Guild Wars 2

With the OOM crashes that the game has been getting lately, i expected to see a fix sometime before the first week was up.

Now we are approaching the 2 week mark since release date, and no fix yet.

The crashes seem to have settled down some since the Halloween event ended on the 4th, but the game still crashes every few hours. (it was crashing for me every 5-10 mins)

I filled out support tickets and the reply that i got back was to remove memory from my PC (only have 3gig system ram and 1g video ram so that isnt going to happen) and that i needed to upgrade to a 64 bit version of windows (which i cant do right now because of financial issues).

The game was released as 32 bit, is 32 bit and ran PERFECT before the release of HoT. This means that it isn’t my system.. its the games code.

EVERYONE was getting OOM crashes at some point since launch.. especially if they were in populated areas.. it was really bad in WvW, the new jungle maps or pvp waiting room.

Since the crashes have settled down some (not fixed by any means) im suggesting that they may be tied to the 3 year old code for the holiday events… so expect them back at christmas etc… if they arent fixed by then…

So.. my question is this..

Are the people running 32 bit client just screwed?

Is Anet planning actually fix the 32 bit client or do they intend to drop any and all support for it? (as it seems they dont support it now from the response i got from the support team)

The fix is to reduce your character limit setting down to Medium, Low, or Lowest (depending on your current setting) or upgrade your PC to 64bit and use the new (beta) 64bit GW2 client.

Oh and btw…

The 32 bit client was crashing for people on 32 bit systems as well as 64 bit systems.. Upgrading the client to 64 bit in order to handle longer strings isnt going to fix this issue. It may help (if you can afford to upgrade).. but you will still crash with oom as soon as your memory fills.

The problem has something to do with the code for the holidays interfering with the new UI style i think… but them again im not a programmer.

I know there are tons of other bugs that need to fix as well.. but something that was keeping people from even playing the game for almost 2 weeks at launch should have been a major priority… or so i would think.

Also.. will you be offering refunds to the people running 32 bit clients and OS? since the game was sold as 32 bit? It is 32 bit btw…. the requirements havent changed.

“The fix is to reduce your character limit setting down to Medium, Low, or Lowest (depending on your current setting) or upgrade your PC to 64bit and use the new (beta) 64bit GW2 client.”

This helps ONLY because it takes longer to fill the memory … so you dont crash as often.. but you still crash eventually when the memory fills.

Upgrading to 64 bit is impossible for many people right now due to financial issues. Not everyone can run out and drop hundreds of dollars on new systems to play a game that is supposed to run and run well (or did until the release of HoT) on the systems we already own.

The 32bit version of the game has memory management issues. The more character models on the screen the worse these memory management issues become. The current work around is to reduce your character limit settings to reduce the memory foot print the game takes.

I run Medium on my desktop and Low on my laptops and i NEVER crash. If I run High I nearly always crash after 1-2 hours in a populated zone, Very High with in 30mins near a mess of players (Like a MAW world boss fight).

its that character limit setting that fixes/breaks the OOM crashes.

Holidays have little to do with it.

ok… my point being…

if its broke.. fix it..

it was programmed as 32 bit game

it was designed for 32 bit systems

sold as a 32 bit game

with 32 bit requirements

if it doesnt work… they should fix it..

simple as that..

upgrading to a 64 bit client WILL NOT FIX THE ISSUE… only prolong the time it takes for it to fill the memory and crash.. IT WILL NOT PREVENT THE CRASHES…

Last time I had a 32-bit computer was many years ago. 64-bit seems to be the master computer race these days, and it’s becoming very common place. This game is also becoming problematic to RAM limitations. Just check the size of the game on your HDD or SSD, and ask yourself, can that load into 32-bit ram limitations without eventually running into problems?

Yes, people with a 32-bit OS will eventually be screwed. The new zones simply use too much memory and over time as they further increase the quality of new content, it’ll only worsen.

Assuming there isn’t a bug causing extra memory usage, the only “fix” for those with a 32-bit OS will be to lower your settings. If they actually fixed it, that’s what they would end up doing in an attempt to reduce memory usage. If you’ve ever seen a dev demo of a game and noticed it looked much worse at release, that is because of optimizations like this.

