Guild Wars 2

Hi Fixxer,

It is not your GPU thats at fault, the game is being limited by your CPU performance. This game does not require much in the way of a graphics card to run ( a GTX 580 could max out the game if it was not bottlenecked by the CPU )

Lyenyo.2891:

Thanks for the reply Ashley,

I tried what you said and it worked for a couple of days but I have just crashed when idling in LA. I managed to log back in but the second I turned my camera I crashed again, I have now managed to escape to Gendarran Fields and everything seems normal for now…

Is there no cure?

Hi Lyenyo,

Have you tried a fresh clean install of Windows and Gw2 to rule out any software problems or third party applications causing corruption?

I experienced a similar issue and finally resolved it for myself. First off, you did not mention your hard drive make/model. Usually people keep these through upgrades, so I was wondering if it would be worth check to make sure this is not causing the corruption. Since you mention that the problem was ok for a few days it may be worth giving the drive a proper run through of diagnostics. I like and prefer to use a program called SpinRite its an amazing product and will verify if there are any problems with the drive and either allow the drive to repair them or warn you if it thinks the drive is beyond restoration.

My problem was with my memory I had one of the ram modules turn out to be faulty (even though memtest diagnostics seemed happy to pass them). To check run the game with only 1 memory stick at a time (providing you meet the minimum requirements for the game of 2GB memory). if the game runs fine with one memory stick but not another then you have a faulty memory stick and should return them to the retailer/manufacturer.

I hope this helps.

SupaKoopaTroopa.3629:

Nitro.4732:

GW2 is locked to DX9 you cannot change that.

Here is the correct info for command line arguments that are available in GW2
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_line

Ok thanks.

Do you think the -dx9single command would help performance?

No, as the wiki says -dx9single command has been removed from the client.

GW2 is locked to DX9 you cannot change that.

Here is the correct info for command line arguments that are available in GW2
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_line

I was getting lots of corruption errors a few weeks back, I had ran memtest so many times that I lost count. I ran other diagnostic tests on hardware like my graphics card and hard disk drive (I even upgraded to an SSD). However the problem still remained even after every test would result in a pass.

Even after reinstalling GW2 (new copy of files) onto a fresh install of Windows 7 on a new SSD, I was still having corrupted files. I new the problem had to be hardware related since a full reinstall of all software and drivers did not fix the problem.

Eventually I decided to begin removing PC components one-by-one in order to determine if it really was a hardware fault. I started with my sound card as some of the errors I was receiving seem to link back to a file/module authored by “creative sounds”.

After removing the sound card I was still getting corrupted files. At this point I decided to try removing all my memory (RAM) from the pc and trying one stick at a time. The first stick I chose worked fine and windows booted up with 2GB of memory I was able to play for a good few hours without any problems. This seemed to point to an issue with my memory and GW2. I tried another stick and sure enough on a seperate 2GB stick the game was crashing and producing corrupted files.

So I discovered that my problem was hardware related and was able to fix the issue completely by replacing the fault memory stick. However I am still confused as to why numerous tests of my memory using memtest86 did not produce any faults but GW2 was able to have problems almost instantly with the faulty memory stick.

I hope this helps some of the people with this problem.

SupaKoopaTroopa.3629:

I want to try to improve frame rates by switching to a lower version of DirectX.

Is it possible to change the default DirectX 9 level to 8 or 7 by adding the command line option, -dxlevel 80, in the Target Box of the Shortcut to Guild Wars 2?

If it is possible, what command do I use? -dxlevel 8, -dxlevel 80, -dxlevel 7, -dxlevel 70?

I tried, but I could not see a difference in graphics, which I thought would look a lot lower quality after the change.

I’ve attached a picture showing what I mean.

No it is not possible this game only uses one version of DX.

Enjoyluck.2618:

The consumable food that gives 40% magic find under boon does’t work

still does not work, can confirm this with screen shot

Hi Bailey,

the answer to two of your questions is, Yes.

Google Authenticator is supported by Guild Wars 2 and is available on Android and IOS.

Multiple accounts (and other applications) can be added to google authenticator.

The third question I cannot confirm or see why 2 or more authenticators could be linked to one account.

Thunderbolt, e-sata or USB3.0 are all fine. USB3.0 current standards support upto 5Gbit (625MB/s) more than enough bandwidth for even a High Performance SSD (typical in the region of 500MB/s)

USB3.0 is also going through standards update to support unto 10Gbit (1250MB/s) sometime this year so USB3.0 will not be a draw back.

