Guild Wars 2

At least I think it’s a shader issue, because the effect seems to change depending upon what level I set the shaders at. Dark patches flash across the screen when I move around, or remain static at the top of the screen. It started happening after an update a few months ago. I’ve been ignoring it, since it doesn’t seriously affect the gameplay, but I was hoping that someone would have addressed the issue by now…

My graphics card is an ATI Radeon X1950. I have yet to find any combination of hardware settings or in game graphics settings that solves the problem. I hope it will be fixed, the game is pretty unappealing to look at currently. It seems like updates have been crippling a game that worked fine and looked great when I bought it…

Download and run Furmark and see if it crashes or if it artifacts.

No crashes, no artifacts.
720 preset benchmark score: 314 points (5 FPS, 60000 ms)

So, no further advice from tech support? Is it likely to be fixed, or should I give up and play something else?

Ah sorry, I’ve been elsewhere, I’m not tech support of any kind for the company behind this game. They have a lack of personnel answering this forum it seems.

Have you tried the latest drivers available for that card?

What are your computer specs?

Also, if you don’t already use the lowest settings, set everything at the lowest possible setting and adjust for testing purposes simply to see if things improve.

Those artifacts make me think failing video card. I had a similar issue with a card some years ago. The games all ran perfectly well, but the artifacts were showing up, and getting worse.

My screenshots from when it happened to me:
http://i.imgur.com/JtYYlpG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/JfoGNlJ.jpg

Though yours look a bit more random and not so uniform. You could try updating drivers for the video card, if that doesn’t work, swap out the video card to a backup if you have one (After uninstalling your current drivers. Then install the card, then drivers for that card) Or if you don’t have a backup, try (If you have it available) to see if you have the issue using your onboard GPU

That’s why I had him run Furmark to check for artifacts while it stresses the gpu.

I’m having the same exact problem and I don’t know what the problem is

http://imgur.com/a/Lec6s

It’s odd too, I downloaded the wow trial and played it and it appears to run perfectly fine, so I’m pretty baffled

Update: I switched video card and the streaking went away, so it may be a video card problem for you and me!

What are your pc specs? Also, download and run Furmark, see if you notice any anomolies pop up on the screen.

Well, thanks for the suggestions.

Another thing to note, when I started up GW2 just now, it crashed. When I started it again, it wanted to check for corrupt files, it found none, and the game is running again, with the same graphical problems present.

My Specs: I’m running Windows XP Service Pack 3, Intel Core 2 Duo 1.80 GHz, 2 GB RAM, on an ASUS P5B Motherboard. I’ve updated and installed the latest drivers for everything.

Admittedly, my hardware could use an upgrade, but I’m not exactly a wealthy gamer. Believe it or not, I bought this machine (used, from a friend) specifically because I needed a computer “Good enough to play Guild Wars 2”. Since then, the only improvements I’ve made are to the PSU and the fan, to keep it running smoothly.

Like sobe suggested, I stress tested my graphics card, and saw no problems. I don’t see similar glitches in any other game either. I’ve tried all kinds of settings. The first screenshot above is on the lowest settings (Best Performance), the second is on auto-detect (Same thing but with native render sampling), the other four are on best appearance. The boxy shape at the top of the screen seems to appear only with the shaders set to “Low”, and shrinks depending on the render sampling. The other light and shadow problems exist on all settings, move around as the camera changes (Making my screen flash light and dark constantly, which is irritating), and seem to be more frequent or more noticeable in certain environments and lighting conditions.

peacefulpioneer.9280:

Well, thanks for the suggestions.

Another thing to note, when I started up GW2 just now, it crashed. When I started it again, it wanted to check for corrupt files, it found none, and the game is running again, with the same graphical problems present.

My Specs: I’m running Windows XP Service Pack 3, Intel Core 2 Duo 1.80 GHz, 2 GB RAM, on an ASUS P5B Motherboard. I’ve updated and installed the latest drivers for everything.

Admittedly, my hardware could use an upgrade, but I’m not exactly a wealthy gamer. Believe it or not, I bought this machine (used, from a friend) specifically because I needed a computer “Good enough to play Guild Wars 2”. Since then, the only improvements I’ve made are to the PSU and the fan, to keep it running smoothly.

