Guild Wars 2

i’ve seen this error before in other 3D softwares, it’s specific to radeon cards, it’s usually fixed with updating to the latest driver.

Dual core – I had my task bar performance meter up – it shot up to a flat line square wave – I can fire up 3 3D programs in my system with my browser up, and not get the lag in my system that I get when I fire up the gw2 log in screen. ( was doing it yesterday in fact – Daz, Iclone and 3DXchange up at the same time with firefox running in background ( daz to make characters, iclone & 3DX5 up to import the character. ) Whatever is causing the lag – is present in that log in screen.

conforming to the issues is not going to fix the issues, there is a big problem with lag that needs to be addressed. Everything is NOT beautiful and wonderful in lions arch.

I’m a huge fan of Anets work and I do them no favors by saying, “it’s cool, I don’t mind playing guildwars 2 turn based”

There are problems that came with this event, please fix them…the game is unplayable and it’s just a matter of time before this great game gets tarnished with this unplayable reputation on the net. It’s going to be horrible when the problem is fixed but most of the crowd left to the newest game they can conform to. We already had an issue in wvw with poor attendance in most of the servers, it’s only going to get worse if a huge chunk of the population leaves. That will be one issue that anet won’t be able to patch.

is it normal that the game spikes my cpu to a flat line, with just the log in screen ? no game loaded but a full spike with a flat line of cpu usage. that can’t be right.

I was, the 320.19 was unstable. and 314 didn’t improve the fps on gw2 – 320.49 has been pretty good for me so far …not experiencing anything that I wasn’t experiencing in 314.

I’ve been thinking of gw2 as a beta test than a final game

another thing I just noticed …..whenever I start guildwars, I don’t even have to log in, just the first splash page before log in , my system already starts lagging. Like sometimes I’ll just click the game when i’m getting ready to play, but doing some posts, and emails …..suddenly my typing gets very slow, windows open up much slower. So whatever is going on is most likely at a very fundamental level – like a mode gw2 puts the system in before even starting the game.

i think it may have to do with the way the softwares record – one style gets a video through hooking into the os and the other gets the cap by monitoring the video signal.
pre vs post.

Oh btw, to get hypercam to work with gw2, you have to run gw2 ( or any game you want to cap for that matter) in window mode, not full screen.

Fraps is amazing for quality, but it’s very taxing on the system, especially because of it’s super high quality …..good for capping VJ / Video type stuff when the HD matters but for game capping ….no.

I personally like using Hypercam 2 for simple caps – like tutorials , or beta testing / games – http://www.hyperionics.com/

well, if it helps any ….yesterday I downloaded the new windows patches – no real change – system ‘feels’ no different overall …..I downloaded the new adobe …no change ( from what I understand the in-game store does use flash ) – flash is still unstable – with the plug in stopped responding error and crashed youtube videos. -

what I DID notice that was unusual, was that I tried to open the Nvidia Control panel to overclock my card and try and get a few more fps – The panel at first wasn’t opening up ….I finally shut down Guildwars 2 – and the panel instantly opened up – right after gw2 closed – ……that made me suspicious, I shut down the nvidia panel – this time I tried opening the panel alone without gw2 up …It opened up almost instantly ….I shut it down again …..I opened gw2 again …..and tried to open the panel again …..this time it did open up ..but not instantly – it took about 3-5 minutes before it opened.

this leads me to believe that Gw2 is having issues with my nvidia driver – which I’m still on the 320.49 beta version …

Another thing ….I’m noticing is this soft haze like effect in game which looks kinda cool…but wasn’t there before I started having issues / low fps – I have every possible feature at it’s lowest …..I’d play in gray scale if that was an option lol…..

So that soft effect …is suspect – and the way gw2 is reacting to the nvidia driver is also suspect.

now with all the overclocking potential that recent nvidia cards have …and all the new motherboards out on the market ……and the fact that their 320.19 driver had incompatible components ( I forgot where I read that, but they suggested that there were incompatibilities in 320.19 – ie – giving instructions that only apply to a 780 on a 660 or something along that line )

it wouldn’t seem so far fetched to me that guildwars 2 is causing nvidia cards to utilize incompatible files in the driver and causing systems to act erratic on an assembly / bios level. That would most certainly cause a computer to crash. Not to mention if there is an i/o issue – this would also cause people to disconnect from the net. Reminds me of the old school days when xt boards had dip switches for irq’s – blue screen heaven! lol

So my current hunch of the moment is that gw2 is causing nvidia to use some incompatible features in it’s current batch of unstable drivers. It would certainly explain why I have that cool soft background glow effect despite me turning off every feature possible and keeping my settings at their lowest.

i’m actually scared to log in heh…every event i’ve seen come into the game has had something wrong, including the first one from beta.

can we please stop events for a while till the game is a bit more stable ?