I would say USB3.0 offers you the best options for fallback, for example plugging your external SSD in to a USB2.0 or USB1.1 port on older computers will still be able to access and transfer files albeit at a rather reduced speed. Compared to Thunderbolt and e-Sata which are unlikely to be seen on older hardware or laptops older than a year or two.

Hi KratosAngel,

If you have 8GB of RAM then I would be more concerned about what is using the other
4.5GB after guild wars 2 (roughly 2GB average usually less) and chrome ( roughly 500MB on your system) and lets say 1GB for windows.

what else could you possibly have open that is consuming over 4GB of RAM?

I leave my browser open (safari) when playing GuildWars2 and I only have 4GB RAM.

Then most likely something is causing the game to become corrupt or the repair utility cannot repair the corruption. After a repair is complete have you tried deleting the local.dat file before launching the game?

If the game still crashes I would check your computer is stable, just because windows or other applications do not crash does not mean the computer hardware is fully stable. You can test specific components such as your CPU (using software such as Prime95) or GPU (using software like Furmark) and even the memory (using a free bootable memtest CD). Also verify your hard disk drive (using software like SpinRite 6) for any errors.

If these test are successful then the conclusion would likely to be either that either the GW2.dat file is still corrupt and un-repairable and needs completely replaced.

Alternatively Interfering applications such as Teamspeak Overlays, modified SMAA injected DLLs or other custom/third party software could be corrupting data within the game.

Any Overclocking of hardware should also be temporary disabled as a test to make sure that the overclocking is not affecting the game either.

hope this helps

Hi Medival,

In your ArenaNet.log file it states the following:

—> Crash <—
Assertion: A file was corrupted in the archive. Please run once with ‘-repair’!

So please follow these steps to repair your game and try again:

Guild Wars 2 Repair Instructions for Windows®

If you are having problems running Guild Wars 2, the data archive may have become corrupted. Please follow these steps to verify and repair the archive:

Locate your Gw2.exe file.
Right-click on the file and select Create shortcut.
Rename this new shortcut to Guild Wars 2 Repair.
Right-click on Guild Wars 2 Repair and select Properties.
Locate the Target line and add -repair to the end.
Example: “C:\Games\Guild Wars 2\gw2.exe” -repair
Click OK.
Double-clicking Guild Wars 2 Repair will begin the repair process. The game will launch when it is complete.

Note: Keep in mind that the verification and repair process will run each time you double-click the Guild Wars 2 Repair shortcut. If you would like to play the game immediately without repairing the archive, double-click on Gw2.exe or another shortcut without the -repair command.

wouldn’t it be cool if the profanity filter was smart enough to determine the difference between spaces after each L E T T E R and spaces between actual words. Besides the fact that there are O-T-H-E-R ways to putting spaces or gaps between profanity so that it can still be readable.

A profanity filter is best missing the odd occurrence and being picked up by a moderator rather than interfering with users content constantly with false positives.

Hi KratosAngel,

I think the reason you experience high amounts of memory usage is caused by google chrome, every browser is different on how it works and google chrome could be storing (caching) pages of the website into ram to quickly jump between them, this allows it to seem fast at loading pages.

You also seem to have a few browser add-ons which seem to be taking up a fair chunk of that 475MB that you reported. If you do not use all these add-ons its perhaps better to disable them and only enable them when you do need them.

Unless Guild Wars 2 is crashing because it is running out of memory then having another application using 400 or 800 or whatever amount of megabytes of your memory should not have an effect on your game.

What is more likely to be happening is that your CPU (Processor) is being used by the browser and is being allocated some of the system resources that Guild Wars 2 could be allocated. Also it has been noticed in the past that flash based websites such as YouTube have been known to mistakenly put graphics cards into “2D” mode even whilst a 3D application was in use in the foreground. This bug caused the graphics cards to throttle their speeds to their predefined 2D speeds and in return meant less available resources to the 3D application.

Either way, unless guild wars is running out of memory and crashing, I highly doubt that the browser sing 475MB of memory that is currently available is the cause to your issue.

thanks, Nitro.

I would appreciate it if a arena net representative could respond to this post acknowledging this issue and perhaps if they know, if a solution is being looked into.

