Guild Wars 2

OK, here we go.

CPU idle:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/flatleythebard/images/cputempidle.jpg

CPU in game:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/flatleythebard/images/cputempingame.jpg

GPU idle:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/flatleythebard/images/gputempidle.jpg

GPU in game: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/flatleythebard/images/gputempingame.jpg

This is pretty much what I found yesterday when playing under the latest build i.e. switched the PC on and played straight away. The lag is incredible – even watching my drake’s tail wag was painful.

Update: support ticket raised #130704-001343

FWIW. here’s my Game Advisor report (I’ve already posted about a lag issue of my own and I really don’t know if it’s related )

Ack! A /facepalm moment if ever there was one – thanks for pointing that out! This report would be better, using the Game Advisor app.

Edit: Looking through that report, I’m seeing a lot of this during the pathping section:

→ canceled by GameAdvisor due to timeout(500 sec)

Could that be having an impact on the FPS I’m seeing?

/headscratch

Hi, there. This doesn’t seem like internet lag. It’s more graphics lag since yesterday’s build only – it’s really choppy in LA and DR, down to 7FPS. Up until this latest update (since last October), everything has been silky smooth and I hadn’t even needed to look at how many fps’ I was achieving.

I’m playing from the UK via an ethernet connection on a 20mbits/sec pipe – if that helps.

EDIT – yes, everything else is fine this end.

Hi, thanks for the reply. Below are the specs (from a heavily edited dxdiag – too long to post here).

However, could I ask why you’re asking for a temperature check? I’m just curious as this graphics lag was only encountered from a cold start after yesterday’s build…

System Information

Time of this report: 11/16/2010, 17:21:23
Machine name: MININT-C870EJL
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.100618-1621)
BIOS: BIOS Date: 11/01/10 17:32:31 Ver: 08.00.15
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 CPU X 980 @ 3.33GHz (12 CPUs), ~4.0GHz
Memory: 6144MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 6136MB RAM
Page File: 1569MB used, 10699MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7600.16385 64bit Unicode

DxDiag Notes
Display Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 2: No problems found.
Input Tab: No problems found.

DirectX Debug Levels

Direct3D: 0/4 (retail)
DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail)
DirectInput: 0/5 (retail)
DirectMusic: 0/5 (retail)
DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail)
DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow: 0/6 (retail)

Display Devices
Card name: ATI Radeon HD 5900 Series
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: ATI display adapter CrossFire Secondary (0×689C)
DAC type: Internal DAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_689C&SUBSYS_30201682&REV_00
Display Memory: 716 MB
Dedicated Memory: 2009 MB
Shared Memory: 2803 MB
Current Mode: 1920 × 1200 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
Monitor Model: DELL 2407WFP
Monitor Id: DELA016
Native Mode: 1920 × 1200(p) (59.950Hz)
Output Type: HD15
Driver Name: aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dll
Driver File Version: 8.17.0010.1047 (English)
Driver Version: 8.782.0.0
DDI Version: 10.1
Driver Model: WDDM 1.1
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 9/29/2010 01:54:02, 628224 bytes
WHQL Logo’d: n/a
WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-2BDC-11CF-2571-2A10BEC2C535}
Vendor ID: 0×1002
Device ID: 0×689C
SubSys ID: 0×30201682
Revision ID: 0×0000
D3D9 Overlay: Not Supported
DXVA-HD: Not Supported
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Enabled

EVR Power Information
Current Setting: {5C67A112-A4C9-483F-B4A7-1D473BECAFDC} (Quality)
Quality Flags: 2576
Enabled:
Force throttling
Allow half deinterlace
Allow scaling
Decode Power Usage: 100
Balanced Flags: 1424
Enabled:
Force throttling
Allow batching
Force half deinterlace
Force scaling
Decode Power Usage: 50
PowerFlags: 1424
Enabled:
Force throttling
Allow batching
Force half deinterlace
Force scaling
Decode Power Usage: 0

Title says it all. LA is a slideshow. Anyone else experiencing this?