I wonder if this is why you are lagging! I capped this from http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/dataviz1.html – real time report based on attacks on the internet around the world …looks like the us is getting hit hard – i wonder if anet or you guys are stuck on one of the hubs in the middle of this ?

just found an even better analyzer – http://www.sicherheitstacho.eu/

Just found this page

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/

The Internet Traffic Report monitors the flow of data around the world. It then displays a value between zero and 100. Higher values indicate faster and more reliable connections.

south america seems to be lagging somewhere.

edit – at least it was ….this chart seems to be real time, I just saw south america at 72 when i posted this ..hrmm

edit 2 -

Here’s another one – http://www.internetpulse.net/

edit 3 –
and another

this one is cool! http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/dataviz1.html

OMG.. click on the attacks setting, there seems to be a war going on!!

I thought about posting in suggestions, but also thought it was more appropriate here since it’s purely related to tech support.

on expanding – say for instance you are having trouble with fps, disconnects, and crashes, – you start up the game once you get to the character screen …you open up the options panel – a new button “Troubleshoot” appears – this button, triggers a battery of tests and generates reports based on a 1-10 minute real time analysis, these reports are then forwarded to a server that matches errors to a database – something that helps distinguish an error from your internet connection, to an error from your video card, or a fault error in the software itself. – it seems that the tools anet has now generates a ton of information to be read manually, when this can be automated and filtered so the programmers can isolate problems directly from the software – it would be more efficient and use up less man power – faster turn around.

so for example, disconnects , one of the tests could be a simple ping test from the users computer – this could easily do hundreds of users having issues and locate where exactly on the internet a hub is failing and keep a running database of this information. much easier than analyzing hundreds of pages of reports manually.

I just checked the page on the 760 ti – and to their defense, they have a “rumored” next to it and guestimated the stats heh! http://gpuboss.com/graphics-card/GeForce-GTX-760-Ti

from the benchmarks though, it seems the 760 was a disaster – plus it goes for the same price as the 660 ti on amazon.com- so I suppose that’s a good reason it’s not coming out lol

check out this site I found yesterday – http://gpuboss.com/

It compares benchmarks and features of video cards. Surprisingly the 660ti beat out the 760, and the 770 was only marginally faster. 780 and Titan ruled the charts.

this is a wish list I’ve been putting together for my next computer – I grabbed a bunch of the best low cost gtx cards to compare prices and features – devise different price point computer build designs – http://amzn.com/w/AIJUZVJNMG13

also, if you decide on the GTX line, be sure to compare the different manufacturers who make it …for instance a gtx 770 from msi, may have completely different specs and features than a gigabyte, asus, or pny – at times extremely different specs.

a button in the options panel that captures the issues in real time to at least help anet separate internet issues from local / software issues.

something that will isolate video card issues, from os issues from software bug / memory leak issues.

it’s a long shot but could this be affecting gw2 ?

“We [the NSA] hack network backbones – like huge Internet routers, basically – that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one,”

just for laughs – try running gw2 in xp compatibility mode.

i’ve been running 320.49 and it’s been pretty stable for me so far ….the standard 320.19 was wrecking me, and 314 felt slower.

wouldn’t hurt to double check every so often though, this guy said his computer was running fine ..till one day it just started acting up – supposedly it’s very small droplets, nothing like a big gush.

