will be running SLI.

I have submitted about a dozen crash reports using the auto tool (I have skipped doing that on a vast majority due to crashes in PvP matches that I want to get back in asap), but I am willing to work with a dev or tech support doing whatever tests they would like. Would rather endure a hundred crashes and a few hours messing with clocks and settings so I can enjoy HoT in it’s full glory rather than toned down and/or choppy.

resolution?

At 1080p, a single 970 already maxes out the game

So what are the crashes you are getting what is the codes etc, what resolution are you running.

Like loseridoit said 1 970GTX will max this game out without any issues at all,

On a side note GW1 hated SLI also, I could never get it to run, granted SLI was newer back then.

Does Nvidia have a profile for GW2 under the GFX card settings.

The GW2 Nvidia profile is how I am able to individually set graphic card settings by the game, and is why I can turn off SLI in GW2 only.

Whether I can play the game at 1080p at max or not on a single graphics card is a moot point – that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not running stably in a SLI setup. I have a multi-monitor setup (though I game on one monitor, other monitor is used for music, VoiPs, web browsing, etc), and already noted the frame-rate difference – my GPU has 99% utilization running a single GPU in just PvP. SLI fixes that, though I currently can’t use it.

Maybe a pipe dream would be that HoT will touch upon the DX12 APIs as that would likely fix most of the SLI issues, though considering this is a 2012 game that doesn’t use DX11, that’s unlikely.

As for the errors I get, it’s always different. Whatever texture(s) it trips over – here is the error logs of the most recent:

• Error Logs <—*
  Content is referencing a propID that doesn’t exist propId=‘1543321963280342662’
  Content is referencing a propID that doesn’t exist propId=‘1543321885970931329’
  Content is referencing a propID that doesn’t exist propId=‘1543321529488645762’
  Texture missing mip chain: 0×00ecaf

Not sure if you guys would care about the the stacks.

I did have two BSoDs while playing GW2 (and only GW2). Unfortunately the codes just point to software/driver issues without a way to tell what application. Action logs are blank, and memory dumps are several GB, so no way in hell do I want to sift through those. However while looking into the BSoD logs, I noticed some WHEA-Logger errors. I run a strong over-clock on my system, though the fact that the start of the WHEA errors coincides with my closing the house windows for the springtime heat (yay for AZ) and how hot my room gets (my room can hit 90F even with the AC on due to my room being a hot spot + electronics and AC sensor being in a cooler location), there may be a heat related issue on my CPU. I know GW2 is a CPU hog, and possibly those texture errors are from failing to pull on cache rather than VRAM (though that wouldn’t explain why disabling SLI would resolve stability issues). Also while my CPU is running hotter than normal, it doesn’t reach 80 C while gaming (105C is Intel’s safety trip temp, and I prefer to make 70s my load temp goal). I’ll work on ambient temp and possibly tweak the clock to fix the WHEA errors, though I still think that is unrelated to my GW2 stability issues. I’m not one to leave a stone unturned!

From what im reading about SLI and GW2, where the game can run with it turned on, it does not apparently use the cards to the max potential, given that the game is a DX9 game im not so sure its using the full VRAM the way you think it is, I think this is why people want a DX12 version of the game, to finally fix a lot of these old errors that are caused by old outdated software.

On the 970’s themselves there are a lot of reported problems across multiple games when running SLI, the most common one seems to be the EVGA cards, which themselves are faulty according to most reports and seem to need RMA’d.

Ive seen several times where the newer drivers are the problem and the older ones can be more stable, as I don’t run 970’s im not sure on what the most stable driver is,

You stated you run a heavy overclock, from previous posts from devs etc on here they will ask you to lower your overclock and see if you can get a stable system.

I’ve run my current overclock for 2 years now with no stability issues. I’ve been able to play a dozen other games with no crash issues, all but one of which are much more graphically demanding than this one. ONLY GW2 is crashing in SLI, and I’ve run GW2 with no issue up to this point just fine the same system on my old single card. I’m not even remotely worried about my current clock, though as I mentioned, I’m not ruling it out.