Ashley Segovia.8276:

Hi Flatley – Generally your fan speeds are controlled by the temperature of your CPU/GPU. When playing in Fullscreen mode, your CPU is working a bit harder, getting a bit warmer, and thus needing to be cooler.

As Ilithis Mithilande suggested, MSI Afterburner is a great application for monitoring GPU usage.

Ah, I see. Oddly, I’d thought there’d be more juice required when not in full screen…

… my CPU and GPU fans stay pretty quiet. If I play full-screen, they’re spinning like dervishes. My screen is stretched so it fills most of my monitor.

I’m just curious as to why this would be.

Are my chips working harder in full screen rather then having, effectively, windows overlaying the game.

Interestingly… it’s not a “crab face hugger” at all. Having said that, I had another one face-hug me again and accidentally did an evasive roll. It was now attached to my back and the game stated that that was actually the case.

A second role crushed it.

I love little touches like this.

Yes, definitely upgrade to the v13 driver suite.

I was getting this as well. I’ve also done the following:

- reinstated my o/c to 4ghz
- turned off my screen saver (!)
- playing in windowed mode (not ideal, but there you go).

Those four things (if you include the driver) are giving me a nice steady environment. I don’t know if some of those things are even relevant but it worked for me. Interestingly, now I’m running in windowed mode, my CPU cooler is having a nicer time of it, not stressing much at all.

Had to stop and smile today.

I’ve only just got to Southsun Cove. “A crab face hugger has attached itself to your face”. For some reason, I found this tickled my humour gland.

So, do you think playing in windowed mode can make a difference? Also, could a screensaver also play a part?

I’m just curious to know that what I did can actually affect the lock-ups I’ve had…

EDIT: I have now done three things that may have helped:

- put my CPU o/c back to 4ghz
- turned off my screensaver! (I was suspicious that my crash first appeared after minutes and the saver kicks in after three minutes – related? Can’t see how but there you go)
- played in Windowed mode instead of full screen.

It seems to be running OK now (fingers crossed) but I’ll just have to keep my eye on it.

EDIT2
Ack, apologies! That was mean to be an edit, not a reply! Sorry about the bumpage there…

Spoke too soon. Back to locking up. Literally five minutes in and wham. According to the event viewer in Windows, it’s the kernal again – even 41. Which, I guess is me hitting the reset button:

- System

- Provider

[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
[ Guid] {331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}

EventID 41

Version 2

Level 1

Task 63

Opcode 0

Keywords 0×8000000000000002

– TimeCreated

[ SystemTime] 2013-04-28T12:58:15.928809500Z

EventRecordID 645511

Correlation

– Execution

[ ProcessID] 4
[ ThreadID] 8

Channel System

Computer MININT-C870EJL

– Security

[ UserID] S-1-5-18

- EventData

BugcheckCode 0
BugcheckParameter1 0×0
BugcheckParameter2 0×0
BugcheckParameter3 0×0
BugcheckParameter4 0×0
SleepInProgress false
PowerButtonTimestamp 0

This is getting frustrating now so would appreciate some help.

Many thanks.

Is it still under warranty? Also, if it were me, I’d take your rig to a repair shop if you can get to one. It sounds like you’ve exhausted all other options.

I wish you luck!

OK, well, I’ve been playing for an hour with no freezes so I’m hoping this is the cure

Incidentally, when I ran the sweeper, it did pick up a whole host of artifacts even though I’d uninstalled the drivers using the AMD uninstall routine. From now on, I will certainly be using a cleaner when updating my drivers!

Thanks once again and wish me luck!

OK, so it’s a crash to desktop. Is there a crashlog in your ANet directory?

I’m assuming you mean Win7 with SP1 for your O/S rather than 6.1? Or is it Vista?

You could try reseating the GPU. It may have been slightly dislodged in transit. Also, the RAM. I had this once and it turned out the cat had been at the cable to the PC very embarrassing as I plastered a forum with angry venting – might be worth having a look there too!

What sort of crash are you getting? To desktop? BSOD? Also, what are the specs of your PC?