Thanks.

Ariete.6509:

Hi,
usually when i want to get some improvement in FPS in other games, i lower the resolution, reduce the ui size and i notice an increase.

Although in GW2 going from 1680×1050 to 1280×720, apart form making the game really ugly, doesn’t improve its smoothness in a major way.

Hi Ariete,

Part of the ugliness will be caused by using the incorrect aspect ratio for your monitor.
1280×720 is a 16:9 aspect ratio compared to 1680×1050 which is 16:10. If you want to keep the correct aspect ratio then you should use 1280×800.

Hi Shampax,

Since you are using a 3G connection it is most likely to be the cause. However if you could run a Game Advisor report from your computer and upload the results here, that way we can see whats happening when your game tries to connect with GuildWars2.

Lexandro.1456:

A lot of rather pointless advice in this thread, no offence chaps but it is.

“out of memory” error can be solved bloody easily.

Go to the games shortcut and open the properties menu. Click on the compatability tab, and select the these three options;

1. Set compatability mode to Windows XP sp3
2. Tick the box marked “disable visual styles”
3. Tick the box marked “disable desktop composition”

Job done – no more out of memory errors, its that simple.

It is not pointless at all, there is more than one way to cause the game client to report an out of memory error. One way is to run out of memory of the allocated 2GB limit to the guild wars process.

If doing what you quoted above worked for you then thats great, however that would point to another problem were more likely your computer was running low in memory as a whole. Disabling visual styles and desktop composition would not increase the allocation of memory to Guild Wars 2 but rather free up system resources that could then be used by Guild Wars 2 without running out of memory.

Caedmon.6798:

I know,it’s just worth a shot for the OP to atleast try it out if he knows how to ,or otherwise let someone else do it for him.Since he is asking for a workaround without the need to buy 64bit.And this is the only, “workaround”.

As I said above the outcome would be the same, even if windows 32bit could access 10 -billion- GBs of memory it would make no difference to the game on a 32bit OS, this is because on 32bit operating systems they are restricted to a 2GB allocation limit per user-mode process for applications to use. The problem is not the hardware being able to allocate all physical memory. It is the application being limited to a total of 2GB of allocated memory.

The workaround that is required to help against this problem is this:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2007/03/23/memory-management-demystifying-3gb.aspx

If you use iTunes and have a device such as iPod/iPhone/iPad make sure that wireless sync is disabled in iTunes, I have experienced this before were iTunes would minimise other programs to become the foreground application whilst it synched your device with the computer.

Caedmon.6798:

“That 32-bit editions of Windows starting with Windows Vista are limited to 4GB is not because of any technical constraint on 32-bit operating systems. The 32-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 all contain code for using physical memory above 4GB. Microsoft just doesn’t license you to use that code.”

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unawave.de%2Fwindows-7-tipps%2F4-gb-patch-selber-machen.html&langpair=de|en

It’s alot of hassle to begin with,basically you can enable the use of more then 4gb on a 32bit machine,to some extend.Google around if you think you want to try that out.

Just want to add,if you have absolutey no clue about this stuff,Do not try it out Let someone who does,do it for you..or simply switch to 64b,but that’s costly,i understand.

32bit Architectures are limited to 4GB it is not a set limit but a physical limit, 2^32 = 4294967296 bytes (4096MB) the patch you refer to unlocks a technology called Physical Address Extension (PAE) which on some processors (i.e. pentiums which actually are 36bit processors limited at 32bit) unlocks the full 36bit physical architecture allowing the processor to physically see upto 64GB of addressable space.

The patch will not work with processors that have a physical architecture of 32bit as their limit will be restrained to 4GB by the hardware. Not because Microsoft doesn’t want you to use more, but because it is physically impossible for the hardware to achieve any higher amounts.

Also enabling PAE will have no effect what so ever on Guild Wars as it is still on a 32bit operating system and is still limited to a 2GB User Space of addressable memory (this is what actually causes the crash). The crash happens because the game cannot allocate any more User Space, The work around for this is to increase the user space from 2GB to 3GB using the “/3gb” boot parameter. However this may or may not cause other problems of its own, as to increase the user space you also have to decrease kernel space.

The reason these crashes do not happen on 64bit operating systems (even 64bit systems with only 3GB ram) is because the game has access to a larger user space by default and therefor can use more than 2GB if it needs to.