Side note is I’m have ASUS Strix cards, and I’m currently running it on the factory clock at this time.

As for “using full VRAM” – the 99% utilization is not 99% of the VRAM, it’s 99% of the GPU. A single card has more than enough VRAM for this game – I don’t think I’ve ever passed 50% buffer even on single card. The 970 issues of it being only a 3.5GB card rather than 4GB shouldn’t be a concern as I’m not pushing into the possible memory issues (where the last 500MB of the 4GB is much much slower than the first 3.5GB). In my research into SLI stability issues with GW2, I saw some report the same crashing issues, some not. Some report 0 FPS gain (or even a minor loss), and even more report gains from a dozen FPS to nearly double FPS (which is what I see). I want to keep that performance gain.

I run GTX780SLI / NV Surround.

No issues. I was running 3D Surround for a while when the game was new, but one of the game updates broke that feature and I was getting tired of 3D anyway.

I only mention it because I don’t think GW2 has a problem specifically with SLI. I would keep an eye on driver versions and your system configuration and see if it might be either a 970 issue or your system.

Good luck.

I have the same issues as the original poster. It happens about once/twice during a PvP match and less frequently in PvE. The game will freeze without warning and the player icons sometimes flicker. On a freeze, the game will not have actually crashed. It can quickly be recovered with:

   Accessing the Task Switcher with ALT+TAB
   That interrupts something and everything works again.

Though it can quickly be recovered, this issue is really game spoiling during PvP matches. I won’t count how many fights I’ve lost because my graphics suddenly freeze and I have to exit and re-enter the Guild Wars 2 Windows task.

My setup is:

   Mainboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4
   CPU: Intel i5 3450 4×3.1GHz
   RAM: DDR3, 32GB
   SSD: Samsung 850 Pro 256GB
   Graphics: Dual SLI Asus Strix GTX 970
   Audio: Asus Xonar Essence STX PCI-E audio card
   Monitor: Iiyama ProLite UHD (3840×2160) @ 50Hz
   Game graphics: UHD @ max graphics settings
   OS: Windows 8.1 64bit

Drawing Guy.3701:

The GW2 Nvidia profile is how I am able to individually set graphic card settings by the game, and is why I can turn off SLI in GW2 only.

Whether I can play the game at 1080p at max or not on a single graphics card is a moot point – that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not running stably in a SLI setup. I have a multi-monitor setup (though I game on one monitor, other monitor is used for music, VoiPs, web browsing, etc), and already noted the frame-rate difference – my GPU has 99% utilization running a single GPU in just PvP. SLI fixes that, though I currently can’t use it.

Maybe a pipe dream would be that HoT will touch upon the DX12 APIs as that would likely fix most of the SLI issues, though considering this is a 2012 game that doesn’t use DX11, that’s unlikely.

As for the errors I get, it’s always different. Whatever texture(s) it trips over – here is the error logs of the most recent:

—> Error Logs <—
Content is referencing a propID that doesn’t exist propId=‘1543321963280342662’
Content is referencing a propID that doesn’t exist propId=‘1543321885970931329’
Content is referencing a propID that doesn’t exist propId=‘1543321529488645762’
Texture missing mip chain: 0×00ecaf

Not sure if you guys would care about the the stacks.

I did have two BSoDs while playing GW2 (and only GW2). Unfortunately the codes just point to software/driver issues without a way to tell what application. Action logs are blank, and memory dumps are several GB, so no way in hell do I want to sift through those. However while looking into the BSoD logs, I noticed some WHEA-Logger errors. I run a strong over-clock on my system, though the fact that the start of the WHEA errors coincides with my closing the house windows for the springtime heat (yay for AZ) and how hot my room gets (my room can hit 90F even with the AC on due to my room being a hot spot + electronics and AC sensor being in a cooler location), there may be a heat related issue on my CPU. I know GW2 is a CPU hog, and possibly those texture errors are from failing to pull on cache rather than VRAM (though that wouldn’t explain why disabling SLI would resolve stability issues). Also while my CPU is running hotter than normal, it doesn’t reach 80 C while gaming (105C is Intel’s safety trip temp, and I prefer to make 70s my load temp goal). I’ll work on ambient temp and possibly tweak the clock to fix the WHEA errors, though I still think that is unrelated to my GW2 stability issues. I’m not one to leave a stone unturned!