Wow… seems like only yesterday I updated my drivers! Thanks for the heads up there; those drivers are only 2-3 days old!

I’ve downloaded the three necessary items (the uninstaller, the sweeper and the drivers) and I’ll give it a whirl on the morrow. Looking over various support forums on the interwebs, there seems to be two schools of thought regarding the clean installation and usage of sweepers. Half the community ignore them while the other half would never install over the existing drivers without first using them. Ho hum.

Anyway, I’ll post back once finished – keeping me fingers crossed!

EDIT:
PS – I am hopeful this will be the answer as the release notes for the drivers state:

Quote

“Significantly improves latency performance in Skyrim, Boderlands 2, Guild Wars 2, Tomb Raider and Hitman Absolution

Unquote

Game advisor report attached.

EDIT – changed the title to something more meaningful. amdkmdap is part of the driver suite that is being reported to have been the culprit for this lock-up.
_____________

Thanks for your reply but I had read that thread before

It seems there is no one solution to this: overheating GPU; PSU not up to scratch; driver sweeper and reinstall; clean the dust out; change the TDR value… the list goes on.

- on the GPU front, the fans aren’t anywhere near revving at maximum so I’m ruling that out

- changing the TDR value. That scares me a bit even though the MS website has a “fix it for me” option. I’d be interested here at what an ANet dev would say this.

- PSU not up to scratch (or, rather, not powerful enough); I have 1KW Enermax in my rig.

- clean out the dust. That’s something I do need to do so that’s a little job for the weekend

- driver sweeper? Worth trying I suppose…

What I am curious about is why its only just started happening. Windows is up-to-date as are the video drivers (9.12.0.0). And – as others have reported here with various different issues – it seems to be playing GW2 that eeks out these odd problems.

What about getting a more up-to-date (see: below) GPU?

System specs:

i7 x980 @ 3.33ghx (it was o/c’d to 4.0ghz but I’ve used the standard bios profile to bring that back down)
ATI Radeon 5970 2GB
6GB 1600 RAM
1 × 500GB Velociraptor as C:
1 × 64GB Intel SSD (where the game sits)
Creative Fatal1ty sound card
2 optical drives
Other odds and sods.

Any ideas? This keeps happening – tonight, I lasted five minutes before the hang. What should I post to help diagnose this? There is still no crash log.

Since yesterday, GW2 has randomly frozen and locked my PC – no BSOD’s, just a completely unresponsive computer that needs the reset button hit. However, today, I managed to prevent that by hitting <alt><enter> very quickly after the lockup.

When I look at my event log (there is no crash log), I see the following:

“Display driver amdkmdap stopped responding and has successfully recovered.”

What’s this all about, then?

Last night, all was well. Now I keep getting the above message (or something similar) every two minutes. Anyone know what’s going on?

Thanks.

I’m not sure if this is a bug or not, but I tried to purchase an item from the TP but the buy button was greyed out. I tried a different item but it was still grey.

Could someone please tell me if this is a bug or something else? There was a lot of lag on the TP when I was attempting this.

Many thanks.

So, really then, there’s no tech out there at the moment that could run this game in all its glory at high frame rates in a big WvWvW?

Since a big build a few day’s ago, I’ve had a seemingly random bug whereby I’ll spin in place when turning left or right. I can stop it by either reversing the spin for a while or double tapping an evade roll.

Anyone else get this?

I put together the below based on the fastest components I could find. I could go triple GPU with a money-no-object thing but I don’t think the game would benefit. So, just throwing this out there; how would this perform?