As a SSL user I like to know that the websites I am browsing are secure.
So I decided to test out Guildwars2.com for SSL at ssllabs.com.

According to the report found here: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=guildwars2.com

You can see that guildwars2.com scores a Grade F (the lowest grade).

I believe the biggest reason for this is because of the support SSL version 2.0 support is enabled. Guildwars2.com is also vulnerable to BEAST attacks on TLS 1.0 (TLS 1.1+ recommended to mitigate such attacks)

Hopefully a webmaster will get this message and be able to resolve these issues, Otherwise why offer secure http.

Just to add to this: Download accelerators should not be used with games, it may increase your download speed through compression of data (unimportant) but it will have a severe impact on your connections latency and in game lag (important)

LONGA.1652:

I have same issue but running Gefore460 card.But I think the main culprit are memory leak.
Basically can’t go to anywhere graphic intensive.Playing on lower setting help a bit but not eliminate the problem completely.
Rightnow Im pretty much blocked from primetime WvWvW

What operating system are you using?
What are your system specifications?

Hi Delloro,

The simple answer is because of the fancy 3D effects the launcher uses including the transparency of its background. The launcher I am assuming uses the CPU to draw this hence the high CPU usage, however this will not have any effect on your overall game play as once you launch the game the launcher is no longer drawn.

Hi Goldhuman,

Your ArenaNet.log file consists of multiple crash logs with different symptoms, so there maybe more than one problem.

To start off, the first crash reports Module: atiumdag.dll which relates to your AMD graphics driver. Please make sure that you have the latest stable version of the driver on your computer system. Stay clear of beta software in the mean time until the problem is resolved.

Multiple other crash logs indicates that the GW2.dat file may contain some corrupted data inside it. You can try repairing this file by right clicking on your Guild Wars 2 shortcut, selecting properties and adding -repair to the end of the target line.

It would look something like this: “C:/Guild Wars 2/Gw2.exe” -repair (notice the blank space in between)

Hi Ryshken,

To save me from repeating steps you have already taken could you share what you have tried already.

Also have you tried deleting the local.dat file within your guild wars 2 folder?

Hi Brolly,

After looking at your advisor report, I noticed that your PC is currently making a vast amount of connections to the internet, what for – I can only guess. It also looks like you are using a wireless connection, it could be that the sheer amount of connection your computer currently has open is affecting guild wars from performing optimally when it makes its own connections to the internet.

Are you running any P2P/Torrent applications such as uTorrent/BitTorrent? If you are disable these programs before starting guild wars 2.

Do you have a working antivirus/firewall software? If you do – make a full system scan of your computer.

If you are using a wireless connection then if you can – try testing it again with a wired connection.

Hope this helps

Nitro

Hi Solidmustard,

If you check inside your guild wars 2 folder you may find either a crash log file or an arena net log file.

Uploading these to this post will help us help you. These files are automatically created on a game crash. Also could you describe the crash in more detail – for example, does the computer completely restart, flash a blue screen with lots of white text, freeze, or does the application crash back to the desktop?

When do the crashes happen – using a portal, clicking on the play now button, changing character, etc.

Full system specs are always appreciated as well.

thanks.

Hi

if this worked for you then it is most likely because the network you are currently connected to either restricts ports 6112 and 6600 or they have not properly being forwarded by the network hardware.

If you are using satelite connection: unfortunately this is expected as generally this technology has very high latency at the best of times and may cause timeouts on low latency applications such as Guild Wars.

If your router is disconnecting from the internet, restarting, crashing or losing wifi connection then there is something wrong with either the router’s software(firmware) or it cannot handle the amount of data being sent to it. Lots of commercial routers such as Belkin, D-link, TP-Link, Edimax, Speedtouch etc tend to have cheap products on the market for home users but tend to over hype their products. Some router hardware come with very low performance processors (100-200Mhz) which can handle a good few computers simply browsing the internet, checking email or even streaming internet video. However when it comes to gaming and other multi-session based applications they fail to keep up and tend to show the symptoms listed above. Some companies just have really bad firmware that is not optimised for the hardware.

When looking for a good router look for companies that have regular updates to their firmware and offer high performance processors (400-600Mhz, even dual core). Look at companies that offer Open Source firmware as they are more likely to have fixes and updates faster because anyone can contribute to fixing known problems.

