Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

The problem I am experiencing is -extremely- frustrating to me, for I love this game more than any other… and it prevents me to play it.

Without further waiting, the problem has to do with my computer FREEZING everytime I play the game. I am able to load the launcher and select my character and then, depending on my luck, I make it inworld and then my computer freezes, or it freezes during the loading screen.

This issue is new to me, for I have played this game two weeks ago without any problems. Nothing on my side changed (except i bought a soundblaster audigy soundcard and installed it with drivers).

The support doesn’t help me either or makes me jump through random hoops that have nothing to do with the problem. So I am turning to you, the playerbase.

My personal guess, is that it has something to do with the memory. Perhaps one of the memory blocks is broken, which causes the computer to freeze. The computer does ‘not’ freeze when playing any other games. Perhaps GW2 requires a lot of memory to run?

Things I have done so far:

• Reinstall the game (multiple times)
• Reinstall windows 8 (multiple times)
• Update/reinstall all drivers (multiple times)
• Scan for viruses/malware (zillion times)
• Remove programs that might inflict with the game
• Run system tests (all good, not sure about memory though!)

The game used to work fine and it works on my (crappy) laptop and on my husband’s PC, which has similar capabilities to mine and also runs on windows 8(.1).

Here is an overview of my PC specs:

CPU: AMD FX™-4170 Quad-Core Processor (4551.25 MHz)
Memory: 4043 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 8 64-bit (Build 9200)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 560 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
Windows Graphics Driver Version: 9.18.0013.3523
OpenGL Version: 4.4.0
Soundblaster Audigy FX

Please someone help… I’ve been working on this problem for the past week now and I’ve exhausted all the possible solutions I could come up with. I am no newbie when it comes down to tech/pc, but this problem really beats me.

since you said the only thing changed was the installation of a soundcard, try playing without it for a bit and see what happens.

So should I just physically remove the soundcard from the computer and de-install the drivers or is a complete format of the harddisk needed?

Remove the card unit and uninstall the drivers, yes.

Also in the future I recommend getting some more RAM. The game can use up to 3.9 GB (I think) and having access to all of it can help performance.

Alright….

The soundcard was indeed what made the computer freeze…
The videocard was pretty hot, since the soundcard was right below it, thus there was no room for ventilation in that area..

The bad news is that there is no other PCI slot on the motherboard, so I cannot insert the soundcard elsewhere. Right now I am playing the game again (yay) but with the crappy sound quality from the motherboard and the soundcard is laying here in the drawer again (pout).

Thanks for the help

You can try the sound card again, but make sure to uninstall the onboard sound card drivers and disable the onboard card in bios. Both cards are probably conflicting.

Could get a USB headset. I use one. No problems.

How hot does your GPU run with and without the sound card?
With a little modding, you could try buying a PCI-E riser cable to move it’s spot a little and see if it works. Or you could see if you can install a fan above the cards, if the card is taking air like that. Or you could buy an external USB sound card, a friend of mine who is a bit of an audiophile says they are actually better for analog output since converting the signal inside the case creates more electronic noise.

if you are using that pci sound card for sound quality then you are doing it wrong. Internal sound cards can have terribly high output impedences (10 ohms in some cases!) and are also subject to the internal signal noise environment of your case. The only thing they typically do better than a decent onboard solution (which are usually better due to a 2 ohm impedence) is having a better amp to drive the 250 ohm + headphones/speakers. I would suggest an external dac/amp via usb which tend to have low output impedences (.5-1 ohm) and are removed from the signal noise interference in your case.

Cheaper dac/amps like the FiiO E series are mainly sub 100 USD and have great reviews. There is also plenty of options in the 100-200 range. Check reviews from headfi: http://www.head-fi.org/products/category/amp-dacs

The biggest improvement of sound quality you can do (if you haven’t done so already) is get a decent set of headphones/speakers. Don’t get gaming headsets as their audio quality is terrible compared to a similarly priced “audiophile” headphone.

Sigh…“audiophiles”…

Anyway, you don’t need a low impedance output to drive headphones or amplified speakers. In fact, stereo amplifiers use resistors (usually 220 to 470 ohms) on the outputs to drive headphones to limit the power. Most sound cards have line-level outputs and inputs anyway (with the exception of the mic input).

Besides, I’m sure the OP would rather fix the problem then worry about “perceived” sound quality differences.

abomally.2694:

Besides, I’m sure the OP would rather fix the problem then worry about “perceived” sound quality differences.

Sure, but the problem was that his sound card being too close to the GPU caused overheating and if there’s no PCI slot farther away or it doesn’t help, then an USB card would be a solution, no?

locx.6412:

abomally.2694:

Besides, I’m sure the OP would rather fix the problem then worry about “perceived” sound quality differences.

Sure, but the problem was that his sound card being too close to the GPU caused overheating and if there’s no PCI slot farther away or it doesn’t help, then an USB card would be a solution, no?

I can agree with that.

A usb dac/amp would fix his problems and give him better performance.

Keeping output impedance low is very important. Mainly because of the damping factor in speakers.

A loudspeaker is a mechanical device. It is essentially a motor. A motor causes motion when a coil is exposed to a changing magnetic field. When a woofer cone moves, its coil is moving in a constant magnet field. That is the way generators produce electricity. So how does an amplifier handle this speaker produced electric current?

A loudspeaker can be mathematically modeled just as an amplifier can. What happens is that the net effect of speaker motion presents itself to the amplifier as a set of complex reactive impedances (inductance and capacitance). The amplifier output current passes through these impedances producing a voltage drop across them. Just as in the case of changing speaker impedance causing problems with frequency response, this new voltage must be controlled by the amplifier output impedance or it will change the behavior of the cone motion.

To keep the voltage produced by cone motion low, the current the speaker produces must pass through a very low amplifier output impedance. The lower the amplifier output impedance, the lower the speaker produced voltage is. The lower the speaker produced voltage, the less effect it has on cone motion. A good rule to follow it that amplifier output impedance must be at least ten times lower than speaker impedance for good control of cone motion. This is called damping factor. Amplifier output impedance must be less than one ohm for best performance.

Damping factor refers to the amplifier, not the speakers. In other words, you don’t say speaker A has a damping factor of X, you say amplifier A has a damping factor of X – though you are basically correct.

In actually, it’s better for the damping factor to be above 50. However, headphones are much higher impedance than speakers and don’t require the amp to have as low of an impedance. We are talking headphones here.

If the OP is using speakers – they are amplified speakers (with a much higher input impedance – about 10Kohms). In the case of a standard PC sound card, damping factor is irrelevant.

Edited to add: I’m an electronics engineering technician with over 30 years of experience in the field. I just might know a little bit about electronics.

abomally.2694:

Damping factor refers to the amplifier, not the speakers. In other words, you don’t say speaker A has a damping factor of X, you say amplifier A has a damping factor of X – though you are basically correct.

In actually, it’s better for the damping factor to be above 50. However, headphones are much higher impedance than speakers and don’t require the amp to have as low of an impedance. We are talking headphones here.

If the OP is using speakers – they are amplified speakers (with a much higher input impedance – about 10Kohms). In the case of a standard PC sound card, damping factor is irrelevant.

Edited to add: I’m an electronics engineering technician with over 30 years of experience in the field. I just might know a little bit about electronics.

Yes you are correct.

Typical consumer headphones are 32 -70 ohms and using a damping factor of 50 sets the output impedance at around .5-1 ohm, which is pretty low but obtainable for decent usb dac/amps.