In SLI how much vRAM is being used on your 970’s? Its possible one of your cards has a bad 512MB of ram (the split vRAM issue) and when you go above 3.5GB of vRAM you crash.

You can verify via GPU-Z on the sensor screen, at the bottom is a drop down to swap between GPUs. Enable Logging so if you crash you can read the logs latter on.

itti.4510:

I have the same issues as the original poster. It happens about once/twice during a PvP match and less frequently in PvE. The game will freeze without warning and the player icons sometimes flicker. On a freeze, the game will not have actually crashed. It can quickly be recovered with:

   Accessing the Task Switcher with ALT+TAB
   That interrupts something and everything works again.

Though it can quickly be recovered, this issue is really game spoiling during PvP matches. I won’t count how many fights I’ve lost because my graphics suddenly freeze and I have to exit and re-enter the Guild Wars 2 Windows task.

My setup is:

   Mainboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme4
   CPU: Intel i5 3450 4×3.1GHz
   RAM: DDR3, 32GB
   SSD: Samsung 850 Pro 256GB
   Graphics: Dual SLI Asus Strix GTX 970
   Audio: Asus Xonar Essence STX PCI-E audio card
   Monitor: Iiyama ProLite UHD (3840×2160) @ 50Hz
   Game graphics: UHD @ max graphics settings
   OS: Windows 8.1 64bit

And I post the same question to you, EPICALLY since your using a 4k Display

In SLI how much vRAM is being used on your 970’s? Its possible one of your cards has a bad 512MB of ram (the split vRAM issue) and when you go above 3.5GB of vRAM you crash.

You can verify via GPU-Z on the sensor screen, at the bottom is a drop down to swap between GPUs. Enable Logging so if you crash you can read the logs latter on.

I toned down the clock on my system, which has cured the WHEA-Logger errors. Since that point I have no longer had any game crashes, though unfortunately I cannot conclude that it is fixed under SLI. A recent driver update came out for the video card, and the driver update flipped off SLI, which I didn’t catch until today. I’ll give it another week or two and see if I’m fully stable or not!

Whelp, either the latest driver update to the card or toning down my clock has fixed the stability issues. If it was the clock, I can’t quite figure out why GW2 would be crashing and everything else be fine, but as I’m not rendering or doing anything crazy on my PC, the 0.3GHz loss will matter little.

So I just have one item remaining:
Party icons flicker. Switching to simple mode gets rid of the icons, so there’s nothing left to flicker and gets rid of the annoyance… but I like seeing those pictures and hope this gets fixed.

it could be a psu issue, gw2 tends to be a cross load nightmare (particularly with sli setups) which hammers psus on the border (in terms of rails/amps/wattage/age) or with lower quality construction. Other games tend to not hit the cpu as hard at the same time as the gpus and your psu could be using group voltage regulators rather than independent which tends to exacerbate the problem.. The psu could have had a intermittent undervolt (or ripple) at load on the 12v rail due to the cross load which could cause the cards to have vram corruption or other issues when the voltage drops/ripples

Reducing the ocs (and thus power draw) tends to fix this issue as you are no longer on the ragged edge of a particular psu component.

I should not have been on the ‘ragged edge’ as my voltages, wattages, and temperatures were well within safety and power ranges of the mobo, psu, and cpu. However that does not rule out undervoltages and everything is on a single rail, so if I have more stability issues, I will start to monitor that. Thanks Dodgy!

Drawing Guy.3701:

I should not have been on the ‘ragged edge’ as my voltages, wattages, and temperatures were well within safety and power ranges of the mobo, psu, and cpu. However that does not rule out undervoltages and everything is on a single rail, so if I have more stability issues, I will start to monitor that. Thanks Dodgy!

What about your 12v rails on the PSU. Do you have multiple rails and do you know their amps? Also, are you splitting the GPUs between Rails or are they on the same rail?