If you have Windows 7 or above, you may be able to upgrade to the 64-bit version for free, plus there’s the free 10 upgrade. https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/home. I think Vista also supports it, but Microsoft no longer offers it for download.

Healix.5819:

Yes, people with a 32-bit OS will eventually be screwed. The new zones simply use too much memory and over time as they further increase the quality of new content, it’ll only worsen.

Assuming there isn’t a bug causing extra memory usage, the only “fix” for those with a 32-bit OS will be to lower your settings. If they actually fixed it, that’s what they would end up doing in an attempt to reduce memory usage. If you’ve ever seen a dev demo of a game and noticed it looked much worse at release, that is because of optimizations like this.

If you have Windows 7 or above, you may be able to upgrade to the 64-bit version for free, plus there’s the free 10 upgrade. https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/home. I think Vista also supports it, but Microsoft no longer offers it for download.

BEWARE THOUGH: You have to upgrade to a 64 bit OS before Upgrading to Windows 10. But Windows did give everyone with a non prebuilt 32 OS key a free upgrade to 64 bit. You just needed to get the download.

autopsie.6159:

Are the people running 32 bit client just screwed?

Is Anet planning actually fix the 32 bit client or do they intend to drop any and all support for it? (as it seems they dont support it now from the response i got from the support team)

Anet said the 64 bit client was already planned before the crashes. They plan to continue to work on the 32 bit issues but it will take longer to resolve with no ETA. This was posted on the 64-bit client thread.

The crashes have settled in for the time being but as per the feedback from the support team on the OOM issues, the 32-bit players will have issues ahead, hence they recommend for a 64-bit system upgrade.

I myself cannot upgrade to a 64-bit OS just to play this game. For the time being the only option left is, either to play the game with reduced settings or go ahead for a refund and forget this game.

I switched to Win-64 already 7 years ago because of OOM errors in Age of Conan.
Other people had OOM errors even before that when EQ2 release Rise of Kunark
that had much bigger zones than the older content.

32 bit is an ancient OS for gaming and the only real problem is that Microsoft
still sells 32-Bit version. They should haved stopped that already with Win7.

Oh an btw. you can use your Windows Key for the 32 and 64 bit version, so all
you need to do is download a 64-bit ISO from MS and make a fresh install with
it .. you don’t have to pay for a new Windows (at least if you don’t have still
XP or Windows 98)

autopsie.6159:

ok… my point being…

if its broke.. fix it..

it was programmed as 32 bit game

it was designed for 32 bit systems

sold as a 32 bit game

with 32 bit requirements

if it doesnt work… they should fix it..

simple as that..

upgrading to a 64 bit client WILL NOT FIX THE ISSUE… only prolong the time it takes for it to fill the memory and crash.. IT WILL NOT PREVENT THE CRASHES…

mmorpg are pretty demanding games. Memory fragmentation is not a memory leak. Giving an app a larger address space might fix the actual problem since the memory allocatior has more numbers to play with. 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 is kinda huge number, Oh well… Sometimes, I wonder if anet has already rolled their own malloc.

loseridoit.2756:

autopsie.6159:

ok… my point being…

if its broke.. fix it..

it was programmed as 32 bit game

it was designed for 32 bit systems

sold as a 32 bit game

with 32 bit requirements

if it doesnt work… they should fix it..

simple as that..

upgrading to a 64 bit client WILL NOT FIX THE ISSUE… only prolong the time it takes for it to fill the memory and crash.. IT WILL NOT PREVENT THE CRASHES…

mmorpg are pretty demanding games. Memory fragmentation is not a memory leak. Giving an app a larger address space might fix the actual problem since the memory allocatior has more numbers to play with. 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 is kinda huge number, Oh well… Sometimes, I wonder if anet has already rolled their own malloc.

There are some alternatives to standard library malloc that can help reduce/avoid fragmentation. I think someone posted some top down patterns that do the same thing as a bottom up approach.

autopsie.6159:

Are the people running 32 bit client just screwed?

Is Anet planning actually fix the 32 bit client or do they intend to drop any and all support for it? (as it seems they dont support it now from the response i got from the support team)

In short, yes. Of course, they prevented these errors in beta by limiting it, so that we would not see in the pre-purchase and not return it and demand a refund.

I will never buy another Gem or Pre-purchase again from ANet.