what creeped me out most about the corsair dh100 series was the complaints from users that it was leaking, one guy mentions how he opened his case one day after it was malfunctioning only to find his video card corroded from enduring those leaks. Corsair did reimburse him …but still not a good experience. Then comparing it to the koolance line ( superior water coolers ) the hoses on the dh100 look frail, – I can picture them cracking after about 3 years of heavy OC use – the bad thing about the noctua is that it’s so big – on some boards it overshadows the ram ..so some sticks that are designed tall will bump into it depending on certain mobo designes …..then there’s the case issue that Noctua recommends atleast 15 mm of overhead clearance space in the case. – Then the point that you have to get an adapter kit separately for the 1150 sockets – either purchased or free from the company after you show them proof of purchase …which can be a pita when you have all the parts in front of you but need to wait a few more days for the adapter kit. – the very cool thing about the noctua is that you can remove the fan from the heatsink to clean them off from dust. – It would seem that you get more benefits with the noctua for long lasting use – where as the DH100 is more likely to wear down / become brittle and harder to clean as dust gets lodged in the radiator.

i can certainly appreciate that – i try helping out with support on another forum and understand that point. My system is getting old to today’s standards but I done lived on it so long I know it well …very sensitive to any changes in it – imo from my observations – there is a domino effect of issues going on – microsoft – nvidia – adobe – gw2/events … in that order.

in that case it doesn’t get more custom than literally putting a refrigerator in your rig! lol!

and that was their low end version – check this one out 9 120 mm fans!!!! http://www.amazon.com/Koolance-ERM-3K3UC-Copper-Radiator-Cooling/dp/B0055OM69E/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&srs=3033114011&ie=UTF8&qid=1372973282&sr=1-2&keywords=koolance

in windows 7 – I know we have a feature called “Performance information and tools” that will do a benchmark on your system and compare it to other systems – this will give you an overview of the strongest and weakest parts of your system = I don’t have windows 8 so I wouldn’t know how they do it there, but I’m sure you have it also.
It will also give you suggestions on simple ways to improve performance.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/get-computer-speed-and-performance-information

stop the presses! I just found a cooler that blows away every cooler you ever knew! ( unless you already knew about this one!) very expensive though -

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0052KOAXG/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0052KOAXG&linkCode=as2&tag=teksynd-20

this is the company that makes it –
http://koolance.com/

and this is a video of it on a rig!

https://teksyndicate.com/videos/z87-epic-overclocking-system-overview-4770k-7970-matrix-dominator-ram-koolance-radiator

OMG!! I want one! ( not like I’ll be able to get it any time soon… but I digress! )

sounds like we need to do a crowd fundraiser for anet to get better servers then!!

I was thinking yesterday also, Anet can offer freelance work to their audience – Tons of talented people here! I’d be happy to help with audio and key-frame motion animations!

I like looking for solutions, how can ‘we’ help fix this in a way that doesn’t involve cooling off our cpu with liquid nitrogen ? lol

whatever Anet did in the last batch of updates was going in the right direction for me…I was actually able to move around in wvw last night – still unplayable though, but prior to this patch I couldn’t do anything in wvw ..anywhere ..in or out of combat areas.

I went into complete lock up though when a big fight broke out. What I don’t understand is ….why does the game lock up when I’m near a crowd…but can’t see anyone ? I don’t get how that relates to rendering and lag if I can’t see anyone. And I don’t mean they are there but haven’t rendered yet …I mean …if there is a fight on the south side of sm castle and I’m on inside on the north, it starts to lag more the closer I get despite not being in the fight or not seeing anyone on the other side of the wall. maybe that’s where occlusion mattered ? We are pre-rendering stuff that we can’t see ?

if you are using the 320.18 nvidia driver – it could be at fault – they’ve issued a bad batch of drivers in their last updates their current beta driver 320.49 is a little more stable but still has issues- many people are reverting back to the 314 drivers for more stability.

at the rate this is going there is going to be only 1 person running around in lions arch telling us we need better computers and isp’s and 15 million support tickets heh!

it fits the corsair vengence case nice, but on further research – one complaint is that it leaks, which is a scary thought when you have it hanging over your power supply and video card! unless you plan to install it outside of your case…..so I just added the Noctua NH-D14 as an alternative to my list. which is less expensive too.

based on this report – http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/2013/03/06/cpu-coolers-new-benchmarks/2

and these complaints – http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Series-Extreme-Performance-H100i/product-reviews/B009ZN2NH6/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&colid=AIJUZVJNMG13&coliid=I1ANZJFYW9DFTR&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0

the difference in performance isn’t enough to make me want to risk rusting or blowing up the pc lol

lol, i agree, – but this is what the bench test guys were saying. the one I picked in this build is the H100i – which is the extreme version of that line!