Good Brands that tend to match these points are:

Linksys (recently bought over by belkin so be careful their hardware may change)
Asus (Has a great open source community, support lots of open source firmwares like DD-WRT, OpenWRT, CeroWRT, and the popular Tomato Firmware)
Buffalo (Offers models with pre-builtin DD-WRT)
Netgear (Starting to move into Open Source, but offer great performing closed source hardware)

If you are plugged directly into your modem and the internet is still disconnecting then this is most likely showing an issue with your networking card, check for the latest network card drivers, check google for other known problems. The manufacturer of the network card may offer a newer driver than Apple/Microsoft/Linux so check them directly also.

If your are currently having router based problems, share your routers model number with this post and I may be able to give some advice on how to troubleshoot these disconnects even further.

RapidSausage.4620:

Thank you for the reply nitro, very well structured and to the point.

If it’s alright to ask for a bit more insight from you, i ran AlienAutopsy tests, the one attached is the gaming test, it tests HDD, CPU, GPU, and RAM.

I skipped the tests that use full screen 3d graphics, since i only seem to crash when running fullscreen 3d applications, and sometimes videos.

I have run individual tests on the CPU, RAM, Monitor, and other hardware to rule out any hardware other than the GPU.

If you can take a look at the results and give me your opinion i would be grateful.

Regadless of what the problem might be, i have already contacted Dell “representatives” here in Egypt, and i’ll be taking my laptop to be repaired on monday, how long it will take i have no idea, but i do know where laptops that require repairs go (i know where the plant is).

p.s: wouldn’t hurt for others to take a look and give opinions as well
p.s2: Prior to the problem became at such severity, i had tested the temperatures for my GPU and CPU, both of which peaked at about 72 degrees Celsius (heavy gaming), and i don’t know if this is normal for laptops

If you are going to run diagnostic tests it makes sense to fully test all aspects of your hardware. I did not know about the current TDR errors as I have not played GW2 for the last 6 weeks. I would say that if the Alien Autopsy diagnostic tool gives you a pass on all aspects of its diagnostic tests and similar diagnostic tests have the same results, then I would test other 3D games and/or 3D stress test to uncover any hidden hardware defects. By hidden I mean a fault that may not show itself all the time but only when certain conditions are reached such as:

certain amount of power/wattage usage
certain temperature range
certain components become active in different power states

If none of these tests cause the same problem that you experience with Guild Wars and do not show any other symptoms then I would assume the problem was oriented around Guild Wars.

In either case it may be worth having DELL inspecting the laptop due to it being 2/3rd’s of the way through its warranty, the last thing you want is an expensive laptop with hardware problems and being outside of the warranty period. It would also be a wise to back up all important data to a externally hard drive or pen drive whilst your computer is still running and before you hand it over to DELL (very important!).

If you require the same laptop for work or education then its also important to know the turn-around time for an inspection/repair from your manufacturer (in the UK its typically 2-4 weeks that may be different for Egypt).

good luck

RapidSausage.4620:

The version i’m looking at says the memory clock is 750 mhz, but notebook check says the 675m has a memory speed of 1500 mhz, is there a difference between memory speed and clock?

Hi RapidSausage,

Memory used in todays computers are DDR (Double Data Rate) based technology, meaning if you had for example a clock speed of 750MHz you effectively get a data rate of 1500MHz.

I would also have to agree with the majority of this post that the problem is most likely related to a graphics card malfunction, wether this be caused by overheating, lack of cooling, improper use, overclocked hardware or even manufacturing defects.

If the laptop is within warranty it would be best to contact the manufacturer (in this case DELL), it is their responsibility to honour the warranty not the retailers, and DELL operate globally and will most likely have an approved services and repairs center based in Egypt.

Although the laptop has two big fans built in, gaming laptops are notorious for having many problems related to graphics cards and overheating, and it is no surprise there when you try to shove high performance hardware into the small form factor case.

What most people do not think about, when monitoring their computers temperatures is that although a CPU or GPU may be able to withstand certain limits and stress levels, their surrounding components cannot, and its usually these components that develop a fault or break well before the CPU or GPU reaches its thermal limits.

So even though a GPU may be able to withstand 100+ degrees celsius, many other components surrounding the graphics processor may not and as the hotter your processors like the CPU and GPU get the hotter the surrounding components get.

I hope this helped

Nitro.