Case: Silverstone TJ07GW – 3XS Great White Chromium Finish
Motherboard X79: Asus Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 Chipset
CPU: Intel Core i7-3970X 3.5GHz Hex Core + Hyperthreading 15MB Cache
Overclocking – CPU: Extreme Overclock – 4.6Ghz.
Memory – Quad Channel DDR3: 32GB (4×8GB) Corsair Dominator Platinum 2133MHz
NVIDIA Graphics 6Gb EVGA GTX TITAN 837Mhz GPU 2688 Cores 6088Mhz GDDR5, 2 selected
Power Supply Unit: 1200W Corsair Digital AX1200i – 80PLUS Platinum
Braided Power Supply Cables: Corsair Professional Sleeved Modular Cable Kit
Solid State Drives: 512GB OCZ Vertex 4 Read 560MB sec Write 510MB sec – Everest 2
System Drives: 3TB Seagate Barracuda SATA 6Gb s 7200rpm 64MB Cache
Storage Hard drives: 3TB Western Digital Caviar Green 64Mb Cache
Optical Drive – DVD Blu Ray: LG 16x Blu-ray DVD Writer inc Playback Software
Flash Card Readers & Writer: Akasa AK-ICR-07U3 – Black Multi Card Reader & USB3
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster ZxR Soundcard and Audio Contol Box
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit – OEM
TFT Monitor: 30" Dell Ultrasharp U3011 LCD 2560×1600 fully adjustable stand
Gaming Keyboard : Logitech G19 Gaming Keyboard
Gaming Mouse Option: Razer Mamba 2012 Elite Ergonomic Wireless Gaming Mouse
Headphones: Razer Megalodon 7.1 Gaming Headset

Another option would be a WD Velociraptor (10k RPM spindle speed). I’m not sure of your actual budget and my mind works in pounds sterling anyway but Amazon have one of the smaller capacity ones here:

http://www.amazon.com/VelociRaptor-500-Workstation-Hard-Drive/dp/B007VPGK42/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362004704&sr=8-1&keywords=velociraptor

- although I know you’re looking for more space but… well… take a look anyway, can’t hurt.

In your documents/guildwars 2/ folder there should be a file called ArenaNet.something file. Attach that as a text here.

Personally, I’m going to try d/ling tomorrow. Given up on today. Always the same on patch days – and not just GW2!

You’ll need to post your system specs and the nature of the freeze – when, what etc – and, if you can, your crash log (ArenaNet.dat I think it’s called).

Oh, and by the way, there’s just been a new build and thousands are d/ling it now. You may be seeing a huge influx of players right now which may be contributing.

Just had a quick google at your chip choice – reviews weren’t too favourable:

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/processors/amd-fx-4300-1117775/review

Unless AMD do something really radical, I’ll be sticking with Intel.

One other thing, I would probably get a more powerful PSU if you can shell out the moolah.

Your choice of GPU seems a good one – Bit-tech likes it:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/09/13/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-2gb-review/11

Lastly, rather than just one HDD, you could consider an SSD – game and zone load times would be quite reduced.

Overall, and this is just my opinion – others more tech-savvy may disagree – I think your proposed rig will work but you may find yourself ramping down the settings; most MMO’s are CPU bound so the more GHz you can get out of ’em, the better.

Hope that helped

Update: I’ve installed the absolute latest drivers and have played for an hour without issue. One thing I noticed was how much quicker I moved from clicking play to getting the character selection up (I’m using an SSD to play from but my O/S is on a 10K Raptor). A good thing! Anyway…

I would still like to know if there was a change in the last patch (13/2/13) that affected the kernel as that was what was reported by the BSOD’s I got earlier.

I would also like to know if that, if I have the latest drivers, ATI Catalyst 13.1 ( for my HD5970 2GB), will solve the blue screen issues.

Lastly, my rig is o/c’d from 3.33GHZ to 4GHZ on an i7 X980. Would an overclocked PC be more likely to crash in GW2 than one that was running at stock speeds?

I’d appreciate any pointers you can give.

Many thanks.

Hello and thanks for your reply!

Could I ask if you know of anything that changed from your end before I call out an engineer? It just seems a little coincidental that I’ve only experienced this since the 13th Feb patch and others are seeing similar issues.

My rig is still under (extended) warranty and, while I’m happy updating drivers (which will be my next step), I’m not comfortable with load testing the various components to see if there’s a heat issue or if the RAM has become unstable.

I fully accept the problem could be my end but if there’s been a change by ANet that affects the kernel I’d really like to know

Many thanks in advance.

Ah. I’ve just been told this could be that the crash happened too quickly for the log file to be created – is that possible? If so, how can I best supply the information to raise a ticket?