which btw – they made that comment based on the Noctua NH-D14 air fan – which I think is considered top of the line for air coolers.

this is a wishlist I made on amazon based on conversations about good gaming builds – the 3 boards I chose are very good overclocking boards – with the gigabyte being the most affordable without compromising much – you can cut corners on a lot of items – but the idea of this build was to get very high end parts – yet keep the build affordable – this build comes out to about 1.4k but if you tried to build this at a site you can customize computers …it would run 3-4k – you can cut corners on the build – but the more you cut the less overclocking power you have – I’ve tried making builds at several sites and what they do is toss in high end stuff you don’t need – like audio or using 4 sli cards. http://amzn.com/w/AIJUZVJNMG13

the first cut you can make is going down to a 1 tb drive – i stayed at 2 because I also do 3D / animation and music – so I need the extra space for assets / plus if I added an ssd in the future the 2tb drive is a nice 2nd drive. – I also stayed with WD as a personal preference, I trust that brand the most, at least in that price range – you can get a less expensive gaming case – but I found this case to be the best in it’s class with the fans and it’s cooling layout which can easily be upgraded with more fans. – you can overclock with other boards – but these boards have military grade parts meant for overclocking, – you can also replace the power supply with a less expensive one but this power supply would allow you to get more daring because of it’s hi grade parts and damage prevention features – if you want to see the price skyrocket – add 4 titans sli lol you can also replace the cpu cooler – but this is the best cooler on the market now according to benchtests – there isn’t much of a big difference between high end water coolers and air coolers, but this particular cooler you can mount on the outside of your case for extra cooling power.

I was hoping this thread may help inspire a group troubleshooting effort.

thanks for that…i’ve been doing so much research about everything in life, it’s easy to get confizzled about version numbers – and yes, I agree that gw2 does need more work – but I’m ‘guessing’ that all the extra issues make it hard if not near impossible to find out the problem – it’s the difference between finding a fix …or figuring out a work around to bugs they are facing too. There are obvious issues and I wish there was some official post that simply said that they are still looking for the issues / solutions – this way people don’t have to spend money on new computers or wasting time fixing things that aren’t broken.

i came clean on the TDSS killer – it wouldn’t hurt for people having disconnect issues to run it as well – as that is a strange error. this is also a good free program to do scanning for any other viruses – http://www.malwarebytes.org

with the spy wars we read about in the news these days, you can never be too sure!

also don’t forget to try the nvidia beta out now ..320.49 – it works for some …horrible for others – working relatively stable for me ( except when I put computer to sleep – waking back up is having issues because of it ) – if the beta doesn’t help, I believe version 316 or 310 was a good build for nvidia to go back to.

hrmm, thanks for the info, I’m going to run scans just to rule out any fps issues / viruses – I’ll add this to possible 3rd party fixes – http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashruntimes/flashplayer/ the flash player beta I’m using that’s a little more stable then the current release. maybe that will help some people with the trading post.

a virus would explain the disconnect issue many are talking about- it’s unusual for so many to have lag issues from a damaged operating system at the same time … the biggest issue seems to be low fps – the 2nd biggest issue is internet connections getting turned off the 3rd biggest issue seems to be hardware acting erratically. would so many people get a new strain of virus and it miss all their security ? not impossible, but not likely

now the failings and misconfigs – i can see possible with a bad update from microsoft.

After hanging out in the tech support forum the last few weeks ( while watching my monthly pass me by for my ‘non grinding’ attempt to get ascended gear ) and searching the net – I’m convinced what we are experiencing is a perfect storm of issues that is effecting gw.

first and foremost, I suspect microsoft – simply because adobe and nvidia are having serious issues – not minor ..but serious…adobe kept on crashing non stop – I finally downloaded a beta of the latest flakittens crashing much less but still crashing, then we have nvidia, with their drivers and code that was incompatible in some systems causing them to overheat and malfunction / shut down systems…

now Gw2 as I understand it uses flash in the game shop, it also uses microsoft /windows / and nvidia – add to this new content from the event on top.
it’s a perfect storm off issues that showed it’s ugly face in lions arch and wvw!