And the PCMasterRacists won’t help.

And people wonder why consoles even have a market… Crap like this is why.

Kylden Ar.3724:

And people wonder why consoles even have a market… Crap like this is why.

And i bet you still play current console games on a console from 2005.

autopsie.6159:

ok… my point being…

if its broke.. fix it..

it was programmed as 32 bit game

it was designed for 32 bit systems

sold as a 32 bit game

with 32 bit requirements

if it doesnt work… they should fix it..

simple as that..

upgrading to a 64 bit client WILL NOT FIX THE ISSUE… only prolong the time it takes for it to fill the memory and crash.. IT WILL NOT PREVENT THE CRASHES…

I also wonder if people still play the current version of WoW on single core processors
with 2 GB of RAM .. because .. it was designed for that .. and god forbid an MMO
change over the years and as a result maybe use some more memory.

Heck even Everquest 2 had already OOM problems 8 years ago when
Rise of Kunark came out with zones that had twice the size than the old zones.

Next was AoC that crashed every few hours under 32-Bit and Lotro also could
consume over 3 gb since years.

Yes they are planning to fix it but since 80%+ of players are 64-bit it’s a stop gap for now. As per Johan Skold’s post …

This is the initial solution (though it’s been in the works for quite some time). Something did indeed change with HoT memory-wise though: Mainly, the new features require more of it, to the point where the extra usage causes a lot of pressure that wasn’t there before. It’s getting increasingly difficult to stay within the limited address space (not necessarily memory constraints) of 32-bit processes.

That said, we’re still dedicated to supporting the 32-bit client for as long as necessary. Necessary fixes for it will take a bit longer to develop however.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/64-bit-Client-Beta-FAQ/first#post5717733

Edit: Added reddit post on 32-bit

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3ri638/64bit_client_incoming/cwpr8eh

Behellagh.1468:

loseridoit.2756:

autopsie.6159:

ok… my point being…

if its broke.. fix it..

it was programmed as 32 bit game

it was designed for 32 bit systems

sold as a 32 bit game

with 32 bit requirements

if it doesnt work… they should fix it..

simple as that..

upgrading to a 64 bit client WILL NOT FIX THE ISSUE… only prolong the time it takes for it to fill the memory and crash.. IT WILL NOT PREVENT THE CRASHES…

mmorpg are pretty demanding games. Memory fragmentation is not a memory leak. Giving an app a larger address space might fix the actual problem since the memory allocatior has more numbers to play with. 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 is kinda huge number, Oh well… Sometimes, I wonder if anet has already rolled their own malloc.

There are some alternatives to standard library malloc that can help reduce/avoid fragmentation. I think someone posted some top down patterns that do the same thing as a bottom up approach.

yea, i know there are alternatives are good and bsd license which means that anet can use it without giving back. I am suspecting that they will in the future. MMORPG are demanding piece of software. Its litterally all problems with software rolled into one.

it was programmed as 32 bit game
it was designed for 32 bit systems
sold as a 32 bit game
with 32 bit requirements
if it doesnt work… they should fix it..

still standing by that statement…

BTW.. if you goto your process thread and look when the game is running, it is still a 32 bit game.. the only thing they updated was the launcher to 64 bit… and all it does is allocate a little more memory so it doesnt crash as often… but it WILL still crash because the oom error is still there!

Again, that’s the entire game, not just a launcher.

Again, they are working on a fix for 32-bit but for the 80% on a 64-bit OS, here is a stop gap.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/So-are-32-bit-client-users-left-out/first#post5729134

autopsie.6159:

it was programmed as 32 bit game
it was designed for 32 bit systems
sold as a 32 bit game
with 32 bit requirements
if it doesnt work… they should fix it..

still standing by that statement…

First : it does work as 32-bit .. i never have crashes with 32-bit, maybe you don’t
use the hardware it was programmed for.

Tip : then you also should go back to XP or Win2000 .. since those are the maybe
the real Systems it was designed for, and not the new crap like Win7 or 10 that
use so much more Memory for their Direct-X Implementation.

And i guess if they ever upgrade to a newer DX version you are also against that
since “it was programmed for DX9 .. so it must stay DX9 forever”

Oh .. and whats in generall with all those patches ? “It was programmed without
those patches .. so it must run without them” .. right ?