Many thanks.

Sorry to be a nuisance but I’m trying to resolve my bsod issue by submitting a ticket. However, I just cannot find the ArenaNet.log file the devs need to help them see what’s going on.

I’ve searched my entire system (both drives) and it’s just, well, not present.

Any ideas most welcome!

Thanks!

EDIT: I did find a crash file from today and am attaching it here – it’s not the same number the problem report gave which is doubly confusing.

Another edit. After poking around for information using the ATI event viewer, I came to this web page:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2008/11/01/how-to-debug-kernel-mode-blue-screen-crashes-for-beginners.aspx

I haven’t tried debugging the kernal (yet) but my question now is: how come this has just started happening? I am a little suspicious that it only reared its head after the last patch…

Update. I logged in for about four minutes and blue screened again. This is the latest log:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 2057

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 116
BCP1: FFFFFA800D174010
BCP2: FFFFF88005946F94
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: 0000000000000002
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 256_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\022113-16707-01.dmp
C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-42307-0.sysdata.xml

Neither of those files are present on my PC. I’m now officially confused.

Hmm…

I’ve just found the error log of what I’ve had happen. Not sure if this will help anyone or possibly point to the issue – this is from 19/2/13:

Description
A problem with your video hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 2057

Files that help describe the problem
WD-20130219-2117-01.dmp
sysdata.xml
WERInternalMetadata.xml

View a temporary copy of these files
Warning: If a virus or other security threat caused the problem, opening a copy of the files could harm your computer.

Extra information about the problem
BCCode: 117
BCP1: FFFFFA8005722010
BCP2: FFFFF88004B91F94
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 256_1

Coincidentally, this is the log from 17/2/13:

Description
A problem with your video hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 2057

Files that help describe the problem
WD-20130217-2238-01.dmp
sysdata.xml
WERInternalMetadata.xml

View a temporary copy of these files
Warning: If a virus or other security threat caused the problem, opening a copy of the files could harm your computer.

Extra information about the problem
BCCode: 117
BCP1: FFFFFA8009A26010
BCP2: FFFFF88004A38F94
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 256_1

Incidentally, I’ve seen mods post here that ask for the ArenaNet.dat file – try as I might, I can’t find this anywhere on my system. Any ideas as to where it could be? It’s not in the default /documents/guildwars2 directory and I’ve run a search on both my drives from their root directory and all subdirs down…

Unspec.9017:

When it BSOD’s, does it give you a error code? Its something like 0×000000000f4e or w/e. Also, make sure your CPU isn’t overheating with a temp monitoring program, like RealTemp.

It does indeed give an error code – I’ll try and capture it next before the machine reboots. Incidentally, I downloaded and ran that RealTemp program – very handy. My CPU (o/c from 3.33 to 4ghz – I may also try running without the o/c and see what happens) idles at around 27 degrees which jumps up to 35-40 while running GW2. According to that program, I’m about 55-60 degrees off the TJmax so I’m going to assume overheating isn’t the issue.

Good info! Thanks!

Thanks for the reply but I can’t find a file there that relates to GW2. Don’t suppose you happen to know the file name?

Ta.

OK, I’ll try the drivers, thanks. However, is there a crash log I can post that could help diagnose the issue? The only file I can see in documents/guildwars2 is a local.dat file with a timestamp of today. Cheers.

Hi all. Twice in the past couple of days I’ve had a BSOD. Nothing has changed my end. Never had this from GW2 before so curious if anything got changed or if anyone else has been getting this.

Do I need to post a crash log or something else that would help? If so, where do I find it?

Thanks.

Firstly, if this is the wrong place to post this, then apologies – I think this is my first post on these forums!

I’ve just got my ranger to 60 and thought I’d buy some new gear. However, it appears the stats of power and precision seem to apply to the armour I’ve seen rather than the toughness and vitality I wanted.

How do I get the pieces I want or is this the way the game is designed i.e. to lead me down the power and precision path?

Any help most welcome!

Thanks in advance.

I’d like to see a first person option also.