ahh, k ..I think i get it….meaning I can run more programs at the same time without compromising speed….but more chips doesn’t mean one particular program running on 1 or 2 cores out of 4 will run at blazing speeds – and that’s where the single thread performance matters most. so from that view … AMD is great for multi-tasking being they are 8 core, Intel is Great for fast single software performance with hyper threading and fast single thread benchmarks…but not as affordable in 8 core for multi tasking.

is that what people mean when they say we’ve reached a point of diminishing returns ? Hypothetically from that perspective software developers are rendering moore’s law moot being that they don’t use all cores ?

here we go, this is what we need for wvw!! http://www.tomshardware.com/news/EKWB-LN2-Cooling-CPU,22706.html

I agree, and I understand …was doing research on it because of the massive amounts of cpu’s that intel put out …it’s a bit ridiculous and confusing – they should at least label them business class / gaming class

But even with all that – seems like oc’ng your cpu has become kinda like drag racing lol = the cars aren’t really practical for street driving but it’s still a rush!

I am curious though do you think the best cooling system is ? so far I’ve found corsair double fan / radiator liquid cooling systems to be the best – but I’m still learning about the new stuff out there – i’m surprised I havent found a consumer level nitrogen cooling system, I suppose it’s not a practical thing and the nitrogen gets consumed ..not recycled ?

this may have to do with the bad drivers nvidia has been issuing lately. gw2 itself wont make your computer reboot, but if it causes the nvidia card to call up a bug from their recent drivers ..it will. I just got a bluescreen today , and the only new thing I’ve installed recently is the nvidia beta drivers. Otherwise my computer has been pretty stable, rarely a bluescreen. I may have to revert my drivers back to 314 or 310 soon if it keeps happening.

other things to consider is how practical is that speed – you’d need liquid nitrogen cooling for those speeds – and most recent benchmarks are holding off giving the 4770k the crown till they benchmark the newer amd fx cpu – interesting fact …Amd Fx holds the Guiness book of world records for fastest cpu – which was clocked at 8.4 – but the above cpu-z chart shows 8.7 – and the chinese have recently unveiled a super computer that blows all the records away – so I expect a revolution soon in cpu speeds if they decide to make that info public – but reports show that they are trying to make it from all authentic chinese parts – so intel will eventually have nothing to do with it. Quantum computing is very close to being a reality as well – so intel and amd both may be nearing the end of their reign soon! – of course we are talking military grade computers – but in about 5 years – amd and intel may not be top contenders – especially if the chinese start issuing consumer versions of their new technology without intel or amd.

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/06/chinas-supercomputer-regains-no-.html

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2278586/dwave-quantum-computer-passes-tests-ahead-of-google-deployment

with all the spy wars going on lately, you can expect computing speeds to change dramatically in the next few years. Our current cpu speeds are but beepers to the near future smartphones lol!

I did more research on the above article, and found this page from cpu-z
http://valid.canardpc.com/records.php

the current world frequency oc record is from an amd!! 8.7ghz! and I found out my cpu can be oc’d to 6.1ghz – not worth it though, with what i’d spend on a new board for an old chip, and the cooling system etc ..I may as well just get a new rig!

I thought you guys would appreciate this article! http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20130503174250_Intel_Core_i7_4770K_Haswell_Overclocked_to_7_01GHz_Report.html

Oh Snap – Try this – Run GW2 in xp compatibility mode !!! I’m still getting low fps …..but haven’t had a lag spike yet! need someone to confirm though!

yeah, i think it’s a compatibility issue they are having with different systems… it’s running stable for me but i have an older system. – A big clue I got from reading these forums is when someone said they were able to run on xp without a problem – you would think that if anything an older os would have more problems with gw2 lag than windows 7

just found another issue with intel – they were quick and easy to update my mobo drivers – but made it harder than a jumping puzzle made of toothpicks to find the correct raid driver controller update – windows 7 again saying both old and new driver were the best choices heh!! I finally had to tell windows 7 to ‘take a chance’ ‘at my own risk’ to update to the latest version that intel didn’t sign, then rebooted -while squinting wondering if i would get a BSOD – I did it for science!- what a mess!! – finally updated my drive controller driver – system feels like it’s slowly getting back to speed – but no change in gw2 fps. My system is painfully up to date – firefox / adobe flash are still a trainwreck – gw2 fps still very bad – next observation is to see how gw2 acts after this event is over and these unholy event patches are hopefully removed.