There is a new hint for the Laurel rewards, complete a daily or monthly achievement and see if this is the one your missing.

Pestilence.3184:

na why should it be a workaround fix?? how bout THEY FIX it…… they have had 6 months + to fix it and still not fixed it..

thats because the problem is not Anets to fix. Its Microsoft’s they are the one who impose a 2GB limit on LAA programs for 32bit software. The workaround is actually provided by microsoft for these reasons.

I completed all of the halloween content back in october 2012, I gained both titles Master Carver and Emissary of the Mad King.

After the January 28th patch I stumbled upon the special events achievements and noticed that my Master Carver Achievement had been reset to tier 1 and yet I still was able to select my title from the title menu.

In the screenshot below you can see my current title is set to Master Carver but my achievement for this is reset. Please can this be fixed, as I was fairly proud of my completion of all 3 special events achievements.

thanks.

tsmith.7915:

socket 1156 is for the “older” Ivy Bridge Intel CPUs, while the 1155 is for the newest Sandy Bridge and trust me, the sandy parts are seriously great!

but now, intel has a new socket out called 2011, but that line of Sandy-E bridge is VERY expensive! the cheapest i7 (while very, very fast) is starting @ $300! If you have the money, then by all means go for it lol but a current gen Sandy Bridge (1155) should do the trick just fine

Ivy Bridge is newer and faster than Sandy Bridge. The I5-655K SKT1156 was “Clarkdale”

check to make sure you are not launching the game with the “-repair” command in your games properties window.

by the sounds of it you are verifying the archive for errors not re-downloading the game (as this would take longer than 10minutes even on a crazy-fast connection, for example a 100mbit connection going at full speed would take 20minutes).

This problem is related to the 310 series of nvidia drivers. The only known fix so far is to use the latest 306 series drivers (306.97).

glad to hear I’ll keep you posted as there may be a new patch coming soon to tomato builds that will make the QoS far more effective on ADSL connections. So if you have an ADSL (1,2 or 2+) it would benefit you to use that also.

I run the game just fine at 60FPS v-sync with Supersampling and FXAA on using the GTX 480.

I to am now getting crashing to desktop every day now, it usually because there is corrupt files and it is always the same 8 corrupted files. I just bought a brand new SSD and installed the game on there, it ran fine through wintersdays, as soon as the patch to remove wintersday came, I started having this problem.

Each time I do the repair it returns the same VerifyResults.log each time with the same 8 files requiring re-download.

I have noticed quite a few people starting to experience this problem and I am wondering if perhaps there is a bug in the game or perhaps one of the download servers has corrupted files.

the log results are like this each time:

2013-01-08T21:55:05Z
Client build is 16419 (101)
Manifest build is 16419
Verifying contents of archive…
Verify failed: [0×00011bc6:0×00011bc6] CRC failed
Verify failed: [0×000123e0:0×000123e0] CRC failed
Verify failed: [0×00037ce2:0×00037ce2] CRC failed
Verify failed: [0×00037fd1:0×00037fd1] CRC failed
Verify failed: [0×00019717:0×00019717] CRC failed
Verify failed: [0×00014c87:0×00014c87] CRC failed
Verify failed: [0×0001322f:0×0001322f] CRC failed
Verify failed: [0×00014a7d:0×00014a7d] CRC failed
Duration: 420 seconds
Examined 228431 of 228431 files.
Deleted 8 bad files.
Skipped 2 files (local files, different versions, etc).

As far as I was aware it reset upon changing zones. however its actually easy to get this achievement through crafting.

Psypher.8461:

I’m skeptical that the card is bad. I can run stress tests and it doesn’t crash as well as any other current game. It’s only GW2 that’s giving me trouble.

When stress testing you would usually only test one component at a time, unlike guild wars which is not a synthetic test, it will utilize CPU, RAM, HDD and GPU to their full potential or until one component bottlenecks the other.

Hi Sir Vincent III.1286

Please delete old mail from your mailbox, you can only have 10 mail maximum. After emptying your mail box it will make room for you to retrieve mail that hasn’t been received yet.

MaRko.3165:

Nitro.4732:

considering one power connector has a maximum support of 6.25A(75W) it would be a waste to dedicate a whole rail to it.

Umm…. thats not entirely correct. Each connector pin is rated @ 8A so one 6P Minifit JR connector is good for 24A. Even if we ‘down rated’ the pins to 6.25A each 6P connector would still be rated at 18.75A or ~225W.

