Guild Wars 2

Yo! Just like the title says, my PC has started to crash in GW2. I have not seen any issues in other games and just recently started experiencing issues with GW2. After the PC crashes (screen freezes and audio is blaring a glitched out sound) I will have to reboot and then can’t run any higher than 10-15fps on the settings that I was running 45-75fps on. The solution to this the first time was to reinstall the game but after this crash it did it again.
I am going to roll back my GPU drivers as I just recently updated them but can’t remember if it was crashing before. Already have a ticket in with support and I am supplying them with the information they need. Any other ideas are welcome. System specs below…
i7 4790k
32GB Gskill Sniper 1600 (I have 32GB because I run a VM lab)
MSI R9 290x Lightning
Asrock Extreme6 AC mobo
Samsung 840 256GB (OS)
Samsung 850 EVO 500GB (games and VMs)
EVGA SuperNova G2 850w
Custom loop (Alphacool Radiators and EK blocks)

I remember having the same problem a long time ago, especially that weird sound. Do you happen to have the Sound Quality Option maxed set to highest quality (all the way to the right)?

X T D.6458:

I remember having the same problem a long time ago, especially that weird sound. Do you happen to have the Sound Quality Option maxed set to highest quality (all the way to the right)?

I am not sure but I will check when I get home. Did this cause your system to crash and fps to drop to about 1/4 normal fps?

TheJuice.8612:

X T D.6458:

I remember having the same problem a long time ago, especially that weird sound. Do you happen to have the Sound Quality Option maxed set to highest quality (all the way to the right)?

I am not sure but I will check when I get home. Did this cause your system to crash and fps to drop to about 1/4 normal fps?

The lag and fps drops can be caused by many other issues. I do remember that the sound glitch was fixed by moving the slider at least one spot to the left.

If that doesn’t help, you are likely having registry issues if the computer is freezing up. I would suggest running a registry cleaner a few times, that usually helps.

Also sometimes it helps to clean out the inside of your computer with a dustblower (the can with the small plastic straw) that is specifically designed to be used to small spaces like with electronics and keyboards. Using it on and around your gpu can help a lot as well. Just make sure to have your computer OFF if you do it.

The audio only makes the glitched sound when the PC freezes. Interesting you bring up the dusty GPU. I keep my PC pretty clean inside and out (like to showcase the water cooling I have done) but I was thinking of re-seating my video card. I came across a post that suggested this as the game is very CPU intensive and the slightest hiccup in communication between CPU and GPU can cause issues.

I may just do a fresh install of Win10 pro and see if that helps. Should be pretty quick with the SSD and I have all of my drivers saved on the 500GB EVO.

It’s not uncommon for a soundcard to keep replaying the same chunk of sound data in a loop when the system crashes; essentially they are told “play this bit now”, and/or the content of the loop is overwritten, in normal operation. Crash it, and they play the same thing forever.

GW2 is single core CPU intensive, in that it doesn’t make much use of other cores. This could, potentially, reveal problems caused by poor cooling that other games don’t, since it causes a hotspot in terms of where load is distributed in the physical CPU.

Many of the crashes sound like hardware and/or kernel level issues, but I’d certainly investigate thermal problems first.

I would strongly suggest you run a registry scan to fix any errors you might be having before doing a reinstall of your OS.

Are you referring to the Windows reg checker tool or is there a free 3rd party registry scanner you have had luck with?

TheJuice.8612:

Are you referring to the Windows reg checker tool or is there a free 3rd party registry scanner you have had luck with?

Any that actually fixes errors, and not just scans. There are many free ones you can download and use safely. Just make sure it actually fixes errors, some only scan. I dont know if I can post their links here, but check out Auslogics, its free, easy to use, customizable, and actually fixes errors.

So no luck with the reg repair.

I ended up deleting everything on my PC that had to do with GW2, re-seated (and put a prop under the end of the card) and did a new download of GW2. Everything is working great right now and I am keeping a super close eye on load, clock/mem speeds and temps. So far everything is great and the temps are right around 50-55C for both CPU and GPU on max settings with GPU hitting 100% load.

Support was little to no help.

FWIW: since your game was locked at sub 20FPS on settings that were previously hitting 50FPS+, it sounds like the 290x was locked in a 2d clock sleep state. sometimes this can happen when the drivers flake out or when your PCIE slot is not connecting to the card correctly (yes it does happen). Since reseating the card ultimately fixed it, next time pull up GPU-Z while the game is running in a window and verify your bus link settings (should be x16 v3@ x16 v3) for most systems, x8 if you have additional PCIE cards in there. And crashing can be a symptom of this with AMD drivers due to timing issues between the driver, API, and hardware when it gets out of sync. To avoid driver crashes with AMD there is a registry change that you can do to disable ULPS

The GPU-Z screenshot was one of the documents requested by GW2 support. I just went back to look at the screenshot and it was PCIe x16 3.0@ x2 1.1

TheJuice.8612:

The GPU-Z screenshot was one of the documents requested by GW2 support. I just went back to look at the screenshot and it was PCIe x16 3.0@ x2 1.1

Interesting, how do you find that?

It is an application called GPU-Z. There is also one called CPU-Z and HWmonitor that I find useful.

TheJuice.8612:

It is an application called GPU-Z. There is also one called CPU-Z and HWmonitor that I find useful.

Interesting ty.