Like sobe suggested, I stress tested my graphics card, and saw no problems. I don’t see similar glitches in any other game either. I’ve tried all kinds of settings. The first screenshot above is on the lowest settings (Best Performance), the second is on auto-detect (Same thing but with native render sampling), the other four are on best appearance. The boxy shape at the top of the screen seems to appear only with the shaders set to “Low”, and shrinks depending on the render sampling. The other light and shadow problems exist on all settings, move around as the camera changes (Making my screen flash light and dark constantly, which is irritating), and seem to be more frequent or more noticeable in certain environments and lighting conditions.

Your graphics card is pretty old (2006). If you say you have updated all your drivers, I assume you mean graphic drivers too? If so, and you originally ran GW2 with no graphical hitches, I suggest rolling back your gf drivers to an older one (as newer drivers on older cards can cause gf issues like this). It’s what I’d be first trying before concluding ‘maybe it’s hardware issues’..

Technically, ATI has only one legacy driver for these old cards, it was last updated in 2010, so I’ve been using the same driver since I started playing GW2. I just reinstalled it to make sure.

I don’t think its any change that I’ve made that is the problem. Something in the game has changed, and that’s what upsets me. Game updates should be fixing problems such as this, not creating them. Especially in an mmo, where the updates are forced upon you, whether they benefit you or not. It’s like I paid fifty bucks for a beautiful, enjoyable game, and a year later the game developers took it away…

X1950 is probably to old to play this game anymore. Any GPU that is in ‘legacy’ support has their driver updates suspended. With Legacy drivers dating back to 2010 (before this game was launched, and those drivers ARE 3 years old) they are not getting the Vendor based optimizations for games.

Eventually Legacy drivers will cease to function for new games.

WinXP is End of life, your Core2Duo clocked at 1.8Ghz, and your X1950 acting how it is. Its time to start replacing your computer’s components.

sirsquishy, I understand that I may have no choice but to upgrade my computer. It just sucks that the game used to play fine on this machine, and now it doesn’t.

Wouldn’t it be easy enough to keep an option to leave out whatever new ‘features’ are breaking things, just so that those of us with somewhat limited resources can continue to play the game as we have been?

peacefulpioneer.9280:

sirsquishy, I understand that I may have no choice but to upgrade my computer. It just sucks that the game used to play fine on this machine, and now it doesn’t.

Wouldn’t it be easy enough to keep an option to leave out whatever new ‘features’ are breaking things, just so that those of us with somewhat limited resources can continue to play the game as we have been?

Thats why Vendors (AMD/Nvidia) work on optimizations for Games (Guildwars2) so that issues like what you are seeing get fixed.

When a Driver Pack goes into End of Life (what your Card is) those fixes are not included for that Legacy hardware.

Its the lifecycle of all things in IT.

Just be glade you got, 2006-2013, 7 possible years out of that graphics card before being forced to upgrade it to something more current/modern.

sirsquishy.8531:

Just be glade you got, 2006-2013, 7 possible years out of that graphics card before being forced to upgrade it to something more current/modern.

QFT! Except the thing is he apparently got the hardware used from his friend, which I sure hope he didn’t spend over $150-$200 for.

Nothing is wrong with buying used, I highly recommend people look at their options, as for instance, CPUs are somewhat hard to kill. [H]ardForum is a good place with a good classifieds section, just be sure the people you deal with have a positive heatware history, along with if they will trade with you if you have no heat.

I suppose that’s the way our disposable culture goes.

Thanks for the link sobe, I’ll definitely check it out. Actually, I spent less than $100 on this hardware, and it still works great for everything except GW2, so I’m not about to throw it out. I love older hardware, but I hate the expiration date that comes with these online games, always upgrading to the latest technology and leaving perfectly good computers behind… Hopefully I can find something newer for cheap, and I’ll still be able to play.

That was definitely a decent trade then for that hardware. If you want to put it to use, feel free to have it running and put it to use Folding@Home to help with cures for diseases