When Nvidia requires a 30A rail they really mean 30A for the GPU card. While the cards will average 200-300W (depending on model/overclocking/load/exc) the current needs/spikes are much higher than the ‘average rating’.

Hence the seemingly overkill of 6-8 8A supply connections.

According to PCI-E specifications a 6pin connector will provide a maximum of 75w if you require more power then an 8pin connector should be used providing 150w.

hence why 200-300W rated cards typically have a 2 connector requirement and an Amp rating higher than 40A this is because the card will use between 15A-25A and the remaining amperage should be enough power all other pc components.

as stated above my graphics card (GTX480) has a recommended single rail amperage of 42A the card at maximum performance and 100% load will only use 20A.

Squall Leonhart.2075:

dual gpu cards being the exception, no single gpu cards exceed 14a.

where multirail psu’s are concerned, the system and aux rails are usually completely seperated from the accessories and pci-e rails.

A GTX680 will use 16.25A at full power (195W) but you are correct in that the majority of graphics cards will be below this value.

Squall Leonhart.2075:

the AMP requirement specified by nvidia/amd is for the overall system

the card itself won’t use the entirety of 25a.

most recent cards require less than 15a

Most recent cards can and will use upto 25A, an example would be the GTX690, which has a maximum power draw of 300W (300/12=25).

The reason why manufacturers will list requirements like “30A” on a single rail, is because a power supply (specifically multi-rail ones) would not have a rail singled out to power a graphics card only, considering one power connector has a maximum support of 6.25A(75W) it would be a waste to dedicate a whole rail to it. There tends to be other connectors on the same rail and depending on how the power supply is configured it could be providing power to other high amperage components from the same rail.

An example of this would be:

2x 6pin connectors powering one card (2x 6.25A)[150w]
Power to the PCI-E bus (6.25A)[75W]
Power to the CPU (6.41A)[77W as per i7-3770k spec]

Thats potentially 25.16A coming from one rail depending on how the manufacturer wired the PSU or how the end-user connected the cables. Thats before you talk about other factors like PSU efficiencies and Power Factors.

So when the manufacturer state minimum 30A its usually for good reason.

My power supply has 6 rails with 30A per rail, My graphics card requires minimum 42A from a single rail minimum according to Nvidia in order to run as expected. In actual fact my graphics card alone requires marginally over 20A (250W) at maximum performance, and thanks to my power supply manufacturer providing information on the rail configuration, I am able to make sure that no other component is on the same power rail as my graphics card. This in turn allows it to safely be powered at maximum performance.

I’m confused Psyher, in your original post you have stated that your power supply is a 600W model, not a 700W. Could you please be more accurate as to which is correct.

In case the new model that you have linked to is the correct model, it has a multi-rail setup and the highest amperage available on any one of the rails is 25A which is lower than the minimum requirements for your graphics card.

However the problem would only appear once the graphics card was working hard enough to reach a point were it tried to pull more than 25A.

If your graphics card takes two power connectors, which according to nvidia.com it should. then you could perhaps isolate this problem by having one power connector from 12v1 rail and another power connector from 12v2 rail, this would give the graphics card access to both rails providing a total 50A availability to the card.

However that would depend on how the manufacturer wired the power connectors.

Hi Psypher,

Can you provide some further details about your hardware, I am particularly interested in the power supply model number to begin with.

Many system builders, when building a computer will overlook the power supply. The graphics card manufacturer in this case nvidia, will advertise a recommended minimum wattage required to run a computer with their product. However what system builders tend to overlook how the power supply makes up that wattage.

Some power supplies split the wattage over multiple rails and some use a single rail to deliver the maximum output of the power supply. If your power supply splits the wattage over multiple rails then each rail will have a limited amount of current (Amps). This can pose a problem for graphics cards as they require amperage to provide the power to the graphics card.

Your specific graphics card has the following requirements:
Minimum of a 500 Watt power supply.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 30 Amps.)

Now from what I have gathered looking at various OCZ products, they have a wide range of multi-rail power supplies ranging with in specification between 18A – 25A per rail.

If your model of power supply happens to be one with insufficient amperage then this could be what is causing your crashes. Each game places different loads on the graphics hardware, this may be why these crashes only occur whilst running guild wars 2.